APR 8 2018 | David the Fugitive S1E10 | 1 Samuel 28:3-20

Sea Change Church · David the Fugitive S1E10 · "1 Samuel 28:3-20" · Adam Stadtmiller · April 8, 2018
1 Samuel 28:3-20
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi there. I'm Sean Butland, one of your recently elected elders. And today's scripture reading comes from 1 Samuel 28, 3 through 20. So Samuel was dead and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spirits from the land. The Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shuram, while Saul gathered all Israel and set up camp at Gilboa.

When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid. Terror filled his heart. He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. Saul then said to his attendants, find me a woman who is a medium so that I may go and inquire of her. There is one in Endor, they said. So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes.

And at night, he and two men went to the woman. Consult a spirit for me, he said, and bring up for me the one I name. But as the woman said to him, surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and the spirits from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death? Saul swore to her by the Lord, as surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.

Then the woman asked, who shall I bring up for you? Bring up Samuel, he said. Then the woman saw Samuel and cried at the top of her voice and said to Saul, why have you deceived me? You are Saul. The king said to her, don't be afraid. What do you see? The woman said, I see a ghostly figure coming up from the earth. What does he look like, he asked.

An old man wearing a robe is coming up, she said. Then Saul knew it was Samuel. And he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me? By bringing me up. I am in great distress, Saul said. The Philistines are coming against me. And God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams.

So I have called upon, called on you to tell me what to do. Samuel said. Samuel said. Samuel said. Why do you consult me now that the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors. To David. Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites.

The Lord has done this to you today. The Lord will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines. Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground. Filled with fear because of Samuel's words. His strength was gone.

For he had eaten nothing all day and all night. The word of the Lord. Good morning. Good to see you all. Welcome to church. We are back in 1 Samuel. And we're reading about our hero, David. And David is a hero. He's a man who, when on the run, has the ability to gain strength. And this is what this entire message series is about. It is about being able to source and harvest and become strength.

And become stronger when life has you on the run. Often times we get on the run. Things come up in front of us. And like Saul, we immediately become panicked or terrified with fear. We get overwhelmed with fear. And Saul had come to the end of his rope. God was no longer wanting to buy in anymore with his, quote, shenanigans. And it had enough. And it said, I'm not going to answer you anymore.

David, on the other hand, was continuing to go to places that made him stronger. And this is one of the things that we have learned from David in this series. Is when life has you on the run, when things come up that you don't expect, do you know where to go? And David always knew where home was. The first place that he went was the temple of the Lord, where the Ark of the Covenant was when he was on the run.

He got stronger there. He was nourished there. He was given a sword there to fight. And he got stronger and stronger. And people began to come to him, even though he never asked anyone to follow him. It said that those that were in debt and those that were discouraged and downtrodden would come to him. And it says in the scripture that he became their captain.

And a worthy captain he was. And I guess the question that I ask myself is, am I living a life that when people that need victory, that when people are downtrodden, that I have enough margin because of where I'm harvesting the joy, the peace, the energy for my life to lead others and perhaps not be people's captain, but come alongside people to lead them into victory.

We are really, it's two words we've been focusing on here lately. And it's life and victory. And these are the things that we want to see. We want to see life. We want to see that the sky becomes bluer. We want to see that your thoughts and emotions become more anchored in peace and rooted in not just happiness, but in a deep joy that comes and can be there even when things are going bad.

For Jesus, it says that for the joy that was set before him, he what? He endured the cross, meaning he knew this really difficult thing was going to happen in his life. But because of the joy that was set before him, he had the ability to harvest once again, to source that joy from there. And so we're coming today to see the difference between David, who is looking to God to direct him, and Saul, who has lost answers and begins looking in the wrong places for his answers.

And I guess the question to us as a group is, where do you look for your answers? Where do you turn to? Where do you find your hope? And a lot of times, you might not even be looking for answers, but you'll read perhaps the headlines. And one of the things we say here is we want to live beyond the headlines. But you'll see the headlines, and all of a sudden that Saul-like discouragement and terror will come over you.

