Before we jump into today, I must stop and talk about last week at MRC. It was an awesome day for our spiritual family. Both MRC and MRG were together. Both worship teams sang. During announcements, Pat shared sad news that Ray from MRG passed away while working on his house for his family. Immediately lots of guys stepped up to love Ray’s family and finish what he stared. When someone passes it’s hard because we will always miss them, but we are happy for them to walk into heaven and be with Jesus. And as his spiritual family, we want to love his family through this time.
Sam’s message was so clear and powerful. He said because of Jesus, nothing can truly stop you from standing in your true calling, accept you. Through his talk, he kept reminding us how much we matter. Remember the verse Sam gave us?
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? NLT Romans 8:31
We then interviewed two people in MRC who are stepping into what God is asking of them and we walked into communion. It was a special day.
For today, I want to share something with you that you might struggle to believe. When I share it with you, you might push back on me and think, ‘Ya, right.’ Even when I read it from the Bible, you might struggle to believe what I am going to tell you. And because many people don’t believe what I’m about to tell you, we struggle to walk through life with passionate courage. Instead, we tend to walk through life and feel worn down and defeated. We struggle to see how important we are. We struggle to understand how important church is. We struggle to make the choices God asks of us. We can settle to live lives that check off days on our calendars.
Sam talked about this very thing. Do you remember when Sam read Galatians 5:7-8
You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. NLT
Sam challenged us to see our value and stand in our calling from God. Why is it hard to see our value, stand firm, and persevere? Sam said it. People can discourage us. People can say discouraging things. People can quit standing in their calling, leave church, and that can impact us. As silly as this sounds, we have seen this happen. Someone can feel discouraged because someone quit attending church and it impacted them negatively. How do they respond? Because they feel discouraged, they quit coming to church not realizing they are discouraging everyone around them. It sounds silly and immature but it’s real. People can impact you. People can discourage you from seeing your value, standing firm, and persevering.
Sam said, people, challenges, and lies all come against us. Sam ended with a very important statement. Because of Jesus, nothing can truly stop you from standing in your true calling, accept you. And that is what I want to talk about today. I’m going to tell you something and you may say to yourself, ‘Ya right’. I am going to read it for you from scripture and chances are, you still won’t believe it. Ready?
If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you.
Let that sink in for a second. Do you believe that? Right now, what are you thinking? In your mind, are you pushing back on me with a, ‘Ya, right’? Does that sound almost naughty to say such a big thing? Maybe you want to believe it, but it’s almost too good to be true. Maybe you think I am overstating it. You hear, ‘The glory of God’, and that’s a little much to believe. I should ask you, do you live everyday with courage and passion because you know, the glory of God lives inside you?
Okay. Let’s turn to scripture.
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? NAB 1 Corinthians 3:16
There it is. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you – the Holy Spirit. After seeing it in scripture, do you believe it? Will this change how you live this week? Will you leave here and live with courage and passion knowing that the glory of God is inside you?
Okay, here is another verse.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. NIV 2 Corinthians 5:21
There it is. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you – the righteousness of God. I just read two scriptures proving it, do you believe it now? Will this change how you view yourself this week? Will you leave today feeling redeemed and refreshed because you know you are filled with the righteousness of God?
Today, I want you to believe scripture. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you. To fully understand this and to understand how big of a deal this is, I want to walk you through the story of God. This epic story that took thousands of years to unfold.
Do you remember King David? David who killed Goliath? He had a son named Solomon. When Solomon was King, he built a Temple for God, this is what happened.
7:1 As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire descended from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the Temple. 2 The priests could not enter into the Temple because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s Temple. ISV 2 Chronicles 7:1-2
The glory of God filled the temple. More specifically, the glory of God rested in the room called the Holy of Holies. It was the room where the Ark of the Covenant rested. The only thing that separated the room called the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, was a curtain. So, understand the glory of God was contained in one room. That curtain protected the priests from the glory of God that would have killed them if they walked into the Holy of Holies. Only one time a year, the leading priest was allowed to walk into that room and ask God to forgive the people’s sin. Historians say the curtain was at least four inches thick making it extremely heavy. Tradition tells us, it would have taken three hundred priests to move that curtain.
This is important because when Jesus died, something amazing happened. It was a miracle. I want to read it for you.
50 Then Jesus shouted out again, dismissed his spirit, and died. 51 And look! The curtain secluding the Holiest Place in the Temple was split apart from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and rocks broke. TLB Matthew 27:50-51
Did you know that? The very moment Jesus died, that four-inch curtain ripped from top to bottom. That was a miracle. No one could have made that happen. Do you know what that means? Because of what Jesus did, the glory of God is no longer separated from us. It is no longer contained in one room. The glory of God was released to live inside us.
Let’s fast forward to see what happened just a few weeks later.
1 When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place. 2 Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak. GNT Acts 2:1-4
Do you see it? The glory of God that was contained in one room in the Temple was released to now lives in us.
You may ask yourself, if this is true, why don’t I see it? There are a couple reasons. First, if you were raised in Church, you may have been taught information about the stories and rules, but you may not have been taught about the glory of God being in you. Second, it may not have been modeled for you. That means, you may not have been raised where praying and worship and anointing was normal. Third, this world is evil. And because this world is evil, it will violently come against you. And the damage to your heart is so real, it leads you to believe God isn’t in me. I can prove it with three questions.
Question 1: As you walk through life, is life easy, relaxing, and comfortable? No. There are so many challenges life wears you out – right? Question 2: What do you battle in your head every day? Probably something like, ‘I don’t add up, I am a loser or failure, nobody likes me’ – right? Question 3: Do people come around you and celebrate you and build you up making you feel more valuable? How about your spouse? Is it common for them to point out where you are coming up short or is it more common for them to tell you how valuable you are? Think about your family, your school, where you work, people in general, do people help you see how valuable you are? In general, people would say, ‘No.’
