Knowing God, Week 1

Written By Michael Pittman
 

Embassy City, good morning. I'm so happy to see y'all. Y'all look good this morning and happy Father's Day to all the fathers who out there. Hey, if you're your dad in the audience, can I hear a nice, big strong woo on the count? 3, 1, 2, 3. Woo. Hey, that's what I'm talking about. I love that. I love that Happy Father's Day to you all. I also want to acknowledge a very special father, the pastor of this house, Dr. Timothy Rivers. Can we honor him?

Dr. Tim, I hope that you are enjoying a phenomenal time with Janice and the kiddos, a much deserved vacation in an undisclosed location that has great weather. Okay, I appreciate you for the opportunity and we look forward to seeing you back here soon. I want to give a little context for what's going to be happening over the next few weeks. So over the next few weeks, we will be in a series called Knowing God, where we will explore the attributes of God using the book of Joshua. Okay, so actually we're going to be in Joshua 24 today, so if you have your Bibles, please turn there, click there however you have your Bibles, and if you're taking notes this morning we're going to echo the ethos of the worship experience. So far the title of my message is God is Holy. God is holy. We've been singing about it. Now we're going to learn about it. Okay, let's go ahead and pray and hear what the Lord wants to share with us this morning. Lord, we thank you that you are holy. We pray that in our time together that you teach us more about who you are so we can serve you and love you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Let's take a quick survey of the room by a show of hands. Who in here would volunteer to go inside of a car that is 600 degrees Fahrenheit? Can I see your hands? Can I see your hands? Can I see your hands? No. No. Okay. Well, who in here would be willing to go inside of a car that is 74 degrees Fahrenheit? Can I see your hands? Can I see all more hands? Very good, very good, very good. Excellent. Now, who in here would be willing to go inside of a car that is both 600 degrees Fahrenheit and 74 degrees Fahrenheit at the exact same time? Can I see your hands

Based on the look of your faces and the murmuring of your voices? I have come to the conclusion that many of you in the room are confused. Some of you believe I may have misspoken and botched my sermon introduction because you can't have a car that is 600 degrees Fahrenheit and 74 degrees Fahrenheit at the same time, right? That's impossible, isn't it? Or is it? You see, inside of most cars is an engine and connected to an engine are many parts, and one of those parts is called the exhaust manifold. And what the exhaust manifold does is it collects gases from the engine cylinder and then it directs those gases to the exhaust pipe. Because of its close proximity to these gases, the exhaust manifold can reach extremely high temperatures while you're driving. In fact, these temperatures can surpass 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Now of course when you're driving you don't feel the 600 degrees. If you're anything like me, you like your car to be right around 74 degrees Fahrenheit. But it poses the question when you're driving this car, it's the car at 600 degrees Fahrenheit or 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yes. Okay, both. Yeah, and I think it's interesting because I set the stage with this example because as I was thinking through this sermon series on the attributes of God, I couldn't help but to consider how God can have two different attributes that seemingly contradict one another and yet he is still God. You see, this car can have two seemingly different temperatures and natures and attributes, and yet because of the complex nature of a car, both temperatures can exist in the same car at the same time. And so when I think about God, I think about a phrase like God is loving. That's comfy. That's 74 degrees Fahrenheit night. But if I were to say God is an all consuming fire, it's a little less comfy. That's 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet biblically both are true. This dichotomy is illustrated in Isaiah 45 when he says, when God says through the prophet, I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster. The Lord do all these things. So there's a case, there's a case to be made biblically, that we serve a gracious, compassionate, loving, merciful, just vengeful, wrathful, jealous, good God who brings prosperity and disaster.

Simple enough. Yet this multifaceted nature of God is important to understand because it affects how we see him. It influences our beliefs about him. And if you're taking notes this morning, I want you to write this down. What we believe impacts how we behave, what we believe impacts how we behave. Let's say someone's fundamental belief about God is he leans more 600 degree God. So God is a raffle judge who sends people to hell and allows for bad things to happen to good people. Well, naturally, that person may behave in a way that has an unhealthy fear of God or avoids God altogether. Yet if someone were to say, oh my God, it's like a 74 degree God, I mean, he's loving and gracious and comfy and he just loves, loves love everybody, and sin isn't a big deal. He already paid for it on the cross. He just loves, loves, loves, loves, loves. Then someone like this may behave in a way that doesn't take God seriously because what we believe impacts how we behave. And so since what we believe impacts how we behave, what should we believe about God in order to understand him at a deeper level without compromising or overcompensating in one direction or another?

