When It’s Worth It, It’s Worth It

Um, but the series that we're titling passing the baton is really a family series where I'm trying to just open up the conversation about what it looks like to build your family around the principles that we find in the scriptures. And in the first two weeks, we took the story arc of Noah and the ark. We talked the first week about him building the ark and we talked about how it was a family pursuit, an endeavor that the entire family would have participated in. and the entire family was blessed because of Noah's faithfulness to God in comparison to the generation that he was in at the time.

Then the next week we talked about how we can often struggle when it comes to parenting our kids and creating a culture in our family for whatever reason. And this week what I want to do is I want to take you into another story arc that we see in the Old Testament. Anyone ever heard of David in the Old Testament? Y'all heard the story of David and Goliath where he takes a stone, kills Goliath who's a giant.

He's either he's either like, you know, 5'9 or 95. I don't He's super tall. 5'9 is not that tall, but back in the day it was pretty tall. I'm just looking at archaeological evidence here trying to understand the scriptures.

Um, but that's David. And there's a whole story arc that I I love about the story of David. Not only did he write poetry all the time about the Lord, not only was he called a man after God's own heart, but he lived a real life. He was an imperfect person who was raising a family.

and his son down the road ends up inheriting the kingdom. So this week I'm going to talk to you about a significant moment in David's story. And next week I want to talk to you about his son who inherits the kingdom and what it looks like for us to create a legacy for our family members to walk in our footsteps. even if they don't do the same gig, same job, farm the same land that we farmed, but but but God can use them to do big things and we can create a culture wherein they thrive rather than flounder.

Y'all with me on that? I'm excited about today. The sermon title is called when it's worth it, it's worth it. That's actually an axiom at our church.

And an axiom is just a statement that I made up that I think is pretty cool. And so I call it an axiom. You don't have a choice. It's the church that I came and started.

Um, but we say when it's worth it, it's worth it. And and we utilize that as a value principle because for us, there are a lot of times where we don't want to do something that we feel like God's calling us to do. Here's a good example. The first time we did this thing, we were like, I don't know.

Um, but the lighting was really bad. And so, it was like, let's fix this. And so, we got this donated and and we put it up. And it was hard work.

We had to do uh have four volunteers where it used to be one volunteer. That was hard work, but we say this. We say when it's worth it, it's worth it. Any any who in here I just want to know who in here came to the Easter egg drop that we did in April.

Um I'm scared to ask if you came for the first time, but how many of you like heard about us from that event? If you're willing to just share. No, you're scared to share. Okay, that's okay.

I got you. I know. I've been talking to people over the past several months who started coming after that event. Well, I don't know if you knew this or not, but it it was it was a lot.

It was a lot. And I'm not even talking about the HOA reaching out to me later and telling me that too many of our people parked in their neighborhood. I'm like, anyways, I it was a lot. And so, we what would what would we say regularly when we were reminded of the calling of God on our lives?

we would say when it's it's worth it. And when David enters into his kingship, now he was anointed king uh many I think potentially years. I don't know how many years exactly. I'm sure scholars could tell me exactly how many years they think it was, but it was a good period of time between when David was anointed to be king and when he actually stepped into his kingship over the kingdom of Israel.

And when Dave David steps in, he does a couple real important cultural things that I think are really helpful. And one of the first things he does is what I want to talk to you about today. We're going to be in 2 Samuel chapter 6. If you don't know where 2 Samuel is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel.

See, you get me on stage. I'm gonna mess it up. I didn't memorize it like you Bible school kids. I didn't memorize it.

My kids know it, though. They know the scriptures better than I mean they know the memorization of the scriptures better than me. My 8-year-old ain't got nothing on me when it comes to the scripture. And I'm going to jump into that uh in a moment.

But what he does is he is bringing the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem. That's what this chapter is about. Now if you don't know what the ark of the covenant is and your only version of ark of the covenant was from Indiana Jones, then I want to tell you a little bit. It's very simple.

