Man, these men are servants of the Most High God and they are telling you the way to salvation. These men are the servants of the Most High God and they are telling you the way to salvation. Every time that servant girl kept repeating that same phrase, Paul got a little more upset. She what she was saying was true. But this girl had a demon and had been involved with fortune telling, telling the future and the last thing God needs or wants his publicity from the devil. And so finally, Paul just turns around and let's just demon habit.

In verse 18, acts 1618 in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. At that moment the spirit left her you know so much for that whole all truth is God's truth thing. All truth is not God's truth. Paul was not interested in joining forces with a demon in any way, no matter what that demon was saying, and so he sends this evil spirit packing. Thing is, for the owners of this girl had been using her as a fortune teller. And now that demon was now that the demon was gone, they're out of business.

And when they realize that things actually turned violent in verse 19, when the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money money was gone, they seize Paul and Silas and drag them into the marketplace to face the authorities. Doesn't say they escorted them into the marketplace. So they dragged them sounds to me like there was some resistance. If we can drag somebody somewhere you have to overcome them. overpower them. I don't know what kind of scuffle took place here.

Doesn't sound to me like Paul and Silas are going willingly at all. Most likely though they're outnumbered and so they get dragged away. So just for a minute put yourself in Paul and Silas shoes, you're there. This is happening to you. whole thing is that you're being dragged you know it's not gonna go well for you before the authorities and so you're struggling to get out of this headlock or whatever that you're in and you can't. You're trying to free yourself and self escape but, but you can't get loose.

Verse 20. They brought them before the magistrates and said these men are Jews, and they're throwing a city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept our practice. And at that point, it really gets a Labour's 22 the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas. So now this crowd is attacking. I can't imagine that I can't imagine the terror of being attacked by an angry mob. I know the terror of facing one scary bully.

From when I was a kid. That was scary enough for me, but to be beaten by a savage angry mob that wants to kill you. I can't even picture this. what it would be like when you're on the ground getting kicked, punched and smashed in the head with whatever clubs and rocks and whatever they had and you're trying to cover up your face they're hitting you on the side of the head and smashing in the ribs and you're taking blow after blow and the whole time you know you're praying God please let this stop with the magistrates step in well finally they do step in. But that doesn't go well either. Verse 22, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.

So there you are, you're crumpled up on the ground bruised and bleeding from the beatings struggling to get your breath and start breathing again and and the next thing you know the officials are pulling your feet and ripping off your clothes, and they tie you there to the post naked and now the real beating starts being beaten with rods just an especially painful ordeal. They're already tender Of course from the beating. They just took them From the mob and now this is on top of that, verse 23. After they had been severely beaten, they were thrown into prison. Literally since after they had given them many blows. Many blow just kept whacking away with those rods, agonizing, shooting pain with everyone.

And then they're thrown into prison, verse 23, that the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fasten their seat in the stocks. No medical attention. They're thrown into prison. Have you ever experienced injustice justice? You know what that's like.

Sometimes that can be worse than physical pain. But this is both the injustice of physical pain. And they're thrown into prison without a charge. Maximum Security intercell placed in stocks and those stocks those were used for torture. They had ways of being The legs that were very uncomfortable and they use that for torture. First 25 at about midnight, at about midnight, Paul and Silas, were praying and singing hymns to God.

They're singing let me ask you this. Can your joy do that? Can your joy do that? We all every one of us has some joy source, right? Every time we get down or discouraged, you're bored or anxious or depressed or whatever, we all do the same thing. We look around we try and find something that will give us our joy back.

That thing that you look to, to get your joy back, can it do this? Can it give you this kind of joy? I've been preaching last couple weeks about how nothing in this world satisfies everything. You know, you you might hear me say that this world, not And it will really satisfy the thirst of the soul. And you say, well, Darryl, you know, honestly, some of the pleasures of this world are awfully pleasurable. And you know, it's amazing how weak on the beach in Hawaii can do wonders for a guy's mood.

