Walking Can Be Hard Sometimes
Speaker
Pastor Tim Clowers. Juniper Church - Knoxville, TN.
Scripture References
1 st Chronicles 13, 1 st Chronicles 15, Numbers 4:5-15, Matthew 28:19, James 1:25, Mark 1:35, Psalms 5:3, Matthew 28.
Key Takeaways
All we have hope and pray for is to experience God’s blessings. That word “bless” means two things: Blessings and Happiness. When we keep focused on God and his word daily then no matter what happens around us or to us circumstantially, we are still happy because we’ve been with God.
How to prepare yourself for God:
Prepare a place with resources - Bible, coffee, study supplies, paper, etc.
Focus on three elements:
1. Word – when you read listen to God thru his word. Don’t think of it as reading for reading sake but to learn about him and to hear his voice. Take one nugget of truth or thought and carry it over throughout ur day.
2. Prayer – Then you talk to God. Remember it’s a conversation not some KJV consultation. You might say, I don’t know how to pray. If you can talk you can pray. It’s a conversation with God.
3. Worship – Give him your worship. I start with a Song, then instrumental and then finish with a song to worship him with words.
-
Welcome, you guys. I want to open with prayer. Lord God, Lord, I'm physically standing here. But Lord, I want to be a mouthpiece for you. I don't want to say what I want to say. As Jesus said to all the Sadducees and the Pharisees, it's not I who speak, but the Father told me what to speak.
And he didn't do anything unless his Father told him what to do. And Lord, as I prepared, I pray that you orate through me for whatever people need, whether it's a physical healing, a financial healing, or they need to find out how to get closer to God.
Lord, you orchestrate this morning for your glory, not mine, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, as I always say, usually every Sunday when I'm up here, you know, I just want to say thank you for choosing to make Juniper Church a part of your Sunday.
And today I'm going to really try my best to get as practical as possible, all the while telling you a couple stories. And it's entitled today would be Knowing God. And walking through this life that we live here on this earth, wouldn't it be so much easier if we picked up our phone and we had a GPS for a life and then you just type in where you want to go or sometimes you don't always know where to go,
but sometimes you just choose something and you hit start.
Head southwest on West Jackson Avenue towards South Gay Street, then turn right onto North Gay Street.
Very specific, wasn't it? My GPS told me exactly where to go in order to get started on my route. Life's not always like that, is it? It's really not. So I wanted to start a story, or telling you a story about King David, and as I enter into this story, I'm going to read in 1st Chronicles chapter 13 and verse 9.
Up to this point, King David had ... Thank you, Pam. Thank you, worship team. Everybody put your hands together for the worship team. Come on. Then they do a great job, and thanks for our tech team who's making all the visual and the audio possible, and also our children's church, Juniper against Treehouse, all of the teachers that are back there serving.
Be sure to say thank you for those who are serving back there today. They certainly would appreciate it. So King David, we're going to talk about knowing God today and how does King David come into this talk today?
Well, he had just been anointed king, as Scripture said, and it hadn't been very long, and he decides, I want to do something really amazing for God. And Carol, would you go ahead and put up that picture of the Ark of the Covenant?
So back in those days, you'll see in the middle there, that is the Ark, right? And that middle thing where everything's mainly pointing to, that's what they call the Ark of the Covenant, and inside of that is the commandments, the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses up on the mountain when he went to be up with God.
And so this, up to this point, didn't have a place. It was basically under a tent. Well, all of these other utensils you can see, and I won't go into great detail, but all the other things in order to, a priest must do in order to go into the Holy of Holies to make restitution for everyone's sin.
So in the middle, that is the Ark of the Covenant, and that's where it was. It didn't have a home up to this point. So think about that. So David, what he decided to do was, I'm going to talk to the captain of my army, or the captains of my armies.
I'm going to talk to all of my officials, and I'm going to talk to just the general assembly. I want to get a little feedback from them. Do you think we should take it where it is and give it a permanent home and move it here?
It's basically saying, well, do we want it under a tent in the halls, or do we want to take it out to a nice place in Carnes, where it can fit and have a good home? That's the concept, if you can think about that for a brief moment.
And then it says, the assembly agreed, the people that were gathered. So we gathered everybody. I don't know how it could have been 10 ,000, could have been 5 ,000, could have been 50. I don't know how many people were in the assembly.