The ark of the covenant represented God's present among the people of Israel. It was something that was created by God. It was instated through Moses and it was something they carried. It represented the presence of God in the people of Israel.

And there had been a season where the ark had been taken and then they got it back. David, I believe the chapter before recovers the ark of the covenant. Well, it's been recovered, but it's been sitting in a different location. And David, when he comes into his kingship, he he gets he gets the capital city placed back in Jerusalem from where it was.

I'm trying to give you some context here. And then chapter six, he comes in and he what he's doing is he's trying to bring what represents the presence of God among the people of Israel back to the centerfold. He wants to bring the presence of God front and center to his kingship in Israel. Whereas formerly under his predecessor, it had been kind of placed to the side, deemed as unimportant, David is doing a very important thing for the kingdom of Israel, he is bringing the presence of God back.

So, let me jump into the scriptures and I'm going to try to give you a couple of pointers that I think will be helpful for you when it comes to bringing the presence of God back into your household. It may have been lost. You might have never had it. You might have it, but you want to take it to the next level.

That's what I want to tell you about today. Now, I want to be very clear because some of you are probably Bible scholars in the room. I want you to know that as I was diving into this text, there were so many principles, so many historical nuggets that I wanted to share with you, but I got less than 40 minutes to give you a sermon today. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring in a couple principles that I think are most potent in helping you bring the presence of God back into your household so that you can create a culture that we'll we'll talk about next week that will build a legacy for your family to inherit something that's greater than what you inherited.

If you're with me, say amen. Open your Bibles. Let's go. Starting in verse one, it says this.

David again brought together all the able young men of Israel, 30,000. I'm going to walk through it slowly, otherwise I'd have had like 30 scriptures for you today. I'm going to try to keep it helpful and simple for you. Now, it says David again.

David again brought. What happened in the chapter before was that David had to reconquer Jerusalem and take it back from a group of people called the Jebusites. You know the itites in scripture, he had to take it back from the Jebusites who had been occupying that territory. And as I was prepping this message, I was thinking about how when we bring the presence of God back into our households and in our lives, sometimes we've got to do what David did in the chapter before.

We've got to remove that which is occupying God's space. Y'all with me on that? He says David again brought together. So my first point to you is you got to remove the occupiers.

Now in ancient Israel, he was removing the occupiers. Now if you don't know this already in the Old Testament, when they talk about the Jebusites, the Perizzites, the uh the Canaanites, any of the itites, I could give you a long list. When he talks about those, there are two things that are represented there. One, it is a people group who are literally occupying the land that God wants them to inherit.

That's literal. That's the way that the text talks about. But every time the Canaanites are spoken of, it's not because God just hates people. He created people.

It's what those people represent. And what the Canaanites represented was a lifestyle that did not put God front and center. The same for the Jebusites, the same for the Moabites, the same for the people other than Israel. So when you're reading this passage, you have to read it in the context and understand that the Canaanites, it wasn't just the people God didn't like.

It was what they represented, which was a lifestyle that left God to the side. And so, you got to remove that in your life, which occupies God's current space. You might think for yourself, what is occupying God's space in my household? What is occupying God's space in my in my mind?

What's occupying God's space in my heart? Like, what is it? It could be approval. I talked about it recently, so I'm not going to hammer this home too hard, but how many of you in this room, if you want to be honest, I mean, a lot of people who are scared to raise their hand.

I just want you to be on. How many of you in this room are people pleasers? Look at all you. It man, I wouldn't consider myself a people pleaser except for the fact that when we launch this church, everybody gives me their opinion.

And I kind of want to do what their opinion is, but at the same time, if I disagree with it, I can't do it. But then I feel really terrible because I'm not doing the thing that they want me to do. and I'm trying to do the thing that God wants me to do. But then I feel really bad and then I talk too long and too quick and use too many words to tell them that I'm not going to do the thing that I want that they want me to do.

And and and that's cuz I'm a people pleaser. If you say something that I don't like, I'll probably respond with way too many words because I'm trying to circle around the bush and figure out how to not manipulate, persuade you into thinking the way that I think. Right? Because I'm a people pleaser.