Put me alone in my room for an hour with my favorite music cranked and I feel a lot better. Little marijuana can do wonders for the nerves. Right? Here hear me preach about how the presence of God is satisfying. The pleasures of this world are not satisfying. And you think Well, the truth is the pleasures of this world can be pretty intense.

And you might think, honestly, I read my Bible. I have to say I don't feel anything close to what I feel when I played my favorite video game system in the presence of God really compete with the intensity of the pleasures of this world, I mean, food and recreation, friends, family popularity, fame, drugs, alcohol, sex, can the presence of God compete with those things? Well, let me ask you this. Which one of those earthly pleasures that I just listed is so delightful, so deeply fulfilling that after doing that you could go through what Paul and Silas went through and be so filled with happiness that is coming out in song. There's nothing in this world you can do that when you suffer some horrible injustice, overwhelming physical pain, brutal abuse, abuse, suffering, with no end in sight. I don't think daydreaming about your last trip to Hawaii is going to do you any good?

Pleasure This world is so fleeting. Yeah, they can be intense. And there's moments of pleasure but many times one second after that pleasure is over zero lingering joy. In fact, sometimes you're actually depressed after it's over because it's over. And when there is even a little bit of lingering good mood that comes from some earthly pleasure, it isn't deep enough to have you singing through the night when you suffer. Kind of joy is this.

You won't find it you look around this world you look anywhere you want to look, you're not gonna find this. You look inside the homes of the richest people on the planet who can afford to buy whatever pleasure they want, anytime they want. You look, look on the beach. You look at the 50 yard line, Super Bowl, you look anywhere you want, you will not find this joy anywhere. You look on the pages of Scripture and they find it everywhere. plastered across the page of the Scripture.

Again and again. This is not an isolated incident for Paul. This was his life. Second Corinthians 1123. He describes what his life was like he says I have been in prison more frequently been flogged more severely been exposed to death again and again five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned three times I was shipwreck.

I spent a night in a day in an open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers danger from bandits danger from my own countrymen. danger from Gentiles danger from the city danger in the country dangerous see danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I have known hunger, thirst, I've often gone without food.

I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else I faced the pressure my concern for the daily pressure of my concern for all the churches. That was Paul's life. This is this lifestyle is the way you lip is what it was like for Paul all the time. And yet in the same book, Second Corinthians chapter four, verse seven or chapter seven, verse four. In all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.

Holden paint on a smile. He didn't fake it. He didn't force himself to sink in the dungeon that night when he was saying he wasn't just saying, Well try this and see if I get my mood going. He literally felt so happy inside. It just overflowed with unending delight. He couldn't contain it.

It was unbounded. And Paul wasn't the only one that had joy like that. He's not an anomaly. Silas had it. Write that song in the prison that night there was a duet right now so they're both sing. To me, Timothy had it Second Thessalonians to the 12 Had it next five disciples next 13 had it.

Macedonians had it this leoneans had it. David had it, Hannah had it. Jesus had it. All those people in that list. Our Scripture says it we're experiencing great joy, wow, enduring horrible suffering to deal with these people, how do you do that? How can they?

How can those people have joy so deep that it will carry them and through horrific torture and they still actually feel happy? And my joy isn't even deep enough to carry me through the transmission going out my new car? How do you get this kind of joy? Well, if you're new here, we're currently in the midst of a study of the greatest commandment Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind. And in the first week of this study, I left you with a burning question. Since loving God with all your heart and your emotions, the heart is the seed of the emotions.

How do you get emotional love where it doesn't exist? How do you generate emotion? Where it doesn't already exist? How do you get that going? And if it is in your heart, it does exist. How do you make it bigger?

How do you make it grow? How do you increase that emotional love? emotional delight in God? I left you with that question. I didn't answer it. I didn't bother answering it.

I told you it's possible. But I didn't tell you how. Then last Sunday, I left you with the question a different question. How do you change your desires? The soul is the seat of the desires you love God with your soul by desiring him. But how do you do that?

