Amen.
Amen. You feel free to take your seats here in the presence of the Lord.
He is good, isn’t he? And there are those times when we are in the presence of God, when you can actually tangibly feel God’s presence.
I’m talking about where you get goose bumps.
You know what I’m saying, where your body responds to the fact that God’s presence is here and that doesn’t happen all the time.
It doesn’t have to for us to know that God is with us.
But during those special times that it does happen, isn’t it a sweet kiss from heaven to feel the presence of God?
And I don’t know about you. But tonight, I feel God’s presence, anybody feel the presence of God tonight.
And so for just a few moments, I wanted to just share with you a few thoughts that I jotted down in my hotel room just earlier, just thinking about you and thinking about tonight and this opportunity that we have this unique opportunity that we have to be in the presence of God on my Twitter feed.
I subscribe to CNN news. Uh I follow them so that every now and then I get these little bits of news about what’s happening in the world.
And quite some time ago, several months ago, I clicked on one of the little stories that popped into my Twitter feed and it was about Beijing and I clicked on and I read what the story was about this particular part of the world and they were describing how there are.
So there is so much pollution in the air right now in Beijing, there are a number of things that have contributed to the fact that pollution is running rampant that a lot of people that live in.
That part of the literally have to put a mask on that.
They walk around with a mask on because they’re not able to breathe in the air and stay healthy.
So they’ll put a mask on but not only has it affected their physical body, it’s actually also been so thick.
The pollution is so thick in the air that now they’re having trouble with visibility.
They’re not able to see some distance in front of them because the pollution is hanging like a thick cloud and it has become so dense and so thick that some people in different parts of Beijing are also having trouble actually seeing the sun rise in the morning.
They can’t see the sun because the thick fog of pollution is hanging so heavy and so low in Beijing.
And so they came up with a solution, they decided that in certain parts of Beijing, what they would do would be to put these very large screens kind of like the you would see in Times Square, huge giant enormous screens positioned in specific places throughout the city of Beijing.
And that they would manufacture a sunrise in the morning and a sunset in the evening so that folks could at least get a glimpse of a sunrise, albeit manufactured and illegitimate and synthetic and man made.
But the people of Beijing, some of them are just so glad to see the sun rising that they’ve begun to celebrate and become used to and satisfied with this manufactured view of the sun.
It occurs to me that often times in our relationship with God, we unfortunately have become satisfied and ok with and even celebrating a manufactured view of the Son of God that we have got this picture that has been painted for us.
And it is not really who Jesus is.
And we have allowed this man made picture of the sun to replace a clear view of the presence of God that we’ve allowed programs and church attendance and activities to replace our one on one relationship with the lover of our souls.
So instead of wanting to hear the voice of God for ourselves, now we’ve become ok with being spoon fed the word of God constantly from other people to us.
Nothing wrong with hearing the word of God from somebody else. A bible. Study teacher or your pastor.
We celebrate the people that God has given us to lead us into the truth of God’s word.
But there has to be a time where you say, you know what I want to see the sun for myself that I want to hear his voice, that I want to experience his presence, that I don’t wanna have to be coaxed into worship, that I want to fall to my own knees and worship him in spirit and in truth.
And tonight, in this place where the presence of God isn’t just with us, in theory where you just know it because you’ve been told it.
But where you can sense his presence hanging heavy with us.
I just wonder if just like Kim said, I just love when the Holy Spirit does that.
Here I am in my hotel room thinking about sharing this with you and Kim stands up a few moments ago and she says, if there’s anybody in the room who has felt like you’ve not had that personal intimate one on one touchable tangible practical relationship with Jesus that I agree with her tonight’s the night that he’s brought you into this place because he said I’m tired of the screens that you got up in your life with these inauthentic views of who I am, this manufactured man made thing, these programs and religious activities.
I want you to see me with your own eyes and hear me with your own ears and experience me in your life, not through the testimony of somebody else, but in your own practical everyday experience.
