Are You Seeking God With All Your Heart

Let's bow for prayer. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And Lord, we are grateful for you for bringing us here.

And Lord, thank you that you have already been at work among us as we had a song service and a children's lesson and a Bible study about how you worked among us with the feeding of the 5,000 and the sending out the disciples to heal. And Lord, we're so grateful. Thank you that you still want to be a work among us.

Thank you, Lord, for this prayer request from Josh. Father, I just pray that you would richly pour your grace into him for what you have done in his heart and what he was willing to share. I just pray, Lord, that you would continue to bless, continue to pour out grace, continue to change.

And Lord, that you wouldn't stop with him, but you'd move on, bring revival to all of us. Yes, Lord. And I pray, Lord, you would do something, bring revival to this event that's coming up in the Schaum family's life that could be seemingly a waste of time, but you can change it, Lord, into a non-waste of time, into a very profitable time if you turn the conversations.

And we just pray that you would just give courage to them. And I pray, Lord, that light and truth would penetrate deception and lies and there would be revival there. And Lord, I pray you'd also just guide all of us, guide my brother Jeremy now as he gets ready to share your message.

I pray that you would help him to say with courage what you want him to say. You would help us to receive with humility what you want us to receive. And we just give this next time to you, this next hour or so that we have together.

We pray that you would do a work among us and change us for your glory. I ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.

You may be seated. Thank you. Well, good morning.

Good morning. As Dennis was sharing his skunk story, my mind went back to years ago when we were living in Montana and in the middle of the night we heard this scratching sound right outside of our bedroom window. And so I, being the good king that I am, got out my gun and I went out looking for this thing and it turned out to be a skunk.

I shot it right there. Well, the problem is I shot it right outside my bedroom window. And so we went back in and tried to go to sleep and we could not go to sleep.

That smell was so terrible. It was like breathing chemicals. We had to leave the house and go over to my parents' house.

We had to move out of our house that night in the middle of the night because of the skunk. So that was my skunk experience. But anyway, I want to ask you a question this morning.

I don't want you to raise your hands, but I want you to raise your hand in your heart and be honest with yourself and with God. Some of these questions I've been thinking about the past three weeks. I'm going to ask you this question.

Don't raise your hand, but just raise it in your heart. And I want you to remember through the sermon, how did you answer? The first question is this, does God seem far away to you? Would you raise your hand if it was just you and God? And the second question is this, do you desire to be close to God? Back in 2010, down in Chile, country of Chile, there was a mine. And this is the surface.

And it came down, kind of spiraled all the way down to a depth of 2,300 something feet. 2,300 feet underground, which is almost half a mile from here to here. I think it was, I want to say it was five miles to get down by driving this path.

There were 33 workers down here, working, mine workers. And they were working doing their normal job, and all of a sudden, they heard a rumbling. And what had happened, there was a massive piece of earth, a massive piece that had started to collapse.

And the mine was collapsing on top of itself, and it completely cut them off from the surface. And they went up, and they got to this cutoff place, and they realized there was no way to get out. And there was a little place off to the side here called The Refuge.

And they went into that place, and it was supposed to have all of this food to sustain them for days and days and days. And it had hardly anything. I think it had like some cookies, maybe 12 cans of tuna.

It had a couple things of condensed milk and like four waters, something crazy like that. And the mine had these ventilation shafts that came down, and they were supposed to have ladders, according to their, like OSHA in Chile. But the mine hadn't paid the money to put the ladders in, and so they couldn't get out these ventilation shafts.

And so they went to this refuge, and they were trying to decide what to do. Many of them were Catholics. They were praying, and they weren't sure what to do.

While up on the surface, they realized that it had collapsed, and they came down, and they realized there was going to be no way to get through here. They sent repellers down the ventilation shafts. Even the ventilation shafts were collapsing.

They couldn't get through. And so they were trying to determine, what should we do? And then a second collapse happened. And some of the people were starting to think, you know, there's just no reasonable way we're going to get these 33 men out that are 2,300 feet below the surface of the earth.

But the family came out. The families of these men, they came out, and they camped out. They set up tents.