If you're a people pleaser, that is something that could potentially be occupying God's space in your life. I've I've realized that because I would be at home dwelling on people's preferences rather than at home in the good book, God's book, trying to determine what principles he wants me to enact in our church and communicate to the church in the next week. I would be spending more headsp space worried about people's preferences than I was about God's principles as is occupying space. And I'm I'm learning to remove the occupation that people pleasing has in my life.

It could be simple like TV. I'm not going to ask because I don't want people to look at you and say, "You watch TV all the time? " Man, you're terrible. Uh, you know, when I tell people I watch a movie, um, what I'll do is I'll watch the first five minutes, and if I don't like it, then I turn it off.

And so, I've watched a lot of movies, but five minutes of those movies, and I really only watch a couple movies. I don't watch that many movies, but sometimes I'll be talking about the movies that I started and didn't finish, and then someone's like, "Man, you must be lazy or something watching all that TV. " Some of you, you might be occupying or spending too much time uh in front of your TV. Some of you, you might be spending too much time in front of your phone and it's occupying not just mental head space, which it does.

It's just literally taking up three to five hours of your day when you could be doing something not just productive, but spiritually productive. That's simple. That's easy. That's what they talk about all the time.

Some of you busy occupies all that territory. And when I say busy, what I mean is when someone says, "I'm busy," as like a summary term for their entire life. I like to dive in because I want to know what they're busy with. If you're busy with something unimportant or if you're busy with something important, many of us, the term busy is something we continue to have in our minds.

And when we actually put down on paper the things that we have to do, we actually become less overwhelmed because we realize just saying busy actually makes me more stressed than my task list. They're just busy. I'm I'm busy. I walk up to people, they're completely anxious and stressed.

They're just busy. And I look at their schedule. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I might have a little more capacity than some other people.

But sometimes I look at schedules, I'm like, man, you're anxious. But man, if you would just put this in place, this in place, this in place, and stop just saying busy, and actually articulate what you need to do, you'd be way less stressed immediately. Busy is what's occupying that headsp space? Some of you, it's finances.

How many of you have never worried about finances in your life before? Got one person back here. Tyler's like, "Somebody else does it for me. " That's what it's like.

That's my wife's job. She worries about the finances. And maybe you have it. If not, come teach me, brother.

I'll learn from you. But we worry about finances. And that's taking up so much head space. I'm not going to call us out as a family, but I'm going to talk about a conversation that we have, and I'll buy you shoes if you hate it.

You with me? Okay, cool. It it was her birthday yesterday. Sometimes my wife and I were having a conversation and the term finances is just so stressful because I'm thinking, are we going to have enough for retirement?

Some of y'all like, that's all you're thinking about? No, I'm thinking about, hey, how are we going to make sure this gets done this week? How are we going to make sure this happens? And for me, it's a little different.

Now, there we all share the weight of church finances. At least I hope you think that way. I think we share the weight. Um, but there's a little mental weight on me as a pastor when we talk about hiring people and we talk about things that we want to do.

Um, and then when you hire people, they always want to do something and that something they want to do costs money. And so then you're thinking about finances. For me, it's like the stress of home and the stress of church. And what I found is that just saying finances, it it just stresses me out.

But there's a way that we can operate that removes or reduces the amount of head space it takes. that might be occupying your family might be occupying. I was talking to a family recently and one of their testimonies was that it's like, man, we love our family, but we realize that um our what prevented us from serving is that we would hang out with our family every single day. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I love hanging out with my family, but we felt called to do this. And it was a weird tension. Sometimes family is a tension between you doing what God calls you to do. It could be occupying space.

I'll just go through the list quickly. How about comparison? You looking at what somebody else is doing. Addiction, politics, it comes in the way so often.

Um, anyways, nostalgia, the way things used to be, the way you experienced it. Guys, I'll tell you this. I be very careful. Please pray for me, Hannah.

Be very careful with this comment. When it comes to outreach, how many of you have done something outreach oriented? Doesn't have to be at a church or anything like that. How many of you have done something outreach oriented?