And I don’t know about you, but I wanna see him with my own eyes. I wanna hear him.
I wanna feel him in my own life. And let me tell you something.
Once you have experienced God, you will be ruined for church.
As usual, it won’t work for you anymore to just read a verse a day to keep the devil away.
That won’t work for you anymore.
You won’t want to just do the religious thing because that’s what you’ve been told to do.
And that’s what your mama did and your grandmother did and your father did and your grandfather did, uh uh you’ll want to do it because once you hear his voice, you will not be satisfied with anything else.
I was talking to one of my favorite people, Cy Rogers.
He’s one of my favorite people on the planet.
We had a conversation the other day and he said to me that there were, there was a time in his life when he met Jesus decades ago when he met Jesus.
He said that once I, I came into contact with him and encountered him for myself and I saw him and experienced him.
My life was completely transformed. Everything changes.
Once you really meet, meet Jesus, not church, Jesus church is great.
Don’t get me wrong, but you still got to meet with Jesus and let me tell you something, God doesn’t have grandkids just because your parents met Jesus doesn’t automatically mean you have, you have to have your own relationship with the Lord.
Luke chapter seven verse 35 says this. Listen, I’m going to read a few verses for you.
I’m sorry. Luke chapter 18: verse 35.
And it came about that as he, that is Jesus was approaching Jericho that a certain blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.
Now hearing a multitude that was going by, he began to inquire about what this might be.
And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.
Let’s just, just think about this for a minute.
This guy blind Barda Maus, he’s sitting by the roadside day after day, week after week, month, after month, probably year after year.
And he has learned that in order to make a living in order to survive, he’s got to be a beggar.
And so he sits by the roadside and he can’t see.
But he has learned to hear he’s learned what the environment usually sounds like.
He knows what it sounds like to hear.
People cross to the other side of the road because they don’t want to have to deal with him.
He’s learned what it sounds like to hear the, the crackle of some coins banging against the bottom of his tin can.
He’s learned what denomination sounds like what when it hits the bottom of that tin cup.
He’s learned what the environment usually sounds like, but on this day everything sounds different.
He can’t see it but he can hear.
And what he knows is that there is an electricity in the atmosphere that is not normally there, the whisper of the people, the enthusiasm of the people as they pass by, he can tell what’s going on and he taps one shoulder after another shoulder trying to get someone to answer his question as to what’s going on and why things sound so different on this particular day.
And then somebody answers his question and they say something to him that will change his life forever.
They say to him, Jesus of Nazareth, the one you’ve heard about, the one who causes blind eyes to see the one who causes the lane to walk.
The one who causes deaf ears to hear.
The one who even raises the dead back to life that Jesus is passing by. Bar.
Never thought in a million years that, that, that Jesus, the one he’d heard about only from afar would be this close to him.
He never thought in a million years that Jesus would make himself available to a regular blind beggar sitting by the roadside.
And I wonder today if you were sitting in this room and you feel a little bit like Barde in that you just feel like Jesus is available for other people, but not necessarily for folks like you, just a teenager, just a university student, just a housewife, just a regular blue collar person working at your, your corporate job.
You just feel like Jesus seems to be available and more accessible to other people who are maybe in ministry full time or who seem to have this special hotline connection that you just don’t seem to have access to.
And you wonder if Jesus, this Jesus that you’ve heard about can do all these fantastic things if he’ll ever be available to you.
And tonight you and I have come into this room and he wants you to know that just like he made himself available to a blind beggar named Barda Maus in Luke chapter 18.
Tonight, he makes himself available to you. He is not a respecter of persons.
He is available to the educated and the uneducated alike.
He is available to the cultured and the uncultured alike.
He is available to the 70 year old, just like he is the 17 year old.
He is available to the black and he’s available to the white.
He is available to the Hispanic and to the Asian.
He is available to any anybody, any time, any place anywhere God makes himself available to you at church on a Sunday night, just like he does in your bedroom on a Monday morning, you need to know that wherever you are, whether you’re in full time ministry or whether you work a regular 8-5 job.
