Blessed Are - Part 6

Tonight we're going to be going on part six in our biatitude series talking about the pured heart. So I've started off every one of these by mentioning that in the beginning of Jesus's ministry he was defining blessings in quite a different way than culture ever did. It was quite countercultural. Instead of pointing to power or success or status or comfort, he spoke about things like humility and surrender, mercy, hunger for righteousness and faithfulness in the face of opposition. It was with these words that he wasn't just giving a motivational speech to try to get people, you know, inspired by his words. Instead, he was trying to let them know that there was a way that you could posture yourself before God that didn't seem to fit the norm of the day. But in doing so, it caused you to have strength that came only from the kingdom of God. So in this series, we've been walking slowly and going very intentionally through the biatitudes and discover that Jesus is revealing far more than just a list of virtues, but he's telling you exactly what he values in his kingdom. As we lean into Jesus's words, we're finding what the world calls strong, Jesus calls empty. What the world calls successful, he calls fragile. often what the world overlooks Jesus refers to as blessed six weeks ago we began this journey on the biatitudes and we've talked about things like poor in the spirit those who mourn meekness is not weakness the hungry and the merciful and tonight we're going to continue on so I'll take you to Matthew chapter 5 if you have your copy of the scriptures if not it'll be on the screens behind me it reads this way and seeing the multitudes he went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him.

Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." And tonight we're going to be talking about blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. As I was thinking about this the past several days and trying to put some finality to my notes, I was thinking about our culture and it seems like we have a bit of an obsession with the word pure and purity. What I mean is if you go over to Kroger across the street or whatever your favorite grocery store in there, there's so many items we see labeled 100% pure or no nothing added, no preservatives, just real ingredients. I find it interesting that orange juice has to prove to you that it's orange juice or that peanut butter says just peanuts. And what else would there be? Maybe a little salt, right outside that, you know, honey has to convince you that's not mixed with anything else. And on and on and on we can go. But if have you noticed the labels that are there always declaring boldly that it's pure. It's 100% it's real. It's actually what it says it is. And we've bought into this idea that pure is better, clean is healthier, real is what we can trust in.

No one's wanting to shop for something that's diluted. Long gone are the days of just picking up whatever is there, but we want to read the label. How many of you live in an ingredient household? Yeah. You know what that is? Kind of. If you don't know, there's a whole movement about the ingredient household. And some are not, some are like the ingredients, whatever. I just I want what I want. I don't care what's in it. I want it to taste good. I want it to fill the hole that is there. That's all I'm looking for. But, we're seeing that there's this trend towards pure. And what's interesting is we can be so incredibly selective about what goes into our bodies but often careless what goes into our hearts and our minds. And I feel like it's what Jesus is trying to draw us back to not only with the biatitudes at a whole but especially here we are in this lesson tonight talking about the pure in heart. I find it interesting that we often reject artificial food but we tolerate artificial spirituality. We filter ingredients, but we don't usually find ourselves being very mindful of filtering our influences. So, I'm going to ask you the onset of this message, what are you allowing to influence you on a daily basis? What are you allowing to influence you on a weekly basis or a monthly basis? What are the voices that you are willingly allowing in and are they beneficial for you?

Who are you listening to? What is it is what is it that's shaping your thoughts? What is it that's framing the narrative through which you view life? If you don't know this, I promise you if you're getting free information, it's not free. You know that, right? If you're getting something free, then you're being sold. Are you guys awake? There we go. Got a few laughs. A little nervous there. Everybody's so quiet and just kind of staring at me. What is influencing you? You got trick questions, media, books, friends, news, etc. Jesus steps right into the tension and he says something powerful. He says, "Blessed are the pure heart, for they shall see God." Not the talented, not the impressive. That was not the qualifications he was looking for. Not the outwardly religious, but he said, "The pure in heart." Because purity is not about perfection. It's about what's being mixed in. A pure heart is not a flawless heart. It's an undivided heart. A pure heart is not a flawless heart. I want you to hang on to this. A pure heart is not a flawless heart. It is undivided heart. I'm going to come back to that term towards the end of the message today about the undivided part is there. I want you to hang on to that phrase. A heart not contaminated with everything else. Not diluted by competing loves. Not split between God and everything else. Pure means something that's not contaminated.

