Cameron: 00:05

We're gonna get right into it this morning. I talked about this on Friday night at the family dinner, but I also talked about it last week a little bit, so it should not be, completely foreign to us. But, in 2025, we have, some spiritual themes here at Conduit. Seeking 2025's, spiritual theme is to be seeking the lord's face through prayer and Sabbath. And this phrase, seeking the face of the lord, is one that we find a lot in scripture, but that there is not always, an abundance of explanation as to what that means.

Cameron: 00:56

To seek the face of the Lord is to seek the manifest. It's a euphemism for seeking the manifest presence of the Lord. And so when the psalmist says, your face, oh, Lord, do I seek, we wanna be a generation that seeks your face, oh, God of Jacob. What he is saying is that we, Lord, we don't wanna just know about you. We don't want to know facts that puff up our heads with knowledge about you.

Cameron: 01:27

We wanna know your manifest presence in our lives. We want to experience intimacy with you that becomes the defining factor of who we are as a people. Of course, when Moses was, leading the people out of, Egypt through the wilderness heading towards the promised land in Exodus chapter 33. They were looking forward to that moment of the fulfillment of the promise, and Moses says, kind of in a vulnerable way to the lord, lord, if your presence is not going to go with us, don't send us. If you're not going, Lord, I don't wanna carry the idea of you into the promised land.

Cameron: 02:15

I don't wanna carry the relics of you into the promised land. Lord, we need you. It is your presence that lead us. Be the fire of pillar by night for us always, Lord. Lord, we want your presence with us, and that is our prayer in 2025, to be seeking the face, the presence of the Lord, specifically through these two means for us in prayer and Sabbath.

Cameron: 02:45

But before even that, as I was, like, thinking, praying, reflecting on these ideas in the past couple of weeks, there was, like, the Lord was speaking to me. It was, like, there's that's a good catchphrase, Cameron, but it's not it. It's not it's or it's not all, I should say. It's not all. Because we can even say things like that.

Cameron: 03:07

Like, well, yeah. I'm seeking the presence of I'm seeking the face of the Lord through prayer and Sabbath. I'm praying regularly. Yeah. I have a day off.

Cameron: 03:13

I take a Sabbath. I understand what I'm building a culture of prayer and Sabbath and a rhythm of Sabbath in my own life, but those are disciplines that can go by the wayside when life gets difficult or things get busy or I forget or idols pop up into my life and shadow out that. So I think there comes something even more foundational than that, for our work together or our life together as a family, and that is, to build a culture and heart that hungers for god's presence. To to to to to build a place here and an environment and a culture, both in our hearts, in our homes, in our church, in our region that hungers for the presence of God, Lord, Lord, it is you and you alone that we need. It is you and you alone that we desire.

Cameron: 04:30

Lord, would you create in us a hunger in our hearts that is only satisfied by your presence. That is all it cannot be satisfied in any other way. That is the prayer. That is the work that we have is to build a culture where our hearts have a constant hunger for god's presence. See, the reality is is that I think that god is looking for those who are hungry for him.

Cameron: 05:11

God is looking for those who are hungry for him, whose hearts are attuned to him, who desire his presence in their life more than they desire his gifts in their life, that desire his face in their life more than they desire his hand in their life. God is looking for those who are hungry for him. In fact, in Chronicles, the writer says that the eyes of the Lord 2nd Chronicles 16:9, the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those hearts are fully committed to him. It's like the Lord is searching the earth for those whose hearts are fully committed to him that he may pour on the strength of his presence in their lives. And so the question then is how do we cultivate a life that communicates to God?

Cameron: 06:10

Or we are hungry for you. We watch you here. Come and make our come and make the like, make this your dwelling place. We seek your face, Lord. Reveal yourself to us.

Cameron: 06:26

Manifest your presence in our lives. The scripture that we looked at last week is gonna be the same scripture that we look at, generally today and next week and probably the week after that as well. A short section of scripture from Psalm chapter 24, right in the middle of the Psalm verses 3 through 6, the Psalmist asks an appropriate 2 appropriate questions that I think are fairly rhetorical because then he goes on to answer them and they are obvious in their nature. Psalm 24 verse 3, it says this, who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?