Listen, we live in a world that is brutal. Why is life so hard? Why do you think that you are a failure or at least a disappointment? Why do people wear you out? Because this world is evil, and it will violently come against you. It will leave you feeling dazed and confused. And the damage to your heart is so real, it leads you to believe, ‘the glory of God isn’t in me.’ And we end up living lives of desperation. Even when I tell you that the glory of God is inside you, you might struggle to believe it. Even when I read the verses proving it, you might struggle to believe it. Even when I share the story of God, you might struggle to believe it.
So how do we overcome this evil world that assaults us each day? How do we see how much we matter? How do we believe that the glory of God lives inside us?
4 Every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. 5 And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. NLT 1 John 5:4-5
The answer is faith. We believe in what Jesus has done for us. That means we get alone to pray, read scripture, and surrender our lives to Jesus.
To give you an analogy, I have an ice pack in my hand. This ice pack is great to have if someone gets injured – right? However, the truth is, it’s useless if I never use it. It will just take up space. It will just collect dust. And it’s that thing I have if I need it. But until I use it, it does absolutely nothing. Every good thing I can get from this ice pack is dormant.
What do I have to do to access or activate the power in the ice pack? I have to hit it and break the liquid pack on the inside. When I do that, there is a chemical reaction, and you feel the power of the ice pack. You and I have the ice pack with us all the time. But we must hit it to break it.
If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you. Again, we have the ice pack with us all the time. But to access and activate the Holy Spirit, we have to break the liquid pack on the inside of us. That means we spend time reading scripture, praying, and surrendering our lives to Jesus. Then and only then is the Holy Spirit activated. That means the Holy Spirit will plant spiritual things in our lives that we can’t create. Remember we talked about that list? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control into our lives. Remember we said how silly it is to try to create those spiritual things with our human effort? We have to break the liquid pack inside of us. Then and only then do we feel the power of the ice pack.
Can you imagine what would happen in your life if you believed the truth in scripture? Think about that. Every day you believed on purpose, ‘The glory of God lives inside me.’ If you believed that, would that not drive you into a personal relationship with Jesus? Would you not pray and read and surrender your life, to activate the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t that give you a crazy courage to jump into the day? Not reckless or thoughtless, but real courage knowing that God is in you. Wouldn’t that fill your soul with peace? Would it not give you an unwavering perseverance to see your value and stand in your calling? Remember the verse Sam shared last week?
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? NLT Romans 8:31
This is why we are fasting and praying. This is why we are preaching about activating the Holy Spirit in us. We must smash the ice pack to activate the Holy Spirit.
After all this talk, I want to ask you an important question. Do you believe the glory of God lives inside you? Do you still struggle to believe that? Is it still a little too good to be true? If you struggle to believe, I think I know why.
The reason I can struggle to believe this is because I look at my life and see where I come up short. I see where I am a disappointment. And it can be hard to believe that the glory of God lives in me. Do you know what I must do? I must meet with Jesus every day to remind myself.
The reason you might struggle to believe it is because you are probably like me. We look at our lives and we know; we don’t deserve the glory of God. God is too holy. God is too righteous. And we are too dirty. We know we aren’t worthy. We know we sin. We know we walk with doubt, fear, anxiety, and depression. We know we are insecure. We know that every natural desire in us leads us to sin. And if we know we are a broken mess, how in the world can it be true that the glory of God is in us?
If you struggle to believe this because you are a broken mess, I want to read scripture to explain.
Ready for this?
It is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. GNT Ephesians 2:8-9
If you have received Jesus and your Lord and Savior, God placed His glory inside you. It’s a gift. And to be clear, it has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with you, your efforts, or how good you are. It has nothing to do with how much of a broken mess you are. It is 100% a gift from God for you to access every day. That means, Jesus did everything for you. Jesus was crucified because we are a broken mess. Jesus was crucified because we aren’t worthy. Jesus was crucified because we sin. Jesus was crucified because we can walk with doubt, fear, anxiety, and depression. Jesus was crucified because there is no way we could ever be good enough. Jesus was crucified to give you this gift.
And all you need to do to access or activate the Holy Spirit in you, is to believe the truth, read scripture, pray, and surrender your life to Jesus.
Can you imagine what would happen in our lives if we believed the Bible? It would transform us. And that is the message of God to our world. In the middle of our mess, in the middle of our defeat and failure, God wants to rescue us. God wants to give us a gift. God wants to place His glory inside us.
Let’s think this through a little more. Can you imagine what would happen in a local church if everyone in that church believed the bible and was transformed? Imagine a group of people praying, and reading scripture, and surrendering their lives to Jesus. Imagine how much unapologetic courage they would have. Imagine how free and clean and refreshed they would feel every day.
Remember what Jesus said to the lady at the well?
13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” NLT John 4:13-14
The message of God is this – ready. In the middle of our mess, in the middle of our defeat, in the middle of our failures, God wants to rescue us. God wants to give you a gift. God wants to place His glory inside us. It’s why Jesus died for you.
One of the greatest things you can do to is believe what the Bible says. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the glory of God is inside you.
Why do I say all this? Because our churches are filled with people who don’t fully believe who they are filled with the glory of God. Because they don’t believe they are filled with the glory of God, they don’t walk with passionate courage. Because they don’t have passionate courage, they struggle to make choices to join God in building the local church.
Today, you must believe and live out every day knowing, the glory of God is in me. And every time you doubt it, get alone with God and remind yourself – it was a free gift.