What's Your Until？

It's not over. I have four children, and they've been in many places where I'm preaching, and after I've been preaching for about an hour and a half, all my kids turn to each other and go, it's not over. I don't think that's what that song meant, so don't worry about it. I will not be going an hour and a half today. Let's pray first, and then I'm going to talk to you about, really I'm going to ask you a question. What is your until? What is that thing that you're looking forward, and you just can't wait until? Fill in the blank. Jesus, we thank you that you're going to speak to us. We thank you, Jesus, that you're going to do something that's refreshing in us, delightful, inspiring life, turning in a direction that honors you and blesses us. I thank you that you allow me to preach these words with power and authority and love. In Jesus' name. Everybody say it together, amen. Amen. Turn to Psalm 132, if you would. Psalm 132. When I was 15 years old, my father asked what I wanted for Christmas the next year when I turned 16. I said, whatever you want to get me, Dad. He goes, I'd really like to get you a car. I thought, hey, we were living in Texas at the time. You'd get your driver's license at 16. You know what Christmas is like when you're waiting for that. I had a little bit of surprise. I was 15 years old. At Christmas Eve, that's when we opened up our presents. All my brothers and sisters had all these big boxes. My brother had a bicycle. I had one little box. I'm thinking, man, it's like, what is this? Everybody's opened their presents. My dad and mom said, open yours last, Gary, after that. I opened the box, and there was a key in there. It had a little Mazda symbol on it. He had bought me a Mazda for Christmas. The problem was, though, he said, Merry Christmas. You're 16 now. You can drive. I said, Dad, I'm only 15. He thought I had turned 16, and I had not. I was only 15. I had to wait a whole year until I could drive that car. Isn't it hard to wait for your until? I want to talk to you tonight about the most important until that you could possibly have in your life. You can have, number one, a wrong until, waiting for something that is unhealthy for you, ungodly, sinful. Or you can have an until that is of God and a good thing and something you should pursue and should desire, but it's not your greatest one thing until. And then thirdly, we're going to talk about the divine until, the until that God most desperately, deeply desires for you and for us. Let's dig into Psalm 132. It's not written by David because it's actually a call to pray for David, to help David along his way, and it starts off by saying, Remember, O Lord, in David's favor. So think of David, whoever's writing this. Some say it was Solomon. David had hired 8,000 singers and worshipers and songwriters and psalmists to work full-time day and night in the temple. When we sing that song, day and night, night and day, let incense arise. That was something 8,000 workers of the temple did, David's tabernacle did day and night, literally burning incense and praising and worshiping God. That's why David said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than anything else that I could possibly be doing, running a nation, leading an army, defeating my enemies, slaying giants. More than anything else, I would love to be in that temple with those 8,000 worshiping the Lord day and night. That was his great desire. And so whoever it was that wrote this says, Remember, O Lord, in David's favor. All the hardships he endured, all the difficulties that he experienced, all the trials that he went through, all the suffering that he endured. So the psalmist writer here is saying, Remember, David, because he's had a hard life. Anybody in this room had a bit of a hard life? Anybody here might say, There's some hardships I've had to endure. There's some suffering I've gone through. There's some people in this room like David that had marriage problems, difficulty with one of his wives. Hopefully, I won't have to say that about any of you, one of his wives. I hope that's just for David in the Old Testament. But he had trouble with a wife. He had trouble with a son. His son rebelled against him and overthrew the nation. He had physical sicknesses. Some of his psalms he writes, My body is wasting away. I lay almost on my deathbed crying myself to sleep every night. He had emotional difficulties that he faced. Anybody in this room facing some things emotionally? You're just tired, exhausted, worn out. The hardship of life, the hardship of marriage, the hardship of children that have run from the Lord, the hardship of a job that doesn't pay enough for you to barely pay the bills you're living from paycheck to paycheck. Hard to live with a boss who, no matter how well you work, he just complains. Or coworkers that because you're a person of faith, they ostracize you and put you aside. The difficulty of being in a school, maybe the grades are tough or the bills that you have to pay in school. Isn't it great to have somebody to say this kind of prayer over you? To remember, and fill in the blank your name, the hardships that they endured. And then it switches gears here a little bit. Remember, Lord, also how he swore to you, Lord, and how he vowed to the mighty one of Jacob. That's verse two. Remember how he vowed and he swore. You're not supposed to swear and you're not supposed to vow. Jesus particularly said don't make a vow. Just let your yes be yes. And so what was it about David? What was in his heart? What was his until? The thing that he was waiting for? The thing that he was longing for? What was this thing that would cause him to say, hey, I know the rules say don't make promises and vows and swearing, but I gotta do it. There's something so burning in my heart, I'm willing to break a few rules just to say this is my heart's desire. I want this thing. I long for this thing. And