THE SINS YOU NEVER KNEW!

Yeah, you found the right place. All disheveled and whatnot. I hope everybody's doing well. Let's see here. Sending prayers of comfort for Sharon. As you might imagine, right right about now, the pain drugs and all the nerve blocks have have ended. A blissful time. Any of you here that have had major surgeries, you know, sweet. Don't feel nothing. You come out of that surgery, you're like, hey, I feel great. Sleepy. Thank you, Robbie. My throat a little sore, but I feel great. Then about a day and a half later. By the way, hey, Sean, spelled correctly. Hello, Robbie, Tammy. Goodness, a whole bunch of folks. Susan. I hope you all are doing well. God bless you. Well, Miss Sharon did listen. She actually heard us praying for her as she was being wheeled out of her room and into surgery. How about that? She said it was a massive blessing. She asked that you continue to pray because times are tough. And uh we are pulling for her and we love her. And uh we're gonna keep on, keep it on. And Linda, good evening, good evening, good evening. So it's good to be here. I hope you all are good. Um, I am in the process, just a quick announcement before we get started on the Sunday summation. Did you ever choose God? Exodus 35 through Leviticus 3, days 85 and 89, to 89. I think 89. And I I'm gonna just tell you, I'm working on something uh that will either get me banned or something. I don't know. I hope it doesn't, but uh I have decided that I am sick to death of how people are treating the memory of Charlie Kirk, how they're treating Israel, how they're treating Jews, how they're treating our history sick to death of it.

So tired, tired, tired of it. So I'm I'm sick of it.

So anyway, did the screen just freeze just now? They just changed the setting, which was probably stupid to do while live. Uh but I figured y'all will tell me and I'll undo it if I can. Anywho, yeah, I'm in the process of writing it now. I have to write it in little bits and pieces. I'm not doing super great uh health-wise, so I'm trying to trying to work on getting my strength up and spend a lot of time in bed, which I don't love, but seems like that's kind of how things are going. And I'm writing little bits at a time. So uh yeah. So anyway, but we continue to soldier on. We will not quit, and uh that'll be that. That'll be that. We're good. Okay. Robbie says we're good. All right. So I've entitled this Did You Ever Choose God and the God Who Moved First? And two titles because I couldn't decide. And then I went with You Never Started. And um so it's kind of all of those things, and you'll see why here in a little bit. I don't know how many of you have been with us for um for all of the episodes this this past week. I I don't know what that number is. Um I hope that that many of you have, but I'm going deeper on this, and um and there's some things that I I couldn't point out during, but I really want to. Hello, Miss Colleen. Um, and Miss Colleen is finally feeling better. Thank you all for your prayers. You're very kind. And we will continue to pray for all of you. Uh you are you are our prayer list. So all that said, uh, we're gonna we're gonna truck on here. So there was nothing remarkably easy about this past week. There was some element of dread going into it. Well, this coming week, not for nothing. Gonna be the same way. I want to give you a reminder. Remember, next Sunday through the next Sunday, the only place you're going to be able to hear the broadcast is on YouTube. There, if you're not a uh subscriber, you got to go to YouTube. True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, S-H-A-W-N, the one with about 4,000 subscribers. Click on subscribe, click on the little bell, click on the thumbs up while you're at it. For that whole week, that's the only way you're gonna be able to hear the broadcast. Um, anyway, so there's a fear, and it and it it lives quiet in a lot of us. It does, it lives quiet in a lot of us. By the way, I should say up front, this is gonna be a little bit of a heavy episode. So, how's the lighting, by the way? I changed the lighting all around. By comparison, any better? Anything, any suggestions? Amen. Thank you, Tammy. Tammy has been here since the beginning. Prayers for all. God bless you. You are a person of great faith. We have we have such amazing, amazing. By the way, only only 4% of our regular listeners are subscribers, if you can believe that. That's why I say it every week, because the numbers are low. Uh, but anyway, I'm not gonna harp on that. There will be some emotion in this episode. Um, that this is not an easy topic. Right? The the topics that we're gonna work our way through, not easy. This past week, you you watch me boo-hoo. Go back and listen to them, watch them if you want. If you can't bear the look of my face, can't blame you. A, B, uh, you can listen on uh Spotify. But really, not even just it's all of them. It's all of the podcast things. I think it is balanced, good, sound is good too. Thank you, Miss Colleen. I appreciate that. So you you you would have seen or heard me, boo-hoo. And uh, you know, things things are hard for me a little bit right now, and uh not right now, they've been hard for me for years, but they're getting harder, and uh I I can't ignore that. But I also am so committed to doing with whatever I have left in my body, serving God and serving his people, and that's you. Um, and then helping to bring people to faith in Christ and and to know God and and to make him known and uh doing the best I can. But I also understand I'm a human being and I got some problems, and you know, we'll keep on and keeping on until we can't keep on anymore. Now, why do I say that right after I said there's a fear that lives quiet in a lot of us, and we almost never say it out loud. Well, if I'm to ask you to do something, then far be it for me to not be willing to do it myself. So it's the fear that