Right. All right. So, I I used to do outreach oriented things when I was a kid. My mom uh was really good at that.

She would take us to the Ronald McDonald House for Thanksgiving and then we'd go to the VA for Christmas and we'd pass out gifts. We would always do something outreach. Then I joined church and we would do mission trips or we'd do vacation Bible schools. I remember this one time at my first church as a pastor.

We went and built a wheelchair ramp for somebody. And it's interesting the things that people focus on. Um, but God might be calling us in a unique new direction, right? His mercies are new every morning.

I'm not saying he changes. I'm saying he changes the way that he appropriates things in our lives, right? So, it's really important for us to pay attention to God. And what I found is that nostalgia can occupy a space that God's meant to live in.

It's because what what happens is this is what people would tell me, guys. It's the craziest thing. This is what people would tell me. We would be giving 12% of our dollars to outreach.

We probably up 25 to 30% this year. It's crazy. um what's going to outreach. Uh but then never fails, someone comes up to me and tells me something that they did when they were a kid that they felt emotionally uh connected to and they're wondering why we don't do that very thing.

And someone came up to me one time and say, "Hey, why haven't we ever built a wheelchair ramp for somebody? " And I'm like, "Because we give organizations money who build wheelchair ramps for people and that they're way better at it than you. Trust me, right? " Like that.

I mean, it was it was nostalgia. I felt good doing this. And many of you, God wants to do something new in your life. And I know I'm quoting scripture here that's talking to the people that Isaiah was writing to.

But he says, "Behold, I'm doing a new thing. " Which I think is a spiritual truth that you can take forward to today. That he works in the future differently sometimes than he did in the past. And your nostalgia is keeping you from seeing the new thing that God wants to do.

You got to remove those occupiers in order to receive something different from God. Goodness, I'm spending way too much time on the occupiers things. Um, I I've been painting my house and I I'm realizing something really just super helpful is I'm a lazy painter. Anyone here a lazy painter?

I'm ask you to raise your hands today. I'm a lazy painter. Um, and what I mean by lazy painter is that there are things that you really need to remove when you're painting. You know, you know what I'm talking about.

Um, I told myself when I jumped into this pursuit of painting my entire house because my wife didn't want to spend the money. I said, I'm gonna remove obviously I'm going to remove the the outlet covers. Obviously, right? Um, but then I looked at the baseboards and I'm like, I should, but it's easier to do a shortcut I mean a cut in than it is to remove the baseboard.

And so I start cutting them in and I think it's a shortcut, but then I get paint on the thing uh that I could have just removed. And what happens for us in our spiritual walk is if we don't remove some of these occupiers, it becomes something that actually taints or at least makes it a little more tacky in your spiritual walk. What I mean by that is some people want to like have their cake and eat it too. They want to step into their spiritual walk but not remove some of the occupiers that are literally in the space that God wants to dwell in.

And and now what you have is you have a blend. How many of you know our culture, one of our biggest problems in the church is the blend. You got this blend where you want to you want to keep this activity, but then you want to spiritualize something. I saw a Tik Tok post last night.

I'm on Tik Tok way too much. I see dumb stuff all the time. Someone said, "I can do this. I'm a I vape.

I do this. I do this. I can't say the other things they did. I do this and I do this.

" But praise be to God that Jesus died on the cross. Amen. I'm glad you're invited. I'm glad Jesus died on the cross for that.

But Paul says it himself, that doesn't mean we shouldn't remove some of the occupiers. Because if we don't and we leave all of the stuff that derailed us in the first place, we end up trampling on the grace of God, needing his mercies constantly. And we will, but you keep you're trampling on the thing that he wants to beautify. You're tainting the thing that he wants to transform because you're keeping the occupiers in there.

Some of y'all just I could I could end the sermon there. Just remove some of the occupiers. This is what David does is he removed the Jebusites because he knew if the Jebusites remained then history was going to repeat itself and we were going to end up in the same boat that we started in. Second thing he did and this is what it says in that verse.

