How Does a Christian Cultivate a Deep Relationship With God in Satan's World?

Currently, Mr. Bradford is going through the book of Ephesians. Wonderful book. People who are attending his study are really enjoying that a great deal. I think his intention is to march all the way through the epistles of Paul. He'll probably finish that about the same time I finish Isaiah. We'll have to have dual cakes when that all takes place. But there's a scripture that will help me kick off the sermon today over in Ephesians 4. I'm thinking Mr. Bradford's already covered that section, but let's go over to Ephesians 4.

I've quoted this to you on a number of occasions. I'll do so in the future. To me, it's one of the great verses of the Bible. To me, this exemplifies, encapsulates, articulates the goal we have as Christians. Let's take a look at this. Ephesians 4, verse 13. Till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. There's a lot there. That one verse is a sermon all to itself. Till we all come to the unity of the faith, to be unified with God the Father, to be unified with Jesus Christ, to be unified with our brothers and sisters in the faith. Till we all come to that kind of unity, the same mindset, the same desires, the same desire to act, the same zeal. That is truly something for us to aspire to. Till we all come to that unity and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Now, knowledge is not just a matter of academics. It's a matter of understanding. It's a matter of walking side by side with God the Father and Jesus Christ. As we go through the trials, as we heard about Mr. Demurgeon's sermon this afternoon, in the Scriptures, when we're talking about knowledge, it's generally talking about not just a knowledge academically, but a knowledge of what we need to do. Till we all come to a knowledge of what we must be doing to have this unity. To a perfect or to a mature. You know, we're not going to find perfection in this flesh, but we can find various levels of maturity. To a mature man or woman. To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ.

Powerful words here. This shows our goal as a Christian. I'd like to contrast this with Satan's goal. Let's go to John chapter 10. Satan's got his goals for us as well. John chapter 10.

Verse 10. John 10. 10. The thief, referring to Satan, does not come except to steal. Satan wants to steal our hope. He wants to steal our peace of mind. He wants to steal the relationship we have with our father and elder brother. He wants to steal the relationship we have with one another. Steal our happiness, steal our joy. And to kill those things. To kill that relationship, to shipwreck us as we are trying to work toward God's kingdom. And to destroy us. So where God wants us to grow in maturity, to be more like Jesus Christ, Satan wants to destroy us. He wants to destroy us. That's our adversary's goal. Let's take a look at the playing field we find ourselves on now. Let's go over to the book of Ephesians once again. Ephesians chapter 6.

We see God's goal. We see Satan's goal. Let's take a look at the battlefield where we are at at this point. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Now, years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, I played high school football.

Back in those days, it wasn't that uncommon for a person to play both ways. I was a right tackle on the offensive line, and believe it or not, I added some actual speed for running back in the day.

Today, my speed for running basically is hitting for the dinner table. But back in those days on defense, I was a linebacker. And, you know, I went through all the different things, all the training, all the wind sprints, all the running mile here and there, and all that you go through when you're on a football team. But also, in my phys ed class in high school, there was a portion of the class, I forget how long it was, a number of weeks, where I was in wrestling. And when I compare the energy I expended playing football versus the energy I expended playing in wrestling, wrestling was far more grueling.

You know, back in those days at 15 years of age, I was about 190 pounds, 6'1", relatively good size, full grown. But the guy that they paired me with was over 220 pounds. And he was taller than me. I don't know how tall he was, but he was taller than I was. But, you know, he would go at it for three minutes at a time.

And let me tell you something. When you're wrestling and you're hand-to-hand, muscle against muscle, for three minutes, as much as you can do, that is exhausting. Exhausting. Physically exhausting. And so when Paul says here, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the powers of darkness. This is talking about a great deal of spiritual energy that is taking place as we're doing this wrestling. Tiring. Draining. Now, why am I going through all this? There's a question I want to ask and hopefully answer today in a message. The question is this.