It's not polluted in any way, shape, form, or fashion. So, what does Jesus mean when he says, "Blessed are the pure in heart." When you read through the word of God, it's not the first place you see that. It comes up from time to time. This saying that we can only be blessed or happy when we have love and devotion that belongs to God and it's not polluted by other things that the world tries to interject into our lives, into our thought processes. The pure in heart shall see God. Meaning that when we have a pure heart, you and I have the ability to see clearly that God is with us. I feel like there's a good portion of the room that knows exactly what I'm talking about. That there was a time in your life when you allowed so many other influences in so many other things that filtered your mind and caused you to be shaped and formed and fashioned and it caused you to become polluted. Not on purpose. It wasn't that you intentionally went out to do these things, but over time it slowly caused you to drift away from God, but there was a course correction moment for you. I know I've had many course correction moments in my life. Anybody else ever had a course correction where you realized you were drifting off course. So, you came back and you cried out to God and God went in and he helps you pull some of those impurities out and all of a sudden you could see God in a way that you hadn't seen him in a long time.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? It's like you had been veiled or clouded for a while and you were having a hard time finding him. Quite often I know in my own life when I find myself there, it's usually because I've allowed some other things to come into my life and into my mind that I need to remove. And you get back to having a pure heart so that I can see God clearly, what he has for me in my life. So look at what was going on here. The pure in heart shall see God, meaning we will have clear vision. But what was going on? Jesus wasn't soft when it came to the religious crowd. Have you guys picked up on that yet? Are you in the New Testament? He had a way of walking up to the Pharisees and Sadducees and just making them all kinds of mad. Kind of makes me smile because quite often times he just points out exactly what they're supposed to be standing for but yet are actually living against. He calls them out. He says this in Matthew 23:25. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. What a great way to start a conversation. I don't know about you, but that would probably set me off. Somebody come up and said, "Hey, you hypocrite." I mean, whatever you say past that, I'm already mad. For you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but the inside they are full of exhortation and self-indulgence.

Let's just say it plainly. The Pharisees were experts at looking pure. They knew how to dress the part. They knew how to act the part. They knew how to look like they had it all together. They knew the right things to say. They knew how to behave themselves at a dinner party. They knew what all the 17 forks and knives were for and how they were to be used. They knew everything. It was there. So from the outside looking in at them, they seemingly had it all together. You ever been around somebody like that? They had it all together. It's kind of irritating, isn't it? Hair is always just so so. Clothes are always pressed just so so. You know, there's never, you know, anything out of place in order. And yet you see them sometime and they got a booger in their nose and it brings you joy. I got to laugh. At least you're paying attention. The Pharisees, they had mastered the art of looking like they had it all together. And Jesus comes in and calls them out. They had systems. They had standards. They had visible righteousness down to a science. But Jesus exposed the flaw in their entire approach. Says, "You bunch of hypocrites. You wash the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside is not where it needs to be. They mastered minor things and missed major ones." Just one verse before that in verse 24, I read to you verse 25, but in verse 24 says, "Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." That's not just sarcasm.

That was actual spiritual diagnosis. A gnat was the smallest unclean animal in Jewish law. Did you know that the smallest unclean thing was a gnat? So they avoided that. What they did is they literally strained their wine so that there would know there was no possibility for them to swallow that. And Jesus is saying you're so concerned with the smallest detail of being right that you become wrong. you strain in that and you swallow a camel. What he was saying is you're so concerned with the small to make sure that you look the part that you miss the important thing that's as big as a camel. That you're living in a hypocritical way. So he's calling out the wrong that is there in them. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be so caught up in the minor things that I miss the major. So consumed with something so small that there's a big part of my life that I'm missing. Jesus says, "You're obsessing over the microscopic. You're swallowing something massive. You're careful about appearances, but you're careless about your heart. You have an illusion that you're pure, but it's just not true." And then he shifts the picture and he says, "You clean the outside of the cup." They went through the elaborate rituals and washing ceremonies and religious observances and public displays of devotion. So from the outside looked in, they looks like their cup was spotless, like it was perfect, like they were living in a way that was only going to be so pleasing to God.