They decided they weren't going to leave. And they were going to be there as representatives, that their families would be saved. Even the president of Chile got involved.

At one point, they barricaded the family out, tried to keep them back. And so the family would get out there with pots and pans, banging the pots and pans to let them know, we're here, and we want our husbands and our sons to be rescued. They came up with plan A, plan B, and plan C, and they came up with different ways they would drill.

They couldn't put the drilling unit right over this because it would collapse, so they had to put it over here and drill at an angle. But they would drill fast, and as they drilled fast, because of the speed, the drilling angle would go off at different ways, and so they had to slow down. And one time, the bit broke off, and they kept running into problems.

And to many, it was looking like all hope was lost. On day 17, the drill – well, actually, a couple of days before, the drill hit a cavern, and they thought they heard knocking, but they pulled the drill out, and there was nothing, so they kept drilling. But on day 17, the drill entered into a cavern, and they thought they heard knocking again this time, but they said, no, there's got to be – there's no way.

This last time, we never had anything. But they went ahead and pulled the drill out, and when they pulled the drill out, attached with some electrical tape was a little note, and the little note said in Spanish, Estamos bien en el refugio los 33. I was going to ask some Spanish people, what does that mean? Anybody want to guess? Estamos bien en el refugio los 33.

Los 33. What does it mean? Something about we're fine and there's 33 people. Yeah, there's 33 of us.

It means we are all well in the refuge, the 33, and they were all alive. But it took them another 52 days to drill down to them and expand that hole and make a capsule and drop this capsule down into there and rescue. But they rescued all 33 of them, something like 69 days total from the time they would have to put little capsules down to feed them and different things to keep them alive.

What an amazing story. They stayed at it. Brother Bob read the verse.

I'd like everybody to turn their Jeremiah chapter 29. Jeremiah 29 verse 13. I want us to think about this verse today.

I want us to meditate on it. I want us to be real with our own heart as I've been trying to be with my own heart the last couple of weeks. This verse says, and you shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all of your heart.

You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all of your heart. You know, the context of this is Israel had been taken captive. They had been taken captive into Babylon and there were false prophets telling them that, oh, don't worry, you know, it's only going to be a short stay.

You'll be coming back soon. And God sent a prophet, Jeremiah, to write a letter to them and tell them, you know what, it's not going to be just a little bit of time. It's going to be 70 years.

You're going to spend 70 years in Babylon in exile. He said, go ahead and marry. Go ahead and build houses because you're going to be there a while.

Settle in. In other words, you're going to reap what you sowed. But it's interesting amongst all that, even among being exiled, being told that they're going to be there for 70 years, God said to them this verse right in the middle of all that you shall seek me and you shall find me when you shall search for me with all of your heart.

God desires people who intentionally search after him. God wants to be the number one thing in our life. You know, Brother Glenn's been praying for revival.

He's been praying that God would change us. David was one of those people who found this secret. He said, I have set the Lord always before me.

He said in another place, one thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. His desire was that he could just be in the house of the Lord every day of his life and behold his beauty. Another passage he says, as the deer pants after the water, so pants my soul after thee, O God.

In another verse he says, O God, thou art my God, earnestly will I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee, my flesh longs for thee. In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water, my soul followeth hard after thee. David had found the secret.

Let's say this verse together. Everybody, Jeremiah 29, 13, let's just say it together. And you shall seek me and bind me when you shall search for me with all your heart.

Let's try that again. And you shall seek me and bind me when you shall search for me with all your heart. How would you say that in a modern way today? I asked you earlier if you felt distant from the Lord.

Do you feel like he's hard to find? Do you feel in your heart he's not close? And I asked you earlier if you desired to be close to the Lord. Do you desire to know him? But what is this verse telling us? First of all, it says the person has to have a desire. You seek me.

You have to first have a desire to seek God. But the thing is it doesn't make a difference at the end of the day if you have just the desire to seek him. Just having a desire won't bring us to finding God.

The verse goes on to say something more. It goes on to give us a condition. He says he wants 100% of you.