I swear I will obtain it. I vow that I will do nothing else until this thing becomes a reality in my life. And now in verse three, he begins to speak what he'll do to show the commitment that he's making to this vow of his desire until this thing that he longs to see in his life becomes a reality. He says, here's what I'm gonna do. I will not enter my house or get into my bed. My wife and I, we travel quite a bit. Last month, I think we were home like three nights. So we're constantly on an airplane. We're constantly in hotel rooms. And some of you that travel know what it's like to come home and open the door and walk through there. And you know what you want more than anything? You want to get in your bed, your own bed. And so David is saying, I won't even get into my own bed. I can't put myself to sleep for this. He goes on to say that. Verse four, I will not give sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids. And then verse five, just the first word, then look at me, until. Look at me now. He says, I'm a vow. I'm gonna swear. I'm not gonna sleep. I'm not gonna go to my bed. I'm not gonna get sleep to my eyes. I'm not gonna slumber to my eyelids. There's something so strong in his heart that he was gonna do all those things until this happens. Now, probably speaking metaphorically here, because I'm sure David slept, because it was gonna take him a long time before this reality of the until in his life became a reality to him. But he was speaking of the things that are part of his daily life. I'll surrender this. I'll go without sleep. I'll go without food. I'll go without friends. I'll go without anything, because this one thing burns in my heart more than anything else. And he uses this word until, and that's where I'm kind of camping tonight and want to help you by asking a question. Do you even have an until? Does that make sense? Are you with me? Is there something in your life that is like, that's something I could swear I want more than anything else. I'll make a vow that nothing else will matter to me but that one thing. Now, it would be very easy for King David to, in the context here, all the hardships he endured, verse one. And then he says, I'm gonna seek this one thing. It would be very easy to say, what I really want is to escape from these hardships. That's my until. Until my enemies are defeated. Until the kingdom is back under my control. Until this diseased body is healed. Until my family comes back together. Until all these hardships. Many of us in our faith, our until is a good until, but it's just a too small an until. It's till I feel a little bit better. Till my job goes a little bit better. Till my wife treats me a little bit better. Till my children come back home and start showing some respect and honor. Till my boss encourages me. Until I get a raise. Or maybe if you're in ministry, until I get a pulpit and a platform. Or until I get a pastoral ministry. Or till my church grows. All of us have an until. And those untils I'm talking about aren't bad untils, are they? They're good things, but David doesn't go there, does he? He has a very different until. Now there's, as I said, there's three types of untils. There's the until of an unhealthy or maybe even a sinful lifestyle. I'm not gonna sleep until I get more booze. I'm not gonna sleep until I, you know, fill in the blank. And I don't even take time to go into the sinful things that we have as our until. But then there's a healthier until. And it's a good thing. You can have a good thing. Part of my until is until there's a call of God on my life. There's a call to God to teach the word. And so, Lord, until I can teach this word with grace and authority and power and love, I'm gonna keep pressing in. I'm gonna keep growing. I'm gonna keep learning. I read books about how to preach. Some of you may not believe that, but I do. I study how to preach. And I love preaching. And it's one of my untils. I want to do this. When I was pastoring, it was one of the untils was I want to see this church grow. More people come to know Jesus Christ. That's a really good, healthy until. I had an until in my family. I had a son who was running away from the Lord. And until he comes back, I'm gonna not give myself sleep. There's a healthy until in your life. But David doesn't go there. His until is not a sinful until, nor is his until a valid until about his calling. He could have said, until the kingdom gets back together, as I said just a moment ago, or until these things happen, until the two tribes of Israel that are separated come back together under my unity, and he doesn't do that. We don't have time to turn there tonight, but 1 Chronicles chapter 13, David has now become, after fleeing from Saul, and now Israel, after Saul's death, is calling him back. And there was some division there, and some people didn't want him. Some people from Saul's household were against him. But finally, all the people come together and say, David, we want you to be king. So David stands up, chapter 13, verse one. He stands up, and he calls all the elders, all the leaders, all the tribes, all the people, probably tens of thousands of people there, and he gets up and gives his inaugural address. And it would be like if the next president of the United States in 2024 stands up and says, here's my agenda. We want to strengthen the economy. We want to close the southern border. We want to stop the wars that are going on around the world. We want peace between Republican and Democrat. And it could be, usually it's like an hour and a half speech, right? And he lays out his agenda. David has now become king of Israel. And he stands up in front of all those people and all those leaders, and he gives about a 100-word address. And he only asks for one thing. All he asks for, he says, in the days of Saul, we did not seek the ark of God's presence. Under my leadership, the one thing I want to do, and I won't