But Jesus points out, you may look like you're clean, but inside you're dirty. Jesus says, "What about the inside?" Exhortation, self-indulgence, corruption, self motives. You can polish the outside and still poison what's inside. And eventually what's inside is what you ingest. So listen carefully for just a minute. External purity is easy to manage. You can adjust your behavior. You can modify your language. You can clean up your image. You can even learn church culture. But that doesn't mean you're right with God. Doesn't I've seen in my lifetime there was a time in the apostolic movement when someone would come in and had no concept about God whatsoever. and they would walk into one of our services and they would feel the presence of God and it would overwhelm them and it would lead them to an altar where they would repent and then God would do a work inside of them oftent times filling them with the Holy Ghost. They get baptized in Jesus name and then there would be people who would try to force them into our lifestyle convictions without them having a proper understanding of the why. They had no understanding of why we do the things that we do, but told them if they didn't do it immediately, then they were they're not living like they were not pleasing God when they had no concept of what it meant to please God. No one was teaching them. They were being forced into things and it's wrong.

It's just flat wrong. You can look Patty Pentecost and being mean as a junkyard dog. Just because you look like you got it all together. That's what the Pharisees, they look like they had it all together, but inside they were full of dead bones and rotten things. Quite frankly, if you look the part on the outside and you're wrong on the inside, why does it even matter? What does it matter that you're you do all these things when you're rotten at the core of who you are? Hypocrite is what Jesus said. That's his words. It's not mine. hypocrite. You strain the gnat and swallow the camel. You're so concerned about what someone thinks about you, but the very one who you should be concerned with, you give no thought whatsoever. Blessed are the pure at heart. So I'm here asking you, where are you? Where are your thoughts? What are your influences? What are you allowing to shape and mold and form your opinions about things in life? Are you careful? Because if we've ever lived in a day where it's dangerous to make sure you know where your information comes from, it is today. Everything has a slant. Everything has a bias. Everything has a hidden agenda and a motive behind it. And I'm not one that goes and buries my head in the sand, but I have significantly limited where I get my source of information. I'll be honest with you, I've been off social media for quite a while now.

Every now and then I get on there because someone will send me a message or someone will send me a link to something that I need to look at and read. But I've had the apps off of my phone and iPad for quite a long time. And I want you to know how good it feels that I just don't know what you ate for dinner. I don't know. You think it would bother me, but it just doesn't because I was realizing that I was finding myself getting worked up and having these attitudes for no seeming reason and that I was only being fed what I wanted to be fed and not necessarily what I needed to be fed. So I ask you again before I move on to my next point. What are you allowing to shape and influence and form your opinions? Can you truly trust it? Do you spend as much time in the pure word of God as you do the other things that you allow to shape you? Because if this doesn't have a prominent place in guiding your thoughts, you're already going in the wrong direction. Jesus was confronting purity that was wasn't performance-based. He said this in verse 26, "Blind Pharisees first cleanse the inside of the cup and the dish that the outside of them may be clean also." Jesus didn't di just diagnose, he prescribed. Start where it matters most first. Clean up the inside. Not to ignore the outside.

Please don't misunderstand me. But don't start there because if you reverse the order, you create hypocrisy. But if you get to the inside and you get it right, the outside will naturally follow. That's the principle of the kingdom. Behavior follows from belief. Actions follow from identity. Fruit flows from the root. The real issue the Pharisees had, they had separated what they did from who they were. That was the problem. They separated what they did from who they were. And Jesus said the split is the problem. They had clean hands but unclean hearts. Religious activity but no inward transformation. And what he was trying to do is bring them back into a right alignment to where they needed to be. not less purity but true purity, undivided purity. He doesn't rebuke them for caring about holiness. He rebukes them for starting in the wrong place. But when purity starts internally, it produces humility and humility will give you authenticity and it produces the transformation needed. In Matthew 6, I want to I want to show you the truth that Jesus has is given to us. Matthew 6 and6 but thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet. Everybody say closet. And when thou hast shut the door, pray to the father which is in secret. And the father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Same chapter. I want us to skip down to verse number 19. Lay not up for yourself treasures. Everybody say treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rustth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, and nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Now, at first glance, it can kind of feel like what we're looking at here is two different teachings. One about prayer and one about priorities, but they're not separate. They're actually connected at a root. The word Jesus chooses in the original language, it doesn't really show up well in English in the translation. The word translated closet in verse 6 is the same word that's translated treasure in verse 19. The Greek word teion. And it refers literally to a hidden room, a private treasure room, a private chamber. In ancient homes, it wasn't just any room. This was the most secure and protected place, a place where your most valuable possessions were kept. So when Jesus says enter into your closet, he says go into your treasure room. Okay? Now stay with me for just a minute because this is an important piece what I want to get across tonight when he talks about being pure in heart. Jesus is giving us some instructions here. Go into your treasure room. Find not just a quiet place, but go to where the most valuable things that you have stay. Where is your treasure? What he's doing is he's connecting a few verse later where your treasure is, there's where your heart's going to be.