How do you change your desire? If you desire things in this world more than you desire the things of God? How do you change so did you really want those other things more than the earthly thing? gave you that question last week, I didn't bother internet either. Now this week, instead of beginning the sermon by answering those two lingering questions, I just dumped a third huge question on you. How do you have this amazing, unassailable joy that can carry you through the most horrific, terrible, prolonged suffering?

How do you get that? My purpose is not to just keep teasing you with impossible questions, and then never answer them. The reason I piled up these three questions, I did it on purpose because the answer to all three questions is the same. It's one principle answer all three. And to show you that I want to pick up where we left off last Sunday in first john chapter two. So go ahead and turn your Bible if you haven't already.

First john chapter two. We looked at verse 15. Last week where john gave us the negative side of the great commandment. Why Jeff called it the great prohibition The great commandment is love God with all your being. The other side of that same coin is that we are not to love the world or anything in the world. And the reason is given in verse 16.

So verse 15, don't love the world, anything in the world. Then verse 16. Here's why. That word for means. Here's why. For everything in the world, desires of the flesh desires, the one by the way, do you notice here that he defines?

JOHN defines love in terms of desire? What does it mean to love the world means to desire the world. Anyway, the things in the world desires, the flesh desires, the pride of possessions come not from the Father, but from the world. your desires that you have are not inherent in you. They come from another source outside of you this what we talked about last week. And there's two possible sources for your desires either come from the world or come from God.

They don't come from inside you. And the way that works is when the world convinces you that the appetites, the cravings of your soul would be satisfied by some earthly thing. The result of that is powerful desires for that earthly thing. And when God convinces you that his presence would satisfy the thirst of your soul, the result of that is powerful desire for the presence of God. So that's where the source of your desires comes from. And so the way to change your desires is very simple to be convinced by God's argument instead of the world's argument.

Although that's a lot easier said than done. Because there's more to changing a belief. There's more to being convinced than just being convinced in your head. Right? If I'm convinced in my head that God's word is more profitable than watching TV, but then at the moment of decision, I actually choose TV to Scripture. That's because my soul wasn't really convinced.

My mind is convinced my soul isn't. By desire to be more than scripture. That means my soul thinks that the TV will actually do a better job satisfying its cravings, then scripture will do. You can always tell what your soul believes by what you desire. The soul never lies. You can always tell your desires never lie.

You can always tell what your soul really believes, by what you desire. And you can always tell what your heart actually believes, by what you love, by how you feel. In your head, you say, God loves me, but you don't feel loved by God, then it's because your heart's not convinced. Your heart doesn't really believe it. That's why you don't feel it. So how do you convince your heart?

How do you convince yourself Soul to believe differently than the way they believe right now. How do you convince those two parts of your inner man? Well, two ways, two ways. And both of these are essential, this is crucial, both are essential. persuasion happens through two means number one, argument. And number two, experience, argument experience.

And and the first one is obvious. We all know what it's like to be convinced of something through a good argument, persuasive argument. We all have beliefs like that, right? We all everyone in this room, I assume, believes that drinking arsenic would kill us. But we don't believe that based on personal experience, obviously, right. None of us have died from drinking arsenic.

We believe that arsenic would kill us we've totally persuaded me persuaded. Mine heart and soul totally persuaded. totally, completely by arguments. We We heard persuasive arguments from reliable sources about the effect of poison on the body that persuaded us. And that that belief that our snake will do that is deep, it runs deep, so deep, that it's deep enough to actually change powerful desires. That's how deep it is.

You mentioned your absolute favorite beverage in the world and you're just parched, your soul thirsty. And there it is your favorite drink a nice big tall glass and it's sitting on the counter, and you have an overwhelming desire to drink that. And then all sudden something comes along and says, oh, by the way, there's lethal doses of arsenic mixed in there, suddenly, you have no desire to drink it, right? powerful desire, instantly change by a piece of information. Why? Because your heart and soul are totally convinced of the badness of arsenic.