Cameron: 07:09

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false, he will receive blessing and vindication from God, his savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, oh god of Jacob. Heavenly father, may this be our prayer that you would make us a generation that seeks your face. That only that which is true would come from our mouths, that every idol in our life, lord, would be destroyed, smashed to rubble and bits, that nothing in our lives, neither big nor little, would stand against you, father. That you would purify our hearts and all that comes from it, lord, and that you would arrange the work of our hands in such a way that it glorifies you, Lord, that we may stand in your holy place, that we may ascend your hill.

Cameron: 08:20

In Jesus' name, amen. What is the hill of the Lord? What is the holy place? It seems that these are the first two questions that the psalmist asked, who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in the holy place?

Cameron: 08:33

And so it seems appropriate for us to maybe even just ask the basic question. What is this? It's meant to communicate the place where God's presence resides. Really simple. You don't really need a bible degree or need to know the languages or anything like that to understand that.

Cameron: 08:51

The play the holy place, right, who may ascend the hill of the Lord, who may stand in the holy places. Obviously, the place in which the presence of God resides. The holy place or a holy place is any place where the presence of God is manifested in there. That place is called holy. See, this is a category that we don't really have in our lives because we think we think in more, like, geographically isolated places that are holy or unholy.

Cameron: 09:36

Right? We think, like, no. Places are holy. Places are unholy. For instance, we would call we would usually say, well, a church is a holy place.

Cameron: 09:50

Right? But then we might say I don't even know. I sup the Bell Stadium. We're talking about Idols next week. Okay?

Cameron: 10:13

Uh-huh. We are talking about idols next week. But, yeah, there there are places that are holy. Right? And then we have places that are really unholy.

Cameron: 10:26

And we define them by geography or what goes on there until certainly, you know, there may be some truth to to those distinctions. Right? But we we we typically think in those types of categories. Right? We have holy places, and we have unholy places.

Cameron: 10:42

And those things are they're geographically located. Right? But the scripture speaks a little bit more, I'm not gonna say openly or generally, about a place that is holy or un unholy, But what they are very clear about, what scripture is very clear about is that anywhere that God is is holy. Right? Because holiness is bound up in who he is.

Cameron: 11:07

It is he is holiness. Right? He doesn't, like, bring holiness in his pocket with him. His presence is holy. His presence is ineffable glory and wonder and majesty.

Cameron: 11:22

And so any place that the Lord is is holy. A great example of this is one of the first times that Moses encounters God, like, really encounters God. Right? He's tending Jethro's flocks on the side of Mount Horeb, it says, in, in Exodus chapter 3 verses 2 through 5. And he sees, right, off in the distance, a bush that is on fire but not being consumed.

Cameron: 11:54

Right? Think think about it. Like, when you go out and burn a pallet, right, it's on fire, and then it gets consumed in its ashes. Right? But here you have this bush flaming on fire, not being consumed at all.

Cameron: 12:08

K? And, yes, sir. The angel of the lord appeared to him in the flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I'll go over and see this strange sight.

Cameron: 12:24

Why the bush does not burn up? When the lord saw that he had gone over to look, god called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, here I am. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is what?

Cameron: 12:46

Is holy ground. Right? The presence of God was there. He was meeting with Moses, appearing to Moses, manifesting himself to Moses in a way that Moses could still survive. Right?

Cameron: 13:02

And God says, hey, look, basically, like, his words to Moses here are a gentle and casual way of the Lord saying, watch your step, my man. Watch your step because, I'm here, and I'm holy. And and even though the fire is not consuming the bush, it it would not take a lot to consume you with my glory. Right? And so and so the lord the the lord's like, a holy place is is determined by the presence of god there, god's manifested presence there.

Cameron: 13:55

Who may ascend the hill of the lord? Who may go to the to the holy place? Who may be who may be in the presence of God? What are the just like just like he was like, hey, Moses, take your take your shoes off, man. Dangerous place.