We must believe that God is holy. God is holy. It is out of God's holiness that everything else he does flows. God does not do righteous things to become righteous. He is holy. Therefore, everything he does is righteous. God does not do loving things to become loving. He is holy. Therefore, everything he does is loving the word. Holy is the only word that holy encompasses who God is. And so when we think about the holiness of God, we have to understand out of who he is, flows what He does, and he is holy. God's holiness is the only attribute in the Bible that is described to the third degree. When the angels call out to one another in Isaiah six, they don't say, gracious, gracious, gracious is the Lord God Almighty. They don't say merciful, merciful, merciful is the Lord God Almighty. What do they say? They say, holy, holy, holy. It's the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. And so this morning my goal is simple. The purpose of this sermon is to show you that God is holy. Because if you understand God is holy, then you'll see him for who he is.

It's only in light of who He is that we can know who we are. When we know who we are, it empowers us to be as he is holy. So we're going to use Joshua 24 to do that, but let's establish some definitions first, shall we? What does it mean to be holy in Christian theology? For God to be holy refers to God being completely different and set apart. It speaks to his unparalleled majesty of his incomparable being and his blameless faultless, unblemished moral purity. That's what it means for God to be holy. But what does it mean for us? 19th century theologian, JC Ryall puts it this way, Hugh, practical holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God according to his mind described in scripture. It is the habit of agreeing. Everybody say agreeing. Agreeing in God's judgment, hating what he hates, loving what he loves and doing everything in this world by the standard of his work. Now admittedly, when I read this definition, I agreed theologically, but it was a hard pill to swallow practically because if I'm keeping it a stat, if I'm being honest, there have been times in my life when it was hard to agree with God.

There have been moments in my life when I thought if I were God, I would've done that differently. For example, heaven, if I were God, the ticket to heaven would just be being a good kind person. My standard for heaven would be good people and good vibes. Are you dope to hang out with? Are you a Mavs fan? Great. You get a ticket to heaven, you going to take it to heaven? You're going to take to heaven. You're going to take it to heaven. Madisons six, okay, oh seven MAs seven MAs seven. I still believe in miracles. Okay? Yeah. What that revealed was that I had a low view of God. I saw us as equally capable of determining the standard of righteousness, which puts me higher in God. Lower another theologian, a w to us says this. He says, what comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And my low view of God was not merely a mindset that needed to be changed. It was idolatry that needed to be repented of. If we only see idolatry as bowing before golden calves and we as modern Americans would never see it as a threat,

But here's the truth, anything you put above God is an idol and that includes your own thoughts. He is the only one worthy of being high and lifted up.

And so our propensity to idolatry is not a new thing. In fact, Joshua 24 is a good case study that shows us how our human idols impact our relationship with a holy God. Joshua 24, are you all there? Yes. Let's read together Now, fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. This is Joshua speaking to them and throw away the gods, your ancestors worship beyond Euphrates River and then Egypt and serve the Lord, but the serving the Lord seems undesirable to you. Then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Whether it's the gods your ancestors serve beyond EU phrase are the gods of the Amorites in whose land you're living. But for me in my household, we will serve the Lord. Then the people answered Far Beth from us to forsake the Lord and serve other gods. It was the Lord, our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt from the land of slavery and performed those great signs before our eyes.

He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled, and the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. So we too will serve the Lord because he is our God. Then Joshua said to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you after he has been good to you. But the people said to Joshua, no, we will serve the Lord. Alright, let's break down the text. Joshua 24 is the last time Joshua speaks in scripture before he dies. It is his farewell address to the children of Israel.

And then this farewell address, Joshua is reminding the children of Israel of God's faithfulness from Abraham to Isaac, to Jacob, to Moses. God has been faithful through the conquering of the promised land. God has been faithful. God helped them conquer the city of Jericho, the Amorites, the parasites, the Canaanites, the Hitite, the Girish heights, the Hitite have ze. All the ice were conquered because of God's faithfulness. It was the Lord's faithfulness that made them victorious. So Joshua tells them, look, since God has been so faithful to you, you should worship him alone. Get rid of your idols, inform gods and serve the Lord exclusively. And then he finishes off Joshua 24 verse 15 with the flagship verse of the hobby lobby home, the decor section as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, the future of Israel, respond to Joshua. And they say, yeah, we'll serve the Lord too.