See that? So that's just an example of how in some cases, information on Apart from experience, can persuade your heart and soul to believe something to the point of changing desire. So, if that's the case, why is it then that that, in certain cases, the heart and soul can be so stubborn and won't be persuaded by mere argument? Your mind is convinced, some powerful argument that by some powerful argument that this thing is bad, but your souls stubbornly keeps desiring that thing, even though you know it's bad. Or you receive a compelling argument, that a certain thing is true, but it just doesn't feel true. Why because your heart stubbornly refusing to be convinced.

Why? Why does that sometimes happen? One word, experience. You are your heart and soul are persuaded by experience and it's Hard to persuade them contrary to their experience, and you can tell that just with your kids just watch your kids. You tell your five year old what will happen to him if he drinks arsenic and he will not desire arsenic at all. But you tell your five year old that nothing a diet of only candy all the time for breakfast lunch and dinner wouldn't actually be satisfying you try and tell that to your five year old.

And even though he might be nodding his little head, his soul the seat of his desires is saying what ever? You know, whatever you're saying, I don't know what you're trying to say. But that is a joke. Why? Why can't his little soul be convinced? Through persuasive argument about candy like it is with arsenic?

It's because of past experience. Right? 100% of his past experiences with candy have been satisfying and 100 percent, the number of times he's found eating all his broccoli satisfying is a lot closer to zero. And so you try and make an argument about broccoli over candy. And he's just he's not buying it. Because he's going up against that past experience.

It's an uphill battle to convince him that now just only candy all the time would be wouldn't be satisfying. So how can you convince him? Okay, well, I'm ask you this. How are you convinced? We're all convinced to that right? I'm assuming most of us maybe some of you are still aren't convinced.

But most of us are convinced Yeah, only you only sweets all the time, then you'll get us sick. How? What convinced you that finally, wasn't it experience us because you read a book. At some point, it's because at some point you got old enough or you gained enough freedom to be unrestrained in your consumption of junk food and candy and felt miserable afterwards right now. What convinced you In fact, if you're like me, you didn't actually learn that from the first experience. It took a few times.

When it happened to me I, the first few times, I just assumed it was a fluke. But eventually, finally, enough times you get to a point where your desires actually start to change and it's not just a mental thing your desires change now as adults, even though we still we, you know, we love sweets, we love the desserts and all that. Aren't there times when you're hungry, and there actually aren't their cookies available. There's candy available, there's ice cream, and he's like, you know what, I don't want that. I want some food, I need some substance. Something gives me some energy.

And you actually opt for something a little more healthy by desire. Because your soul is convinced to experience stubborn feelings, and stubborn desires usually indicate a heart and soul that has been persuaded through it's both art ument and experience and to reverse that is going to require both counter argument and counter experience both. Okay, now you might be thinking, Okay, Darrell, that sounds great. That's clever, whatever. But this is a bunch of human wisdom. You dreaming this up?

Did you just think of that? Or what? Where'd you get that? No, this is the Bible, Psalm 34, eight, taste and see that the Lord has good. Taste and see, God calls us not just to listen to arguments, not just to accept them. Not just think about the fact that God is good.

But in addition to that, we're also supposed to taste and see for ourselves. Taste is goodness for yourself. Don't just read about in the Bible. Don't just listen to me preach about it, but taste for yourself. That's experience. Try it for yourself.

Now, I know as soon as I start talking to experience, some of you start to have red flags. You might be thinking, Wait, it's like Whoa, that You know, you experience are you getting charismatic on austero? Because that's kind of curious, you know, too much experience. Are you telling us we we need to use experience to determine truth Isn't that dangerous? Is that what the extreme wing of the charismatic movement does to get them in trouble where they have all kinds of bizarre experiences and and they decide that oh, this is from God because of how it feels? Isn't that also the error of people who rationalize sin because it feels so good.

Oh, this feels so good. It's got to be right. It can't be wrong. Isn't that dangerous? And the answer is Yeah, dangerous, terrible using experience determine truth. huge mistake that'll lead you into error.

100% Of the time, don't ever use experience to determine truth. Never. Say, did you just tell us to do that? No, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't tell you To use experience to determine truth, what I said, is to use experience to verify the truth that you know from God's word.