I know it was a lot of people. And then everybody of importance was there gathered. And he asked their opinion, should we take this Ark from halls and give it a nicer place in Carnes? They all said, well, yeah, I think it'd be a great idea.
So what they did is they decided to take that Ark of the Covenant, and they put it on a cart. And there were two guys named Uzzah and Ohio. We'll just say Ohio, because I don't want to badger his name.
So in 1 Corinthians 13, 9 says this, when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark. Then the Lord's anger in verse 10, it says, the Lord's anger was aroused against Uzzah, and he struck him dead because he laid his hand on the Ark.
So Uzzah died there in the presence of God. In the verse 11, David gets angry because the Lord's anger burst out against Uzzah. So in this particular passage, it says in 1 Corinthians 13, before this, before they started doing this, it says they were celebrating with instruments.
David created this whole festival because he wanted to honor God by taking the Ark from one place to another, but he wanted it to be a holy, memorable moment. His heart was in the right place. And reading that scripture, I know it may sound harsh, but why would God kill somebody?
Why would God kill somebody? And you may think to yourself, well, I don't want to mess up. You think God'll kill me? No, he's not going to kill you. You know, three things about this particular event, it says, well, three things about it is, it was ancient times number one, and number two, David didn't ask God about moving the ark of the covenant.
And number three, he was the new king. So if you think about this particular passage, maybe he wanted to impress everybody. Maybe he wanted everybody to know that, hey, I want your involvement in what we're doing here.
So he wanted to demonstrate that I'm a good leader. So I wanna involve you in the process of taking this ark from here to there. Pretty simple, right? If you don't get that, say me, right? Pretty simple.
Everybody understand that? Raise your left hand. Say I. I. Okay. If you don't say oh, okay. I got one loud oh. Now today's times are a little bit different. We don't live in ancient times. And how do we know that?
Well, the proof of that is Jesus Christ came to the earth to live as a human and 100% God. And he died a gruesome death so that we don't have to have a priest go to the holy of holies, which is where the ark of the covenant is.
And make restitution for something we did or sin. So I just wanna tell you this, that God is not angry at you for anything that we've done. He's not going to strike you because of what you did. And I'll just say this to you.
As it relates to this story in ancient times, for me, myself, personally, I would rather be in the hands of an angry God than not in these hands at all. Come on somebody. I would. I would rather be under the leadership of God and his guidance and counsel if he was angry with me.
But I knew his heart was for me and wanted me to win and wanted me to have success. I would rather be in his hands no matter what I'm doing. So I want you to fast forward. I wanna fast forward this story a little bit.
It's in 1st Chronicles 15 verses 11 and verse 13. It says, David summoned the priests, all of those guys, I won't try to say their names. Then in verse 12, he said, you are the leaders of the Levite families.
You must purify yourselves and all your fellow Levites so that you can bring the Ark of the Lord, the God of Israel to the place where I prepared it. Because the Levites did not carry the Ark the first time, the Ark of the Lord God burst out against us.
In other words, he failed to ask God. When and how, pretty simple process of how it's supposed to be done. In other words, the instructions for moving that cart from one place to another, it was given in the book of Numbers chapter five verses Numbers four verses 15 through, no, Numbers four verses five through 15, okay?
And I know that's like, well, why do I need to know that? Well, God always usually gives instructions if we're supposed to do something in our lives. He provides instructions and guidance and counsel.
And hopefully by the end of this talk, you will have some biblical understandings as to some practical basic concepts to, huh, something so simple as to how do I know God? So in other words, in all of that talk that I just said for the last eight minutes, if David would have simply inquired, hey, God, do you mind if we move this cart from here to there, how do we do it?
There was some ancient scrolls that was written down the instructions, but he failed to ask. And in fact, the priest, that particular plan as it says, the Levites, they actually knew how to move it, but he didn't ask.
How many times have you gone to do something in your life, wondering why did it end up the way that it did? And you think to yourself, man, it may have gone a little bit different had I invited God into my life or into this situation.
So Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, it says, this is where I'm gonna try to get really practical with you about how to know God and all you have to do is ask him. As you can tell in this story that I illustrated, King David, one of the most powerful men that we read about in the Bible that says, and the reason I bring up him says, because he is a man talked about in the Bible after God's own heart.
And one of the moment's famous men in the Bible can go back and say, well, I messed up. I didn't ask God how to do it. Instead I decided to put the most holy thing that is precious to God. At that time I decided to put it on that janky little cart with some ox pulling it.