But then Joshua responds back, you are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God. Now at first glance, Joshua's response may seem surprising or even discouraging, right? As a leader, shouldn't he be excited that his followers have made a new commitment to the Lord? Yet what Joshua does here is I believe he uses what I call a solemn statement to emphasize the gravity of a commitment to the Lord. We see Jesus use solemn statements all the time in the New Testament when people say, Hey, I want to follow the Lord. He says things like foxes have holds, birds have nest, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Or even more inflammatory solemn statements like Matthew 18 when he's like, if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. That's in your Bible. Now, of course, Jesus isn't being little here. Rather he's using hyperbolic language to emphasize the cost of commitment. He's saying, are you really about this life? The point is this commitment isn't always cute. Anybody can make a commitment when things are going well, when life is amazing. And that's where the children of Israel are in Joshua 24. Life is great. They're in the promised land. They have prospered, conquered, settled. They 4 0 1 Ks are maxed out. They got some rental properties here and there on the passive income. I mean, so technically, I mean children are like, yeah, for sure we'll serve the Lord. No problem. That's easy. But Joshua sees right through it and he says,

You cannot serve the Lord because he is holy. Now, a statement like this may discourage the wrong person, but it should challenge the right person, right? For instance, if I'm hooping and someone on the other team looks at me and says, you can't guard me. Best believe they about to get this work, check up, ball up. I'm lining up. I'm slapping the floor in the first opportunity, I get to swat their stuff into the third row of the bleachers. I'm taking it because what may discourage the wrong person challenges the right person.

And that's kind of what's happening here in Joshua 24, Joshua's telling the children of Israel, look, if serving the Lord is undesirable to you, just serve other gods, serve the amorite God, you can't serve the Lord. He's holy. And it gives the children of Israel an opportunity to examine themselves and determine if they really valid. But let's take this just a step further. The statement that Joshua made was true. The people couldn't serve a holy God and their past had proven that because simply put, without God's power, imperfect people can't satisfy a perfect God. Everybody say perfect, perfect. There are so many aspects to God's holy nature, sure, but it's his perfection that is the bedrock of his holiness. Consider the attributes of God's holiness, his grace, his mercy, his love, all beautiful things. But if these attributes lack perfection, they lose their power. God's perfection, in fact is so important that it is the only point of my sermon this morning. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. God is perfect, therefore he is holy. God is perfect, therefore he is holy. Now, what does it mean for God to be perfect? It means that he's as good as he can possibly be.

Not only is he good, but he is whole and complete. So he's not just partially good or kind of good. He's fully good. A perfect God is a God with no defect, no blemish, no blame, no fault. He's so good. It's impossible for anything else to be better. Perfection belongs to God alone. Now y'all, I'm a nerd. Okay, can we go philosophical for a moment? Do I have y'all permission? Can we put our thinking caps on for just a second? We just covered what it means for God to be perfect, but I have a question for you. Why does God have to be perfect? Ancient Greeks didn't believe Zeus was perfect. Hindus don't believe Sheila is perfect. Buddhists don't believe Buddha is perfect. So why does the God of the Bible have to be perfect? Well, the answer lies and what we see in Joshua 24, Joshua 24 reveals that the God of the Bible requires exclusive worship. You see, the Israelites had other deities from their ancestors and from the land that they possessed from the Amorites and the presence of these idols in foreign God shove that they didn't see God for who he was. They didn't see God as enough. They didn't see God as perfect,

So their devotion was compromised. And isn't this what we see today in 2024 when people don't see God as enough, they just start adding more stuff? I call these people Jesus, plus they'll go to church and have Jesus, but they'll do Jesus plus new age, Jesus plus horoscopes, Jesus plus chakras, Jesus plus crystals. I know people who identify more with their Enneagram number than they do with scripture, and that's why God doesn't just require exclusive worship in the Old Testament, the same standard applies to us today. Jesus said in Luke four, it is written worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The truth is this, if he isn't God of all, then he isn't God at all because he's perfect. So Jesus plus is one thing, but there's another thing that people do when they don't see God as perfect. When someone doesn't believe God is perfect, what they'll do is they'll start to hedge their bets against God