Use God's Word to determine what's true. But you need to use experience to persuade your soul in your heart of it. That if you have an experience that goes against scripture, then your experience of that I mean, your interpretation and experience is wrong, you need to throw it out, you need to ignore it. That's no good. Is it true that some of our charismatic brothers have tended to get into doctrinal error because they make the mistake of using experience to determine truth? Absolutely, that's true.

That's a big problem. Tragically, that's been the Achilles heel of much of the charismatic movement. They have powerful moving experiences and they assume all this must be from God because it's so moving. And if you watch that, that whole movement they get into all these bizarre, weird things like the laughing revival and laugh In the spirit of barking in the spirit, all the weird stuff, shaking and fainting and frenzied activity, all this crazy stuff, and they attribute it to the Holy Spirit, say, is any of that in the Bible? No, none of it's in the Bible. But it's accepted, because you got to you got people who are determining truth by means of experiences.

And so that's dangerous. They talk about feeling the presence of God. And you say, what does it feel like? And they say, Oh, it's like a sensation of electricity shooting through your body or tingling your quiver in your liver or whatever. That's why that movement has been so notorious for being weak on doctrine. However, in reacting against that error, the evangelical movement has many times fallen into the ditch on the other side of the road.

Many non charismatics have made the mistake of saying, Well, you know, we don't want to make that mistake. We don't want to get it To use experience to determine truth, and so we're just going to hold up the truth of God's word as supreme and downplay as unimportant experience, experience and unimportant. Dangerous downplay that. That's an error and I know that error exists because I committed it for most of my life. Most of my life that's the way I thought I threw the baby out with the bathwater when it came to experience. I would downplay it is unimportant when we downplay experience, we end up turning the Christian life into a pursuit of truth as the final goal.

That's not good. Some of you might think Wait, are you sure? True. Isn't that the final goal? Truth. I mean, some of you have been taught that is the final goal.

You pursue Truth Truth is the most important if you have a, you know, if you get an emotion here, there, it's a bonus but it doesn't really matter. If you have a religious experience on some rare occasion, fine, you know, but don't make that your goal don't pursue that. That's what some people teach the charismatics route. They're seeking all kinds of wild experiences. But you know, a good Christian just focuses on truth and is indifferent to experience. That's dead wrong.

That is a deadly error we, we determine what's true by means of Scripture. And then we persuade our heart to believe that through experience, experience is crucial for getting our soul to desire the right way and getting our heart to feel the right way. Tasting and seeing for ourselves that's biblical, commanded, it's good. So how do you how do you do it? How do you change your desires? Well, simply you do.

You do it by exposing your mind and heart and soul to the two methods of persuasion, argument and experience. So let's just talk about each one of those first argument. When you desire the things of this world, and you find your desires for the things of God to be weak and kind of sketchy and not almost non existent. How do you change that you change those desires by decreasing your exposure to the world's preaching, and increasing your exposure to God's preaching. You just let yourself be persuaded by argument. And make no mistake the world is constantly preaching.

I read this week that the average American is exposed to 3000 advertising messages per day. 3000 messages trying to persuade you every day. And most of those messages are designed to convince your soul that happiness comes from something in this world aren't they? 3000 a day. That's 21,000 sermons a week. Have you noticed how more and more of the world's that their little 32nd sermons that you get on TV?

More and more they don't they don't even bother with the intellect anymore. They just go right for the heart and soul. They go right for the affections. Do you watch a car commercial, and it's just images designed to evoke emotions. It's if you don't, you're not gonna hear any reasoning about why this car is the best choice. They just show you images that appeal to appetite to the soul.

So the message is not buy this car because of the reliability and the longevity and how well it holds its value and know the messages. buy this car because it will make you happy. It will be water to your thirsty soul. You'll be grinning from ear to ear the whole time you drive this car, you will feel powerful, you will feel smart, you'll feel successful, you'll feel attractive and members of the opposite sex will fall over themselves just to get a glimpse of you driving by in this car. That's why you should buy the car And you listen to 21,000 of those sermons each week. And then you come here and sit through one on the other side, and it's going to be no contest.