Cameron: 14:21

It's like Aslan in Narnia. Right? He is good, but he is not tame. He is a good lion. He if you have a Red Chronicles around you, like, what's the matter with you?

Cameron: 14:36

Get on it. Right? Mhmm. He god is good, but he's not tame. He's holy.

Cameron: 14:47

Who may be in God's presence? The psalmist answers the question, Psalm 24 verse 345. He who has clean hands and a pure heart who does not lift his soul to an idol and does not swear by what is false. Now over the next few day weeks, we're going to talk about some of these things. We're not going to talk about them in order.

Cameron: 15:16

Today, we're gonna start talking about the heart. The word heart, pure heart. He who has clean hands and a pure heart. The word heart occurs over a 1000 times in the bible, from Genesis to Revelation. But the bible talks about the heart all over the place.

Cameron: 15:44

In every genre, that we have in the Bible, there's language about the heart. It denotes a person's the heart denotes a person's center for both their physical, emotional, intellectual, and moral activity. The theologian and pastor Dallas Willard put it this way. He said, when I speak of the heart, I refer to that center or inner core of our being from which all of our actions flow. Another, commentator puts it this way.

Cameron: 16:20

The heart is the key and the source to everything in your life. It is the source and river of your life. I like kind of like this understanding or definition of it. The heart is the command center of our lives. Everything in our life functions from the content or, like, situation status of our heart.

Cameron: 16:48

Our words flow from our hearts. Our thought flows from our hearts. Our actions flow from the content of our hearts. The the things that we desire flows from the orientations of our hearts. Right?

Cameron: 17:05

Our proclivities, our addictions, our desires, our hungers, the things we thirst after and the things that we say, the thoughts that we have and the people that we like to be around. Every motivation and orientation of our lives comes from the content of our heart. It's important for us to think about our hearts because we don't generally live in a culture that kinda that values the examination of the heart. We live in a culture that values the examination of what can be seen. Your accomplishments.

Cameron: 17:57

Your, the the things that you the things that you have. Your your reputation, your your good name. But not, but but but not one that our culture is not one that values the heart. Even the old testament reflects this in 1st Samuel 1st Samuel chapter 16. It describes our culture perfectly.

Cameron: 18:21

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the lord looks at what? Looks at the heart. Now I said that there is over a 1000 references to the heart in scripture, and so now we're gonna go over them all. Mm-mm. But 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 10.

Cameron: 18:42

Not really, but we are gonna look at 13 of them. Okay? Not really any specific 13, but just I wanna give you I wanna give you a picture, a snapshot even, of the way in which scripture talks about the heart and how the heart functions in our lives and our relationship with the Lord and our hunger and pursuit for him. K? Because it's not all positive, but it's also not all negative.

Cameron: 19:18

K? We're gonna start in Genesis. Right? Right at the beginning. Genesis chapter 6 verse 5.

Cameron: 19:23

This is right before the flood of Noah. Says the lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. That the evil that existed, the evil that was prevalent in the world, preying the flood of Noah, was came out of the hearts of the people. But just as the wickedness and evil was, like, resided in the hearts of men and women at that time, the heart also was the center or is the center for our devotion and love to the lord. It is the thing that we cultivate in love to the Lord so that all of our life flows through that fountain of love.

Cameron: 20:21

In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5, it says the love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength. Same book, different chapter, Deuteronomy 30 verse 6. The lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you may love him with all of your heart and with all of your soul and live. A scripture that we already talked about here when, when, the priest Samuel was choosing the next king or appointing the next king as God was directing him in 1st Samuel chapter 16 verse 7. He was overlooking all of David's brothers who were mighty men of warrior and in battle.

Cameron: 21:07

Right? But the Lord said to Samuel, I do not consider their appearance or their height, for the Lord has rejected them. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at outward appearances, but the Lord looks at the hearts. We do a great job at fooling people about our lives.