If you're taking notes, you might want to jot this across the top of your page. How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? How does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? At this point, you're probably thinking to yourself, well, Mr. D, we need to make God our number one priority. Excellent point. I've given any number of sermons on that point. You have heard any number of sermons on that point.

You have discussed that idea, that concept with others on many occasions. You buy into those words. You buy into that mindset. But we live in Satan's world. And it's so easy for us to be inspired on Sabbath services, and then we go back home. And we've got to deal with our human nature. And not only that, we've got to deal with the human nature of those people we work with. Those people who live alongside of us.

People all around us. And just as you and I in nature have seen where a steady drip of water on a large boulder, a large rock, will make inroads over time. Your human nature, my human nature, others' human nature, as they are continually dripping on us, can erode us, can break us down.

If we're not careful. If we're not careful. Now, I was listening to a sermon this past week by Mr. Petty. I basically can recommend almost anything he ever talks about. But as he was going through the sermon, this came to my mind. It's a little bit of a play off of some of the things he was saying in his sermon. In his sermon he was talking about how we live in a very anxious world, a very anxious age.

And it got me to thinking, and I took a little bit of a turn through the Internet, and I found this article that I want to share with you. At least a portion of the article. It was a very, very long article. It went pages. I'm just going to share a few paragraphs with you.

Thankfully, I don't believe this affects anybody in our congregation, but it's a snapshot. It's a snapshot of one teenager's experience. True story. Now, in the Chicago church, we are fortunate in that we have so many beautiful children. So many. We're fortunate. Maybe we take these things for granted, but we've got the blessing of children's ceremony. Brother, we've got churches out there that haven't had one of those in years and years. The Beloit congregation, which I'm happy to pastor, when we go up there, the youngest person in that congregation is in her early 50s. No five-year-olds. No little kids on the floor. You know, 50-year-olds. That's the youngest. Mary's the second-youngest person when we go there.

We don't want this to happen to any of our young people, but I'm about to read. This comes from the New York Times magazine dated October 11, 2017, so it's a relatively current piece. The title of the article, Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Some Veer Anxiety? I quote now the article.

The fact was, he had never really failed at anything. Not coincidentally, failure was one of Jake's biggest fears. He worried about it privately. Maybe he couldn't sleep, keep up with his peers. Maybe he wouldn't succeed in life. The relentless drive to avoid such a fate seemed to come from deep within him. He considered that a strength. Jake's parents knew he could be high-strung. In middle school, they sent him to a therapist when he was too scared to sleep in his own room. Nothing prepared them for the day two years ago when Jake, then 17, seemingly ran 150 miles per hour into a brick wall. He refused to go to school, curled up in a fetal position on the floor. I just can't take it, he screamed. You just don't understand. Jake was right. His parents didn't understand. Jake didn't really understand either. But he also wasn't good at verbalizing what he thought he knew. That going to school suddenly felt impossible. That people were undoubtedly judging him. That nothing he did felt good enough. All of a sudden, I couldn't do anything, he said. I was so afraid. Those tall, lanky frames had come, too. His stomach hurt. He had migraines. You know how a normal person might have stomach lurch if they walk into a classroom. There's a pop quiz, he told me. Well, I basically had those feelings all the time. The article continues, Over the last decade, anxiety has overtaken depression as the most common reason college students seek counseling services. In its annual survey of students, the American College of Health Association found a significant increase to 62 percent, up from 50 percent in 2011, of undergraduates reporting overwhelming anxiety in the previous years. Those numbers, combined with a doubling of hospital admissions or suicidal teenagers over the last ten years, with the highest rates coming soon after they return to school each fall, come as little surprise to high school administrators across the country, who increasingly report a glut of anxious, overwhelmed students. My brethren, I'm really happy to say, in my ministry, I've not had to deal with this in our families, and I hope that we never do. But if Satan is trying to do this to our young people, our precious young people in our society, and let's be honest about something, even though I've not seen it in my ministry, generally speaking, whatever's taking place in society, we'll find its way into the church. If society has 5 percent alcohols, and we're going to have 5 percent alcohols in the church, that I have seen in the church. I have gone to AA meetings with members to help me understand what they're going through.