So therefore it got a little messed up when we hit a speed bump. Therefore somebody who was all just trying to do the right thing wanted to study and guide it so that it don't fall. God killed him. How many times have we thought about, man, if I had just asked God before I made that decision, or in the middle of something, did you ask for peace?
Is it the right thing to do? Matthew 28, 19 says, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Verse 20, it says, teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure of this.
I am with you always, even to the end of days. A few weeks ago we had baptisms. People who wanted to make their faith public, not to say, Hey, look at me. But in other words, a way to say that I'm following God and I'm going to let the world know.
So in this particular book or in this particular passage of scripture, this is the last thing that Jesus said in this particular book of Matthew. And he gives a command. He says, make disciples, which is you and I, that's our job.
He tells us, then he says to, he teach them to obey the commands that we give them. And how many times have you read through a Bible or somebody has told you about commands and then you're like, no, what am I supposed to do?
Wave, give me a big wave if you have been confused about scripture in the past. Come on, be honest. You're like, what, what does that mean? Cause sometimes it's not completely obvious. And hopefully as Jackie and I stand before you, as well as when we get into smaller groups, hopefully that will bring clarity to you about some things of this nature.
And so I want to read Matthew or excuse me, James 1 25. It says this, but if you keep looking steadily into God's law for free men, he will not only remember it, but he will do what it says. And God will greatly bless him and everything that he does.
So the practical components of this scripture is very clear. God says, Oh, it's upside down. You can't read a Bible upside down. Keep looking steadily into God's law. It doesn't mean just stare at it and don't move the reference there.
The context is for us to look at this book often. And then he says, he will not only remember it, but he will do what it says. So he's also telling us, well, look at it not once a month. You grab it.
Oh gosh, I haven't read that thing in about a month. Now he's, he's referencing us to get it out often, read it, find truth in it, and how it can apply to our life daily. That's the reference in that context of that scripture.
So we go back to Matthew 28 and he says, teach them to obey my commands. Okay. So let's get into, let's see, I've got one, two, three, I've got three major practical things that I want to share with you about knowing God.
Number one is this, dedicate a specific time and amount of time when. So in order to make this happen on a daily basis, you're most likely going to have to set aside your, your emails, your phone, your computer.
Cause if you're going to spend, like if I tell Jackie, Hey, let's go on a date. And the only thing that I'm doing is on my phone, on Instagram, scrolling, then I'm not taking the time to get to know her and to be with her.
I can't be with two people at once being engaged, knowing details, right? Come on, somebody. And then, Number one, dedicate a specific time, okay? Leave your phone or your iPad or whatever device it is that may distract you, leave it on the counter away from you for at least 15 minutes.
Or if you can't do 15 minutes, can you do 10? Thank you. get up early if you got to be at work at six if you got to be at work at seven and you normally go to bed at 10 or 10 30 or 9 or not whatever time is go to bed a little bit early and I know I get it sometimes we have sleepless nights anybody ever have sleepless nights yeah it happens so let me read some two scriptures mark 135 it says before daybreak the next morning Jesus got up and he went out to an isolated place place to pray Psalms 5 Psalms 5 3 listen to my voice in the morning each morning I bring my request to you and wait expectantly so so you get the message here King David Jesus they tell us in the morning set a time to get to know God everybody say amen everybody say morning one more time really loud say morning okay I think you get it right all right number two prepare a place with resources prepare a place with resources so the first thing that I do my resource is coffee that heavenly juice every single morning sometimes you know she'll prepare it sometimes I prepare it a lot of times these days she's up way before me and who drinks coffee who drinks tea okay well then get you something whether it's your water or your hot tea cold tea iced tea sweet whatever it is get you a beverage put it there right beside you and then number two get you a Bible and find a reading plan like Jackie's currently doing the one -year Bible a lot of you are doing a one -year Bible and then going into next year we're going to give you resources to make sure that you follow along with in the one -year Bible so currently find a Bible that is in a translation that you can read and read it daily and if you miss a day get back into it the next day if you miss a couple days get back into it right and then what I this is what I do it's like can I have a chair real quick Glenn give me that chair behind you real quick I'm literally just walking through my steps is I sit in my recliner that Jackie doesn't really like it's old and dingy it is it needs to be thrown away or put in that back room and I'll I got this little pillow I'll put a pillow and I'll prop up my Bible on the pillow because I just want it like to be angled with the right way and I just want to get cozy and