Cameron: 21:36

Right? We fool the we we can fool people in this room. We can fool our friends. Sometimes, we are so good at masking the content of our heart that we can fool the people that are closest to us and most intimate with us, our spouse, our kid. Sometimes our heart overflows.

Cameron: 21:56

Right? It's like, oh, there I am. There's the real me. We never fool the Lord. Never.

Cameron: 22:11

A lot of us live lives working overtime to hide who we truly are in fear that if someone actually knew we would be so alone and abandoned. Guess what? Someone already does know, and he sent his son to die for you anyway. Back to the heart passages, Psalm 37 verse 4. Take delight in the lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Cameron: 22:44

We could preach a whole series about this, That aligning our heart with the things that delight in God's heart is the key to receiving those things. Psalm 51 verse 10 is a prayer. Create in me a pure heart, oh god, and renew a steadfast spirit in me. It's a recognition that my heart needs purifying, that my heart needs cleansing, that that which exists all on its own does not glorify the lord. And so I reach to the lord in a posture of hunger and say, lord, create in me a pure and clean heart.

Cameron: 23:24

Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Cleanse my heart, oh god, because why? Well, Jeremiah 17 is the answer. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Cameron: 23:44

And it's like the Lord answers himself through the prophets. Right? Because Jeremiah says the heart yeah. I mean, the heart, deceitfully wicked. Who can understand it?

Cameron: 23:57

And Ezekiel comes behind Jeremiah. Right? The Babylonian is a prophet during a one of the prophets during the Babylonian exile, and he says to the people, the sovereign lord says, I will give you I, the Lord, will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Cameron: 24:23

That the Lord is eager and waiting and ready to take the heart that is diseased and deceitful and sick and evil in all of its inclinations, and take that heart out of us, that heart of proverbial stone, so that he may give us a new heart, a heart bathed in the spirit of God, a heart of flesh. We We travel into the new testament, and the same language about the heart continues. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the pure in heart. Why? Or what do they receive?

Cameron: 25:04

For they will see God. This is the whole sermon here. That's the whole sermon. Blessed are the pure in heart. They're the ones that see God.

Cameron: 25:15

Who gets to ascend the hill of the Lord? Who gets to stand in his holy place, those with clean hands and pure hearts? Jesus is like, agreement over here from the messiah, blessed are the pure in heart, they are the ones that will see god. Continues Matthew chapter Matthew chapter 6 verse 21. Jesus says, for where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

Cameron: 25:43

It doesn't let up in Luke's gospel either. Luke chapter 6 verse 45. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. They side they say they say that the eyes are the window to the soul.

Cameron: 26:08

If that is true, then the mouth is the window to the heart. What's been coming out of your mouth lately? Paul continues in Romans chapter 2 in verse 9. He says, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord mouth is important. Right?

Cameron: 26:40

Because the mouth overflows, reflects what? The heart. Right? If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Believe and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Cameron: 26:52

You will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. It's a it's very difficult to understand this verse and verses like it if you don't have an understanding of what the bible means when it talks about the heart. Right? You wonder you you you kinda get a picture of it when you when we use language with our children about asking Jesus into our heart.

Cameron: 27:23

Right? Because kids will ask the most ridiculously simple questions that require you to have complex theological answers. Just got to ask Jesus in your heart. Well, really, how tall is Jesus? Because my heart's like this big.

Cameron: 27:44

Well yeah. So it's like the, it's not like physically in your like, your heart is like the center of your motivations and desires and hunger of your life. So asking Jesus into your he's not like living there, like, where the blood is, but it's like kinda, like you know what I'm saying? So, like, when we talk about passages like Romans chapter 10 verse 9, where we believe with our heart and are justified, we have an understanding where our heart is the command center of our lives. Where now our when I say I believe with my heart and I'm justified, my what I'm saying is that, like, my my whole life, my my motivation for doing things, my desires, my thoughts, my words, my relationships, my hungers, right, my proclivities, the things that are who I am are now surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Cameron: 28:40

I believe with my heart when I surrender my entire being to him. It's not like I'm asking him to come and take up physical physical material residence in the beating muscle in my chest. Say, lord, come and be the lord. I surrender my lordship of my life to give it all to you. This is belief in our hearts.