If this is happening to our young people, how about those of us who have a little more age on us than being teenagers? Yes. How do we as Christians cultivate a deep relationship with God in a very anxious, stress-filled world? How do we do that? I'm going to quote again John 10, verse 10. You don't need to turn there. We've read part of that before. But I want to zero in on the second half of that verse. The first half talked about Satan, what he's trying to do to steal, to kill, to destroy. But notice what Jesus Christ says in the second half of John 10. Christ said, I have come that they may have life, that they may have it more abundantly. That's what we want to zero in on. That's what we want to focus in on. How do we have that abundant life? How do we cultivate that deep relationship with God in Satan's world? Yes, God has to be our number one priority. But how do we do that? What are the nuts and bolts of that? What did Jesus Christ do? Think about it for me. I'm sure we have all thought about it a great deal. You know, we think about Jesus Christ as being this tremendous, loving individual, and he is the epitome. God the Father, Jesus Christ, the epitome of love. We think about that often. We measure our love compared to his, to see where we're at many times. But Jesus Christ was many things. And one other thing that Jesus Christ was, he was the toughest human being who ever lived. He was tough. The question I ask myself from time to time is, am I that kind of tough? Do you think Satan tried to hammer at him over and over, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, just to get him to sin one time? I think Satan was hammering at him all the time. He had to be tough. He had to be close to God. And what did he do? What did Jesus do? The key to that is found over in one verse in Luke 5.

Let's go there. Luke 5.

Luke 5 and verse 16.

So he himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. The word often is in italics, but we know from history, from reading the Gospels, this was the case. He often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. What did Jesus Christ do that helped him maintain that strong relationship with the Father? What is it we must do? Yes. God must be our number one priority. But putting that another way, you and I need the benefit of wilderness time. We need the benefit of wilderness time. Jesus Christ, when everything was going hot and heavy, the schedule was packed, so much to do. He had to fulfill all these prophecies about his first coming, had to establish a New Testament church, had to train his men, just so much to do. There was one point there where it talked about how they were so busy they didn't have time to eat. And yet through all of that, there were many times when Jesus Christ desired wilderness time. Brethren, you and I need wilderness time. Now, you're thinking, okay, where in the Chicagoland area do we go for the wilderness? Do we go to Gary, Indiana? Where is wilderness time? Forgive me if somebody hears from Gary. I'm from Detroit. Maybe you go to Detroit for wilderness time. But the story was told, Mr. Petty, in his message. He talked about wilderness time in a message he gave. My points are different, so you can go ahead and listen to his sermon and add to what I'm giving here. But he was making mention, I thought it was interesting, where one woman in his congregation wanted to find wilderness time, and she said, where do I go for my wilderness time? You know where she went? To her kitchen sink. She had a dishwasher. She didn't use it. She had a very beautiful picture window right by her sink, and she would look out as she was doing dishes by hand. She would be praying, looking at the beautiful scenery out that window. That was her wilderness time. That allowed her mind to think about the things of God and all the things that she needed to be thinking about. So wilderness time, wilderness locations, are where you find them. The Sabbath is a wilderness opportunity. God's annual Holy Days are an annual opportunity, the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, there are various benefits. I want to just list three of them here for you. After we go through those three benefits, we want to look at the nuts and bolts of how we take advantage of wilderness time. But three benefits, and I won't take a lot of time with these, and there's many more benefits I'm sure than what I'm going to give you. This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. Benefit number one that I have, you may have others in your mind, but wilderness time with God helps us unplug from the spiritually draining effects of Satan's world. We need to unplug.

And we need to then plug into the spiritually rejuvenating power of God.

Wilderness time helps us do that. The Sabbath, the Holy Days, our prayer time, our study time, when we're fasting, when we're speaking to one another in services or during the course of a week on a phone call or in person in one another's homes. We can unplug from this world and rejoice with our brothers and sisters, rejoice with our father and elder brother. Second Timothy, chapter one.