the door closed while you weren't looking. That somewhere back there, you spent your one chance. You spent it. You said no too many times, or you said yes to the wrong thing too many times, and God, who used to feel close, just went quiet. He didn't slam anything, he didn't warn you, he stepped back, and now every hard week, every prayer that goes nowhere, every service that you sit through feeling nothing lands on you, has the same verdict. You're too late. You think you think that, you feel that, I'm too late now. Whatever window was open for me at one time, well, it's shut now. And you're standing on the wrong side of the glass. So you do the math. You do the math you've done a hundred times, a thousand times. If you want anything from God from here on out, you'll be the one who has to reach to Him. You'll have to climb back up. You'll have to be good enough and sorry enough and consistent enough for long enough to earn your way back into a room you're certain you got locked out of a long time ago. In this episode, I want to walk you through a week where the whole nation should have been locked out for good. They just built a golden calf. They just watched Moses throw the covenant on the ground and shatter it at the foot of the mountain. And instead of leaving them outside to earn their way back in, God did something that breaks your math completely. He gave them the desire to give. He gave them the skill to build. He handed them the plans. He filled the finished house with himself. And then, but not one of them could get through the door, he spoke first. Every single move toward God that week started with God. I'm Dr. Sean, and this is true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean. Thanks for joining us today. Shalom. We gathered the whole week. Days 85 through 89, Exodus 35, all the way to Leviticus 3. This is the week where people rebuilt the very thing their sin had nearly cost them. It's the week the glory came down so heavy that even Moses had to stand outside of his own finished work. And it's it's the week a brand new book opens on one small Hebrew word that quietly settles who starts the conversation between heaven and a human being. By the way, if you're new here, you picked the right night to walk in through the door, pull up a chair, we're going to take our time. Here's where the story traveled while you weren't looking. Monday, the ash was warm from the calf, and the Mose, and I call him Moshe because that's his real name. If he walked in the room right now and said, Hey Moses, he wouldn't, he'd go, Who? Who's behind me? What's where who's Moses? And does he have any food with him or anything to drink? No, he wouldn't know who you were talking about. But we call him Moses. You know, we've we've, I guess, to some degree anglicized his name. And that's okay. It's okay. It is how it is. So he called the people together and he asked for an offering, not a fine, not a penalty, an offering. And the text says something startling. The ones who came weren't the ones who were ordered to. They were the ones whose hearts stirred them. Gold and blue and scarlet and skins and silver came pouring in from people who days earlier had been melting down their jewelry to make into an idol. Same gold, different direction. And it kept coming until the craftsmen had to beg Moses to make them stop. Imagine that. If we had to tell the faithful to stop giving because we have too much. By midweek, the making began. Bezalel and Oholieb filled, the text says, with the Holy Spirit of God, with skill and intelligence and knowledge in every craft, curtains, boards, and the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altar, the courtyard, every socket counted and recorded. Thursday the finished pieces were carried to Moses, and over and over you hear the same six words. As the Lord commanded Moses. Not as they improved on it. Not as they designed it. As it was given. Tammy says, I'm learning Hebrew from here. Love learning. Well, I'm I'm happy about that. I'm happy about that. Little by little, inch by inch, life's a cinch. So then Friday, the tent went up and the cloud came down, and the glory, the Kavod, filled the Mishkan so completely that Moses couldn't enter. The builder shut, shut out of the building. Moses. And right there, at that impossible threshold, a new book opens. Leviticus chapter 1, verse 1. And the first word out of it isn't it's not an instruction. It's a call. God speaks first. And the whole system of drawing, drawing near. It begins with him. Because he spoke first. That's the whole arc of the week. And you can feel which way it leans, from a shattered covenant to a funded house, to a finished house, to a filled house, and finally to a spoken name. There are five threads. Five threads. They run the length of this week. And once you see them, you can't unsee them. The first thread is this. A willing heart. And in verse 21, the phrase is literally his heart lifted him, or his heart carried him. Now hold that. Hang on to that. Pinch that there. The verb nasa. It's spelled, it's we spell it N-A-S A, like NASA, but it's it's spelled in Hebrew Nun Sin Aleph. To lift to carry. It's the same verb scripture uses for God, lifting and carrying sin away and forgiveness. Alex, good to see you. Good to see you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. God bless you as well. Isn't that interesting? The same verb scripture uses for God lifting and carrying sin away and forgiveness. That's crazy, isn't it? The very impulse to give wasn't self-generated. Their hearts were carried toward the offering. Even the wanting was a gift. The second thread. Bazalel is the first man in the entire Bible said to be filled with Rach Elohim, the Spirit of God. And what's he filled with? The Spirit of God to do? Metalwork, woodwork, weaving. Exodus 35 calls it chukmat lif. Wisdom of the heart, skill. We tend to think of spirit filling as