He wants all of you. If you were to analyze this morning how much of your heart does God have? How much of your heart seeks after God? What would be your honest answer? If you're just honest with God. 10%? 20%? 30%? The thing is God doesn't even want half.

Remember last week Benjamin brought up Laodicea. Maybe they had about half, right? They were lukewarm. They were in the middle.

God says he doesn't even want half. He wants all. Jesus repeated this concept in the New Testament.

He said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. God wants people to search for him with all of their heart. I think maybe a modern way of saying this is wholehearted.

Are you wholehearted about knowing God? Are you wholehearted about seeking God? Like Paul said, he said that I may win Christ. In another passage he said that I may know him and the power and he goes on. But his goal and his purpose was to seek and to know God.

So what gets you lit up in the morning? When you wake up in the morning, what gets you excited for the day? What gets you throughout the day? What is your passion? If you were to ask your friends, what would they tell you? Sometimes we can be really deceptive with our own heart. Oh, my passion is this. But then you ask your friends, what do they tell you? If you were to say, just be honest with me.

What's my passion in life? If you were to boil me down, what am I after? What do I get excited about? You might get some answers you're not so comfortable with. I still remember years ago, Glenn, with the John Deere magazine. Oh, they get so excited about that, right? Maybe your friends will say, oh, that guy.

Or maybe you think about somebody else. Start thinking about somebody else. Oh, that guy, he's all about this.

Here's a question. When you have downtime, when you're just alone, you're bored, you don't have much to do, where does your mind go? What do we turn to? When you're laying in bed at night and you're thinking, where do your thoughts go? Maybe some of those things in our life, though they're good things, are idols. Maybe some of the things that we think are okay, if you think of it from God's perspective, if it's taking place in our heart, if it's removing that strength and room to seek for God in our heart, then what else is it? I was looking this morning, and the word idol in one Hebrew word meant meaningless, nothing.

That's all it meant for the Hebrew word. It's just a meaningless empty. That's why many times God says you're vain idols, vain, empty.

How many things in our life are good things, but are vain and empty? Maybe they're taking place in our hearts where God wants to work. As I've been meditating about this, I was searching through the Bible, who was the person that actually did this? Does this mean when it says, seek God with all of your heart, that I need to wake up in the morning and every second of the day I need to be thinking about the Lord? Some of us sensitive conscience ones might think that. We might think I should never have any other thought except for the Lord.

Even when I'm working, somehow I have to cram the Lord into that. Maybe that's what it means. But what does it mean? What does it really mean? There was a man in the Bible that it says he sought God with all of his heart.

He was a 25-year-old. How many of you are around that age, close to 25? You've got some around here. 25, and this man was known to have sought the Lord with all of his heart.

And as we're going to see here, more than the people before him and the people after him. I want you to turn to 2 Kings 18. And we're going to look in verse 5, 2 Kings 18.5. This verse says about the king I'm talking about.

He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. And the next verse, verse 6, for he claimed, that means he held on to the Lord and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. This is about King Hezekiah.

I want you to turn now to 2 Chronicles. And we're going to do a little bit of surveying. 2 Chronicles chapter 31, about this king Hezekiah, who claimed to the Lord, who sought the Lord with all of his heart.

In chapter 31, I want to look at verse 20 and 21 about him. It says this, And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which is good and right and truth before the Lord God, the Lord is God, and in every work that he began, in the service of the house of God, and in the law and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all of his heart and prospered. Here is a man that the Bible says did seek God, and he did it with all of his heart.

So I'd like to look at some things. We're praying for revival. We want to know, God, how can we truly seek you with all of our heart? How can we turn away from things in our own lives? And I want to try to parallel some of these things in the book here of 2 Chronicles and Kings about this man Hezekiah.

He was a young man, 25 years old. His father was wicked. His name was Ahaz, his father.

He was actually one of the most wicked kings in Judah. At one point, he would copy pagan nations instead of following God. It was the same king that said he offered his sons through the fire to Moloch.