Where is the world going? What is happening? It'll hit you, and you'll become terrified. And this was a characteristic of Saul. Saul, when he was anointed king, was not anointed because like David, he had gone out in the battle as a young boy and fought a giant and struck down the enemies of the Lord. When he was called to be king, he went and hid amongst the baggage.

It says even the idea of going and the responsibility of being a king was something that he was so terrified of. And we often are terrified of our callings. I believe it's harder to live in your true calling and in your true purpose for life than it is to live in the wilderness of wondering. I believe that God has called us to be more than we could ever be, and being the best you is a low bar.

That we want to live a life where God causes us to be better than we could ever be on our own. So don't be the best you you can be. And David had the ability to do that. Today we're talking about where you find direction for your life. And where do you find direction? Because like I said a moment ago, you can look at the headlines, and all of a sudden that gives you the compass for your day.

Or something happens in a relationship, or something triggers an old memory or whatever it is, and all of a sudden you haven't sought answers, but you've been given an answer. You've been given a response. And you decide to allow your entire day, month, year, life to be directed by that answer that you were given. The question is, where are you seeking your answers?

Where are you seeking the answers for your own worth? Do you find that you have a deep worth that you know deeply in your heart that God loves you? So I was re-listening to my Easter sermon. I don't know what you're going to hear, but on one of the sermons, I started to say, and I didn't finish, and I want to make sure I say it, that I've always found it incredibly easy to believe in God.

It's been much easier to believe in this scientific understanding that really has not found a conclusion of where the earth has begun. I was reading Stephen Hawking's paper this morning on how the universe began. And it was so, I mean, he's a bright guy, obviously, much brighter than I am. But it was so full of maybes and perhapses and we're not sure yet.

By the end of it, I thought, this is more of a fairy tale than anything that I feel like I believe. At least there was a Jesus who I know about, and that's historical. And I just don't have the ability, I don't have the faith to not believe in a creator God. But from that creator God, it's always been easy for me to believe. And some people, it's very difficult.

What has been hard for me to believe is that I matter to that God, and that God loves me deeply. And over the last five years since I've been at this church, diving into sonship and realizing what that does in regard to shame, what that does in regard to guilt, when you know that you have a loving father that cares about you, that is going to direct your steps, that you don't really have to worry about your purpose, although American culture, especially Christian culture, has built an idol of purpose that you're supposed to go worship at.

And here's the gospel now, is if you can find your purpose, then you will be in the center of God's will. Rather than if you find Jesus, then you are in the center of God's will, and he will direct your steps. So you'd better find that purpose, because if you don't, you're just going to be a wandering mess, you know, until you do. That is not the gospel.

The gospel says that Jesus is your purpose, and you never have to find whatever that purpose is, because he will hunt you down if you make him first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. That's the preface. How do we find direction for our life in an increasingly materialistic world? If you have your notes, you'll see the first thing in your notes says this, and I'm stealing this from Sting, one of my favorite songs from my yellow waterproof Walkman when I was in the 80s.

Anybody have that one? It was $78. It was super expensive, but you could clip it over, and we didn't have big headphones, but the Walkman. You can all, you know what, that changed everything. You can say the internet changed things, it didn't. It was the yellow water-resistant Walkman. Don't drop it in the pool. The Bible is clear, and if you're going to follow Jesus, at some point you're going to have to agree with him that there are two things happening in, I wouldn't even say the cosmos, in eternity.

One is that he has created a material world, and we have material around us. This pulpit, the pew you're sitting in, your body, we live in a material world. The, I would say, stream, secular humanism, scientific understanding would say that that's all that exists. Once again, Hawking, I've been reading a lot of him, because I'm really inspired by how he did not become a victim of his circumstances.

That really inspires me. I'm super inspired. I just disagree with him on a lot of things. And one of the things that he said is, science cannot disprove God, but what it has done is make God irrelevant, or unnecessary, which I find, you know, we won't go into that whole understanding. But in regard to this idea of that all things are material. Now, C.S. Lewis calls this the materialist.