Our Jesus makes himself available to you.
You don’t have to be a special person from a special family, making a special kind of income in a special kind of environment just because you exist.
You are special in his eyes and he makes himself available to you tonight, Jesus, whatever you need, he makes himself and his provisions and his promises available to you had been marginalized by the people that he lived around.
Nobody wanted to fool with this blind beggar who, who was just a nuisance.
So it seemed, and maybe you’re a little discouraged tonight because you’ve been marginalized by your family, by your friends.
Nobody seems to understand or desire to be in close proximity and relationship to you and you feel alone.
You’re in a room full of people tonight, but still somehow you feel left out and you feel alone and you feel like Jesus is doing something in the hearts of other people.
But you’re wondering if you’ll ever make himself that available and tangible and practical to you.
And you need to know that tonight.
He brought you into this room, he brought you into this room so that you could hear the whisper through the worship so that you could hear the, the, the sweet hush of the Holy Spirit say to your heart through the word of God so that he could make sure you knew before this night was over that he’s available that he himself, not the manufactured view, not the program.
He himself, his voice, his power, his bloodshed on Calvary is available to every single one of us in this room.
And I don’t know about you, but I’m glad about it.
I’m glad that he looks beyond my faults and he sees my needs and that he allows himself to be accessible to me.
The president of the United States. This was about 10 years ago.
Now the president of the United States came to visit our church in Dallas Texas.
He gave um an address there.
It was as you can imagine, uh an awesome opportunity to be in this close proximity to the leader of the United States of America for us.
And it was, it was a great, a great experience for our church and I will never forget day that he was set to speak at our church.
It was a zoo around our church. If you can even imagine, I’m sure you can.
There were snipers that had to be positioned on the rooftops of our church buildings, there were barricaded streets for miles around.
There were tented off areas where his motorcade would be pulling in and out.
Once his car pulled into these tented areas by the entrance of the building, no one could see out or in.
There were all of these security measures that were put in place.
Anybody that was going to meet him personally, my family had an opportunity to meet him personally.
Before he spoke, we had to send our social security cards and our driver’s license and our birth certificates to this specific agency six months beforehand, so that they could do a background check.
I remember at the time my oldest son was only about a year old, we had to send his birth certificate and his social security card so that they could check out his little one year of life before they allowed him to be in close proximity to the, to the president of the United States of America.
And when he came, he was kept at arm’s length when he addressed the congregation from the platform.
Uh I remember that right in front of them, right in our sanctuary, there was a roped area so that afterwards he came down, but he was only able to get close enough to people where he had to reach across this barricade that was always in between he and the people for security measures.
And as I watched this celebrity being kept distant from regular folk that day, it occurred to me that, that we know the celebrity of the universe and there is no barrier between he and I, there is nothing keeping you away.
There is no distance between you and he, when he died on the cross of Calvary, as Kim said, the veil was torn from the top to the bottom.
Any dividing factor between you and he was disseminated on the Cross of Calvary, you now can approach boldly.
Hebrews chapter four says, you can come boldly to him, bringing all your requests and all your concerns and all your needs.
He makes himself available to you. There is nothing keeping you from him.
And do you know people who are skeptical of this Jesus people who are unsure about this faith, this relationship that you and I have with Jesus?
One of the things that they often say is that it doesn’t make sense to them, that a God that is supposedly so good would only allow there to be one way for us to have a relationship with him with so many different cultures and so many different backgrounds, so many different parts of the world, so many different personalities and characteristic that a God who is supposed to be so good would only allow there to be one way for all these different kinds of people to have a relationship with him.
And while that’s actually a good question, it’s not the right question.
The question is not, would a God who is so good allow us one way.
The question is how could a God who is so holy allow people like us anyway to have a relationship with him?
The fact that he has given us a way is enough for us to celebrate for the rest of our days.
Do you know at the beginning of last month in Syria?
Still right now, there is so much unrest in Syria.