Second Timothy, chapter one.

Verse seven. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That's what we plug into. If we want to cultivate that deep relationship, we don't want to go into the wilderness wherever that may be, whatever time frame that may be, and we want to plug into God's power. We want to plug into God's love. We want to plug into His sound mind.

It's so easy for us to be fearful. It's so easy for us with our various anxieties or worries or concerns we may have. And we've got them. You've had them. I've had them. I'll have them in the future. You know, what are the concerns you're facing right now? Probably everybody in this room has something that they are concerned about. We won't use the word worry. Maybe if we're in school, maybe we're concerned about the tests. Maybe we're concerned about the semester grade, final exams. Maybe we're going into college. We're concerned about what major we're going to be into. Maybe you have issues at work.

Issues with health. What are the anxieties you face? What are the ones I face? We want to plug into God's mind of power and love. And wilderness time gives us that benefit. Benefit number two. Wilderness time with God helps clarify and redefine our spiritual needs and goals. Get that alone time with God and we can begin to really get down to brass tacks as to what is needed in our life right now. And again, brethren, as I'm speaking to you, you think right now, because I'm sure that you've been thinking about this, as you pray, as you study. What spiritual need do you have right now? What spiritual goals do you have, do I have right now? How are we doing with our spiritual goals? How are we doing understanding and fully appreciating our needs? John 4.

John 4.

Verse 34. John 4.34. Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. My food, that which sustains me, that which gives me energy, that which enlivens me. My food is to do the will of him. Understanding what that will was. Fully embracing what that will was. And doing everything in his power to do that will. And to finish his work. You know, today, brethren, you and I have been called to do a work. We've been called to do a work individually. We've been called to do a work of becoming, as we saw it, we saw there in Ephesians 4. 13. Growing in maturity. Growing in grace and knowledge. Growing into the stature of the fullness of Jesus Christ, our elder brother. So when we go, one of the benefits, great benefits of wilderness time is being able to clarify and redefine what our needs are. Give yourself an action list. What is your need right now? What one thing do you really need to be doing right now in your life? Or me and mine?

What steps are we going to take to accomplish what's needed in that area? Number three, another benefit, the last one I want to cover with you today. Benefit number three. The next one is the opportunity to reassess where we are in relationship to God. To reassess. To come to grips with where we're at. To perhaps recalibrate our thinking. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 13.

2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5.

Where it says, Where it says, So it says, Use that wilderness time to reassess. Take another look at. Loewen Nita's Greek English lexicon, in defining the word examine here, says this.

So we are to examine by submitting to thorough and extensive testing. We test ourselves using the Scriptures. We ask God's guidance in our prayers, in our fastings, in our meditations, and then we take a look at what God has to say as we study the Bible.

So three benefits of wilderness time. Now, nuts and bolts. How do we do all this? I've got four things here for you. Four things. I'll letter these. The nuts and bolts of taking full advantage of wilderness time.

Letter A. When in the wilderness, follow God's lead. When in the wilderness, follow God's lead. Brethren, you know, we all know, how much our father and our elder brother love us. We know how much they so very badly want the very best for us. They know what's best for us. They've intervened in our lives to illuminate what's best for us. They've opened our hearts and minds with the Holy Spirit. So the thought here is to follow God's lead. Kind of harkening back to what I asked a little bit ago. As you are praying and talking to your father, as you're studying voraciously His word, as you're fasting to draw near to God, Jesus Christ, your elder brother, where do you feel God is leading you now?

You're having a daily conversation with God. What's He saying to you? What is He saying to me?

How are you and I responding? Let's take a look at Proverbs chapter 3. You know the verse we're going to.

Proverbs chapter 3, starting in verse 5.

Proverbs 3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. So all in for God, no leaning. No leaning in a contrary way. Verse 6.

Again, all in for God.

How is God talking to us? What is God saying to us? What does God want us to do right now in our life? What are the things He's articulating as you're praying and He's inspiring your study? In answer to your prayers. Verse 7.