And he says there is a materialist, and then there is the magician. Because if you were going to follow Jesus, Jesus was fully human, the dual nature of God, fully human, and fully God. And this is one of the great mysteries. We can't dive into that eternal mystery at the moment. But if you're going to follow him, you are going to have to accept that the world is not just material.

That behind the veil, there are things more real that are going on and happening than in the material. Because the material will eventually pass away. But we are, as Sting said, to quote for him, spirits living in a material world. I say that C.S. Lewis talked a lot about the materialist versus the magician. He called the magician the person that denies the physical world.

Everything is spiritual. And perhaps you've met that Christian before, you know. And there's a lot of spiritual people, not just Christians. But there's some Christians I've met that everything's spiritual. It's so spiritual, it's like they have to pray about what slice of pizza they're going to order at Whole Foods, you know. Just get whatever you want, you know.

But there's this understanding. And C.S. Lewis calls it the magician. And he talks about these differences. Well, Jesus lived in the balance between the spiritual and the physical. And in finding our direction, I would say that we can look around at the physical. But we need, as believers, and to follow Jesus well, to harvest those invisible things that are spiritual to give us direction and peace.

We'll talk about that. But what we have found is that when Saul lost the ability, where God said enough's enough, and enough's enough. That I'm going to have a moment where I'm going to, you know, I've had enough. That Saul started to look in places he shouldn't. And the purpose of this message is to help give you and equip you. Because that's what we want.

We want you to be able to walk out of here different. Not just, oh, that was pretty good. No, I want you to walk out of here with tools that this week will be different. Because we lived a life closer to David. And if you want to read the Psalms, you're going to see that David is constantly harvesting direction by not so much looking about what should I do, God.

Now, it's interesting. If you read the Psalms as I know them, and I'm sure there's some instances where it's different. But the ones that David wrote, rarely is he saying, God, should I go left? God, should I go right? God, should I go up the hill? Well, should I, he's rarely asking those questions. What he is regularly doing is saying, God, you were so awesome.

God, I'm in despair, but you're a rescuer. God, I am seeking God. And in order to find direction, he knew that the focal point, the apex on the map was finding God. Finding God. One thing you'll see later in your notes, I'm going to jump ahead. Spoiler alert. So many of us would rather have direction from God in exchange for knowing God. How many people have you said, look, I will give you 10 answers to your life.

Whenever you need them, just source. I will give you the answer. But, you know, should I make this investment? Should I buy that home? Should my kids go to this college? Should I take, should I go to this doctor for this diagnosis? Should I have the surgery? Should I not? I'll give you 10 answers. Or you can know 10 things about God. Deeply know things about God.

Ask yourself the question, what's more intriguing? I believe many people would rather have answers for their life than to know God. But the Bible is so clear. That if you seek the source of all knowledge, of all truth, and all direction, that you rarely have to seek direction for your life specifically, because he will direct you and lead your steps.

What we're tending to do is say, God, can you lead me to this specific location? As opposed to saying, God, can I know you, the writer of the map? And so one of the key points of this, and David was so good at it, is beginning to change the way that we relate to God for hearing direction. That we may, and I'm not saying we don't ask, and we don't pray specifically for direction.

We do that. But can maybe that become 10%? Can maybe we, 20%, we just make a little list, and God, you know what they are. God says he knows what you need before you even ask. The Bible's very clear of this. What God wants is people that are passionate about knowing him. And if you know him deeply, it says all these things will be added unto you.

Everything will work out. Basically, if you just seek God, if you come to know him as Father, he will direct you in all of your ways. There's a spiritual and a materialist view. And the question is, how do we harvest the spiritual to get to change the physical? Ephesians 6, 12 talks about this. The Bible talks about this. And I told you a couple years ago, I had a conversation with an atheist friend of mine.

And he loves bringing up leprechauns. I don't know why it's always the leprechauns. Oh, do you believe in leprechauns too? Yeah, spring the order and so. No. Remember that commercial? Smooth as a whistle. See, you remember those TV commercials? Did I just click my heels? I tried. I don't think I did very good. That was credit card hops. That's what I got right there.