It says he built altars in every corner to sacrifice to, and he closed the temple down. One passage says he made Judah naked and transgressed sore against the Lord. And so many times, you know, we think about new presidents coming in, and we think about how they come in off the old administration, and they think of all the problems the last administration had, and we're going to fix all these problems.

Well, Hezekiah was coming in, and Judah was in a mess. His father had sorely, very wickedly transgressed against God. And so Hezekiah, you know, he might have been thinking, oh, we need to change how the military acts.

We might need to change how the taxes are. Who knows what he was thinking? But the first thing he did, the very first thing he did, we can read about. It says in the first month, and the first year in the first month, let's turn to 2 Chronicles 29, back a couple chapters.

Verse 1, it says he was 5 and 20 years old, and he reigned 9 and 20 years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that, which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them.

So it says here he opened the doors. You know, they had been shut. The candles had gone out.

The incense was no longer being burned. True worship was no longer happening. And Hezekiah said the first order is to get the house of the Lord reopened.

We need to get the doors open. We need to get all of the defilement out. His father had gone in, and he actually went to, I think it was Assyria, and he had seen this great altar.

He thought it was so great. So he came back and instructed his priests to build an altar like the Assyrians and move that old altar out of the way. Oh, take that seed laver thing off the oxen and put that on some rocks.

And he messed with the temple. He got things moved around. He laid things aside.

The whole temple was in shambles. Then the doors were shut. And so what does Hezekiah do? He opens the doors, and it says he repaired them.

It took him 16 days to sanctify both the inside and the outside of the temple. He brought the priests and the Levites. He gathered them together in verse 4 there, and he says, Sanctify yourselves, and then he says, Sanctify the house of the Lord your God.

And carry forth the filthiness out of this holy place. For our fathers have sinned, and they've done what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. And they have turned their faces away from the Lord.

And they've shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps and not burned incense nor offering in this holy place. And so he cleaned house, right, spiritually speaking. He went in there, and he got rid of all of the filth, the filthiness.

It says they took it all out, and they put it in the brook Kidron, outside of the city limits. Get rid of all of this idolatry and sanctify, clean. It took him 16 days to clean the temple and themselves.

And Hezekiah says in verse 8, Wherefore the wrath of the Lord is upon Judah and Jerusalem. And he has delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, to hissing. He says, verse 9, Our fathers have fallen by the sword, our sons and our daughters, and our wives are captivity for this.

So he's realizing that how many men have been taken off and daughters taken off and wives into captivity because of what his father and previous fathers had done, shutting the temple down and bringing in the filth. And so he wants to repent. He wants to have a revival.

He wants to command that Judah clean up their ways. And so the first step of this revival was to clean house. The first step of this revival was to realize that true worship wasn't happening anymore.

To repair the temple. And it says in verse 10, He made a covenant with God. They sanctified themselves.

They took the filth out. And I want to ask this this morning, as we talk about searching the Lord with all of our heart. How is your heart? How is your heart, the temple of your heart? What filthiness and idols have you brought in? Maybe the doors are shut.

Maybe the candle's no longer burning or just barely burning. Maybe the incense has been snuffed out. Are the lamps glowing brightly? Is the incense burning? Where is your heart this morning? You may have answered the question, Well, I want to know God.

I want Him to be close. But is there something in the way that is causing us not to search for Him with all of our heart? The second thing he did in verse 20 is he restored the temple worship and the sacrifices. Verse 20.

Let's just read a little bit there. Then Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the rulers of the city and went up to the house of the Lord and they brought seven bullocks and seven rams and seven lambs and seven he goats and sin offerings for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah. And he commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

And then it goes on, all the different things they did. And so he restored the sacrifices. Then verse 25.

And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord with symbols and psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David. Verse 26. And the Levites stood with the instruments of David and the priests with the trumpets.

And so here not only did he bring the sacrifices back but he brought back worship. He brought back praise. And so he says here that he put the Levites with the symbols and the psalteries.

Verse 26. The Levites with the instruments of David. And then verse 27.

He commanded the offering to be burnt on the altar. And when the offering was burnt, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets and with the instruments. And what does it say happened? And all the congregation worshiped.