something for prophets and preachers. First time it lands on a man in scripture, it lands on a craftsman, a tradesman, lands on his hands. And the craftsman himself. The craftsmanship itself is on loan from God. Third thread. Count how many times Exodus 39 and 40 repeat that phrase. As the Lord commanded Moses. Remember those words. Seven times in one stretch. Not once does anyone contribute a design idea. Not once. Well, Lord, yes, I do. I do like that. I like the color. I like how it's coming all together. But what I think, what nice little gold thread through there in the right in the middle, nice white belt, big buckle? No, none of that. None of that. I like chartreuse. No, not a bit. By the way, lest you think uh so offensive to gay people, I have many gay friends. Yes, I know, shocking, but I do. And I have gay relatives, and they think it's hilarious, my little imitation. So stop with the whining, politically correct crap. Some things are funny. They make fun of me, I make fun of them. I don't do it in a mean way. So whatever. Seven times in one stretch, as the Lord commanded Moses. Nobody could nobody, nobody goes, uh. The whole thing is built to the Tafnit. The pattern Moses was shown on the mountain, the Tavnit. Human hands, divine blueprint. They supplied the labor. They did not supply the plan. The fourth thread here. The presence was given. Presence was given? Was it Christmas? No. Presence. When the tent is finished, nobody summons God into it. The cloud comes, the glory falls, and the word for tent tells the story. Mishkan. From the root shakan. Remember last week I made a joke. This past week, Shaka Khan. Shaka Khan.

Yeah.

Well, it wasn't a great joke. I didn't say it was great. I just said I remember when I made a joke. It's uh spelled Shinkaf Nun, to dwell. It's not the house that reaches up, it's the dweller who comes down. Capital D. And he comes down so heavily that Moses, the one man who'd been up the mountain, face to face with God, he cannot even step inside. In the fifth thread, I'm trying to make a five. I'm gonna try to make a five. Hold on. Ready? If you knew how hard that was. Stupid, I know. Brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, it's nuts. What'd you do today, little Sean? What did you do at school today? I made the number five with my hand. It's crazy. You gotta laugh. You can't sit around and cry all the time. Some stuff is funny. So the fifth thread, the one that opens Leviticus and holds the other four together. The first word was given, chapter one, verse one. And he called. The offering system that fills the entire book, the Qurban from the Rutkar, Kuf, Rish, Bit, to draw near. All of it begins not toward a human climbing toward God, but with God calling a human in. Even the way to approach him is his idea spoken first from inside a room no one else could enter. And watch what watch what that call is. Opens into because Leviticus doesn't stay, we'll say, abstract for very long. The first three chapters lay out three ways to draw near, and each one is a gift before it's ever a duty. There's the Ola, the burnt offering, from the root Allah, Elef Lemed He, to go up. The whole animal ascends, ascends. Nothing is held back, the entire animal. And it's the picture of total consecration. There's the mincha or mincha, the grain offering, the gift of the ordinary, flour and oil, the produce of your everyday labor, handed back to the one who grew it in the first place. And then there's the shalamim, the peace offering. From shalom, the one offering the worshiper actually sits down and eats. A meal shared with God. A restored table. And over all three, one small phrase keeps landing. Rech Nechoak. Your English Bible probably says a pleasing aroma. Though some translations say a soothing aroma. And that little gap is worth paying a second of your attention. The word necho nechoach nechoak. I don't want to spit on my. That comes off the root nuak. To rest, to settle. So it isn't that God's hungry and the smell feeds him. It's that the drawing near settles something important. That it brings a kind of rest between heaven and a human being. An aroma that brings rest. And if that root, well, maybe it's ringing a little bit of a bell in the back of your head. Hold on to it loosely. Hold on loosely. How many of you, how many of you the rest of that line played? You had to be grown up in the 80s to get that one. I don't know, maybe some of you will get it. Put it in put it in comments if you got it. I probably you know what? I probably have the lyrics completely wrong. I I don't remember an entire decade, so. You know, that could have just been some fixture of my imagination. But I'm pretty sure it was a big song. Anyway. Scripture plays on the sound of Nuach and the name Noah. Without making a strict origin. There you go, there you go, Robbie. And don't let it go. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hi, Miss Nancy. There she is. That's the lady, that's the reason. She's the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. She spoke a word into my life. Many of you have heard the story. Powerful. Anyway. Noach. We can't make it a strict word origin because the the text doesn't permit that. Language, culture, and context, the the lexicon won't allow it, but Noah, the resonance is real. Even when the etymology of the word is a little bit looser. The rest is the point. Desire, skill, pattern, presence. And the first word, five threads, not one of them started with a person. Not one of them started with a human being. I mean, I think that's a big deal. Now, here's the deepening. This is kind of the theological center of it all. And this is the part, no single weekday had the room to say it fully or plainly. Because you know we're trying to hustle, even though it doesn't sound. If you look at the lengths of time, it doesn't look like I'm hustling because some of the episodes are an hour and a