There's always this sense of like, oh, you believe in fairies too? Oh, yeah. I know you believe in unicorns, the whole thing. I'm just, go read Hawking's paper. Go to hawking.com and read his paper on the creation of the universe. I forgot exactly what it was called. I mean, I could ask the exact same questions. There are so many ifs and it's expanding mass and all this thing.

It's just like, right, do you believe in unicorns as well? You know, it takes just, I think it takes more faith. But if you're going to follow the Bible, you're going to have to realize that there's a spiritual world. And I'm not asking you to become magicians. Overly, overly fascinated with the spiritual. But just harvesting it naturally. Ephesians 6, 12 says this.

Our struggle means what you're dealing with right now. And the larger struggles of the cosmos. It's not against flesh and blood. If you have a relationship issue with somebody right now, it has nothing to do, the Bible says, with that relationship. It can be sorted out vertically. That we want to sort those things out. And you can pray through relationships.

You can pray and break through difficulties. It's not about the people. It never is, the scripture says. It's about something that is broken in the spiritual realm. And it says it's not against flesh and blood. But against the rulers, against the authorities, and against the powers of this dark world. And against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Now, if you're a staunch materialist, this is going to sound like, you know, unicorns and fairies and fairy dust. The Bible is very clear that both of these are in play. You go to other parts of the world. I've been to Indonesia. It is almost all spiritualist. Hard, very little material. Mostly. It's everywhere you go. As I've gone surfing over there.

As you see, it's incense burning constantly. It's fruit offerings everywhere. The whole place is just rampant. Humans are drawn. We want answers. And whether we can grab onto those material answers. Or whether we can get them from some form that is beyond ourselves. We're looking for them. The Bible is clear that there is a spiritual world. Turn your notes over.

However, God wants us to experience the spiritual world on his terms and through two primary revelators. I believe that the Bible is clear that there is a veil between what is in the physical and what is on the other side. And there are things happening around us that are in the spiritual and invisible world that God oftentimes doesn't want us to be aware of.

He cloaks us and he protects us from things. And there's certain stuff, and you'll even see the revelations when he says to certain people like John, I don't want you to know this. You're not going to remember this. He does this for our own protection. You walk into any book star right now and you're going to see, go to the one up in UTC in La Jolla.

Excuse me, up in UTC, there's like a book star there or Barnes and Noble, whichever one it is. Right when you walk into the left is a huge table of witchcraft, of how to do seances. I mean, it's right there on the left when you walk in. And if you go, especially where the kids are, you'll notice the kids section right next to the witchcraft section.

There is a huge new interest right now in spiritual things other than the church. You'll go see this. So just go up there today and you can see this. There's this huge yearning to know. And what God says is, I want you to know, but I don't want you to know on your own. I want to be able to share truth with you. And the difference between Christianity and witchcraft is that Christianity says to God, if you want me to know, will you show me?

And witchcraft goes and tries to control and make those things happen. The spirit of witchcraft is control. The spirit of Christianity is submission to God who is in control. I'm not doing a whole talk on witchcraft. But all you have to do is go up to Barnes & Noble and see that in the midst of this, everything scientific, God doesn't exist. For some reason, there is a section as large as this pew of books on witchcraft, werewolves, vampires.

And a lot of it now is behind lock and key. Why? Because it's so wanted. People are stealing it. Just go up there and look and see if I'm not right. You can check for yourself. God wants us to experience revelation through true primary revelators. He doesn't want us to go on our own through spirits of incantation or whatever these things are. But what he wants us to do is seek him.

In 1 Corinthians 2, 9 and 10, it says that the first one of these is the Holy Spirit. God wants to reveal to you through the primary revelator of the Holy Spirit. And I won't put these in order. But two primary revelators, the Holy Spirit and God's word. Now, there are others. I won't go into them all. But these are two of the primary. 1 Corinthians 2, 9 through 10.