On what persuade your soul. And so the first way to change your desires, it's obvious it's simple. reduce the number of the world's sermons that you're exposed to, and increase the number of Gods sermons that you're exposed to. Turn off the TV and listen to a bit sermon online. Off the secular radio station and listen to some worship music. Put down a magazine in the novel and pick up the Word of God or some book that will do a persuasive job convincing your soul that the presence of God really is more satisfying than the pledges.

Can't listen to the other side, preach and preach and preach and preach and then expect your soul not to be convinced. So that's step one. Now that we all understand that, that put that much is our We've heard that for years. But what about this other part? What about experience? mean that you can see how important this is if every time you have eaten a grape, it's been sour every single time, then you could listen to sermon after sermon about how grapes are sweet.

And it's gonna be hard for you to believe until you actually ate a sweet, great, right? You need experience. And if every time you pick up your Bible and spend time alone with God in prayer, you find it boring, and you find it unsatisfying. Every time. That's your past experience. And every time you indulge in some particular earthly pleasure, you find it really delightful.

All the sermons in the world are going to persuade you to your desires to change. You can't go against experience like that. And so that tells us two things. Number one, we need to strive to have as many delightful, enjoyable, soul satisfying experiences with the presence of God as we possibly can. We need to strive for that. But number two, we also need to realize how much damage we do every time we experience pleasure, the pleasure of sin.

Think of what the damage that does to your desires. You know, you might say, Oh, I'm gonna do this sin, I'm gonna enjoy this and then I'll repent or I'll give it up or I'll change or whatever. But even if you do, and you never do that sin again, think of the damage that's done to your desires. Have you ever thought about how much damage it does to your soul and your desires when you enjoy the pleasure of a sin, because you can't overcome that it's like the five year old with a candy every time I commit a sin and it feels good. I just preached a powerful persuasive sermon to my soul about how desirable sentence and that shapes future desires and it's incredibly difficult to undo that damage to undo that sermon. So this should serve as a motivation for us to avoid sin just because of the harm it does to our desires.

If for no other reason. It makes it hard to convince your soul and change your desire back So, that's a great reason to avoid sin but, but just avoiding sin and avoiding the pleasures of sin isn't enough. If you just just say no all the time to the pleasures of this world, and you succeed in that all the time, that won't be enough, you'll still desire it. You'll still desire, you also need the positive side. You have to have such an such amazing experiences with the presence of God, that your soul actually becomes convinced that however pleasurable sin is, presence of God will be better. And so in the weeks to come, the whole rest of this sermon series is all going to be devoted to how to do that, how to have those kinds of experiences.

That's what we're going to delve into how to have delightful experiences with the presence of God in day to day life all day every day, so that it changes that convinces your soul because the more you have those experiences The more your soul and your heart will be persuaded the goodness of God and guess what the result of that will be? Change desires. Those desires that seem impossible to change, they'll change and your desire will be for the things of God, your desire for the presence of God. In fact, your desire for the presence of God will become so powerful, so driving so relentless, that it will compel you to seek after his presence with all your heart with all your soul. And when you seek God with all your heart soul, what happens if you seek me with all your heart, you will find me.

That's it. That's when you'll find it. That's when you'll actually have the experiences. And you know what happens when you have those experiences? You know what happens when you eat and drink? God says he's like food and drink.

And you experience that you know what the result of that is? delight, right? emotional delight. You say? How do we how do we get these emotions? Emotional uppercut you by having those kinds of experiences.

Same way you have emotions for the person, the person you love the most in this world. You had delightful experiences with them and that made you love them. The same way with God he has these delightful experience with them and increases your emotional love for him. So you know what nother word for that delight is joy, that this joy that's the that's that deep, profound, unassailable, unstoppable happiness, they can carry you through the most horrific, relentless suffering. How do you get that joy it comes as a result of experiencing the presence of God. So can you see how this one principle answers all three of our questions?