rest, I won't give sleep to my eyes until we do this one thing, we want to bring the ark of the covenant back into the people's presence. The ark of the covenant, if you don't understand this, represents God's presence among the people. And it had been hidden away. And David, for 20 years, it had been hidden away in a place called Kirith Jema. And it was hidden in this place. And that place where it was hidden was being blessed. But the place where Israel's leadership was, where David's kingdom was, it was missing the presence of God. A lot of families, and please excuse me if this sounds harsh to you, a lot of families in this church have a lot of religious activities, but they're missing the presence of God. The one thing we need more than anything else is the presence of God. And that's David's heart. That's his desire. So he stands up. It would be like the next president of the United States saying, I don't have a lot of an agenda, but what I want to do is I want to move the Statue of Liberty from, and I know you New Yorkers are going to get mad at this, so hang on. It's just my imagination rolling here. I want to move the Statue of Liberty from New York City to Washington, D.C. to represent freedom in our nation's capital. So David's saying, I want to move the presence of God from where it is out in the village back into where it belongs, among the leadership, among the people of God, where people can come in and out, where there can be praise and worship and the riches of his presence. And so there's many good things. When I was growing up in a church, we had a lot of guest speakers. Some of you might remember this growing up in church, or maybe even here, you have a guest speaker. I don't know about here at Times Square Church, but in a lot of churches, the guest speakers, I noticed this when I was a kid, the guest speakers, no matter what kind of ministry they were in, they presented their ministry as the most important type of ministry you could possibly be a part of in your life. Does that make sense? So if you had a missionary come to your church and talk about missions, they would speak about missions as if there's nothing more important on God's heart except missions. But then the next week, somebody who is an intercessory prayer warrior would say, the most important thing on God's heart, the most important thing that you can give yourself to, your until should be, become an intercessory prayer warrior. And I heard all these things, and we had three or four guest speakers a year, so man, my head was spinning, like I'm a missionary one month, and then I'm an intercessory prayer warrior the next month. And I remember after hearing the intercessory prayer warrior saying, this is the most important thing, I remember they recommended reading this book called Reese Howell Intercessor. I don't know if you ever heard of that book or not. It's a good book. But I read the book of this man, Reese Howell Intercessor, and he prayed eight hours a day. And I was a teenager, I'm thinking, I'm gonna give my life to this thing. I'm gonna pray eight hours a day. And I remember the first night trying to do this, I got down on my knees and said, God, I'm gonna be here for next eight hours just seeking you. I'm gonna be the greatest intercessor in the world. And I looked at my watch, and I said, okay, I'm gonna start. Lord, bless my family, bless my mom, bless my dad, bless my brothers and my two sisters, and bless my school. And I look at my watch, it's like 30 seconds. I'll never make it as an intercessor. I'm going back to being a missionary. So God, I wanna be a worldwide missionary. And then somebody else will come and talk about worship. Like worship is like, what's what the angels and the elders do in heaven. And worship is the most important thing that you can do with your life. And man, it just made me confused instead of helping me. And I'm a guest speaker here today, and I wanna tell you what the most important thing is. It's not missions. It's not evangelism. It's not worship. It's not prayer. It's not intercession. It's not discipleship. It's not preaching. It's not teaching. It's not community. I'll say it like I believe it. It's the presence of God. The presence of God. Because if you're a missionary, and you don't have the presence of God, you're not gonna see anybody come to Christ. You're gonna be an academic on the mission field trying to strategically make sense of the world. Or if you're like me, and you preach sermons occasionally, if you don't have the presence of God when you preach, you have nothing. You'll never make a disciple without the presence of God. Community will become a social club without the presence of God. Listen to this. Prayer meetings will be so dull and boring. You will hate to go to, and you'll come because your pastor's twisting his arm, and you're supposed to be a good Christian, but you won't enjoy it. Prayer meetings need the presence of God. Have you ever been in a worship service where it was brilliant, wonderful, but there was no presence of God? I'd rather see Celine Dion than go to a worship service where they're trying to talk about God, but there's no presence of God. No matter what we have, we need the presence of God. David understood this. And so he says here, verse five, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm not gonna give anything, I'm not gonna sleep to my eyes until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. David was saying, we haven't sought the Lord coming into our midst, his presence. We haven't sought that of his presence coming into our midst, and there's the one thing I wanna do, and I won't sleep until I do this, until the presence comes into my heart, until the presence comes into my song, until the presence comes into my prayer, until the presence comes into when I read scripture, until the presence come in when I speak to my wife, until the presence come in when I'm leading