However it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind can conceive, the things God has prepared for those who love him, these things God has what? revealed to us by what? His Spirit. He has revealed it by his Spirit. And the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. God is in the business of revelation.

God is not in the business of hiding himself and cloaking himself. And like, if you seek me out, and then he runs to the next place and hides in the next closet, and then we want to go seek him again. No, he wants to have relationship. He's not playing hide and seek. He didn't come to Moses and slowly start revealing himself through the stars, and then to Moses, and then to David, and then through the word of God, and then through Jesus, and then through the Holy Spirit, and then ultimately in heaven where we spend eternity with him.

It is a constant story of God saying, here I am. Here I am. I want you to know me. I want you to know who I am. It is a book about revelation. And God wants to reveal to you. And one of the things that's the hardest thing for believers to trust is that God will tell you what you need to know when you need to know it. If you can just get that piece in the foundation of your Christian life, just that piece, that when I'm supposed to know, I'll know it.

And regularly just say, God, I want to know your will. Reveal what you need to reveal to me. I am open. I am here. And I am willing. You know what I think the biggest problem is? Most of us really don't want to hear what he has to say. He tells you a lot of things. And what are you saying? You know that God is speaking to you. People say to me all the time, God never speaks to me.

Well, what do you think God has told you you shouldn't be doing? Well, this, this, this, and this. Well, are you doing it? Everyone knows what they think God doesn't want. So they all hear that. They think, and they don't do it. Try obedience for a while and see how obedience opens up the lines of communication where you can start hearing from God. The Holy Spirit wants to reveal to you and to believe that.

So I want to encourage you to relax on the whole. I got to figure my life out. He's got it sorted. And if you seek him and want to know him, he will give you direction. He will lead you and your purpose and the things that he wants you to do. And the open doors will come lay down at your feet. And then it's just, do you have the courage to go through the open door when he says, this is the open door?

Yeah, you know, great question to ask yourself. Do you really want to know what God has to say to you? I mean, really? I mean, do you really, I mean, we want him, we want to know what we want to know. Like, should I buy this house? Should I do that? But like, if you had 10 minutes with God and he said, Hey, I'm just, I'm going to, I'm just going to lay it on the line here.

I want to tell you what I want for you. I mean, would you want that meeting? Would you take that call? I'm not sure I would. That's a tough, that's a tough appointment. You know, he's going to tell you he loves you and all that. Like doing it my own way. I don't know if you do, maybe I do. And then kind of just sourcing him on occasion when I really want something.

That's not knowing God. Knowing God is an abandonment that says, I'll do anything for you. You can have it all. You can have it all and you will find it. The Holy Spirit is the primary revelator. How do you hear the Holy Spirit? You know, there's a lot of books. God, spirit will speak to you and he will confirm it in your heart and you'll know it in your heart.

All I can say for me is that there becomes this quiet little voice when I have a decision to make and it says yes or no. And it's always there. And if I slow down and I follow that, it almost always works out. And even if I'm wrong, Romans 8, 28 has this really cool little verse. It says, all things work together for what? Good. For those that love God and are called according to their purpose.

The whole point of the Christian life is not to figure out your perfect existence, to never get anything wrong, to know the exact go right, go left. That's not what it's about. It's about knowing God, making mistakes along the way, God hugging you and bringing you back and saying, be released. Please don't write another book about someone's purpose.

Please. I am your purpose. Know me and it'll all work out. Know me well. This is the question. Do you want to know God? Do you really want to know him? I'm not so sure I do. Because sometimes he tells me things I don't want to hear. Moving on. God's word. Psalm 119, 105. Thy word is what? A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Let me just say, if you only do what it says in the Bible to do, and you have no other revelation, but you just try your best to do what the Bible says, love others, forgive, I want to say you will never need to have any more direction than is right here.

Now, thankfully, the God gave us the Holy Spirit, but the word of God is complete for as much as you need, because it is an eternal word of God. When I say, the God never speaks to me, God never speaks to me. And my next question is this. Do you read the Bible? Oh, on occasion. Try, just, try a 30 day cleanse, spiritual cleanse, of reading the Bible every single day.