And on August eight, there were innocent men and women and Children that were trapped on a mountain.
As the, as Isis, the Islamic State forces surrounded the base and dared anyone not to profess their allegiance to the Muslim faith.
If they did not, they were going to torture or even take their lives.
And it was a devastating circumstance, the world, all of us, we watched what was happening over there in Syria.
But the Syrian Kurds on August the 8th, they came in and they were able to carve out an escape route from the top of that mountain down to the base so that people, men, women and Children were able to find a means of escape.
And as far as I know, not one of those innocent folks that were trapped on the top of that mountain were discouraged or disgruntled about the fact that there was only one escape route.
Not one of them said you could have given us more options to get off the mountain.
Everybody was just glad that there was a way for them to escape the brutality that was awaiting them.
And I want you to know tonight, he’s giving you away.
There’s no reason for us to debate the fact as to whether or not he should have given us more ways.
We just need to be grateful. We have a way because the wages of our sin was gonna be death.
Y’all we were gonna have to pay the price and I don’t know about you.
I’m just grateful there’s another alternative and I’ll take the alternative that he’s given me.
It’s available for you tonight, but not only is Jesus available to Blind Bar and to us, but when they told him that day that Jesus was passing by, it says in verse 38 that he called out saying Jesus son of David have mercy on me.
And those who led the way were sternly telling him be quiet.
Jesus doesn’t have time for you, but that just made old stubborn bar.
Call out all the more Jesus have mercy on me.
I wonder if, if anybody or anything is standing in your way tonight.
Maybe it’s fear of people impressing people being concerned with what folks might see, see, think about you.
If you really go all out in desperation for Jesus, you kind of let it all hang out there.
Maybe it’s fear of people, maybe it’s your own doubts that are standing in your way that you wonder if you really go all out.
If you give it everything that you’ve got.
You wonder if, if, if Jesus will really respond, if he’ll hear, maybe it’s insecurity, maybe it’s any number of things that’s, that’s kind of standing in your way.
We need to be like blind bar to Maus when there were people in his way, he just pushed past them.
He was just desperate enough when Jesus was passing by that, he did not want to let the moment escape him.
So he was like the woman with the issue of blood who forged and forced her way through a crowd so that she could get close enough to him that she could reach out and touch the hem of his garment.
And when she did power left Jesus and went to her, I wanna be like that woman who doesn’t allow anything or anybody to stand in my way so that I can desperately reach out to him and receive the power that he so wants to give to me.
And Barda Maus did that. He called out all the more Son of David.
Would you please have mercy on me? He just wasn’t too proud to beg.
& verse 40 says, and Jesus stopped, Jesus stopped, deity clothed in humanity, stopped for a blind beggar named Jesus king of kings and Lord of Lords, the God of the universe.
The one who has all power in his hands.
The one who right this very moment is making sure that the throes of the galaxy are in order.
The one who right this very moment is making sure that the earth spins on its axis at just the right speed so that you and I can sustain life.
Here he is the one that is making sure that the Galaxies that the scientists have not even yet discovered are hanging exactly where they’re supposed to.
He is the one that made sure that the sun rose this morning on this gorgeous day in New Zealand, that the sun is exactly in its position and that it will stay exactly where it’s supposed to be until he swaps it out a little bit later on for the moon.
He is the one that will hang every single star in its place, know them all by name and all by number And that God stops to see about us.
He is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.
He is the alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end.
He is the architect of the universe and the manager of all time.
And that God stops to see about regular old people like us. Y’all.
He’s not just available but he’s actually attainable. He stops to see about us.
He doesn’t dangle himself like a carrot in front of us.
He comes, he says to us, come on and taste and see how good I am.
He’s attainable to us. He stops to see about us.
Do you know that uh the Buddhist faith?
There are five statues I believe of, of Buddha big statues that stand in and around the Hong Kong area.
There was a news story that was done there, Campbell Brown on the Today news out of New York.