half. And you know, some are shorter. This week they'll be shorter. They have to be shorter. I don't have the physical strength to sit up. So I got a bunch of medical stuff this week, so I I do I have to try to preserve my energy some. Sitting is really difficult. So people say, Well, how do you write these? Well, I lay down, I have a little laptop and I clicky click-ity-clickity. But uh, thank God I was able to um I I've written so far, I've counted 4,000 uh things, separate things, not counting my book or any of my doctoral dissertations or my any of my master's thesis or even any of my academic work, just things I've written, because I'm a weirdo uh for the past two decades. And fortunately, um I'm able to use AI to go in and shape them and um and to be able to categorize them. Uh AI said to me, we we can't count the number of words uh because it has to be in so many different um documents that are numbered one, two, three, three hundred, four hundred. Um kid you not, uh, that it goes, hey, we can't count that. So there's a well of millions and millions of words, and I've written them, and I've written them over the last 20 years, a little bit more than that. And I said all that to say this. You know, as we I think the learning process is fascinating. As you many of you know, I had to relearn, to relearn language, my own. I lost all of my learned languages. Um learning how to do the simplest, weirdest things. And there's an element of humility with learning, right? And so when you go to a normal church, and this is nothing against them, I love church. Um, I did not have the strength to sit up to go to church today. So unfortunately, they frown on you, falling out, right? If I was in a Pentecostal church, man, they'd be dancing around me, right? Y'all be like, oh, he fell out in the spirit of the Lord, the Lord fell on him. Spirit of the Lord fell on him, he fell out. Well, they frown on that in a reformed church, and uh plus the floor is hard. So I thought staying in bed was probably the better thing, literally all day. My point is this is that's a that's a that's humility. If you knew me before, you would go, yeah, I can imagine how that would humble you. But learning something that's so radically different from what we're taught and what we've experienced. If you're a church person, if you've been to church, uh you you good job, Tammy. Tammy's got you back there, Robbie. Singing harmony. So this part is important. I know it sounds like I'm rambling, but I'm really not. I'm trying to put this in a way that releases you from being frustrated. Because once you feel frustrated, or once you feel rushed or anxious, you then can't learn as well. So the deepening here, the expansion here, you have to release your heart to and go, it doesn't matter that I don't know it. It doesn't matter that it takes some time. 38 special. Ow, the full circle, 38 special. Hold on, Louis, and don't let it go. They weren't a country band. Anyway, so don't worry if there's a period of time while listening to this mission and this ministry. We're not a 501c3, so if you give anything, you're not going to get a slip of paper going, you gave such and such on so and so. It's not tax deductible. But I appreciate any any help people give, it's wonderful. All that said, there are people who are frustrated that this is so hard because it's so different. Don't worry about that. Let that go. It's okay. It's a hundred percent okay. You can do it, you can do it. You don't have to be uh a uh a theologian, you don't have to be a uh uh uh a scholar, you don't have to be any of those things, you don't have to have any of that stuff on the wall, guaranteed. So, all of that out of the way, I want you to step out of Israel for a hot minute. What is a hot minute, by the way? Could somebody just tell me uh what is a hot minute? I hear people say that, or maybe they don't even say it anymore. Maybe I'm just getting to it and it's already out, which is how it works with me. So I want you to step out of Israel for a lukewarm minute, hot minute, whatever kind of minute you want. And I want you to stand in the ancient Near East where all this was happening, around them. I want you to imagine this. In the world surrounding Israel, temple building ran on a fixed logic. The gods were needy, small g. They, small t got hungry, they got tired, they got cranky, and a temple was the solution, man. Oh man, I'm gonna build a fancy temple. That'll make them not mad at me. You built, small g, God, a house so that the god, small g would have somewhere to live, and something to eat. And in exchange, if you build it well and you fed it faithfully, the God, Small G, who owed, he would owe you. Oh, well, you did all this for me, I'm gonna help you out. The king who built the temple secured his own legitimacy by it. The whole arrangement ran uphill, from human effort toward divine favor. You initiated, the God responded. That was the machine, and Walton and scholars in his stream have shown how deeply engraved in everything, how deeply that logic saturated the world Israel lived in. Now, I want you to look at what Exodus does with that logic. It runs it completely backward. So, where does the gold come from to build this house? Exodus 12. It's the plunder of Egypt. It's wealth God had already handed them on the way out the door. If you don't remember it, go back and listen to it. By the way, it these are all free. Uh YouTube sent me a report, I've done over 4,000 videos so far. 4,000. You kidding me? You can go back to day one. And if you're a podcast person, uh and you want to listen, hello, Miss Carolyn. Good evening, good evening. If you're a podcast person, then by all means, every podcast that probably exists, I'm on. Listen to those, but you know, Monday through Friday, as I'm able, listen to those. You can listen, you know, one and then 90, 2, and 91, or how many ever you want to listen to in a day. And they're