I don't know that I'm gonna finish all the verses today. Maybe I'll just take 10 more weeks on this. I'm just kidding. Um it says David again brought together all the able.

Can you put the scripture up there? All first verse, all the what kind of men? Young men. Okay, I want to be very careful because if you're older, I don't want you to feel bad about this.

But what's important about this point is he brought a certain group of people into the conversation. And so my second point to you is you got to get the right people in the room as you're having the conversation about how to bring God's presence back to your household. And I can't spend too much time on this point, but let me suffice it to say this. We believe in the youth here.

like we believe in what God's going to do through this next generation of people. And the people that God brought into the sorry that no David brought into the conversation was young people. But it doesn't just have to be young people. Again, young wasn't just an age thing.

It represents in our minds, or at least it should, a mindset. The reason you would say young people that he brought together as he's inheriting this kingdom, as he's taking it over from Saul and removing the occupiers and trying to bring the presence of God back to the forefront of their specific civilization, as he's bringing these people along, they're young, but they're young because they're following them. But the beauty of these young people is that they have a mindset that's willing to do something fresh, unique, and new. And so you've got to surround yourself with people that are going to help you think the way that God wants you to think.

And one thing I found about younger people, and again, try to extrapolate this beyond just young people and think about the mindset. You can be old and have these mindsets. You need to believe big things. You need to be aligned with the kingdom of God and not loyal to your past.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, but be loyal to God and not just what you're used to. Some some young people are very dissatisfied with the old ways of doing things and passionate about how God can use them to do things. You can do that at 60 years old, 80 years old. Um, young people tend to be a different type of worshipper, but you can be a different type of worshipper.

You can be passionate. You can be unhindered. We see this with uh David later in the passage. There's a reverence um that a new generation is bringing into Israel at the time.

And there's something I've noticed. I'm just say this about gen Gen Z is a lot of them are trying to they've grown up in the age of us of we millennial us millennials, right? They grew up in the age where we wanted to make everything cool and viby. And a lot of the Gen Z, they're they're like, I want something rooted and deep.

And they're trying they're trying to bring it back to this place where we're focused more on the presence of God than we are all the stuff. And I love that. We got to have that mindset. You got to be willing to do the things that old mindsets are hesitant to do.

And we're seeing a young people revival all across the world right now. Start I mean I see it in the UK. Um from 2018 there was 4% of I think young people who are well there was an increase from 4% of young adults attending church to 16% of young adults attending church in 2023. My point is we're seeing the same thing here that young people are starting to grasp a new mindset and I think God's going to use that to carry the presence of God or his presence forward into coming generations.

I'm excited about what God can do. But in your household, you can choose to bring the presence of God back. But you got to surround yourself with I'm I'm gonna say it this way. You've got to surround yourself with impossible people.

You got to surround yourself with impossible people. Not people who are impossible to be around. Um, you probably shouldn't. It's impossible to be around.

But people who believe in possible things. People who recognize what the scriptures say when it says that nothing's impossible with God. Or rather, all things are possible with God. People who recognize that when Jesus says, "Greater things will I do through the future generations than even the disciples," that he'll actually do greater things through future generations.

Um, I think we've got to have a mindset that says what Joshua and Caleb said that whether it's taking a mountain or whether it's the day lasting longer, God can do whatever he wants to do. We have to have people around us who believe impossible things. Do you think this church would have gotten started if there wasn't a bunch of stupid impossible people around me who were like, "This dude's dumb, but I'll follow him. " Right?

That's that's like that was the thought process. But they believe that God could do something. And so now something exists and it's going to continue to grow. I'm excited to be around impossible people.

Surround yourself with impossible people. What's the opposite of impossible people? Well, people I hate being around. I can't.

We can't. I We got stuff going on. This isn't reasonable. Like the older I get, the less impossible I think.

And it's kind of frustrating to be honest with you. I feel like kind of a wimp. And so I have the young people actually come up to me, "Stop saying that, pastor. Stop qualifying what you're thinking just because you think people in the room won't like what you're going to say.