So he's saying you need to take your heart or take your prayer time into where the closet to where your heart is and wherever your treasure is because your treasure room reveals what you actually love. What is your true value system that you live by? Not what you say you love, not what you post, not what you project, but what you protect. I'm g say that again. I want you to listen to my words. Not what you say you love, not what you post, not what you project, but what you protect, what do you prioritize, what you return to in private, that's your treasure. So, what do you keep in your treasure room? Everyone has a treasure room. Every one of us do. For some people, it's success. For some, it's money or it's image or status, connections that are there. For some, it's approval. For some, it's hidden habits. For some, it's secret desires. And I could go on and on and on with that list tonight. I think you get the point. You don't have to announce it, ladies and gentlemen. Your life will point to it. As you've heard me say many times from this pullpit, and I quote, because I heard it first from Jason Huckabe, time is a tattletail. Enough time will pass. Whatever your true treasure is will reveal itself. If it's an addiction, it'll come out. If it's a secret sin, eventually it makes itself known. Eventually, it does. Time is a tattletail.

So, I'm asking you right now. I know we're quiet and I hope it's because you're thinking, "What is in your treasure room?" Now, what you tell everybody else, this is personal. You need to know what's there. What do you keep in your treasure room? Because your heart always follows your treasure. Not your intentions. Your heart won't follow your intentions. Not your theology, but your treasure. Jesus redefes the secret place. God says, "I don't just want a place in your life. I want access to your treasure room. That's where I want to be." He invites you to a private place, a hidden place, into an honest place. Because purity is not formed in public. Ladies and gentlemen, purity is formed in secret with him. a devotion, a connection, a relationship, a covenant. Who are you and no one's watching? That's the real you. That's the real you. And that's where God wants to meet you. How awesome is that? He wants to meet the real you. He doesn't want the polished version. He doesn't want the fixed up version. He wants you. all of you. He wants to meet you in your treasure room. Jesus is attempting to make the point that we should be careful what we consider to be treasure. What is the focus of your life, ladies and gentlemen? What is the focus of your life? What do you project right now as the focus of your life? What is it pointing to?

Is it just career oriented? Is it education? Is it family? Is it sports? I don't know. I mean, we could go down again another exhaustive list here, but your life, your actions, your time, your finances, they're all pointing to something. What does it point to? What is it? What is it pointing? What is it aiming at? All these things. What is the focus of your life? Who or what is the role model in your life? See, there's this reality. To me, I think it's a tragic reality. If you go to back to Matthew 6, go to verse 22, same chapter, Jesus is having this conversation. He's talking. He says, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great." Everybody say great. How great is that darkness? Jesus is now moving from treasure to vision. Are you following this? This we're moving down the path from treasure to vision because whatever your treasure, it eventually shapes how you see. It affects you. Whatever you value could be your job. It could be your family. Could be your education. Again, that's why it's important to know for you to identify, for you to make sure that you are very aware of what your treasure is because it is shaping your vision and how you see things.

We all have been around people who have value things that we don't understand like their collection of crochet dolls or spoons or whatever it is. You know, to that person, it's valuable. I'm not saying you can't have a collection of things. So, please, everybody has crocheted dolls and spoon collection. Don't send me a bad email. I was just off top of my head. I know nothing. But you meet this individual and it's not that it's not nice what they have, but they have a disproportionate connection to it. Anybody know what I'm talking about? It doesn't make sense. Their vision is being shaped by their treasure. Now, I think every one of us in this room for the most part are smart enough to see where I'm going with this message. Don't you? You see where this is heading? >> He wants to meet you in the treasure room. He asked and begins to talk about and point out about your eye. The eye is a window. In the ancient world, the eye was seen as the gateway to the soul. It was a source of light for the body. And if your eye worked properly, light filled your body. If it didn't, darkness took over. So Jesus uses something they understood physically to explain something much deeper spiritually as God always did. Jesus said, "If your eye is good," that word good carries with it idea of singular, clear, undivided. In other words, if it's pure, if it's good.