the nations, until the presence come in when I'm kneeling in prayer. David is saying, I need this ark of the covenant, I need the presence of God to come back into everything in my life. And I wanna say, this generation, if you're a millennial or a Gen Z, should the Lord tarry, you're going to need the presence of God more than ever before, because you will be living in a wicked culture, you'll be living in a culture that hates you, you'll be living in a culture that despises you, but you're gonna stand up in the middle of that, and you're not gonna be afraid, you're not gonna tremble in fear, you're not gonna be shy and backtrack, you're gonna say, I have the presence of God in my life, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It could be the most dangerous generation for Christians coming up in the next decade or so, but it's going to be the most powerful, the most fruitful. There's gonna be a generation, a young people coming up, I see some here tonight in this church, I see some of them in the worship team here, that they are desperate, they have this one thing until of David, that I don't wanna get up on this stage just to sing songs and entertain people, I want the presence of God when I'm singing these songs. When Pastor Patrick gets up here, the six o'clock before the seven o'clock Tuesday night meeting, and he leads you in prayer, he doesn't get up here to be articulate and have clever prayers and sound like a theologian, he's desperate for God when he leads you to the presence of God. And when Pastor Tim preaches, he's preaching out of the presence of God. That's why you're drawn here, that's why you're hungry to be here, that's why you're inviting your friends. It's the presence of God. It's the presence of God. And David says, until I find a place. It's interesting, he doesn't say until there's a mist around us or until there's something kind of in the ether, he says there's actually a place. There's a place God wants to come. Ever since Genesis 1, he came down and walked in the garden, remember that? And it says he came and walked in the cool of the garden, the cool there is another Hebrew word for the wind or the breath of God. It wasn't just God coming like, I like the evening better, it's a little bit cooler. I don't like it when it's hot in the garden. No, he came and his breath came and visited Adam and Eve. And ever since that time, God has been looking, saying is there a place? Adam and Eve hid from that place. Is there a place I can come? And that place is a people. It's you individually. It can be your family. Or you can say, God, I want to be a place. I want to be a place where your spirit will rest upon me. I want to be a place where your presence dwells. I want this to be my until. My until is not great sermons. My until is not big crowds. My until is not writing a great book. My until is not even having a good family. My until is not having a healthy body. My until is not being wealthy or comfort and ease. My until is that the presence of God comes into my life. And he dwells here. And he says, and Jesus delights to say I found a place. I found a place to dwell. And it's not just people either. It's because he doesn't say here, I want to find a people. He says a place. I find that phenomenal that the omnipotent, omnipresent God, all powerful, everywhere at all times. He's like here and he's in the Bronx and he's where I live in Colorado and he's in Africa and he's in Asia. All the same times. He's in the heavens and he's in the earth. He's below the earth. He's everywhere. And then all of a sudden he says, but I want a place where I can manifest my presence. There's a difference between the omnipresence, meaning the all presence of God. There's a difference between the presence of God being everywhere and the manifest presence of God where he comes and says, I'm gonna sit right here with this people. I'm gonna be pleased to come. And I find that to be in a family. It can be in a small group and it certainly can be in a church. It certainly can be a Times Square church where God says, I want a place. I've been looking for a place. I desire a place. I long for a place. Is there a place that is there for me to come? You see, and it's hard to find. I know it sounds horrible like I'm being very judgmental, but it's hard to find. It's hard for God to find a place because many of our places aren't for him. They're for us. Like the worship team gets up there and sings songs for you and then you decide whether you like that song or not or you like that tempo or not or whether it's from Australia or California or not. Whether it's more hip and vibe or is it old school like hymns and we think worship is for us, but it's not. The place that God is looking for is not for you. It's for him. The songs, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not. The question in this house is, does he like them? You go like, that really didn't minister to me. That's a big deal. It's not for you. It's for him. Now you can join in and minister to him as well and then you'll get blessed. But if you're just sending that judgment, is this for me? Is this touching me? Is this changing me? You know, you're on the wrong track. You have the wrong until. I'm gonna go to church until I find a church that has my style where the preacher preaches the way I like. No, you go to church to minister to him. It's Lord, I'm here for you. You want a place. You want to dwell and I want to come into this congregation and offer you a body and offer you a place to minister, to be ministered to until I find a place, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. And so it's important that you have an open heart to the place of God, to your looking intimately towards him, to just get near to him. And then it says in verse six, behold, we have heard of it, the Ark of the Covenant. We've heard of it. And this Hathrath is actually a region of Israel where Bethlehem