Start being bold with the gospel because people are there to hear it and they'll receive it and then impossible things will be done through those people. I've got to surround myself with people who will motivate me to think that impossible things can happen. " And I guess I'll let you know, we're doing a Christmas event, too. And I'm I'm thinking about it that I'm like, but I I'm surrounded with impossible people.

Who cares how much it costs? We'll figure that one out. I care. We got to figure that one.

But we'll figure it out because God wants to do something. And we want to run hard after God because he's running pretty quick. He's capable at least. And so that's my thought process.

I want to surround myself with impossible people. Goodness gracious. All right. Now, let me skip.

I'm taking too long. See, I prepped this. I didn't plan to go this long on these first two points, but these first two points did came later in the sermon prep. So, I guess that's what happened.

Anyways, in in verse eight, we're going to jump in in a second, but I want to catch you up. Here's what happens. David intends to bring it back, the ark to Jerusalem, which is where David makes it the capital city, the presence of God now at the forefront of their country. And he goes to try to bring it back.

And he sends people to get it, these 30,000 people. They go grab the ark of the covenant from where it is, and they put it on a cart. We'll talk about that in a second. They put it on a cart and as they're bringing it on a cart, uh, the the oxen were like unstable and the ark starts to fall and there's this man named Usuza who decides he's going to try to stabilize it.

And when he touches the ark, he dies. I know y'all didn't expect that one, did you? When he touches the ark, he dies. Now, if you know the legal code, if you know what God said through Moses in the first five books of the Bible, you know that putting the uh putting the ark on a cart uh was not the command that he gave.

Um that it's something that needs to be entered into reverently. In fact, they're supposed to carry it on poles. And even though it seems a little crazy that touching an ark, the presence of God would cause death, it is something that God said. And when we don't lean into what God says sometimes, we don't get the results we're looking for.

And this is what happens. And it says this in verse eight after Usuza gets killed. And I'm not I'm not justified. I could tell you so much about it.

I ain't got time for it. I got got a few minutes left. Um it says this in verse eight. Then David was angry because the Lord's wrath had broken out against Usuza.

And to this day, that place is called Perez Usuza. Verse nine, David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, "How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me? " And I want to tell you this really quickly. I I've talked about how you need to get the right people in the room, how you need to remove the occupiers.

But say you're in this pursuit of who God is. You want to put God in the forefront of your family. There are other barriers, not just occupiers, but barriers that will prevent you from effectively bringing the presence of God into your household. And two of those are anger and fear.

And when I look at David here, this is something that David's struggling to understand. And I know for every single one of us, every single one of us, because it's happened for me. I know it's happened to several in this room. God has commands.

God has standards. God has a way that he does things. Sometimes the way that he does things is not perfectly disclosed to me. Well, maybe it's perfectly in his sight, but I don't understand what he's trying to do.

And when God does things outside of my will, though they are in the category of his will, sometimes I'm confused. And when I'm confused about what God's doing, I can often get angry and anxious. And for many of you, you think about the idea of bringing God back into your family, and all you're thinking about is the triggers from your past. You're thinking about that church you grew up in.

You're thinking about the things that Christians said to you. You're thinking about that thing that God allowed to happen in your life that made you angry at him. And now you're inhibited from bringing his presence back because of this anger. Many of you, it's not anger, it's just fear.

You're like, "What's going to happen if I revolve everything in my life around Jesus? I've developed a comfort level of revolving my life around myself or my kids or my extended family or my job. That's comfortable. It's tangible.

I can see it. But I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I start following Jesus wholeheartedly. David is in a similar boat. He's angry because he's confused and he's afraid about what might happen if he brings the presence of God and handles it incorrectly again.

But what I want to tell you is this. This is my point. Those things that you feel should not inhibit you, but they are real. So be honest about your emotions.

Many of us, we just push it to the side and start talking mess on Instagram whenever a church posts something. God didn't work for me. Every two seconds I see someone comment negatively about a church or one of my friends churches or people are frustrated at God or they're frustrated at the church for various reasons. But I want you to know that man, these emotions, though real, should not prevent you from stepping further and further into your relationship with God.