And the singers sang. And the trumpets sounded. And this continued until the burnt offering was finished.

Now the word worshiped means to bow. It means to get on their face. And so as the trumpets were going and the symbols and the instruments were playing and the offering was being made, they got down on their faces to make a covenant with God, to be right with him.

And so he restored proper praise and proper definition of worship, which was humbling ourselves to God. And then in verse 29, Hezekiah answered and said, now you have consecrated, sorry, verse 31, you have consecrated yourselves unto the Lord. Come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings into the house of the Lord.

And the congregation brought in sacrifices and thank offerings, as many as were of a free heart of a free heart burnt offerings. It says there were so many sacrifices that the priest couldn't even keep up. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? They're there that day and so many things are coming in, so many animals, and the priests are just killing and killing and killing and blood's everywhere and they can't keep up with it all because there's just such a free heart to people bringing in their sacrifices.

They want to be right with God. The Levites had to come help them to keep up, it says. So my question is, oh, by the way, it says here that Hezekiah rejoiced in all the people, verse 36, why that God had prepared the people for the thing was done suddenly.

It's like all of a sudden this light bulb moment came on them and they were going to get right with God. So I asked you this morning, first of all, I asked what does the temple of your heart look like? What does the, where are the doors? What's the incense doing? What's the, what's the lamps doing? And what filthiness is brought in? But now that you've taken that out, if you have, what's the true praise and what's true worship look like in your life? As he did here, he brought it back, the true sacrifice, the true worship. What is, like the Bible says in Romans 12, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.

What's your sacrifice look like to the Lord daily? What does it look like for Thanksgiving and for praise and for worship? And then after this, Hezekiah, after he restored true worship and praise, he then restored the Passover. It's kind of interesting how this event went down, but it says that when he restored this Passover, it was not as great since the days of Solomon. It was such an amazing event.

People were wanting to get right. He sent out letters to all, not only Judah, but up into Israel. And he said, come here, we're going to celebrate.

We're going to seek the Lord together. And you know what it said some people did? It said they laughed him to scorn as these letters came into their cities. Oh, that's ridiculous.

We're not coming down there for that. But some people came, not just some, a lot of people came. And a lot of people got right with God.

It says in verse 12 of chapter 30 that the hand of God was given to them to have one heart, to do what the commandment of the king had said. And so the king was saying, we're going to come together. We're going to seek the Lord.

And the hand of God was involved. It was such an amazing event that it took them, they wanted to extend it. So they would celebrate this Passover for seven days.

You know, can you imagine if we had some event, we did it for seven days and it was such an exciting event. We said, let's extend it another seven days. This is great.

We love being with the people of God. We love that the spirit of God is pouring in on us. That's what was happening for them.

And not only that, it says it was a very great congregation, much people. It says when they were done with this 14 days of celebration, they arose, it said, and they said, we're going to go throughout the city and we're going to find every high place, every altar that's still left, and we're going to get rid of this thing and put it into the broke Kidron. They were intentional.

They wanted to make sure that every last idol was out of their life, whatever it was. It was kind of interesting because some of these guys, it says that they weren't even sanctified yet. I don't know what ritual things they had to go through to be ready, but they weren't ready because of the timeframe.

But because their hearts were so much seeking after God, it says, Hezekiah prayed this. He says, the good Lord forgive you that prepareth his heart to seek God, though you be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And it says God heard his prayer and healed the people.

So even though they weren't just right, you know, they didn't have all the perfect cleansing ceremonies in place. Their heart was hard after God and God winked at it. He looked over it.

He said, you know what? I'm going to listen to Hezekiah on this because these people are after me. It says, there was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon, there was not like the like in Jerusalem. So my question is this, this morning, do you have the temple doors open? Are the lights burning? Is the sacrifice happening in your life? Are the praises and the worship taking place in your life? The true praises, not just Sunday morning.

I mean, every day. Are you a living sacrifice? And then this, are you excited about God? Are you excited about his church? Are you excited about the things of God? Or is this just kind of, we got to get through this and then get to the fun stuff. Lastly, he destroyed all the remaining idols and pagan worship sites, which I just mentioned to you earlier, but they left this great feast and they were so excited about God.