is found. And so the writer here is saying, David won't rest until he brings the presence of God into his people because he knows that's the most important thing. If he's gonna fight wars, he needs the presence of God. If he's gonna preach sermons, he needs the presence of God. If he's gonna sing songs, he needs the presence of God. So he understands this. And he says, we've heard about this. Okay, tonight, so far, you're hearing about the manifest presence of God. All right? And I hope it's changing your until. I hope it's changed. Right now, your until is no longer, I wanna get rich and famous and I wanna keep myself healthy. Those are okay. They're okay untils. And you can have some better untils. Until my children grow up in the Lord, until I have a healthy marriage, those are even better untils. But the best until of all is until I have the presence of God in my life. Once I have that presence of God in my life, then I have everything that I could possibly want. And then it goes on. So we heard of it, but then it says, but we found it in the fields of Ja'ar. And that's where the Ark of the Covenant had been. It had another name, but here they're calling it Ja'ar. And they said, so we heard about it in Bethlehem, but we found it in Ja'ar. It's like, I hope, man, the purpose of this message tonight is that you find a bigger until. That you get rid of lesser untils. That you're no longer coming to God just, Lord, my until is that I feel better about my life. My until is till I get the job that I want. My until is, fill in the blank. That you, in the grace and kindness of God, he wants to bless those secondary untils, but he's looking for a place and a people that have underneath that place, a deeper place, a more powerful place, a stronger place, a place where you're saying, God, it has to be this one thing that I desire. That's what David said in one of those Psalms. One thing I ask, one thing I desire, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord, the place of the Lord, all the days of my life. Better is one day in your courts than three, over almost three years elsewhere. One day, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. This is the king, walking into the tent he has set up. He didn't take the Ark of the Covenant when he brought it back. He didn't take the Ark and place it up in the tabernacle that Solomon had built. He built a little tent for it so it could be right next to him in Jerusalem. And I can just picture him going there every day, and he walks by the doorkeeper, the usher, and he goes, King David said, I am so jealous. Can you put the throne on and give me the red vest so that I could just be a doorkeeper in your house? Why would you want to be a doorkeeper, David? Says the usher to him. Because then I could just worship, and I could dwell in his presence. I could, the Ark of the Covenant is there with the cherubim with the wings over it, and I could sit under it, and I could write Psalms like, He that dwelleth in the shadow of the secret place shall abide under the shadow of the Most High. I'll dwell in the house of the Lord all the days. And David is just, David is driven by this thing. Extremely passionate about this thing. And then, skipping ahead the last few minutes I have with you, verse 13. For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. Two words here. The first word that comes to mind is the word that we used in the previous verses. What is it? Secret place. God is very interested in place. He's interested in this place. Jesus is, he is part of the Trinity, so he's omnipresent. He's everywhere at all times. But he's also the man Christ Jesus. The humanity never went away, so I know this sounds a bit strange, but Jesus is somewhere right now. Physically, he's somewhere. Not likely in this room. But there's this man, Christ Jesus. But his spirit, the Holy Spirit comes, and it says, Jesus being part of the Trinity, his divinity can be in one place at one time, but he can also be manifesting himself through the Holy Spirit in places where there's hunger for the things of God. My question is, is this your until? Is this a hunger in you? Do you long for that to be your place? And I'll just tell you, the older I get, that's kind of really the only thing that's important to me anymore. I mean, I love my family. I love my children, my 10 grandchildren. I love my wife. You see her up there singing? She's beautiful. Man, she's so easy. She's so easy to love. But you know, Pastor Tim and I, I don't know if you were like me when I was young. Were you ambitious at all? Yeah, he was ambitious. So when you're a young minister, you want like, you know, to get invited to the place or to be on the stage at that conference with that other famous, you know, and they were more famous than you and you get to preach next to them and maybe you'll be next in line and you have this, your until is all those things. And I know Tim and I are exactly the same. Don't give a hoot about that stuff anymore. You know, you guys know what hoot means? Don't care. Times Square Church is a world-renowned church. It doesn't mean anything to me to come up here tonight. It's just, it's the same thing as a small group with my own staff just sharing the desire. Can we have an until in our life? You see what I'm saying? It's, these other things are good. It's good to have opportunity to preach. It's good to have things that you want to see until God moves, but you have a deeper until and the older I get, the more I'm just like, I think, you know, in my 60s, I finally found what my until is. It's not to write books. It's not to preach sermons. It's not to do pastor's conferences. It's not to lead a missions group. All those things I love, they're good secondary untils, but in my 60s, I finally found, I have a one thing until now. And until, I just, man, I just want His presence, you know? Man, I just, man, I just want Him to, like, He's there. He's