comfortable got my coffee got my Bible and I'll just sit there and say a prayer so God just speak to me through your word and I will I'll just say that prayer to God I'll be propped up you know with my recliner and I'll sip my juice and and I'll be honest with you those moments are some of the most special moments in my day they are because I'm number one I'm drinking that heavily bean juice number one and then number two I'm spending time with him reading about him by all the cool illustrations of what he's got in this book and then I've got this little thing that I do is I have a hotel key card it stays in my Bible and I don't know if y 'all can see my little perfect underlines see how straight that line is I make a perfect underline right there just so that you know when I go back you know it's like all those perfect lines I just that's just me so what I like to do I like to you know put it right there and then get my pen and the market because that stood out to me it meant something and then I have a notebook this is just my my typical notebook where I've got just notes in it from when I'm here reading I want to make sure that there's a nugget or a truth for the day it's dated by every single day and like the last entry was 5 -4 you know it was it was a truth that I was reading in the in the book of Ezra it related back to something in Psalms 23 so it triggered me to learn something in a and a nugget that it was like even though things happen God still loves me even though it's just something that was personal to me that allowed me to realize God's thinking about me and then the second thing that I have this is more pastoral whenever I have like one word this may be way over your head but it's it's what I do I'll have like this book is alphabetized from A to Z and whenever there's one word that stands out to me I'll just write down or I'll go to that alphabet how do I say that alphabetize order in my notebook if it's anxiety and I'll make a entry of where the scripture was about anxiety and the the note that might help me help you and or it could be just personal as well so this is like a like a pastoral journal where maybe it's a message that God spoke to me it's not every day that I make an entry in here but it's sometime and then I've got a notebook and then I've got my current book that I'm reading and then I've got my my Bible 15 minutes if this is too much for you get a notebook and a Bible and a pen get some resources and then music music is important to this process you need to have some music maybe it's a worship song that you like to listen to and if it's not a worship song because I know several people in this room you don't like Christian music well I want you to start learning how to enjoy Christian music because of God how he can speak to you through Christian music it's not about maybe the tone but it's the words that he speaks to you through those words I mean we all love some good ACDC I mean it's a good rock song I'm not gonna lie it's cool it's got a good beat to it but do the words inspire you to get to know God now get a Bluetooth speaker get you an old -school like boombox I mean who uses a boombox with a cassette player still I'm just kidding I've got the old eight track boombox I'm just kidding okay so number one dedicate a specific time every day number two grab resources okay and then number three is focus on three things during that 15 minutes focus on three things word prayer and worship so the word which is the Word of God in the Bible when you read it listen to God because he'll talk to you when you read about him and don't think of it as just oh I'm opening up my Bible and I'm reading John 10 10 I'm just reading words ask God to speak to you through the reading of those words and hear his voice and I'll be honest with you God speaks to me way more when I'm reading his word than when I'm in a private intimate prayer moment he speaks to me about you he speaks to me about my family he speaks to me about revelation and if there's one thing that you read let's say you read one chapter two chapters three chapters or one verse maybe there's one little nugget that you get out of there it's like be kind that's the only thing that you got out of that be kind that means you might have someone coming at you during the day that's going to come at you sideways and try to get you off track and get you offended and upset and ruin your day and take away your peace maybe it's that one word be kind no matter what And just carry that nugget throughout your entire day.
And the number, or the prayer part, so remember there's focus on three elements, word, prayer, and worship. So the prayer part is talk to God. Like he's your daughter, brother. Don't talk to him like he's some King James analytical prophet or something.
Like if you, can everyone in the room speak verbally? I think we all can. If you can speak, you can pray. Because it's just a conversation. I mean, come on, it's like, some of you may think your prayers like, oh God, wherefore art thou?
I long to be with thee. No, it's like, man, God, I just, I want to know you. I don't know so much. I'm stressed this week. I didn't read my Bible last week. Lord, I got, I love you. I want to know you more.
Help me God, to know you. Lord, my wife's always doing this, but Lord, help me through that. Help me to be a better husband. Lord, help me to be a better dad. Just talk. It's just a conversation. And think about prayer.
Number one, pray for others first. And spend maybe that last 10% of your prayer time for yourself. Because the Bible says he already knows what you need even before you ask. He knows your issues. He knows your junk.