Cameron: 29:17

Finally, the last one from this morning, Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. See what God is not a God of judgment.

Cameron: 29:40

Incorrect. See, judgment is a significant part of God's character and his actions, and he employs his word as a sharp, double edged sword to judge the content of our hearts, our thoughts, and our attitudes to separate us away from all the trivialities that we try to pile on top of our lives. It cuts down to the very core of who we are, our hearts. And so if we were to even to take a summary of those 13 verses, and there are 987 plus more in all of scripture about the heart, we could say things like this, that both the law and the gospel are centered on what comes in our hearts and what goes out of our hearts. There are passages of scripture that point out that something is seriously and deeply concerning with our hearts.

Cameron: 30:51

That they are deceitfully wicked. Who can understand them? That every inclination of the thought of the human heart is only evil all of the time, it says in Deuteronomy. We could come to the conclusion based on these scriptures that the quality of our hearts is a matter and should be a matter of serious prayer for us. That a part of your prayer life should include a prayer that asks the Lord to align your heart with his.

Cameron: 31:22

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. We could come to the conclusion that having a healthy heart, a pure heart, leads or yields in calculable blessing and reward. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. The overwhelming witness of the scripture should be that that if we learn nothing else from any of that, even specifically, it should be this general idea, we better be paying attention to our hearts. We better be pay it be paying attention to what goes on here.

Cameron: 32:19

And when we pay attention, we might come to the conclusion that, yes, this heart is indeed deceitfully wicked above all things, and then stand on the promise of God that by believing in Jesus Christ with our hearts, that God gives us all the way back prophesied in the prophet Ezekiel, even ripped into the New Testament life of Jesus now, that God will give us himself. God himself will give us a new heart, a heart of flesh. He will take out our heart of stone. Some of the scriptures that we didn't talk about this morning also have words about our heart that even after our heart is replaced, our heart is made new. We are rebirthed, right, in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Cameron: 33:19

That our we now have hearts of flesh that there's still that we still must pay attention. Even the, in the epistle to first John, he says, brothers and sisters, dear or he says, dear children, keep yourselves from idols. What is the what is the presumption there? The presumption there is that idols are always warring for space in our hearts, and that we must be intentional to keep guard over that which has been renewed in our life through the holy spirit. That we don't just settle for saying, like, oh, lord, thank you for the new heart.

Cameron: 34:00

I now will go live just as I did before. Like the transplant patient who gets a new heart and then goes out and just continues to smoke a pack a day. That when god replaces our heart and gives us a heart of flesh. Now part of our walk with the lord is to keep guard over our heart because the psalmist says, keep guard over your heart for it is the well spring of life. That we must have a discerning and careful port of entry, A filter over our heart that understands and and that that understands the reality that that which we take into ourselves fills the content of our heart which then comes back out and overflows.

Cameron: 35:00

We must guard our hearts and have a discerning and strict, like, filter of what comes in our lives knowing how essential it is, knowing how important it is to guard that which Christ has made new. We must guard our hearts against the obvious evils in our lives, but also against the small, casual deadening of spiritual nerves with insignificant things and living. Next week, we're gonna talk about this phrase in Psalm 24. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in this holy place?

Cameron: 35:47

Those who have clean hands and a pure heart and do not lift their soul to an idol. Talk about idolatry next week. Right? It's not gonna be comfortable. It will not be comfortable.

Cameron: 36:06

Like, oh, no. I'm good. I got no Buddhas in my house. Like, you know, not into that idol worship stuff. Alright?

Cameron: 36:25

Here's what happens. Here's what happens when we ask the Lord. There is one way there is one way that the Lord deals with idols in scripture. He smashes them to pieces and then burns them in front of us. Right.

Cameron: 36:51

Like, when we begin to ask the Lord to remove idols from our lives, we better be ready to watch him smash some things apart. And the idols of our lives almost not almost never. They never go willingly. They never go willingly. Why?