right there. Like, He holds my hand. He lets me be the apple of His eye. He lets me walk with Him and talk with Him. He lets me, you know, I was studying the apple of, this is not my notes, but I was studying the apple of, the apple of my eye this morning. And the Hebrew there, this doesn't actually use the word apple. It's translated because in English, Shakespeare wrote a poem about the apple of our eye, and people understood that as being something that's of core value to you, but actually in the Hebrew, it's the dark of your eye. And so Jesus wants us to be the dark of His eye, and He wants Him to be the dark of our eye. And what that means in the original language there is that you get so close to somebody, you can see, listen to this, this is what the meaning is. You get so close to somebody, you can see your own image in the dark of their eye. All right? Now, I'm not gonna do this, but, you know, if I asked one of the elders, if I asked Elder Chris to come up on stage here, and he was standing right there, and I'd say, Elder Chris, I want us to be the, I want to be the apple of your eye, okay? But we have to get so close to each other that you can see my image in your eyeball, which means we'd be that close to each other, which Elder Chris and I are not gonna be getting that close together tonight, okay? All right? Because I love him, and he's a great man, but over the years, we haven't cultivated a relationship where he's the apple of my eye. But if I asked my wife, Kelly, to come up here, I mean, it'd be dangerous, because I'd get that close, and I'd forget all about you. I'd be like, oh, man, she's got some lips on her. I'd be just going all the way in, you know? And that's what Jesus is saying about this manifest presence. It's to get that close to him. And once you have that, the sweetness, the glory, the beauty, the majesty, the splendor, the love, the grace, the kindness, it's like it just comes all over you. I'm just like, I don't want anything else. Take the whole world, but give me Jesus. And I got a subject here, verse 13. Sorry. The Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. Verse 14. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have, what? Desired it. So David is saying, I have this one thing, passion. I don't want anything else, but this one thing. I won't give myself rest until I get this thing. This is what I'm going to give my whole life for. And then in return, God says, I desire the same thing. Isn't that awesome? That God's saying, I have an until as well. That I'm the apple of your eye and you're the apple of my eye. That we walk together, that we talk together, that we love one another, that we're intimate. That's God's plan for your life. If you're a young adult here, what's God's plan for my life? Is it to be married? Is it to get rich? Is it to get an apartment? All those things could be great, but God's plan for you is for you to come into an intimate place with Jesus where he manifests his presence in your life where he becomes your all in all. Stand with me if you will, please. Worship team's going to come back. Amen. Amen. How many of you would just wave at me and just say, I might need to up my game on untilness. It's not a word, but I'm just making it up here tonight. My until might need to shift slightly because, and I can tell you, you can know when you need to transition your until by examining your prayer life. If your whole prayer life is, I need this, can you do that for me? When's that going to happen? How come I'm having to wait for that? When is it going to be until you meet this need in my life? It's still a good thing you're asking God. That's called intercessory prayer. You need to do that. But more importantly, you need to up that game. And it's not a game. You know what I'm talking about. And so, Holy Spirit, mere words don't suffice when it comes to the subject matter. But what would happen if you would so choose tonight in this very room to make this a place where you choose, where you say, like you said in verse 13, 14 here in this text, I desire to dwell there. What would happen in this place tonight if you just desire, because whatever you desire, you do. And what if our until changed tonight? Or at least the priority of it. We keep the until of a good marriage. We keep the until of all these other things. But above and beyond all that, we would say, Lord, tonight, resolutely, powerfully, sovereignly, give me a higher one thing passion. Give me a higher until in my life. I'm a Christian. I've loved you. I've prayed. I've worshiped. I've witnessed. I've tithed. I've taken communion. I'm in a community group. But Lord, I think tonight, I feel, man, I feel this drawing in my heart towards your face to know you more, towards your eyes to see you more, to gaze upon your beauty, to behold the glory of God. So Jesus, I'm crying out to you tonight, not just for my until. I thank you that you've given me my until. I'm unashamedly a man of one thing. If everything else falls apart, I still have this one thing that I so long for is just to know you and the power of your life and death and resurrection. And I think there's people across this room right now that are saying, Lord, I need a seismic shift in my life. And others that actually need to say, I agree with you, Pastor Gary. That is my one thing. But my one thing is always increasing. I want more of that one thing. I want more of that until. John the Beloved in the book of Revelation, the first chapter, he's in the Lord's spirit. It says, I'm in the spirit on the Lord's day, right? That's exactly where he should be. What does that mean to be in the spirit? He's singing and he's worshiping. He's praising Jesus. Maybe he's speaking in tongues. I don't know what he's doing, but he's like, Jesus, Jesus. He's in the spirit. And then it says, And then I heard a loud voice, and I turned, and I saw seven candlesticks. And those candlesticks