How do you change your desires? How do you get this emotional love? How do you have this great joy, all the same? It's by being persuaded using experiences to persuade your soul of the goodness of God. superiority of the presence of God over the pleasure of sin, and then you seek Him and then you find him. And that happens when you shut down the world, all the world puppets in your life, they're influencing your heart, exposing yourself to God's puppets, his messages.

Now, that principle that I just explained, is such an important principle that I'm tempted to just say amen at this point in in the sermon right here. Thankfully, I'm strong enough to resist temptations like that. So we'll keep going. But, but, and we need to keep going. We need to keep going because up to this point, this sermon has actually been misleading. If I stop it right here, it's misleading because I've been pointing out that experience experience is useful for persuading your soul about the truth about God But what you need to know if I just left it at that that's gonna be it's gonna mislead you.

Because what you need to know is that, that that's not the only reason for seeking this experience with God. In fact, it's not even the main reason for seeking experience. Having these kinds of experiences with God are not mainly a means to an end. They are the end of the Christian, the goal. They're the ultimate final goal of the Christian life. This is what we're going for.

It's not it's not a tool to use to just to persuade your soul. It's the final goal. The error of some charismatics is to use experience to arrive at truth, the error of some non charismatics, it's used the Bible to arrive at truth and leave it there. But the goal the Christian life is to use the truth of the Bible to arrive at experience. Truth isn't the final thing. Truth is crucial.

Don't get me wrong. It's absolutely crucial. But it's not the ultimate goal. It is a means to an end of getting to the ultimate goal which is experienced ultimate final goal the Christian life is to love God. And loving a person is an experiential thing. It's not theoretical.

It's an interaction. Anytime you ever learn some truth about God, ever, it should be for the goal of experiencing that thing firsthand. This is everything in the Bible is like this. Why do we study what the Bible says about peace isn't so you can experience peace. By study everything that I can find in the Bible about truth, or faith. I don't do that.

So I can Ace an exam on faith. I will do it so that I can actually believe experience it. What good would it be if I could recite from memory every single verse in the Bible it talks about it But I didn't actually feel any joy. And this is this is the truth about God if if God is merciful, I'm not just content to know that he's merciful. I want to experience His mercy firsthand. Want to experience His grace?

I want to experience is power one experience. It's awesome and someone experiences tenderness I want experiences, wisdom, every single one of his attributes that that's revealed, I want to experience it. When you work to get to know someone, you don't do that with the goal of education. You do it for the sake of improving the quality of your interactions with that person. That's what love is. Discovering information, facts about God is not the goal is not the final goal, a Bible study.

God is not a set of propositions. He's a person. Now, there is a set of propositions that are true about God and we must know those if we're ever going to know God. If you try and bypass the truth, and you go straight for relationship straight for experience straight for interactions with God and you don't bother with learning the truth, you don't do the hard work of studying, then that will lead you in all kinds of error. You're gonna end up having experiences with something that's not God. You're gonna be worshipping the wrong God, you got to know the truth.

But knowing truth things about God and agreeing with them is not the same thing as experiencing his presence. Saint knows true things about God. doubt this. Just think about the metaphor again of food and drink in Scripture. What should our interactions with God be like? Scripture says it should be like in eating and drinking.

And if the metaphor of eating and drinking means anything, it means experience. What's more experiential than eating and drinking like that. points to experience people read their Bibles and walk away feeling unsatisfied and bored. And they wonder why. If you if you go without eating food, I mean, if you went three days, you fasted for three days, given any food, are you gonna be content to go to the library and study a book about prime rib? Don't wash it down nice scholarly journal article about the benefits of water.

Look at some photos in a magazine of fresh cherry pie for dessert. No. Only thing you want to read at that moment is a cookbook or a map to a restaurant. You're reading for the purpose of experiencing that's what you want. When God described himself as food and drink he showed us that fellowship with Him is not just an abstraction to be learned about. It's an event to be experienced.