Cameron: 37:26

Well, because we have made we have made them so important to us that we will fight the Lord's purifying work to remove them from our lives, and in the process, experience incalculable pain under the lordship of an idol. And so the pain of them getting smashed to bits is actually the gentleness of the Lord in comparison to the slavery that you willfully give yourself to in service to an idol in your life. And don't be going like this to the people next to you. Right? Because the Lord is coming after your idol.

Cameron: 38:20

Yours. I don't have any idols. You do. Because your stubborn refusal to say you don't have any idol reveals that you are an idol in and of yourself. The re part of part of the problem here part of the problem is that when we think about the idolatrous evil of the world, we always think about someone else.

Cameron: 38:59

Them. Those people. That group. We we we all we have this stubborn refusal. We have the stubborn refusal to to really actually just look at the way in which the Lord, like, calls people to repentance.

Cameron: 39:21

The problem in the world problems in the world are not out there. Rather, they are in here. The gospel always points us to a place of inward repentance, not outward criticism when it comes to dealing with the evil of the world. We we talked about this just a couple months ago when we looked in second Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14. Right?

Cameron: 39:53

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and pray and turn from their sins, then I will hear from heaven, and I will answer their call, and I will hear their land. Who was the Lord talking to? He wasn't talk when it when it came to the evil of the world, the Lord wasn't talking to the world. The Lord was talking to the people of God. Looking out over the landscape with our noses up in the air at the evil of the world, refusing to under refusing to take even half a second to allow the holy spirit to examine our own hearts, to say, lord, what evil exists within my heart?

Cameron: 40:41

Or I repent of it and turn from my evil ways that I may experience healing in times of refreshing. Here is this. Let the Lord examine your heart. I should have put, like, a caution, beware, wet floor, you know, sign on this, something like that. Right?

Cameron: 41:02

This is a dangerous game, friends. This is a dangerous game. I will because many time listen. You wanna ascend the you wanna ascend the hill of the Lord? You wanna stand in the holy place of God?

Cameron: 41:20

You wanna experience the manifest presence of God in your life? You wanna play you wanna quit playing games, wasting your time? You wanna quit playing games with the Lord? You need a deep examination of your heart that does not focus on trivialities because your heart is deceitfully wicked above all things. Okay?

Cameron: 41:43

It'd be like this. Me walking, running into the emergency room, sitting down on the bed. Doctor, it feels like someone like, I got, like, a 500 pound man sitting on my chest, and I have this, like, aching pain in my left arm, and I'm having trouble breathing. It's like, oh, okay. Great.

Cameron: 42:12

Man, did you see that game last night? Yeah. Yep. Saw the game, but my chest right now, and my arm, and I can't and I can't breathe. Right.

Cameron: 42:22

Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes.

Cameron: 42:24

We'll get right to that. I can't believe how the Steelers did not decide to play football until the second half of the game. Can you believe that if they would have just began to play in the first half, maybe Russell Wilson would have been able to put something together. Yes. I agree.

Cameron: 42:40

Bad strategy, but my heart, but my heart. Okay? Right. Yes. Let's, order some tests and maybe, get the stethoscope out and, see what your resting heartbeat is, and we'll should be all taken good.

Cameron: 42:53

Those are really nice boots. Where did you get them? I'm looking for something just like that. And all of the like, the whole time you're sitting there being like, bro does not get it. I'm having a deep issue with my heart.

Cameron: 43:15

And he's only talking about the football game and the boots that I'm wearing. It's an inappropriate response to what is happening inside of my chest. Is it not? But I listen, I think in some sense, this is what we can say when we say our prayers. Examine my heart, Lord.

Cameron: 43:38

We can sing about Jesus and we can talk about theology and all the rest of it, but really what God is saying is, like, aside from all of that, let me deal with your heart, bro. Forget the football game and the boots. I don't wanna talk about those things. Stop just coming in and singing a few songs and listening to a few people talk. Let me deal with your heart.

Cameron: 44:04

Let me get deep into what's driving you, what's hurting you. Where there's pain, I want to do surgery there. See, and the reality is is that there are various ways to which we can let god search us. It's true. God is kind of a gentleman in this way.

