Key verse Psalms 46: 10 be still and know that I am God.
Introduction:
Tommy Tenney, The God Chasers- The reason people who know you aren’t interested in your God may be because you don’t have enough of the presence of God in your life. There is something about God’s presence that makes everything else crumble in comparison. Without it, you will be just as pale and lifeless as everybody else around you. No matter what you do, without His presence, you will be “just another somebody” to those around you.
"I don’t know about you, but I am tired of just being ‘another somebody’ to the lost around me. I have made a decision. I made up my mind and set my heart to declare, ‘I am going to pursue the presence of God in my life. I am going to get so close to God that when I walk into secular and public places, people will meet Him.’ They may not know that I’m there, but they will definitely know that He is there. I want to be so saturated with God’s presence that when I take a seat on a plane, then everyone near me will suddenly feel uncomfortable if they’re not right with God – even though I haven’t said a word." I’m not wanting to condemn or to convict them; I just want to carry the fragrance of my Father with me.
How can we carry the fragrance of the Father with us everywhere we go? “Be still and know that I am God”
Transitional:
Before we get to this we to start at the beginning of our problem, go to the root, dig it up, and burn it.
I. We Need To Deal With The Coldness of Our Heart:
1. The coldness of our heart is a veil that shuts God’s voice out of our life.
2. The indifference to draw closer, the lackadaisical attitude towards spiritual advancement.
3. The thing that most people care about is themselves, they cannot look outside of themselves to see the needs of others or their own needs.
4. Revelation 3:16 - 17
17You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
5. A high percentage of people fail to see their own need, they are blind to it.
6. It takes other people show us of our need.
7. To open our eyes to the truth.
8. John 8:31 - 32
31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
9. Set us free from the coldness of our own hearts.
10. The mind set that we feel secure of heaven just because we go to church once a week.
11. When in fact our security of heaven is in a direct relationship to how much we strive to draw closer to Jesus and how much like him we become.
12. We are to always strive forward, reach higher, to go deeper spiritually than we were yesterday.
13. Today we just don’t care.
14. Philippians 3:3 - 4 (NIV)
3For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
4though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
15. Skip down to verse 7.
16. Philippians 3:7 - 9 (NIV)
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8What is more; I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
17. Skip down to verse 12.
18. Philippians 3:12 -15 (NIV)
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
Transitional:
We need to forget what is behind and straining toward what is ahead to press on toward the prize. We need to
II. Detach Ourselves From This World:
1. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2
2. If we want to carry the fragrance of the father with us then we must detach ourselves from earthly things and set our minds on what is in heaven.
3. The more we think on the things of heaven the more like heaven we will become.
4. The more we think of earth the more like earth we will become.
5. Let me illustrate if I can.
6. In the ways of the earthly world it is considered a dog eat dog world.
7. This saying originally was just the opposite.
8. Back in 43 B.C., Marcus Tarentius Varro Roman man of letters noted that "Canis caninam non est" ("Dog does not eat dog"), meaning that even a (supposedly) lowly creature like the dog has limits, if not principles, and will not destroy its own kind. (Cool Cats and Top Dogs (and Other Beastly Expressions)"by Christine Ammer published by Houghton Mifflin in 1999)
9. Extended to human beings by implication, that’s a comforting notion, but history tends to indicate that humans are not so principled as dogs. By the 16th century, folks were imagining a world in which metaphorical dogs did devour each other, and "dog eat dog," had come to mean "ruthlessly competitive."
10. Not surprisingly, by the time of the Industrial Revolution, phrases such as "It’s a dog eat dog world" had become commonplace.
11. "The struggle for survival in life or business turns man into an animal." according to Gregory Titelman. Dog won’t eat dog "means that people of the same type do not destroy one another.
12. But we do don’t we.
13. In the world we will destroy one another just to get ahead and for what…more money, prestige or fame.
14. It is a proven fact the more you make the more you spend the more in debt you become.
15. As mankind we have destroyed one another for landmass, killed, robbed people more power and money.
16. Destroyed people’s reputations and family just to get ahead.
17. Matthew 16:26 -27
26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
18. We exchange our souls for the trinkets of the world, things that will be destroyed verses our souls that are immortal.
19. Tommy Tenney says, “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a practical gospel that is as concerned with doing something as it is with being something. Good works won’t get you into heaven, but once you receive new life from Jesus, he expects you to do what he did for the rest of your life. It comes with the territory. Godly people do godly things or they aren’t godly.
20. We need to deliberately push aside the bad cutthroat policies and attitudes of the world and take on the policies of heaven in order to have the fragrance of the Father with us.
21. We as Christians do not need the world’s way in dealing with other people.
22. The world is rude, snotty, backbiting, backstabbers, gossipers, unkind, uncaring, coldhearted, cheaters, lustful, covetous, unloving, bitter, nasty, brutal, sadistic and vicious.
23. Galatians 4: 25-31 gives a long list also but verse 27 is pretty important it says do not give the devil a foothold.
24. The Star Wars Trilogy movies in it the evil emperor says to Luke that giving in to your hatred and anger you will be giving in to the dark side.