But if your eye is bad, then the opposite becomes true. So we see this struggle that's taking place. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, I don't know about you, but that's a pretty sobering, chilly statement that Jesus is making there. Jesus is describing someone who thinks they see clearly. Listen to me. They think they see clearly. Think they are right. Think they're walking in light, but they're actually walking in darkness. He says, "How great I made you say that word. How great is that darkness?" They don't see it. To them, it is light. To them, they are right. Have you had a conversation with someone this way? Think with me. Have you had someone who's been in darkness? They're walking in darkness and you're trying to talk to them, but yet they defend their decisions and their actions, and you're just trying to pray for them and help them out. But yet Jesus says, "How great is that darkness?" >> Why? Because they believe they're right. They believe they're walking in the light. Why? Well, you got to go backwards. Where your treasure is, or your heart will be also. And your treasure shapes your vision. So if you're valuing the wrong things, ladies and gentlemen, it affects what you're looking at. And how you see it, how you perceive it, the perspective that you have about the thing that you feel like is right, that is bringing light, it's good, is actually wrong.

And Jesus declares, "How great is that darkness?" They have fooled themselves because it's one thing to be in the darkness and know it, but it's another thing entirely to be in the darkness and to call it light. That's the most dangerous place a person can live. So if I connect this back now, you can see there's a thread that Jesus is building. Treasure determines your heart. Heart determines your vision. And ladies and gentlemen, this is basic stuff. Vision determines your direction. So if you mess up at the beginning, no wonder you drift off course. That's why you have to settle the question. What's in your treasure room? Because if your treasure is off, your vision will be off. And your vision is off, you will drift into darkness. You will drift into darkness. Jesus says this in verse 24. This is where it gets even better. Some of you study the Bible should be a little excited about this because I'm going to take it a little different direction than probably you ever thought about this. Go to verse 24. No man can serve two masters. Woo. We're in the same chapter. I'm not talking about money, right? We're talking about treasures. We're talking about vision. And he continues on and says what? No man can serve two masters. For he either will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and man.

Jesus brought up money. I didn't. What we see here, in my opinion, is Jesus is bringing this home. This isn't about information, philosophy, or preference. This is about allegiance. He's captivating. He's capturing their attention. He's trying to point out something that he knows that they don't realize they're doing. You can only get one master. Red letter words in your Bible. Jesus says this, "No one can serve two masters." Not should not. The word is cannot. You cannot serve two masters because a servant by nature belongs to one, answers to one, and is controlled by one. You can't splint loyalty at that level. You will love one and hate the other. So Jesus forces the question. He's forcing you to answer the question. Who or what is your master? Who or what is your master? If it's a who, is it a person? A what? Is it a thing? is in an idol that you have created. And in our culture today, we are idol makers. Everything in our society gets disproportionately blown out, made and misshapen, and things it was never intended to be. For example, there is nothing that you can walk away from scripturally and not understand that family is a priority to God. The family unit is his institution. Marriage is his institution. If there's anybody that's pro- family, God is pro- family. But what the enemy has done has turned family into an idol. where family priorities trump church and relationship with God and that devotion to his house, devotion to service is only given if it's convenient around the family schedule and right I mean and please don't misunderstand me because there's so many things out here that are good but can be misused.

But I'm watching and I'm seeing families who one time was bought in and devoted to the house of God, but now they're ruled by their children's activity schedules. And we had activities for our kids, too, but there was a priority that was always placed on the calendar, and that was the house of God. And if the ball game or the activity took place during then we didn't do it. We didn't go. Regardless of what coach wanted or the team wanted, we were setting a precedent. Oh, Pastor Kevin, I can't believe. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And if your eye is good, you will see the light. But if your eye is bad, then darkness will enter in. And how great is that darkness? No man can serve two masters. who or what is your Again, I'm not against the activities for your kids. I believe in them. I think they're great. I'm thankful we have a city that has lots of things that our kids can be involved in. I think being a part of the teams helps shape and mold them. I do think parents need to pray through the Holy Ghost where they go because they lose their minds. The kids are great. The moms and dads sometimes they need the Holy Ghost. They need to understand this is a game and sometimes you lose. It's called life. Now, I'm from the old school and we didn't all get trophies.