Exodus chapter 13. Exodus chapter 13, talking about when in the wilderness following God's lead. We see this from one end of the Bible to the other. Exodus chapter 13, verse 21. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way. That cloud provided shade in the wilderness. And by night in a pillar of fire to give them light to illuminate the way so they didn't fall and hurt themselves. God does the same thing today for us spiritually. He illuminates the way. Follow what He's giving to you and I. Follow His lead. Follow His lead. And again, keep on asking myself, I keep on asking myself, you keep on asking yourself, where is God leading you specifically? John chapter 6.

John chapter 6.

Verse 44 and 45. Very familiar territory.

No one can come to me unless the Father who was sent me draws Him, and I'll raise Him up at the last day. Brother Ned is not just a verse for when we're first coming into the church. Or God is just beginning to work with us in a very special way. Let's say we were, quote unquote, born in a church. This is a scripture that is used by us, by us as Christians, all the time. God is continually drawing us to Him. Drawing us to a better understanding of Him. To a better understanding of the mechanics of the way of life. And that's articulated more in verse 45. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God. God's drawing us. He's calling us. Not just to conversion. Most of us are there, but He's calling us to a deeper level of conversion. He's calling us to a better walk with Him. And He's teaching us. He's leading us. And we need to be following that lead. That's letter A. Letter B.

Here I see where there's some overlap here with some of the things we've said in the past. Letter B, went in the wilderness, unplugged from Satan.

Went in the wilderness, unplugged from Satan. One of the great sections of Scripture here is Matthew 4. We see it in Matthew 4. We see it again in Luke 4. Let's turn to the example in Matthew 4.

Unplug from Satan. Unplug from this world, Satan's world. Now, we can't leave the world, but we can leave the things of Satan, the thinking of Satan. Matthew 4, verse 1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. Some wilderness time here. Was led up by the Spirit. He's being led by the Spirit to go into the wilderness. Just like you and I need to be led by God's Spirit for our wilderness time. And in this case, he was going to be tempted by the devil, by Satan. And my feeling is here, Jesus Christ is going on the offensive. He wasn't just sauntering around and then being taken advantage of. Satan is trying to take advantage of him. He's hunting Satan down. My feeling. My thoughts. Verse 2.

Now, when a temperate came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Quoting Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 15.

He's unplugging from Satan's words and plugging himself into God's words. One of the great books of the Bible, the book of Deuteronomy.

Verse 5. And the devil took him up into a holy city, sent him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you. And in their hand they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. So Satan says, Oh, you want to quote Scripture? I can do that too. Jesus said, verse 7, It is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 16. Verse 8. Again, the devil took him up into an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. He said to him, All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Again, quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 13. Notice the result. Verse 11. Then the devil left him. Then the devil left him.

Let's go over to James chapter 4.

James chapter 4.

James chapter 4 verse 7. Therefore submit to God, resist the devil. How did Christ...what did Jesus do? Jesus quoted Scripture. He quoted the mind of God. When Jesus Christ was fighting Satan in Satan's mind, he quoted God in God's mind. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We saw that in Matthew chapter 4.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So when in the wilderness, let her be unplugged from Satan. Let her see. When in the wilderness... Again, more overlap. Plug into God's thinking in God's ways. Plug into God's thinking in God's ways. Embrace them. Wholeheartedly embrace them. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 3. We could have stayed there in James chapter 4. But let's go back here to Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3, verse 1. Moses was tending to flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Think that's an accident? You think that's just coincidence? Where Moses is going? Or is God working with his mind to bring him physically to a certain location? Is God working in your life to bring you to a certain location? Whether it be physically or mentally? Emotionally? Spiritually? God does those kinds of things. We see it right here. Verse 2, God's using curiosity. God, ever used curiosity in your life? He sure did in mine. I remember sitting up in the attic of my home there in Roseville, Michigan, right next to Interstate 94. I grew up one block, paralleling Interstate 94. I remember back in the days before there was an interstate there. Now we're really talking some ancient history. Back when I used to play with the kids on that block, Winton Street. Then they tore all the houses down, and here comes Interstate 94, same one we've got here in town. But I remember being up in the attic, and if I had a good enough arm, I could have thrown a rock from where my sidewalk was into the freeway. But I remember listening to a Detroit Tiger baseball game, and the Tigers were really getting killed by the Boston Red Sox. They said, enough of this. I remember those little black transistor radios some of us used to have. You know, us and Moses, back in the day. I remember turning the dial and hearing this man with a wonderful voice, talking about United States and Great Britain and Bible prophecy. Now, I was searching back in those days. I used to listen to a lot of different Protestant ministers back in those days. I mean, I forget that. Lots of them. But when I heard that voice, and when I heard what he was saying, I thought, wow, I was curious.