Just in case. It actually reminds me of the work that I do for my career. I have the privilege of traveling all around the world speaking to high school and college students and university students about money and personal finance. And so I do workshops for these students and as I travel around, one of my most popular workshops is the stock market workshop. And one of the concepts I teach in that workshop is the principle of diversification. Many of you guys have heard of diversification before. It could be easily summed up in this one phrase, don't put all of your eggs in one. Very good. And so the reason why someone invests this way is for protection. If a stock underperforms, then you can have other stocks or securities in your portfolio to balance things out. And so when someone invests this way, they may say, man, I love Tesla stock. I love Amazon stock. I think Apple stock is great, go Invidia, but I can't put all of my faith, trust, and hope in this one stock because it's not perfect. So I need to diversify just in case I need to diversify, to have leverage, I need to diversify, to have some control. And while this is wise for personal finance, it doesn't work for a perfect God.

And that's what the children of Israel were doing weren't they diversify their deities which diminished their devotion. Hear me. God doesn't need a backup plan. God doesn't need a plan. B, whenever you go all in with God, you are pushing all your chips to the middle of the table. You are betting on God. You are burning all ships because a yes to God is a no to everything else because he's perfect. If you're taking those, please write this down. True worship is adoration without reservation. True worship is adoration without reservation, and that's only possible if you believe God is perfect because imagine hypothetically if God were just good or really great or not perfect, what would the ramifications of that be? Well, theoretically it could mean God could improve, he could become better, kinder, smarter, more loving, more worthy, and if our worship of God is directly connected to his worthiness, then we will have a license to limit our worship because he would be more worthy tomorrow than he is today. If God could develop and improve, then all worship would have to develop and improve because he would be more worthy in the future than he is right now.

But we know that's not the case. Hebrews 13 eight tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. And if we know anything about the worthiness of Jesus, we know that God exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above everything, that at the name of Jesus, every niche shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Is there anyone in the room who can testify and say, I don't have a license to limit my worship because I know he is worthy. I don't need something to happen tomorrow to praise God today because I know he is worthy. I'm going to praise God for who he's been because who he has been is who he will be. So if he did nothing else, he has still been my savior. If he did nothing else, he has still been my provider. If he did nothing else, he has still been my healer. He has made way after way open door after door, protecting me from dangerous seen and unseen. Come on, if you know in this room that God won't just be worthy one day, but that he is just as worthy today, take 10 good seconds, clap your hands and praise God for who he's been to you.

God has to be perfect. There is no other way around it. His love is perfect. His mercy is perfect. His justice is perfect. His wrath is perfect. His righteousness is perfect. His knowledge is perfect. In fact, that's one of my personal favorites that God has perfect knowledge means God makes no mistakes. He needs no new information to draw a better conclusion. God never misunderstands God, never discovers anything. God never needs to learn. In fact, God has never learned. Could God learn something that he did not already know from eternity, he will be imperfect and cease to be God. Romans 1133 speaks to this. It says, oh, the depth of the richest, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor? I just want you to take a personal moment and imagine how good your decisions would be if you had perfect knowledge. What if you could go back in time? How many mistakes would you have avoided?

How many opportunities would you have seized? Then imagine how much better even those decisions would be if you could look forward in time and see how they played out. Here it is. How much more then would you trust yourself? Now, consider this. God doesn't need to go backward or forward in time because his knowledge is perfect. He's the God of past, present, and future. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end yesterday, today forevermore, the God who was, is and is to come, which means you can trust him. That's what God's perfect knowledge shows us is that we can trust God for God. The past has no missed opportunity. The present has no anxiety in the future, has no uncertainty. Lemme run that back. For God. The past has no missed opportunity. The present has no anxiety, and the future has no uncertainty because his knowledge is perfect. Now, personally, when I think about God's perfect knowledge, it's easy for me to start thinking about solar systems and science and calculus and celestial beings and quasars and a nerdy God who's really intelligent and knows anything about everything. But have you ever considered that? Because God knows everything, he knows everything about you