later we're told represent seven different churches that he had authority over. So a lot of responsibility, a lot of duty, a lot of, until these churches are working right, I'm writing a letter to them, and some of them are dysfunctional, and I want those things to get straight. So he sees the seven churches, but here's what he really sees. He says, I heard a loud voice, and I turned, and I saw these seven candlesticks, but I turned, and I love this, he says, but I saw one in the middle. And that phrase to me has become one of the most important phrases of my life. I want to see the one in the middle. Outside is my marriage, outside is my ministry, outside is my health, outside is my finances, all these candlesticks all around, but I want the one in the middle. You know what I mean? And John said, I saw the one in the middle, man. He was beautiful. His eyes were on fire, his hair like wool. Man, I was mesmerized by beholding this one. The word behold there, you know, it's two words, to be, holding on to something. I saw one in the middle, like, and I'm beholding this one. And he was, he was beautiful. And, yeah, so, step out of your seat if you want to say, just, Pastor Gary, I don't even, you're not explaining this very well, but I think there's something in my heart that is pounding right now to say more, more. I want more of this Jesus thing. I want him to become my all in all. I want him to become the until of my life. I want to put secondary things in second place, and I just want this one thing, passion. I want to be stirred when I hear the name of Jesus. I want to worship him with delight and honor and reverence. I want to pray with the presence of God. And I want that, and you just need that little bit of transition. Will you step out of your seat and come down to the front, and let me pray for you. We're going to sing this song together while you're coming. Come on ahead real quickly. Your presence is heaven to me Your presence is heaven to me Your presence Your presence is heaven to me Your presence is heaven to me Who is like You, Lord, in all the earth? Matchless love and beauty and blissful world Nothing in this world could satisfy the love of this world Jesus, Lord, I come before my God Who is like You, Lord, in all the earth? Matchless love and beauty and blissful world Nothing in this world could satisfy the love of this world Your presence Your presence is heaven to me That's all we want, Jesus That's all we need, God Your presence Your presence is heaven to me Lord, we want You more than anything, Jesus, Your grace Your presence Your presence is heaven to me Lord, we want You more than anything, Jesus, Your grace Lord, we want You more than anything, Jesus, Your grace I ask for Your presence, God I don't want to play church tonight I don't want to do religion tonight I don't want the same old, same old tonight I don't want second things in first place anymore I don't want to lose first love I don't want the seven candlesticks to be a priority in my life I want the one in the middle to be the one thing for me I want to love You more, Jesus I want to know You more, Jesus I want to walk with You more, Jesus I want to talk with You more, Jesus I want to see Your face I want to behold Your glory I want to gaze into Your eyes I want to see Your light and Your revelation God, I want Your Word to come alive to me I want to seek You And Lord, I thank You in return Oh, how gracious that You say, I want to come to You I want to dwell, I want a place with You I want to meet with You I want You to take some time with me Because I love You, You're the apple of my eye How precious, how wonderful, how marvelous Jesus, we thank You that You're in this room tonight Your presence, the very manifest presence of God is here And Lord, I'm probably going to say this wrong But I think we can take advantage of Your manifest presence here tonight Not selfishly, but with this one until we have in our life There's an advantage to You being present in this room tonight We would take advantage of that And say, God, fill this empty vessel with more of You Let my life be like the cool in the garden And let the wind of Your Spirit blow across me That I might know You Jesus, I pray for those who have come forward here tonight And I keep thinking of words I'm praying here tonight That don't feel like appropriate churchy words But I'm going to pray them anyway Lord, ruin them for everything else Like if money is their idol, ruin it Like money doesn't mean anything to them anymore If a healthy marriage has become a higher priority than seeking Your face Then Lord, put that marriage into a place where it is no longer our highest priority But You are our jobs, our health, our finances, our careers, where we live Our health Lord, put all those things in a rightful place Your presence is here, Jesus Your presence is here So do what You would desire to do in our hearts and our lives Are you all okay just to wait on the Lord for a couple minutes? Alright, let's do that Let's believe what we've talked about tonight And believe what you're responding to tonight That He's actually present Jesus Christ King of kings Lord of lords He decided to make this His place tonight He's here So thank You, Jesus We thank You And now we just take a moment to minister to You We're going to minister to You, God You've ministered to us tonight through worship and teaching and prayer Now we're just going to take a moment to minister to You Folks, do you know what it means to minister to the Lord? It's like, it's mostly language It's giving Him praise and adoration, affection The desire of your heart Calling Him the apple of your eye Calling Him your heart's delight Calling Him, like the Song of Solomon says With one glance of my eye, my heart was smitten by You That's ministering to Him Lord, we minister to You right now We probably came into this place wanting to be ministered to All our needs, all our