He knows your stuff. Pray for your kids. You know, the Bible says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And that's a big part of my focus is to pray for my family that they will serve God.
And then number three, or the third element of the word prayer and worship is worship. Give him your worship. Start with a song. Maybe listen to some instrumental music. Because if you try to sing, and then you're trying to focus on worshiping him, it might be hard because you're singing.
But that's just me. But no matter what, get you a Christian song or two and worship him during that 15 minutes. And if all you have is 15 minutes, give me five minutes in word, or seven minutes, and then get in worship, and then get in prayer, 15 minutes.
You know, I made a statement about a year ago, and there's one person that came up to me and said, it's true. One year later, I know God better than I did last year, and I feel like I'm much better off leading my home.
And I'm gonna say that today, if you'll give us one year of your life, if you're new here, or if you haven't yet made those commitments like what we're talking about, give us one year of your life to follow along with us, be a part of this, serve on a dream team to be able to make a difference, be a part of a small group, attend church on a regular basis, not once a month, not twice a month, but on a regular basis.
Of course, you gotta take a vacation, gotta rest sometimes, but attend on a regular basis. You know, one thing that Jackie has been saying over the last few weeks is, you know, try again. Try again, if you mess up, try again.
You know, if you love someone so, so, so very much, could I ask the prayer team, would you guys go ahead and come on up? I would certainly appreciate it, is if you love someone and you wanna know someone, take the effort that's required in order to get to know them.
Like, if you're a guy in the room, and we'll take it from a guy perspective for just a second, guys always try to impress a girl, they do. You go the extra effort, you go the extra mile. And I'll think about our vision at Juniper Church, it says to restore, grow, become, and make a difference.
Well, what that looks like is, well, in order to see that vision fulfilled in your life, you gotta know God, right? You gotta know God, and there's some simple, practical things that we need to do in order to know God.
We gotta read about him. We've got to worship Him and we've got to pray. Everyone, would you just stand to your feet for just a few moments? You know, I think about God. The ultimate sacrifice was to send His son here, Jesus Christ, to pay the ultimate price for us so that we don't have to go to the ark or go to our priests.
And then our priest goes to the ark to make restitution for our sins. We could go straight to God. There's not a process involved. And that all happened because God sent His son, Jesus Christ to die a brutal death for us.
And even the book of Isaiah says, when Jesus was beaten before they put Him up on the cross, it says that He was unrecognizable. He was beaten so badly that they didn't know what He looked like, or He didn't have a facial appearance of looking like a certain person anymore.
That's how bad He was beaten. And if you think about knowing God, and maybe you're a Christian here this morning and you're far away from God and you don't know God and not sure of your salvation. Hey, do I really know God?
Is He really in my heart? Is He really, really there? Did I mess up this week? Did I mess up last week? Have I been doing the wrong thing and not inviting God into every part of my life? Because that's what He wants to do.
He wants to invade every part of your life. Everybody all throughout the room, just please close your eyes for me for just a brief moment.
See you next time.
if you are a Christian or if you're not considered a Christian and you feel like you're far from God and you want to know God or you want to start that process all over the room lift up your hand if you want to know God this morning and you're not sure if you were to die today that you would go to heaven or hell raise your hand thank you thank you anyone else in the room raise your hand quickly while no one else is watching slip up your hand really quickly thank you all right everybody open your eyes and let's all say this prayer together say heavenly father and i want you to say it loudly as if you're getting baptized making a confession before God and he was sitting right over there at the coffee bar drinking a cup of coffee smile and being a happy daddy say father god i come to you and i ask you to forgive me of every sin come live inside of me and be my lord be my savior because i want to be free in Jesus name everybody said you know there's there's four components that i also want to share is Jackie and i want you to know God we want you to find freedom and we want you to discover your purpose and we want you to be able to make a difference before you can do any of those you first got to know God and some of you made that choice today to know God and if you've been here and you felt like you haven't known God hopefully i gave you some practical steps and if you made that decision we have a card right here let us know so that we can get resources into your hand to teach you the next steps and we have some great next steps so far we do and if there's any point right now during this next song if you're struggling with anxiety you're fighting depression if you if you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you don't know what your next steps are or you're tired of bearing a certain burden got Miss Sherry right here got Miss Karen right here at any point during this next worship song you want private personal prayer they're here to stand in the gap with you while we worship this next song all right i love y 'all