The Bible's not boring. There's a few books that are boring, okay, for sure. And the other night I had to turn off Moses at the end of, you know, the Pentateuch. I got to Moses, and he was just a buzzkill. I was trying to go to bed. And he's like, curse if you don't do this, curse if you don't do that, curse. I'm like, Moses, you're done. I'm off, okay, no more Moses.

Great stories though. Great. First Samuel, second Samuel, first Chronicles, second Chronicles, just start there. Those books are great. So full of intrigue. So full of questions. My friend, um, Devin Brian, I don't know where he is. Eden's one of our elders in training. I turned him on to this reading thing, and now I just keep getting texts all the time.

Well, why would God do this? I know he's reading the word. I just love it that he's texting me all the time. Read the word of God. All of a sudden, you know what? You might not even have to ask the question anymore because you already know the answer. Imagine getting to that place where you just, this answers, you just have an overabundance of answers because you have filled yourself to overflowing with the word of God.

If you take a deep dive into this book, and you just say, I'm going to read, I'm going to make this a compass for my life. I read Proverbs almost every single day. There's 31. There's one for every day of the month. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, you can just, if I just gave you Proverbs, and you took all the other books away, you know, and you know who Jesus is, Proverbs would be enough to make almost every decision you need to make.

The word of God, a primary revelator. Are you using it? Are you harvesting the word of God? Continuing on now to the next thing, we see that Saul wanted answers. So what did he do? He went to a witch. I think it's cool that he went to the witch of Endor, because Endor is where all the, the Ewoks lived. Yeah, so I thought that was cool. Whenever I read that, I'm like, Endor is so cool, because they have Ewoks.

And, he inquired, he wanted revelation from a different place, than God wanted to give it. Where are you getting your revelation from? Is it your favorite news broker? You know, CNN, Fox News, whatever it is, Google News. Where are you getting your news from? And, does that set your emotions? Like, do you read the headlines, and it sets your emotions? God is so far beyond the headlines.

Read the headlines here. There is nothing happening in the world today, that is not prophesied in this book. And, it has happened before. People tell me all the time, world's in the worst place it's ever been. Have you ever read about the first century? Like, that was a bad time. How about 1100? How about the Viking raids through Ireland? No, we haven't read through that?

it is, the world has been in a bad way before. And, God has always created a Goshen for his people. Goshen is where the Hebrews went during the plagues. And, they lived outside in Egypt, but they lived under safety. The Spirit says, when you see these things, the scripture says, when you see these things, look up. When you see these bad things happening, look up for what?

Your day of redemption is near. The more you see these things, the closer Jesus is. But, the more I see Christians, oh my gosh, ah, ah, and I understand. You can tell if a Christian reads the Bible. You can tell if a Christian prays, by, by, by how they, how they report to you, the world news. It's easy. It is easy to say that, where are they, to see where they're harvesting, their world view from.

Is it a kingdom, biblically based world view, or it is one that is set by the, the writers, in some studio, in New York City, or wherever it is. Where are you harvesting your answers? Holy Spirit revelation, God will lead you, to the word of God. Moving on, Saul wanted to hear from a witch. Find me a medium. We all want answers. I said this already, many would trade knowing God, for the answers to life's dilemmas.

Knowing God will answer all of your questions. Guaranteed. Knowing God will answer, all of your questions. I've already read Romans 8, 38, and told you that God delights in revelations. In Ephesians 1, 7, it says that, the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, I love that. Get in touch with that. May give you a spirit of wisdom, and of revelation, in knowledge of what?

Of what you're supposed to do tomorrow? Of what your purpose is? No. Knowledge and revelation, and wisdom of what? What does the scripture say? Him. Him. Him. It is so backwards, what I keep seeing in Christian books. It's all about creating some mathematical equation, so you can figure out whether to go right or left in your life. It's not about that.