Cameron: 44:40

He is waiting for your permission. How deep would you like me to go? He says. How far should I examine today? See, we can go to a doctor with a heart issue, with chest pain and arm pain and short of breath, and we can say, yeah.

Cameron: 45:09

Could you just, take my resting heartbeat and use your stethoscope and let me know what you think? Oh, yep. Everything looks good. Or you could say, I think, we need to do an EKG. I think we're probably doing an MRI.

Cameron: 45:28

We need to order some blood work. We need to get to we need to get you on a monitor. We better start a central line or an IV. And at that point, now you're in this, like, you know, silly tube, sitting still, hating your life. But you've gotta sit still because the scan is deep and penetrating down to the very core of who you are.

Cameron: 45:54

Not to take the analogy too far, but if I was, if I did, Well, let's bring that back up. Let the lord examine your heart. If you want to ascend to the hill of the lord and stand in the holy place, I would forego the examination by stethoscope and request the examination by MRI, which goes down into the depths of who you are and slices every layer of your heart apart to find where evil resides and to create purity in its place. Sit quietly with your heart before god, saying, are there any idols here, lord? Is there any bitterness in my life?

Cameron: 46:47

Is there any unforgiveness? Do I hold any hate? How about any pride or greed? Where's the lust, Lord? Where's the anger and malice and rage?

Cameron: 46:56

No, really. I want to know. Tell me. Are there any trivialities that are stopping me from living with a healthy soul that can be filled with your power and your presence? You see, because the ultimate cry of revival of our hearts and lives is this, Lord, I want you in my heart.

Cameron: 47:18

And if you want God in your heart, you're gonna have to prepare a place that suits his holiness. Here's what you need to know. God wants to fill you with glory and power and blessing more than you can comprehend. He's literally just looking for people whose hearts are fully his. This is it.

Cameron: 47:52

Simply bring your heart before god. Ask him to search it. One of the great things that we can do in prayer is bring our hearts before God and say, Lord, tune my heart to your standard. Let me be the person you've called me to be, not what the culture wants of me. Lord, I want every single thing that you died to give me in the new covenant, and I will not settle for a lukewarm managed version of my faith.

Cameron: 48:23

Give it to me, God. I want you in my heart. Search me and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Cameron: 48:40

This is the heart that hungers after God. This is the heart that will lead you to the holy place, that will let you stand on the hill of the Lord. This is the heart that prepares for the Lord's presence to overwhelm you. You must bring it to him. You must bring your heart to him and say, lord, examine my heart.

Cameron: 49:12

Not on the surface, lord, but every nook and cranny. I give you full access, lord. Point out anything in expose any idol. Reveal any sin. Bring light to any attitude.

Cameron: 49:27

Convict me of, Lord, even the most menial, trivial, small things. I don't care what it is. If it's an idol that's half an inch tall, Lord, I want it gone from my life, Lord. Point it out. Smash it.

Cameron: 49:43

Bring purity into my life because I cannot live without your presence. I am nothing without you. This is the heart that hungers after God. The heart that creates a place where his presence can dwell in its holiness. I'm gonna pray this prayer over us as the worship team comes up.

Cameron: 50:25

It's not my prayer. It's in the Psalms, Psalm 27. A prayer of hunger, a prayer for those who have one thing that they want to ask the Lord have one thing that they seek. Psalm 27, verse 4. One thing I ask of you, Lord, this is what I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple.

Cameron: 51:09

Lord, there is only one thing that we ask. There is only one thing that we seek, that we may dwell in your house all of the days of our lives. That we may gaze upon your beauty and seek you, Lord, in your place of worship, in your place of holiness, Lord. Lord, your word says that we will seek you and we will find you, Lord, when we seek you with all of our heart. Lord, we come and seek with all of our heart this morning, Lord.

Cameron: 51:42

Show us your face. Make your presence known in our hearts. Make your presence known in this church. Make your presence known in this region. In Jesus' name, amen.