And tragically, a large number of people in the church have been faithfully forgotten this and they end up being faithful in Arabic Every area except one, they I mean, we get our church stuff going on and we're faithful and, you know, service projects and, and and we ministry the poor and women's ministry, men's ministry, children's ministry, youth ministry, music ministry classes and programs and committees and leadership and outreach and evangelism and we have it all down except for except for one thing. We forgot about God. somehow God got lost in the shuffle. What I mean by this if you just go to the typical church, what percentage of the sermons Do you think you would hear about God? the sermon on God what he's like, that's what God is, like, not mainly about this is how you should behave. This is how you should live.

But this is what God is like. What percentage of sermons are about God himself? What percentage of Bible studies that you've attended, have been about God percentages Sunday school lessons are about God, what God is like what percentage of books, Christian books, whatever that percentage is. Compare that to this. How often do you read something in the Bible about God? These randomly just flop open your Bible, there is a very good chance that it will flop open to a chapter that is designed to teach us what God is like, or what God did or what he's doing.

But if you just randomly turn on the radio and listen to a sermon or pick up a book randomly out of the Christian bookstore, what are the odds that it's going to be about God? Mainly. Now, are there thousands of verses in the Bible about behavior and how we should live? Absolutely, but every single one of them tells us to live that way as an act of fellowship with God Because of what God is like and you take away that part and the rest is meaningless, all the behavioral stuff. fellowship with God is the the only thing that matters in life. The only thing that matters only reason you should ever do anything.

The reason I love my wife, one reason so that I can draw nearer to God. That's the reason why I preach sermons. That's the reason why I mow my grass. That's the reason I read my Bible. That's the reason I why eat lunch. It's the reason why I sing worship songs is the reason why I pay taxes, fellowship with God, interacting with him with a back and forth interaction of love, relationship like that.

That's the only thing that matters. In life, nothing else. What do you think? Do you believe that? Do you really believe that there Actually one thing in life that matters and nothing else matters at all. Or do you think worshiping God is the most important thing that matters most but a few something that matter a little bit?

It sounds I want you to think I don't want you to nod your head agree with it without thinking about what you're agreeing with because because, you know, it sounds really spiritual to say, Oh, yeah, nothing matters God only only God matters. Only fellowship with God matters. But honestly, nothing else. I mean, everything should be done as an act of loving God. How about putting on my socks in the morning? I mean, seriously, let's get real.

How? How could every single thing be a means of getting closer to God? fellowshipping interacting with God, are we going a little bit overboard when you say things like that? Everything? Nothing else, not a little bit overboard. You remember what Jesus said to Martha and Luke 1040 to sit her, Martha, only one thing matters.

But Jesus Bridgman, anybody here planning on arriving on Judgement Day, and when you get to judgment, you are going to stand before the Almighty and, and you're going to say, Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but I just want to let you know, Jesus said, You got a little carried away that day when you said that to Martha. May anybody plan on that? Or would you agree with me that when Jesus did Jesus did not go overboard when he said to Martha, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needing this one. Now let me just throw a little pop quiz on your math quiz. If it's true that only one thing matters, then how many things don't matter. All right, let me ask you this.

How many other things matter if only one thing matters? How many other things also matter? Zero. Right? You don't have to have a PhD to figure that out. Nothing in the world matters.

Nothing in all your life matters, except for this one thing that Jesus had in mind in Luke 1042. So what is that thing? Please? That one thing. We're gonna take a look at LinkedIn to find out exactly what this thing is. Next time.

For now let's close in prayer. Lord God, we want to, we want to have godly desires. We want our desires, to crave that which is good and best and not to crave the worthless garbage of this world. We want to change our desire to change our affections. Give us the grace lore, to do the things we know will accomplish that teach us to shut down anything that this world is preaching at us. Any puppet that is starting to have an effect.

It's touching our desires. It's it's getting to our souls. Whether it be a friend, a relationship, a recreation, whatever. Lord, give us the grace To pursue both the arguments and the experiences that will have this effect on our souls. Oh Lord, please we pray this in the name of the one who died purchase this force. The Lord Jesus Christ.