They said, what else can we get rid of? Oh, there's a high place. There's an altar. We got to get rid of that.

They found them from all those corners that his father had allowed and it says they threw them down and it says until they had utterly destroyed them all. And so the next question is, are you excited about God and his church and are you looking for every last idol, every last thing that's keeping you and me from seeking God with all of our heart? And then finally, he organized priests, Levites, tithing and temple provisions. It says this in chapter 31, verse six.

And concerning the children of Israel and Judah that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep and tithe of holy things, which were concentrated unto the Lord, sorry, their God and laid them down by heaps. And so people were so excited now, they wanted to give to the Lord and his ministry. And so they started bringing their stuff.

They started bringing their provision. It says there were heaps, heaps. And it goes on and says, in the third month, they began to lay the foundation of the heaps.

So they started bringing all this stuff in. Okay, so the first month, they were making right with the temple, right? The second month, they were having the Passover. The third month, now they're bringing in, what can we bring in for God? And they were bringing of their things, their possessions.

And it says, they started in the third month and they ended in the seventh month. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? And they had no idea where to put everything. There was so much stuff coming in that they were, we don't have, Hezekiah came to the priest and said, oh, we're all eating well.

We have plenty of food. What do we do with these great heaps of stuff? So Hezekiah said, well, we need to build some, we need to build some storehouses. It says, for the Lord blesses people and that which is left is this great store.

We have had plenty to eat and have left plenty. So Hezekiah commanded them to build chambers of the house of the Lord and they prepared them. And so not only were they excited about God and excited about his people, but they were excited to give up their things to serve in the ministry, to push the kingdom of God, you might say, out to the world.

And so this was what true revival looked like it'd be interesting to have been in those days. You know, we want revival in this church. And I wonder what we can learn from Hezekiah.

I want to read that verse 20 and 21 of chapter 31 here in second Chronicles. And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord, his God, and in every work that he began in the service of the house of God and in the law and in the commandments right here to seek his God, he did it with all of his heart and prospered. So Hezekiah, here's a picture of a man who not only sought God with all of his heart, but he had his people seek God with all of their heart and God blessed it.

What things in your life, in my life could possibly be taking the place of seeking God with all of our heart? I have a small illustration here. I want us to think about this bottle of water here as God in our heart. Maybe that first day you were saved or that first day that, you know, God did revival.

Maybe like Josh just said this morning, I got a hold of God, right? And I think we can all think back to times when we felt very near to the Lord when God was doing many things in our lives. Now, this is rice and I don't think rice is a bad thing. Do you think rice is a bad thing? I think it tastes pretty good actually, especially with Thai food on top of it.

Anyway, but this is representative of God and I want us to think this morning about things. It says, if you will seek me and you will find me, if you shall search for God or search for me with all of your heart. And so here's your heart, you're seeking God, but things come in that aren't necessarily bad, you know, maybe just a little bit of something.

It's not too bad, but as time goes on, something takes place. You know, maybe a little bit of research on the internet or maybe a couple more of those YouTube videos. Those are really funny, those videos, you know, when they're like banging in the trucks and things are blowing up and all this, you know, or, you know, I broke into some guy's house or, you know, let's watch some cool documentaries about, you know, some battles that took place or, oh man, our government, we have some serious problems with our government.

I don't know if you've noticed, but this video looks super interesting about what kind of conspiracies have been taking place or for me, mine, what's the latest news thing going on? I need to be connected to the world. What's happening today? You know, and as time goes on, you know, I tested this last night and I think I've ruined this rice because I tested it and then I dried it back out, so now it doesn't want to go to the bottom. But as time goes on, we just keep, we keep little things in our life, right, just little things.

They don't seem that harmful, but I want you to notice, where is the water going? When I did this last night, all this rice just went to the bottom, but then I pulled it out and saw, we can't waste the rice, right? Credit? It cannot be wasted. So I dried it out, but now it feels like the rice floats, which is ruining my illustration, but I think you get the idea. As this rice goes to the bottom, nothing wrong with the rice, but it's crowding something else out.