So my encouragement to you is to identify those emotions and call them out. You might be surprised about what happens as soon as you identify those emotions. Instead of blaming the church, look inward and say, "What am I feeling? " Instead of blaming some situation because of your fear and anger, like look inward and say, "Hey, what is actually causing this for me?

" For David, he actually named the place where it happened. He called it Perez Usuza. And I'm thinking about like seasons of my life where when I think about them, I get triggered. Or when I walk back into the spot where something happened, I get triggered.

There are seasons in your life that as you look back on, you've you may not have actually named them. um but internally or by default you associate emotions and feelings with them and that's what he did. Perez Usuza means a breach against Usuza and he named that place. It's a place where he remembered what God did that was confusing that caused him anger for you.

It might be something simple like I don't know when you arrive at the dentist office he's like you know feel maybe I don't I hate the dentist. There's a couple times where I got that real sensitive situation in my tooth. So, every time I walk into the dentist office, sitting in that chair, I don't care if there's a nice show on the TV or anything, I'm like, "This is miserable. I have this feeling.

" And some of you, when you show up at church, all those emotions come right back up. And while you're trying to encounter the presence of God, those emotions keep coming up. Identify them. It's okay.

Like, this is a safe space for you to identify the anger, identify the fear. But here's my encouragement to you is to move beyond that fear. As you be honest about it, it'll help you identify the triggers and recognize that some of them might be realities to encounter and deal with, but others of them might actually not be a reality any longer. And so now you can experience a fresh the move of God that's happening whether it's at a church or in God's word.

I'm convinced that people all over the country are missing out on Jesus because of the emotions that they feel when they think about God, Bible, or church. And I can tell you safely that whatever that experience is, it is not the true experience of God. Like he's so good. He's patient.

He's kind. He's long-suffering. He He's willing. He's willing to send his son to die for us.

That level of grace should not be leveled down to whatever the vibe is you feel when you walk into a building. And we've got to move forward beyond our feelings in order to get to the place where God can change us. And here's here's the truth. Like vibes is literally what keeps people out of church.

It's not the message. It's vibes. It's do I connect with the people? Do I connect with the worship?

Do I connect with anything? And and I just want to encourage you, move beyond the vibes and get to a place where God can actually do something helpful in your life. Man, I apologize that I'm not managing this well. I'm going to read verse 10.

He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the city of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Oed Edom the Gitite. Another ite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Oed Edom the Gitite for three months.

And the Lord blessed him and his entire household. Now, King David was told, "The Lord has blessed the household of Obedom and everything he has because of the ark of God. " So, David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obedom to the city of David with rejoicing. I love that.

I mean, David was in a real funk. He comes in and he's trying to bring in the ark of the covenant that houses the presence of God into Jerusalem so that he can be Yahweh God can be at the forefront of what they're doing as a people group. And you, you're trying to bring the presence of God. If you're here, I'm believing you're trying to bring the presence of God back to your family so that you can revolve your life around him and your household can be radically shifted by the good news of Jesus, which is that he can actually transform you even when you're struggling.

I'm looking forward to what God can do in each of you. I think you're here for that reason. Um, but it was a struggle bus for David dealing with the anger and the emotion. And what it took was not someone giving him feedback.

It didn't take someone like me standing there and saying, "Hey, you shouldn't let that be an inhibitor. It took results. " And so he sends the ark of the covenant to Obedom, the Gitite, the Israelite, the Gitite, and his household is blessed within three months. And he hears about it.

And so David hears this information and he's like, "Oh, I guess I just needed to see a little testimony about what God does when we bring his presence into the forefront. " So here's my next point to you. Listen to the testimonies of others. Don't just listen to me.