free, by the way. Miss Linda says, mean either a short period of time or ironically a long time, depending on the context. Amen. Amen. And Sean says, just means a long time. 100%. So where does the desire? Why would why would the Egyptian I don't know if you thought of this, and I know I talked about it, and I don't know if you remember. Yes, I'm holding my head up now, because it's gonna fall over if I don't. So I know it's rude to put my hand under my chin, but I can't hold my head up anymore. So, unless you want to see my head hit my chest, I mean, you know, we're gonna improvise. So it's the plunder of Egypt. Wealth God had already handed them on the way out the door of Egypt, and I don't know if you know this, but I talked about this. And and and I honestly don't I don't know what went through the minds of the Egyptians, but I know, you know, as the plagues were coming to uh to an end, they were coming to a head, the Egyptians were like, Yo, get on out, we'll pay you if you have to. And I don't know what they thought of Pharaoh. Can you imagine how much they would hate the guy? Secretly, of course, because he'd have him killed otherwise. Why are you making us go through all this? Just submit to God, their God, the the Israelites' God. Submit to him. Man, he's slamming us here. We can't take more. So they handed the Jews, the Israelites, I should say at this point, wealth as they as they were leaving. But where does the desire to give it come from? A heart God stirred. Where does the skill to shape it come from? A spirit God poured out? Where does the design come from? A pattern God revealed. And when the house is finally standing, God doesn't move in because the rent is paid. He moves in as a gift. And he moves in so fully that the builders can't even come inside to admire it. And then, from the inside, he does the one thing no ancient little g god was ever pictured doing first. He calls his people to come near. Do you feel the reversal? Every single input in this house, the money, the wanting, the ability, the plan, the presence, and finally the invitation, every one of them originated on God's side of the ledger. The people aren't initiators buying divine favor. They're recipients learning how to receive what God is already handing them. How many here are bad at receiving compliments or gifts? They're learning. They're learning. That's what the whole sacrificial system actually is. It isn't a machine for climbing up to God. It's God's teaching people how to receive the nearness he keeps offering. Here's the sharpest edge of the whole reversal, the one that would have stunned anyone raised in the world around Israel. In every temple surrounding them. The offerings were literally food. The little God, little G God, well, little G God got hungry. So you fed it. And a fed God was a favorable God. But listen to how Israel's God talks about his own altar centuries later. Looking back on this entire system. If I were hungry, I would not tell you. For the world and everything in it is mine. He never needed the meal. He was never being fed. So if the offering doesn't feed God, what's it actually for? It's for you. Every Riach Nchoat that was ever settled over that altar, it wasn't God getting something he lacked. It was a person being handed away home. The nations around them built elaborate machines to meet the needs of hungry gods. Hey Lynette. Good to see you. The nations around Israel had to Israel, I'd say, they built elaborate machines to meet the needs of hungry little g gods. Israel was handed handed a table by God. By a God, the God, who needs absolutely nothing and gives absolutely everything. There's a word for a God that moves first like that. Before you've asked, before you've cleaned yourself up, before you've led yourself to believe you deserve it now, you're clean enough. That word is chesed. Covenant love that binds itself to you and acts before you deserve it. And here's the truth: the whole week was circling. And I'll speak it plainly here. Your worship has never once been you initiating with God. From Sinai to wherever, whatever room you're listening, your car, your living room, your bedroom, wherever. Sitting outside on your deck or your patio. Your worship has never once been you initiating with God. All the way from then, all the way to wherever you are right now, it has always and only been response. That ought to land on you as the deepest relief you felt in a long time. Because if worship were initiation, then it would rise and fall on your energy. And if it rises and falls on my energy, I'm in trouble. Because I don't have any. It would rise and fall on your own discipline. It would rise and fall on how good you were, your streak of good days strung together. And you already know how those run out. But if worship is response, then the thing that keeps it alive isn't your strength or my strength at all. It's his faithfulness in reaching over and over on the days you feel it and on the days you feel nothing. I caution people all the time. They say, Oh, I felt the presence of the Lord in the house tonight. You know, the music is especially good. The uh preacher uses all the trigger words to get you thinking about giving and gets you emotionally whipped up, and it all falls into place, and you feel the presence of the Lord. Let me tell you what, the presence of the Lord is in this little bitty studio. The presence of the Lord is where you're sitting right now, and it's not because of anything we could do. It's not because of any amount of energy. I'm literally holding my head up right now with my hand. I got one hand that works. I kind of need this one. But even still, I can worship him. That's the whole reason. It's the word for covenant love and not the word for good mood. You see, we go with emotionalism and mood with our worship. It's folly to do that. Many of you out there are in terrible physical pain. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You are in dire straits. And you're you're worshiping through the pain. Some of you are so riddled with grief. You've you've lost people that are so important to you that you you can't imagine going on without them. I always say, I always ask, you know, I I used to do uh grief seminars or workshops, really, because I teach you how to manage it. And I say to them, how much did you really love your lost person? And I do them, I did them predominantly for gold star families. And I'd say, how much did you love your lost hero? Oh man, are you kidding me? Bigger than bigger than the world. Okay. How much did they love you? I think a lot. Okay. What would they want for you? What what dreams did you have for your for your hero? What what dreams did you have for them? Because I'm gonna tell you. And they would say to you, get up. Get up, I'm I'm gone from the earth, but you're not. Get up. Do stuff. Live. Smile, laugh. If I were there, do what I do what you'd be doing if I were there. One of the moms at one of the I had to laugh. The whole place roared. Everybody was in tears, and and these are all gold star families, and they all most of them happen to be from Extortion 17. And and uh I don't say they've really been through it. And and I said, Well, what would they say to you if they were in the room right now? Or what would you say to them if they were in the room right now? Like under normal circumstances. And one of the moms shouted out, clean your room. It was perfect. Death is hard. Grief is the it's the tuition of love. Some of you, some of you are are going through physical illness, mental illness, spiritual illness. Some of you are struggling just to put food on your own table. Some of you, I happen to know, are very wealthy. And you feel guilty. All of us got stuff, y'all. Your worship has nothing to do with mood. Your Bible reading has nothing to do with your mood. If it does, you're in trouble. The Lord wanting to spend time with you has nothing to do with how good or not good you've been. That is the exact shape of the gospel. If you have your Bible with you, turn to John chapter 1. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the Greek verb under dwelt is eschenosin. Eskinosin. He pitched his tent. He tabernacled among us. John isn't reaching for some random image. He's reaching all the way back to this week. The Mishkan, the tent where the glory came down. That becomes a man. The dwelling learns to walk after learning to crawl. I wish I could help you see it. I wish I could help you see it. The dwelling learns to walk. She was holding. Remember Moses standing outside the finished tent because the glory was too heavy to enter. That door stayed a problem all the way to the cross. And then Metadiahu or Matthew tells us that at the moment Yeshua died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. The house you could not enter, he opened with his own body. The glory that shut Moses out is the same glory that in Yeshua, Jesus, tears the curtain and pulls you in. The varikra. The first word of Leviticus. God calling before anyone approached. That's the whole gospel in a single Hebrew word. I want you to hear how John says it back to you centuries later. We love because he first loved us. First, he called first. You didn't find God. God was never lost. You didn't find Jesus. Jesus was never lost. He was calling your name from inside the house while you stood outside doing the math on whether you were good enough to knock. Ephesians 2. You who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. Not you climb near. Look, you were brought, carried, lifted. The way their hearts were lifted toward the offering. Remember, remember the person, the friend. And Yeshua was inside the house and he was teaching and he was on a homemade stretcher and they couldn't get him. They couldn't get close enough. Crowd was too huge. So they lifted him up off on the roof. And they cut a hole in the man's roof they didn't even know. They didn't even know him. They just did it because they believed. Look at them one more time. This time look at him. Look at them through him. Through Yeshua. The Olah, the whole burnt offering that ascends with nothing held back. Is Yeshua giving himself entirely? The total consecration no animal on the altar could ever carry. The ordinary grain lifted up is his body given. This is my body broken for you. You and the Shalamim. The peace offering, the one offering where God and the worshipper sat down. And they eat together. They eat together. That's the table he set on the last night. And it's the table he's still setting tonight. He is the offering and he is the host. He is what ascends for you. He is the one who sits down to eat with you too. I don't know how more plainly I can say it, so I want you to hear it. You have never once, never not one time, initiated with God. Not tonight, not at your best moment, not on the day you first believed. Grace is not God meeting you halfway. Grace is God building the road and the house and the door and then calling your name from inside the house. So what do you actually do with a week like this? Three things. And they're doable starting tomorrow, tonight, even. One, reframe one contribution. Somewhere in you is a thing that you've quietly counted as your part, your consistency, your service, your clean-ish record. This week, once a day, out loud, name that thing and thank God for it as something He supplied, not something you generated. Say it plainly. You gave me even this. Watch what it does to the pride and the panic at the same time. Pick one morning, one. Pick one morning this week. I'm only asking for one for Pete's sake. And before you ask God for a single thing, open your Bible to Leviticus 1, verse 1, and then, or maybe even also John 1, and read three verses slowly. Receive before you request. Let the first word of the day be his, not yours.