So, I'm just saying that right there. Breathing and sitting on the bench. I don't think you deserve a trophy. Send me a bad email. Kevin kevin [email protected]. Who or what is your master? Now, I hope the answer to that question is God. But if you don't know, I feel like you need to pause. If you're having a hard time or maybe you don't have enough clarity, then I think it'd be good time to ask God to help you a little bit here. What captures your attention? What drives your decisions? Here's a good one. What gets the best of your time? What do you sacrifice without hesitation? Because the answer to those questions is your master. Whatever the answer is that that's your master. So I want to bring this thing full circle. Come back to the biatitudes. Jesus said in Matthew 5, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." A pure heart is undivided. It is unmixed. It is one that is fully devoted. There's no mixture. It's clear. There's no division of their loyalty. Instead, what they have is they have peace in their life. There's no internal conflict and struggle that is there. Instead, they live in the blessings and the overflow of being committed to God. So, my final questions as I start heading towards a close tonight. Let's honestly evaluate ourselves. Maybe do this for me if you're comfortable. Just for a second, I'm going to ask three questions.

I want you just to close your eyes. Just close your eyes with me. I want you to listen to these questions. I want you to think about the answer. Number one, where is your treasure? Where is your treasure? Just set in that question for just a minute. Where is your treasure? Number two, how clear is your vision? How clear is your vision? And number three, who is your master? Who is your master? Now open your eyes and look at me. The answer to that question reveals the true condition of your heart. The answer to those three questions reveals the true condition of your heart. The pure in heart are blessed not because they're perfect. No, they're blessed because they're whole. There's no double life. There's no hidden agenda. There's no divided loyalty. Instead, their heart is clear. It's pure. And because their heart is clear and pure, they can see God. Some of you have pure hearts. I talk with you and you can sense it and feel it. You see God in the small everyday ordinary of life. It's not that God can't do big wow powerful miracle moments. Those are great and grand, but they're so few and far between our lives. But I want you to know he's there every day in the small, mundane, ordinary, everyday activities of life. If you're pure in heart, you can see it. Blessed are the pure in heart because they can see God. They can see God in the small little things that go on in our life every day.

Do you see him? I'm asking you this. I'm getting ready to close. I got like three minutes maybe. Do you see him every day in the ordinary? Or are you so caught up in all the other things of life that your treasure room is filled with the wrong stuff? The things that really don't matter. The things that really are just going to burn one day and go away. What's in your treasure room? He wants to meet you there. You know why? You know why as I bring this so close is because he wants to be your treasure. He wants you to go to the closet. He wants you to go to the treasure room cuz his desire is to be your treasure. I hope that's yours. I hope I hope that there is no better thing you do daily than go to God in prayer. Life brings a lot of great experiences and I'm not against any of them. Go enjoy. He's a good God. He gives us so many blessings. But I hope that your daily time with him is the greatest and the best thing you do every day. Every morning almost without fail in my time of prayer. Sometime within the first 60 seconds of me just being quiet, I feel him walk in the room. Guys, there ain't nothing better and nothing more overwhelming than to know that the king of all walked into the room to talk to me. Is there a greater treasure than that?

If there is, I can't think of it because I don't deserve him. I don't deserve an audience with him. I never have. I never will deserve it. But I'm so thankful because of his mercy and his grace and his love that it affords me that privilege. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Enter into your treasure room because whatever is in that room has your heart and whatever has your harp heart your harp bless whatever has your heart will shape your life. So the question isn't complicated. It's really this simple. Who is in your treasure room? Will you stand? God, how wonderfully good it is that we don't deserve you. We haven't earned you, but yet you in spite of us love. You're willing to meet us. In fact, you desire it. I pray Lord that we would learn to evaluate the things that are influencing us and what we're allowing to shape and mold us. That we're aware of what occupies our time. And Lord, that we have carved out an appropriate place for you. That we would meet you in our prayer closet in our treasure room because you're the greatest treasure we have. That you shape us. that you mold us, that you help us see. God, give us a hunger and a desire, Lord, to know you in new ways, deepen our relationship with you. God, I plead your blood over every home that's represented in this room and in this church.

God, I rebuke the enemy that tries to come against us and cause us to stumble and fall. I pray God we would have a boldness to live in these last days the way you want us to. Kingdom minded with a kingdom purpose. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. God bless.