And not just the you that you show up with on Instagram or the filtered politically correct version of you that shows up with you at work so you don't get fired. No. God knows everything about you, every thought, every word, every action, every feeling, every temptation, every group text, God knows everything. And when you realize that as an imperfect person that there's nothing you can hide from a perfect God, that's scary. But what if I were to tell you that God, knowing everything about you is actually the best news? It's great news because God has perfect knowledge. It means there is nothing he could discover about you that would deter him from you. There is nothing a devil in hell could disclose that would make him second guess your salvation. There's nothing he could learn that will make him stop loving you for what can separate us from the love of Jesus. Romans says, for I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither hype nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, it is through God's perfect knowledge that we experience his perfect love. Now, a love like this is exclusive. It is not just for anybody and everybody. A love like this is only for those who have a reconciled relationship with God. And the only way to have a reconciled relationship with God is through perfection. Because we are imperfect. Our sin separates us from a perfect God and from the very beginning of time, the sentencing for imperfection and for sin has been eternal separation from God, which is by definition death. But that sentencing does not come without hope. My friends, the bail for reconciliation is blood, and the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. So here's what happened. In order to make us right with himself once and for all, God sent his son Jesus and paid the price for our sin through his blood, and it is through his death bur and resurrection that Jesus reconciles us back to God. Second Corinthians speaks to this. It says all this from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting sin, the people sins against them. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. God has made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

What the scripture is showing us is that when we make Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives and his righteousness becomes our righteousness, his access becomes our access, his perfection becomes our perfection, and we can be made right with God. We can't get to God any other way. Access comes through faith in Christ alone. And I share this y'all because there are people who genuinely believe that Christianity is a guy in heaven weighing divine scales. And as long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then God is satisfied. That's false. Y'all. Good deeds don't even get you through security at DFW air player. How much more God you need perfection with Jesus to have connection with God. Jesus said in John 14, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Now, the idea of connection requiring perfection is not one that should be foreign to us. We actually encounter it in our everyday lives. I'll give you an example. Let's just say I wanted to connect with a friend and their phone number hypothetically was (281) 330-8004. Talk back to me. If I dial 8 0 0 5, will it connect me to them? Yes or no? If I dial 8 0 0 7, will it connect me to them? Yes or no? If I dial 7, 2, 3, 4, does it connect me to him? Yes or no? And in those moments, I don't get mad at T-Mobile and say, I'm a good person.

I deserve to connect with my friend. Why are they being so exclusive with my friend's cell phone number? There are billions of cell phone numbers out there. I only missed one number. I got it mostly right. There are so many phone numbers out there. Are you telling me that there's only one way to connect to my friend? You're telling my friend only has one number to connect with them. How could you believe that this is the only way how narrow-minded T-Mobile? No, I understand that if I want to connect with this friend, it requires me to dial their number perfectly. And guess what? I could get one digit wrong or 10 digits wrong and the result would be the same. Here it is. I could dial all 10 numbers perfectly and add a digit it doesn't need and it still wouldn't work. If it isn't perfect, it won't go through. Connecting with the holy God isn't about being a perfect person. It's about in a perfect person and his name is Jesus.

So what do we do with this? Because it would be easy to speak of God's holiness and say, oh, great, God is holy. That's awesome. That's cool. And then go on living our lives as we have been. But I don't want you to miss the point. And here it is. God is holy. Yes, but once you are saved, he calls you to be holy too. One Peter one 15, but that's the one who called you as holy. You also are to be holy in some of your conduct. Oh wait, that ain't what it says. Hold On.

You are to be holy in most of your no, it says You are to be holy in all your conduct for it is written, be holy because I am holy. And now at this point, when you see the world all I'm sure some of you're thinking, how in the world is this possible? Because I mean, I know Jesus saved me for eternity, but I still struggle on the daily. But did you know that salvation comes with power? Salvation comes with batteries included, and with this power, you don't just become holy theologically, but it actually gives you the opportunity to be holy practically. Here's how first God sent Jesus to pay for your salvation, and then Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to power your sanctification. God sent Jesus to pay for your salvation, and then Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to power your sanctification. And this Holy Spirit is the spirit of God himself. And the moment you got saved, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that lives inside of you. That spirit is alive and y'all, this is the cheat code because that you children of Israel in Joshua 24, they didn't have the Holy Spirit. They had to rely on their own strength and their own power to serve God and they couldn't.

But for us, we can. God helps us to the Holy Spirit helps to resist sin, to follow the will of God and to be like Jesus and y'all, this is good news and here's why. The gospel isn't just about us giving to heaven. It's about us bringing heaven to earth. When you surrender to the Holy Spirit, what you are once unable to be holy, now you are unable to be holy because it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that you can serve a holy God. If you don't recognize how much power you have through the Holy Spirit, you might just find yourself saved and stuck, anointed and anxious without relying on the power of the Holy Spirit. We live like the rest of the world unholy, and that may not look like rebellion. It may not look like debauchery, but what it could look like is just relying on worldly wisdom and self-help solutions instead of the power of the living God. My question for you this morning is do you know how much power you have access to? I'll close with this. This reminds me of a story where there was a woman who lived out in the country and she wanted electricity to her home.