Do you want to know God? That's the primary question. I mean, do you really want to know him? Enough to get up at 2 in the morning, maybe, and seek him in the dark. Enough to take three days off, and turn everything off, and read the Bible, and binge listen to the Bible. I mean, do you really? Come on. Be honest with yourselves. We all want answers. Oh, God, give us an answer.

Do you really want to seek him? Do you really want to seek him? And some of you are seeking. You're saying, I am seeking him hard. I'm not hearing anything. That's okay. That's where trust and faith can be harvested like a weapon. No God. Let me read that again. Write this down. Put it on your fridge. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you, okay, he's going to give it to you, because he desires to give you knowledge, will give you a spirit.

It's not just a good idea. It is a spirit. It is a spiritual thing. It is beyond you being able to go and figure it out. Faith doesn't pencil out. God will give you something supernatural beyond what you can be. A lot of you are planners and organizers, right? So you think that if I can just get everything planned and organized, and your closets look amazing, and your car is super clean, and if I can just get it all sorted out, then I feel really secure because I got everything figured out.

That is not a spirit of power from God. You're laughing at yourself. It's not me. Trust me. That is not a spirit. That is being the best you that you can be, and it's a very low bar. The best you anybody can be is such a low bar. We look at people, we look at celebrities, and it's like the best they that they can be, and I'm never impressed. Celebrity doesn't impress.

What impresses me is when people harvest the spirit of God, and they have something that you can't have unless God says, I'm going to give it to you. If you want a spirit of revelation, seek God. He desires to know you. He did not die in public on the cross to keep secrets from you. I'm going to go die in public, so then you can't know me anymore, and then go play hide and seek.

No. God wants to know you. He wants to know you well. It's a great verse. Going on to James 1.5, if you lack wisdom, just ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. That is a promise. I have never asked for wisdom in a situation once where God did not give me the wisdom to know what to do, and sometimes that wisdom was, shut your mouth, and sit, and wait.

Every, 100% of the time, God has given me the wisdom. If you can listen, it says right there, it is a promise of God. Satan also wants to give you answers, as well as assistance to help you accomplish your own will. Let me read that again. That's a good one. Satan also wants to give you answers, as well as the assistance, to help you accomplish your own will.

And we are so good at that, and he is great. This is the original sin in the garden. Are you really good at conjuring up your own will, and then blaming God for it? Maybe you are. Really good at controlling, and manipulation, and organizing, and a lot of times, people that are really good at organizing, because it's organized really well, you feel like God's in it, and God is a God of order.

But just because you did it really well, and you got a good result, doesn't mean that God was in it. Good results can happen all the time, the Bible says, to people who don't follow God. We go on. Leviticus 119, it's 1931, it says, don't turn to mediums, or seek out spiritualists, for you will be what? Defiled by them, for I am the Lord your God. When we seek to find revelation that is outside of God, when we seek for any other truth that is outside of God, we will become defiled.

And the spirit, the enemy, and we believe in the devil here, I don't believe in leprechauns, but I do believe in the devil, and that the devil's desire is to help you source a sub-truth, a bit off of truth, so that you would be defiled before God. That's his whole deal. To make you less. To offer you more, but make you less. That's what he does. Can you be at peace with just seeking God?

The final verse here, and I love this verse. Matthew 633, in band, you can come up. Matthew 633, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and all of his righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you. Band, come up. I have a challenge for you as the band comes up. I will challenge you for 30 days not to seek any direction for your life. Okay? 30 days.

Don't pray, don't, about direction, don't ask God, should I do this? For 30 days, just seek God. God, I want to know you more. God, I want to experience your love. I want your spirit of revelation. He might start revealing things to you that have nothing to do with the thing that you want, but he shows you and says, this is my heart for you. Begin to ask God to reveal things to you that you don't know.

God, show me deep truths. I want deeper mysteries than should I take that job? Should I have that house? And will my kid get into Harvard? Can we please raise the bar on what we expect from God? To know God deeply, to know his revelation, and to know his will. The question to you is, do you want to know God? Let's stand. Let's stand.