25. The dark side will have a foothold on you.
26. Do not let the devil get a foothold on you in acting like or believing like the world.
27. We do not need to act like this or even come close to resembling what the world is or does.
28. If we act like the world is it no wonder why we do not hear from heaven?
29. Is it no wonder we do not hear the voice of God?
30. Is it no wonder God’s word does not jump out at us inspiring us to be better?
Transitional:
The scripture says that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. The truth is unable to get passed the world in our hearts to set us free, the world is a road block to God. So the question I need to ask now is
III. Are We Listening to Heaven? :
1. Do we hear more from heaven than we do the world or is just the opposite is true?
2. In order to hear from heaven we have to be still before God and his word because both are speaking to us.
3. God speaks to us from heaven all the time but we are more in tune to the world’s radio station than we are God’s radio station.
4. For some reason the world’s station comes in more clearly because we are more closer to the world’s reception tower than we are God’s reception tower.
5. We have a choice to change this if we want to and have the desire to do so.
6. It is a mindset that we all have.
7. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children Romans 8:16.
8. You see his spirit bears witness to our spirit.
9. The more we hunger and thirst after righteousness the more our spirit becomes in tune to God’s spirit. Script.
10. This is how we hear him.
11. When we have died out to self, God’s reception will come in more clearly.
12. Verse 3 for you have died, Verse 5 says put to death, verse 8 rid yourselves, verse 9 taken off your old self.
13. The more dead to self we are the louder his reception will be to us.
14. Our selfish wants that we feed ourselves with is a hindrance to God’s voice.
15. Basically our self speaks so loud that we cannot hear anyone else speak let alone hear anything God has to say.
Transitional:
Maybe we should ask another question instead?
IV. Are You A Good Listener? :
1. Sometimes we do so much talking that we can’t hear what we are saying.
2. A.W. Tozer writes whoever will listen will hear the speaking heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God.
3. It is hard for us to be still before God and listen.
4. To be alone with your bible opened and letting God speak to us through his words and our minds.
5. MY FAVORITE STATION: Good listening is like tuning in a radio station. For good results, you can listen to only one station at a time. Trying to listen to my wife while looking over an office report is like trying to receive two radio stations at the same time. I end up with distortion and frustration. Listening requires a choice of where I place my attention. To tune into my partner, I must first choose to put away all that will divide my attention. That might mean laying down the newspaper, moving away from the dishes in the sink, putting down the book I’m reading, setting aside my projects. SOURCE: Robert W. Herron, Homemade, June 1987.Contributed by: Paul Fritz
6. Being a good listener means putting things aside and focusing only on the attention of your focus.
7. Getting alone with God is focusing only on him and tuning out everything else like what for supper, this needs done etc.
8. Try it some time and see how really important is it.
9. Because the devil will deliberately throw everything at your mind in order to draw your focus away from God, because he knows the power that comes and the realization of God will dawn on you more clearly.
10. He wants to destroy us not help us.
11. Try it and see how hard it is.
12. Read a scripture or better a chapter and be still before God pushing out everything except your focus on God and the scripture.
13. It’ll be a hard fight but rewarding.
14. Once you’ve closed out everything listen to what thoughts God puts into your mind, afterwards write it down.
15. Let’s look at it another way.
16. Joel Pankow gives this illustration about himself: Every once in a while my daughter starts crying. From then on in, the battle begins. My wife and I have an ignorance contest. Who can lay the stillest for the longest without getting up? The trick to winning this battle is to learn how to tune it out. If I can somehow stay in a sort of semi-consciousness without really waking up - then after a while my wife will finally get up - and I’ll be able to fall back asleep - which is where I wanted to be in the first place. Then, I’ll wake up the next morning and ask my wife innocently, “did Maia get up last night?” After she says yes I respond, “I thought I heard something, but I didn’t realize it until you got up.”
17. The reality is that I have learned how to tune it out, because I didn’t want to hear it, so even when I did hear her, I didn’t listen.
18. That’s how we all too often approach God’s Word.
19. We’ll listen when it’s convenient.
20. We’ll listen when we have the energy.
21. We’ll listen when we want to.
22. But when God’s Word tells us something that we don’t want to hear - that we don’t want to believe - then we somehow train ourselves to sleepwalk through it as if God never said it - or as if He really wasn’t talking to us.
23. In reality, the problem is that we don’t like to hear God talk about our sins.
24. We don’t like to hear about a holy God who punishes sins.
25. So many people don’t listen to it.
26. They go to places that talk about how special they are and how important they are.
27. They gloss over the Bible parts that talk about sin and punishment and perfection and hell. Contributed by: Joel Pankow
28. Sometimes we get too much into a hurry in the hustle and bustle of everyday living.
29. Like the song says we need to take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord.
30. Take the time to deliberately slow down to have moments with God.
31. Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day," he recalled in his book Stress Fractures. "Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was become unbearable.
"I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ’Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ "Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered,’ Honey, you can tell me -- and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." "I’ll never forget her answer: ’Then listen slowly.’" SOURCE: Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, Page 13-14.
Contributed by: Mark Hensley
32. We need to listen to God slowly, in Psalms 46: 10 be still and know that I am God.
Conclusion:
The reason people who know you aren’t interested in your God may be because you don’t have enough of the presence of God in your life. There is something about God’s presence that makes everything else crumble in comparison. Without it, you will be just as pale and lifeless as everybody else around you. No matter what you do, without His presence, you will be “just another somebody” to those around you.
"I don’t know about you, but I am tired of just being ‘another somebody’ to the lost around me. I have made a decision. I made up my mind and set my heart to declare, ‘I am going to pursue the presence of God in my life