And so she called up the electric company and they sent someone out, ran a power line to her home, and so beforehand, before she had power, she would light up her home with candles. So six months passed by and the electric company thought of her and checked her account, and they realized that only two units of electricity had been used throughout the entire six month time period. And so they were worried, is everything okay? They sent someone out, they sent a serviceman tour, and so he knocked on the door running the doorbell, introduced himself and asked, miss, are you receiving electricity in your home? Her eyes got big lit up. She said, absolutely, I love it. I use it every single day. And so the service man is confused and he asks, okay, well, what do you use the electricity for? And she said, well, now when it gets dark at nighttime, I can turn on the lights long enough to light my candles. I think it's safe to say that this woman didn't understand the power she had access to. She had enough power to light up her entire house all day long, yet she was settling for an existence that was less than she was entitled to.

And we can laugh at the woman, but many of us are in here doing the same thing. We're using the power of God just enough to light our own human efforts just enough to get by. We've repented enough to be forgiven, but we haven't surrendered enough to be changed.

I'm here to tell you this morning that there is more. God has more for you. You can receive help in your time of need. Through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can have a peace that surpasses all understanding through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can have a marriage that honors God through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can raise children that love Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can overcome the sin in your life through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can have a peace and a joy. You can be holy as He is holy through the power of the Holy Spirit. My question for you this morning is, do you understand how much power you have access to if you want to experience the power of God in your life? I am going to make space this morning to do that. We're about to go into a song of worship, but before then, I would like to pray for you. Would you all bow your heads? And in fact, why don't you all stand to your feet? I want to do a prayer this morning for two groups of people,

One through salvation and the other for surrender. There are some of you in this room this morning who are here, and you know that Jesus isn't the Lord of your life, or maybe you question if you're a security, if your eternity is secure. You've been trying to earn God's love through your own actions, through your own good deeds, through your own willpower. You've been trying to do it on your own, but what you realize is that your willpower doesn't compare to the power of the Holy Spirit. You know your craving more, and God is calling you into a relationship with him. Heads, vow, eyes closed. If that is you in this room, would you just lift your hand up on the count of 1, 3, 2, 1. Lemme see it. Lemme see it. Thank you. I see your hands. Thank you. I see your hands. Praise the Lord. I see your hands all over the room. Thank you. The second group of people are for those who know that Jesus isn't the Lord of your life, or maybe Jesus is the Lord of your life, but you found yourself saved and stuck. You found yourself anointed and anxious, and it's because you haven't surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit. You've surrendered to your friends, you've surrendered to your therapist, you've surrendered to your business coach and your family, but you have not surrendered your life, your will, your plans fully to God.

You're diversifying and you are at the end of yourself and you're ready to experience his power instead of your own. Now, if that's you, and you're already saved, but you need to surrender, can I see your hands on the count of 1, 3, 2, 1, hands all over the room? Very good. Thank you. I'm going to pray for you all,

Lord. You see the hands of those in the room who need your Spirit. I pray, Lord, that the power of the Holy Spirit is experienced in their souls, in their businesses, in their lives. I thank you, Lord, for those who have made a decision this morning that moving forward things will be different. We'll experience new joy. We'll experience new peace. We'll experience new hope that no matter what happens, come what May we trust you because Lord, you are perfect. We trust you because Lord, you are holy. We trust you because Lord, you are knowledgeable. We trust you, Lord, because you are good and we know that you are in control, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen and amen. Prayer team, would you go ahead and call?

Hey, thank you so much for joining us online today. We pray that you were blessed by the worship and the word, but hey, let's not stop here. Lemme remind you of our vision here at Embassy City is to come, grow and go, and we want to help you do that. So we've made some resources available online. Just visit embassy city.com for resources to help you come to know God, grow in your faith, and go change the world. Also, want to take just a moment to say thank you to all of you who are a part of Embassy City through your giving, your generosity has made a major impact here locally at Embassy City and the community at large. So thank you so much for partnering with the Lord into this house. Hey, I love you. I'm praying for you. We as a church are praying for you, and we hope to see you again here

Michael Pittman
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Knowing God, Week 2
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Do You Mind? Week 6