Three. I think I made a three. Yeah.

Give one, by the way, there's no connection between brain and my hands. So who knows what they're doing? Sorry if I waved with my angry finger. Three. And this for some is super hard. Give one hidden gift. This week. Do one act of Nedivlev. One free will gift that no one will ever see. And they'll never thank you for it. Are you listening? Is anybody hearing me? No one ever sees it. No one will ever thank you. No post, no mention, no humble brag, no credit. Let your heart be carried toward it the way theirs were. Then this one. Desire you didn't manufacture, a word you didn't start, a gift no one records. That's the weak lived. I know that's difficult. I'll say it again for you. Desire you didn't manufacture. A word you didn't start. And a gift no one records, no ledger. That's the week lived. I have for you tonight a challenge and a choice. It breaks my heart to give it to you. Here's the choice in front of you tonight. You can keep standing outside the glass. Sorry, hold. I'm not dying. Diabetes. Stupid. Hold one moment. It's dumb. You can keep standing outside the glass. You can do this tonight, by the way. Or tomorrow morning, whenever you're listening. Whether you're listening live or on playback. Look, you can keep standing outside the glass doing the math, trying to be good enough, sorry enough, consistent enough. Try to earn your way back into a room you were never actually locked out of. You can spend the rest of your life reaching for the God who has been reaching for you the entire time. That's exhausting. And I'm so excited to tell you it's also a lie. A lot of sincere people die inside of it. That used to be me. That prophecy, Miss Nancy Flanagan, spoke into my life. She could have never known it. She could have never known what I was dealing with. Miss Colleen did, but nobody else did. She didn't know me. I lived under not being good enough. I lived under massive guilt. I'll never be good enough. Secretly. Quietly. Once you learn this, your life will never be the same if you accept the challenge. Because you have a choice. And that choice is you can put the math down. You can stop initiating and start responding. You can hear the variekra, the call that came before you moved, and simply walk toward the voice of God. One of those roads ends in a house you build and you can never enter. The other ends inside at the table, called by name. And tonight you get to choose which road you're on. It's up to you. It's up to you. I said, my heart breaks for you because I know, I know how hard this is. It sounds easy. But you've carried burdens for so long. You've carried so many burdens for so long. Some of that is your own guilt, your own shame. And you say, I'll never be good enough. I'll never be as good as the Smiths over there. The schmucatellis over there, look how good they are. They belong in church. They belong. Because they're, man, they they got it together. Look at their haircuts. Look at the clothes they wear. They know all the songs. They know all the buzzwords. I don't know any of them. That's okay. Tonight, you get to choose which road you're on. Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey. It's asking for strong back. I wonder if you'll consider praying with me. Father, we've spent so long trying to reach you that we've we never noticed you were already there. I ask that you forgive us for the math. Forgive us for standing outside a house you built for us. And we were sure we weren't welcome. And the whole time your voice was calling from inside the house. You were calling us. You stirred the hearts, you filled the hands, you gave the pattern, and you came down in glory. You spoke first every good move we've ever made toward you. You made possible before we took a single step. So tonight we lay the climbing down. We stopped trying to initiate with a God who never once, never once, the God who never once made us go first. Teach us to receive, Father. Teach us that worship is our yes to your reaching. It's never our reaching for a yes from you. I ask that you carry, carry our hearts the way you carried theirs, toward what's good and hidden and holy. Father, I pray for the one that's listening, who's been bracing for the day. You finally confirm that you're finished with them. I ask that they would have ears to hear tonight, that they would hear. Let them hear it tonight instead. You are not done. You're not finished with them. You're still calling them. And you've always been calling them. In Yeshua's name. Amen. I don't know your life. I don't know it. We spend a lot of time together. If you've subscribed and hit the little bell and click the thumbs up and listen. And all that. We get to know each other over time. That's the that's the cool thing of doing lives, you know. I like it.