She was doing this story on the Buddhist faith.
She stood there in Hong Kong in front of one of the big Buddhist statues with her camera crew.
And they did the story about the Buddist faith just to be informative about different religions of the world.
That day. She was discussing the Buddhist faith and she talked about how pilgrims will save up a lifetime’s worth of money.
They will travel halfway across the world.
They will purchase this trip so that they can hopefully at least once in their life, travel halfway across the world so that they can be in front of one of these idols, these Buddha statues so that they can pray to this idol.
And she talked about how not only did they have to travel halfway across the world, but in order for her and her camera crew to get next to this statue, it was on the side of a mountain.
So she and her camera crew had to climb up 268 stairs in order to get close enough on this mountain side to be where the pilgrims would be when they wanted to come and pray to Buddha.
And I sat there watching this news story and I thought to myself, if I had to travel halfway across the world and climb up 268 stairs to pray, I would never pray.
Anybody know what I’m talking about. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Nobody got time for that.
And while they are climbing up to talk to their God, little G our God.
Capital G, the one true God. He comes down to talk to her.
He condescends to us. He doesn’t have to. He wants to, he stops.
He sees about you. I need you to know that every single tear you have cried has not been lost in the carpet fibers of your bedroom floor.
Every single one of them have been captured in the palm of Almighty God.
You need to know that every bead of sweat that has been on your brow as you deal with that problem or that difficulty in your life, every single bead of sweat has been noticed by God.
Every single request in your heart, the ones you have not even verbalized in prayer yet.
You need to know that your God is fully aware. He sees He cares. He knows what’s on your heart.
And in your mind, he stops to see about you.
My friend, your mom might not care, your dad might not care. Your friend might not care.
Your spouse may not care, but you need to know you serve a God who sees you.
His eyes are on you. He stops to see about you.
Jesus stopped and commanded that may be brought to him.
And when he had come near, he questioned him, he said, what do you want me to do for you?
And this is interesting because Barnea says, Lord, I want to receive my sight y’all.
This is the same man who just six or seven verses ear earlier was begging for money.
Now, Jesus shows up and is asked the question, what do you want?
He does not say, would you give me a little change?
He doesn’t say, will you fill up this tin cup with money?
Because now he’s talking to a different source. He says, I don’t want chump change.
I want something that only God can give.
So I’m no longer going to request that the symptom of my problem be taken care of.
Now, I’m gonna go ahead and get to the root because I’m dealing with Jesus. I don’t want money.
I want my sight back because I know Jesus that if you will give me my sight, all of the other symptoms will take care of themselves.
I don’t know what request you came in here with tonight for your marriage or your finances or something going on with your health.
All of those are great requests, but you need to know that when the presence of God is here like he is tonight, you need to not just ask him to cure the symptoms of your problems.
You might as well just get down to the real root issue and say, Lord, would you give me my spiritual sight?
Would you help me to see you clearly? Would you make yourself real to me?
I don’t want the manufactured view anymore.
I want you to illumine yourself in my life so that I have a real personal relationship with you.
I don’t want just something I could get from a human being.
Mm mm I want something that only I can get from you.
And tonight in this moment of worship in these moments of worship as the presence of God has been so real and tangible to us as he is passing by.
Don’t let the opportunity escape you to call out to him and say, Son of David have mercy on me and when he stops and he will stop and when he asks you, what can I do for you?
Don’t say anything less the Lord.
Would you cause my vision to be to, to be healed to the extent where I see you as you were meant to be seen, clear away all the pollutants, all of the smog, all of the fog, all of the distractions that are keeping me away from a personal, intimate tangible, practical real relationship with you.
Will you bow your heads with me?
I want you for just a moment to do business with God.
I want you to ask Him, what is it? Who is it that’s standing in your way?
I want you to desperately say to Him, Lord have mercy on me.
I want you to give to Him any and everything that is standing in your way and keeping you from being in an intimate relationship with himself.
Just spend a moment with Jesus Lord. We honor you