What's it crowding out? The water, which is our representation of God in our heart, and if we can remember this illustration that things in our life can crowd God out. I printed some pictures here. Here's one.

Somebody sent me this this last week. Oh, wow. I mean, some of you, your heart's going to jump.

I'm looking at some hunters right now. Is your heart jumping right now if you're a hunter? Trevor? Yes, it is. Would you love to shoot something like this? Yes.

This is actually a relative, and I got this picture, and I thought, for some people, I mean, that's pretty animal, but for some people, their heart is just, you know, this is probably an idol. Probably. I know it can't possibly be that way in some people's minds, but other people might say, that is an idol in his life, right? Hunting and all the things that come with hunting.

Here's another one. Now, some people's hearts are really going to jump right now. Right? You're like, oh, I want that flag on my hat.

Right? No. You know, some people get really pumped and excited about this kind of patriotism and nationalism, and yeah, sure, is there something wrong with knowing some information? No, but it can crowd God out of our life if we're not careful. Okay, I got one for you, you old man up front.

Look at this guy's collection. I mean, he's got ARs, and I think those are bullpups, Jonathan. And those are some kind of hunting rifles.

I mean, this guy, I think it was $250,000. Do you think this guy has any room for God in his heart? I mean, after a while, these things can take the place of God in our heart. Or what about this one? You can fill in the blank.

Right? This one takes a lot of our time right here. And I'd say this one, and this one. I don't put statuses on.

I put one status on this last week. Boy, ever did it light up the world. I mean, everybody was thumbs up, and this was on WhatsApp.

I'm not condemning any of you status people, but I'm just saying, it can become an idol. It could be, because you get so excited about people and what they're going to say you said and this and that, and it can be a connection thing too. But I'm trying to say, what kind of things come into our life that can crowd God out? And slowly but surely, if I had time to sit here and push my rice in, it would fill this up and push the water out, and there'd be little room for God left.

What kind of things could that happen? I wish I would have printed one with the all-seeing eye and conspiracy theories. That would have been cool. Movies and videos.

Many things. You are the only one, and you know your own heart, right? What kind of things become a temptation in our heart that steal away, and we're not looking at God? I remember I read about this back in one of the World Wars. They dropped these dummies.

So it was on the D-Day. I'm not good with all these facts and names. But anyway, one of those major days, you know, when the war started.

The allies, the Americans, went and they dropped these three-foot dummies that were on parachutes, and they had them making all these noises like they were shooting gunfire, and when they landed, they blew up, and so the Germans were like, oh, over here. Look at this, and they got all distracted, and they went running over to deal with these dummies coming down, and they weren't even real, and they got distracted, and it worked really well to get them off so that they could come on over here and invade, and what does the devil do like that with these kind of things? You know, things that are really just leave us feeling empty at the end of the day. I don't know about you, but I remember one day.

This was back when I was not a Christian, but I spent a whole Saturday just watching movies, and I remember that feeling, coming away at the end of the day of just emptiness, just not seeking. We were made to seek after God. You know, they did 11 studies, 11, and they took these participants, and they put them in a room for 6 to 12 minutes by themselves.

I mean, what's so bad about that, right? Six to 12 minutes by themselves in a room. Boy, was this hard thing for this generation to sit alone in a room for 6 to 12 minutes with their own thoughts, really. So they gave them the option you can be shocked, or you can sit alone in the room.

People, many people were choosing to be shocked because they didn't want to be alone with their own thoughts. Now, you may think that's dumb, but I ask you this question. Whenever you're alone and you're bored, what do we reach for? How often do we reach? You know, they say that, I forget the name of it, but when you are bored, there's something that goes on in your mind that's a good thing.

It makes us start to think about what is my purpose in life? What does God think of me? What is judgment day going to be like? What's going to be like when I die? And we are uncomfortable with those kind of thoughts. And so we have today things to reach for to shut off those thoughts. Well, they say when you don't go to that place and you don't allow to be bored, you don't allow your mind to go to those places, you end up feeling empty, discouraged, depressed, and hollow because you're not allowing yourself to do self-reflection.