Look.

If this is you, if this is if this is what you've been going through, shame, guilt. If tonight is the night, you finally it's clicked with you. You don't know all the answers. But tonight is the night you stop reaching and you finally answer the voice that's been calling you the whole time. You don't have to climb one inch to get to him. He's already at your door. If that's you, I just wonder if you'd be willing to pray this with me. I wonder if you'd be willing to let go. It's easier said than done, I know. I know. And I and I tell people all the time. It's antithetical to what they hear in TV preachers or church, a lot of churches they go to. It almost sounds like, hey man, you want an easy life. You you become a Christian. You want a more prosperous life, you become a Christian. Won't be easier, though. Not until we get to heaven. It will not be easier. We have a choice. We choose to place our faith in Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah. Or we don't. We spend eternity in heaven with the Lord. Or we spend eternity in hell, and I'm going to tell you, hell is a real place. I know. Nobody likes to hear that. Nobody does. I understand, I get it, it's not a pleasant thing to hear. But it is true. He is already there at your door of your heart. He has been calling your name for a very long time. If you believe that he is the risen Son of God, and that he died and was rose again for our sins, for our hurts, our habits, and our hangups, but more importantly, for your sins, your hurts, your habits, and your hangups. Prayer is not asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. Pray this with me. Solve this once and for all. Are you ready? Yeshua, Jesus, I need you. I need your forgiveness. I ask your forgiveness for my sins, my hurts, my habits, and my hangups. I believe you died. Then you rose again on the third day, just like you said you would. I don't know all the answers. But you've given me a hunger. And I ask that you come into my heart, forgive me of my sins, and lead my life today, and tomorrow, and the next day.

I give my life to you. In your maculous name. Amen.

If you pray that tonight, whether it's for the first time or the hundredth time, somebody said to me one time, I said, What do you mean the hundredth time? I know lots of people who say, Man, I'm just not sure.

I'm just I've fallen away from God. I know, listen, I've counseled people who are praying that from the gutter, literally.

They've prayed it from a hospital room two weeks before their death. After living a life of being abused horribly, and then turning to drugs, and then prostitution and disease. And in her thirties, dying. But two weeks before, smiled the smile of a runway model. Because the light of the Lord shone upon her and through her. Because she invited him in. And right now, she's in heaven, rejoicing, healed and whole. If you prayed that tonight, I want to know, and more than that, I want to help you take your next steps. It's easy to do, it's free to do. True WordFaithforLife.com. True WordFaithforLife.com. Reach out. Don't do this alone. You weren't called into a house to stand in it by yourself. Tell somebody. Tell me if you want. Let's get you connected to a real, to real believers, and get you a real Bible. Make sure you have one. I'll help you choose it. And then the next real step, because the God who called you in, he's not going to leave you standing near the door. Can I trust you to do that? Awesome. So I want you to hear the whole week in maybe one or two breaths. You didn't build the road. You didn't stir your own heart. You didn't draw the plans. And you didn't fill the house and you didn't speak the word that started all of this. He did. He did. He did. He always has. While you stood outside doing the math, calculating, counting your failures like coins that came up short. The glory that was already burning in the room. And a voice that you'd stopped expecting. That voice said the kindest, oldest thing in the world, come near. You are never too late. You were never too late. You were only ever late to hear. He'd been calling you. If this reached someone tonight, if it reached you somehow or some way, send it to the one person that's on your mind right now. The person you know, they're convinced they're too late. They're convinced they're too dirty, they're too sinful, they're too guilty. Too much shame. That's who this was for. One share could put this voice in front of somebody who has been standing outside the glass looking in. Takes you 10 seconds to share the link. I want you to receive this. In the heavenly name of our Lord, he prayed this. It is a very special prayer. To me, it is referred to as the priestly blessing, the ironic blessing. I say every message, receive it in Lashon Hakodesh, which is Hebrew for the language of God. You see, Hebrew. And was the language his people spoke to him, and his son Yeshua and our Redeemer. He spoke Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek. I want you to hear this blessing. I will say it first. I'll pray it first in Hebrew and then in English. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Until tomorrow morning. And it will get here quicker than you can imagine. Until tomorrow morning. Oh, I'd love for you to join us. Until tomorrow.

At 7 a.m. Eastern Standard. Every Monday through Friday. 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Every Sunday, 6 30 Eastern Standard Time. For as long as I can do it. Until then. Shalom. Shalom. Alakim.