hardships, all our sufferings And David gives us a model tonight, Jesus That He chose Rather to make His until not be and His hardship overcome He made His until You Because He seemed to know foreshadowing That the until would cover all those other things That He would seek first the Kingdom of God And all those other things would take care of themselves So, listen I don't even know if you know how to do this But can you minister to the Lord right now? Can you do that? Can you, like, out loud just speak words? Even if you don't know what to say, just say Jesus, okay? Just call on the name of Jesus Jesus Do it out loud, just with passion Lord, make this my one thing Lord, Jesus King of kings Lord of lords Christ over all Preeminent Extravagant Beautiful Wonderful We minister to You, Jesus We lift You up We exalt You You're high and lifted up The train of Your road fills the temple We say glory, glory, glory to God Honor to God Praise to God Our love to God Our hearts to God Our minds to God Our faith to God Our money to God Our marriage to God Our careers to God Our everything to God You are our all in all We want nothing else but You You come first You are foremost You are delight You are splendor You are apple You are desire You are our one thing You are our passion You are our love You are our life And we honor You We exalt You Exalt You We exalt You, Jesus We lift You up We lift You up, God We lift You up Be our all in all Be Now, Lord, more We want more We want to tell You even more than we already have tonight How precious You are to us How wonderful You are to us How marvelous You are to us Thank You, Jesus That You chose tonight To come to this building on 51st Street And manifest Your presence And right now, that presence is doing the secondary stuff It's healing broken bodies It's reaching out to the lost souls It's healing marriages in this place It's taking minds that are distraught by all kinds of worries And it's putting You first, Jesus You're first You're first You're above it all You are worthy of it all There's none like You, Jesus You are worthy of it all, God We thank You We praise You We exalt You, Jesus King, Lord, Savior Seated on the throne Seated on the throne The 24 elders casting their crowns before You Bowing down before You Saying, Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord God Almighty Who was, and is, and is to come Jesus, name above all names Jesus, King of kings Jesus, above all else We bow before You We humble ourselves before You We reference ourselves before You We call on the name of Jesus Jesus, be exalted in this place Jesus, King of kings Jesus, Lord of lords Jesus, our all in all Jesus, our one desire Jesus, our greatest passion Jesus, above all else Nothing else I desire Nothing compares to You You are all You are glorious Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Amazing, amazing, amazing Glorious, glorious, glorious, glorious, glorious Wonderful, wonderful Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God Glory, glory, glory, glory Hallelujah, hallelujah Praise Him, praise Him Tell of His excellent greatness Praise Him, praise Him We tell of Your excellent greatness You are glorious You are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him Worship Him, worship Him, exalt Him Exalt the name of Jesus Exalt the name of Jesus Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Hallelujah, hallelujah Worthy of it all You are worthy Exalted Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him You are worthy of it all Hallelujah, praise Him, praise Him Praise Him, praise Him We bless You, God For what You are And to You alone You deserve Your glory Come on church, just sing it out For what You are And to You alone You deserve Your glory You are worthy, You are worthy, Lord You are worthy of it all You are worthy of it all Father For from You are all things And to You are all things You deserve Your glory Day and night Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Night and day Jesus, You're worthy Day and night Day and night Night and day Let incense arise Day and night Night and day You are worthy of it all You are worthy of it all Jesus For from You are all things And to You are all things You deserve Your glory You are worthy You are worthy of it all You are worthy of it all For from You are all things And to You are all things You deserve Your glory Sing it one more time For from You are all things You deserve Your glory For from You are all things For from You are all things And to You For from You are all things And to You are all things You deserve Your glory Lord We worship You We exalt Your name Oh Lord Oh Lord Who's worthy to be praised Hallelujah We worship You Jesus And all of us oh God May You ever be our until God Lord don't leave us where we are Lord we're going with You We refuse to settle We refuse to stay where we are God Lord we want You We want You God And You want us So we say yes Lord Yes Lord Yes Lord To Your will And to Your way We ask that You would increase And that we would decrease To the glory and honor Of our King In Jesus name Thank You for the victory tonight Thank You for the breakthrough tonight Praise the Lord What a powerful time of ministry Amen Thank You Pastor Gary Thank You Kelly For allowing God to use you tonight Folks If you were once far Tonight you've drawn near to the Lord Maybe you've never experienced Anything like this But tonight you've made a decision To have Him be your until Your soul pursuit That's you tonight You can text the word decided We want to help you As you begin your journey with the Lord As you begin to walk with Him And help you on this journey We're not meant to do this alone We're meant to be part of this body The body of Christ Amen Trust that you've been encouraged You've been strengthened tonight You've been refreshed How many of you say it's been an amazing night tonight What a night it's been In God's house Amen