Listen to what others have experienced. Um over the next couple of months, my hope would be that we share volunteer stories, small group stories, giving stories, stories of people who have tested God in the area of serving, giving, um like small grouping, any number of items, opening the Bible, they've tested God in these areas, and they've seen results. And while you might be inhibited because of your fears, uh or your your anger, you might be inhibited because of what occupies the current territory that God wants to take over, it could be that you're not around the right people. When you hear testimony from people who have experienced that which you have yet to experience, it's moving.

And so for David, he's experiencing that in this moment. And so it's pretty quick that David tries to bring it again, the ark of the covenant, the presence of God back to Jerusalem. And I'll give you my final point really quick. Just read the instructions.

Read the instructions. The reason it didn't go well the first time, the reason he landed in anger is because his understanding of who God was and the reverence necessary to step into that relationship, it was limited. That or he just didn't take it very seriously. But the second time he goes into it, I can promise you because you read it in first Chronicles 15 and 16 as well.

He read the book. He looked at the requirements. He looked into the reverence necessary in order to transport the presence of God from point A to point B. And he said, "We're going to do it right this time.

" I've heard the testimony of people and I want to bring God to the forefront of my life. I want to remove the occupiers. I want to do what's necessary to get God here. And in order to bring God from there to here, I need to look at the instructions he's given.

And I want you to know you have a word right in front of you, the Holy Bible, that is helpful for you in bringing God's presence into your household. But you got to open it. Otherwise, you're just going to be spinning your wheels trying to figure out. You're going to talk to God once in a while, but you don't even know how to talk to him because you haven't opened the word of God.

You're going to be thinking certain things that some random person told you way back in the day, but you're not opening the Bible to see what God would tell you in a specific circumstance. His able I mean, sorry, the word is God breathed and it will breathe life and inspiration into you. So when you open it and read the instructions, he'll give you the way to walk and the way to operate. And David read the instructions or his priests, the people he empowered.

And when they go about it the second time, they go to Obedom and they grab the ark of the covenant and they bring it forward all the way to Jerusalem. And it's crazy. Let me read it. Verse 13.

When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Now, the way you would translate that typically is every six steps they put the poles into it. They're carrying it by hand. They're walking it.

They're not putting it on a cart to where it could easily fall off this time. They're they're doing it the right way. And every six steps, they're going above and beyond. They're like, "Man, I want the presence of God here.

So, I'm going to attend to every moment of my walk trying to get him into my life. Every moment of my walk trying to deposit him into my into my kids' lives. Trying to love my wife in such a way that I deposit the presence of God into her as well. I am going to be adequately reverent.

I'm going to read the instructions. I'm going to do what is necessary because God's presence should be front and center. It's not just a luggage that I toad around. I It needs to be I've got to be reverent like a couple other rules they had for the Ark of the Covenant.

No touching. I think they learned that one, right? No touching. No looking inside.

These are random rules. And you might think that's stupid that God would kill somebody because he touched the ark of the covenant. We're not the ones who make the rules. This is what he gave us.

And there are so many commands in scripture, so many lifestyle um descriptions that you can see when you look from Abram all the way to the end of the book. When you look at them, you can see how you're called to live. And while it might not make sense, it might be confusing at first, when you bring his presence, I can tell you, I can testify that when you bring his presence into the forefront, he changes everything for the better. And there are some of you in this room, you need to put God at the forefront of your life.

Now, let me jump forward to the middle of the book where we see what God did to enable us to constantly access his presence, not in the ark of a covenant, but by the person and work of Jesus, who offered himself up on the cross so that we might have life abundantly, forgiveness of sin. He raised to walk three days later as a testimony. It seats him at the right hand of the father. It shows us that that forgiveness of sin comes to pass.

And the Bible says that the way that we encounter God's presence and begin bringing it into the center of our hearts is by confessing with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead. So, if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I want to pray a prayer for you to enter into a connection with God for the first time. We pray it all together here for the benefit of those doing it for the first time. Repeat after me.

Say, "God, I believe that Jesus died on the cross, that he rose from the grave, that offers forgiveness for me. Father, forgive me of my sins. Help me walk with you. and I will follow you for the rest of my life.

It's in Jesus's name that we pray. Amen. And let's celebrate those who