And they say it's through the roof today. And why? I would say because we have so, so many distractions, things that keep us from seeking God with all of our heart. Psalm 1 says this.

He's talking about a man that's blessed. Blessed is the man that walketh not the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sitters, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day, both day and night.

Now, let's just all get really honest. As I've been thinking about that, the last couple of weeks, how often is that the case in your life? If you're really honest. I meditate on the law both day and night.

Or in the New Testament, we'll just say on the New Covenant. I meditate on the words of Jesus. I meditate on the epistles.

I meditate on the things of God both day and night. How often do we do that? Or are our thoughts crowded out by everything going on in life? We all want to know God. We want to find him.

But are we willing to come to him on his terms? Are we searching and looking for him with all of our heart? That's what he says. That's what he wants from us. So I say this, if God is feeling distant from you, from me, could it be that we're not searching for him with all of our heart? Could it be that maybe this is why revival's not coming? Could it be that we have idols in our heart, like Hezekiah, that we have shut the doors, that we have snuffed out the candles? There's a verse in Psalms that says this, the wicked will not seek after God.

God is not in all of his thoughts. Isn't that interesting? It doesn't give us much information except the wicked don't seek after God. The righteous seek after God.

So are we doing that? Are we seeking after God? Only you can answer that question if you're seeking God with all of your heart. And it's going to have to be intentional. You know, if you're like me, you get convicted, you feel that Holy Spirit tug on your heart, and you say, Amen, and I want to have revival, and you walk out the door, and the conviction somehow just flees away, right? Jesus talks about that.

He talks about birds coming in, eating the seed right off the path. Conviction is going to do us no good on judgment day. The only thing that's going to do is if we become doers of the word.

Conviction has to lead to doing. James says that it deceives our own hearts when we just leave it at hearers only. So I want to challenge you, when you get bored, let's practice.

Let's practice seeking God with our time. Let's practice meditating on His law day and night. Let's practice leaning not to our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledging Him.

Let's practice praying without ceasing. What is that verse we sang in the song? It said, those who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true. We sang that just right before this sermon.

I can guarantee you it will be a fight. We have all, they say that our brains are made up of pathways, and as we do the same thing over and over and over and over, it's like, I heard it explained like this, it's like you're out in a jungle, and you start cutting a path, and you go down this pathway, and then you come back, and you do it again, and it gets a little more clear, and you do it again and again and again, and you do it a hundred times, pretty soon that path is pretty well trodden. And we all are that way.

Now thank the Lord we have what's called neuroplasticity. We can change that path, but it doesn't come easy. We have to fight.

We have to change. We have to change slowly. We have to change what we think on, what we meditate on, what we listen to.

We have to change these kind of things in our life. Like Bob said many years ago in a sermon, you are what you feed on, right? Why don't I even want to seek the Lord? Well, what are you feeding on? What is becoming your diet in life? So I want to read to you this out of Psalms, and then I'm going to close. It's in Psalms 24.

Why don't we all turn there? Psalm 24. Psalm 24. You know those guys, before we read this, these guys they sought for these men, and they put in 70 days, the government, the president of Chile was there.

Those family members were banging pots and pans so the government would not give up. They sought for those men with all their heart. They made it their one goal.

That's why I picked that story. Psalm 24, 3-6. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Psalm 24, 3-6.

Who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, emptiness, nothingness, worthlessness, that's what vanity means, who has not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face, O Jacob, Selah. Let's pray.

Lord, we come to You today, and thank You that You haven't given up on us. Thank You that we still have breath in our lungs. Thank You, Lord, for this conviction that You are sending.

And Lord, I pray that we would be people that seek You with all of our heart. Lord, that that would be the most important thing in our life. I pray that for each person here.

I pray that You would build that burden in our hearts, that desire. Lord, that we would have a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. And Lord, help us not to be content until we find You.

Pray that You would take this word that You have given and sprout it in our hearts. And Lord, I pray that the devil would not be able to take it away. In Jesus' name, amen.

God bless you.