I tried to find that station the next few days, and I couldn't find it. Finally, I found it. God allowed me to find it. God was leading me to find it. And eventually, I began to write for literature, and the rest is history. But just as God was using curiosity here with Moses, He used it with me. He used it with you. He was leading Moses. He was leading me. He was leading you. Verse 4. So when the Lord saw that He had turned aside to look, God called to Him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and He said, Here I am. He said, Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet for the place where you are standing as holy ground. He said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face where he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of the taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land, to a land good and large, to a land flowing of milk and honey. Now, Moses was a part of that group that was being delivered. God used curiosity to begin to deliver Moses and to deliver the people of God. Verse 9, Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression which the Egyptians oppressed them.

You and I have been oppressed in Satan's world. We have been enslaved, we were enslaved, to certain ways of thinking, certain types of actions. And God wants to liberate us just as he liberated Israel. Verse 10, Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, out of sin, out of sin, to unplug from the world, but to plug into God. We see that in chapter 5 of Exodus. Exodus chapter 5 and verse 1.

Afterwards Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, says the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Let my people go, that they may hold a feast in the wilderness. A lot of wilderness time here by God and His people. We want to rightly use that wilderness time.

We want to embrace that wilderness time. John chapter 3.

To me, one of the great mottos of the Bible here, John chapter 3, at least that's what I would call a motto, certainly the inspired word of God. I want to diminish it.

John chapter 3 and verse 30, John the Baptist speaking here, referring to Jesus Christ, John 3.30. He must increase, but I must decrease. Boy, if that's not another one of those verses that just should ring true, obviously the word of God, all the words of God ring true, but I mean, just we relate to this. In our minds, we must allow Christ to increase in our lives, and we must pull back. We must diminish ourselves so that God the Father and Jesus Christ can be increased in our life.

This is how we plug into it. This is how we embrace with our hearts and our minds. Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians chapter 3.

Verse 7 and 8. Paul here at the beginning of the chapter talks about all the various things that he can have confidence in in terms of the flesh. Verse 7.

Here's a man who had a lot going for him, but he was going the wrong way. A lot of zeal, but it was uneducated, ungodly zeal. God was educating him to have the right kind of zeal, the proper kind of zeal.

Verse 12.

To those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

He embraced this way of life. He plugged in to God's way of thinking, God's way of doing. Lastly, letter D. The nuts and bolts of having this deep relationship with God in the wilderness. Letter D. When in the wilderness, cultivate humility. When in the wilderness, cultivate humility. Let's go to the book of Numbers.

Numbers chapter 12.

There's a statement made mention of here. Scholars are divided as to whether Moses wrote this or not. Some believe he did. Others believe it was Ezra who wrote this. It's a parenthetical thought in the parentheses in verse 3. Numbers 12.3. Now the man Moses was very humble more than all the men who were on the face of the earth. I think it's easy to understand why some feel that Ezra wrote that and not Moses himself.

The man Moses was very humble more than all the men who were on the face of the earth. Why was Moses so humble? He did something that you and I can do. All the things I've said today, you and I can do. But many times we don't think about this particular thing. A lot of Moses' humility came through hindsight. It came through hindsight. Moses looked back and saw all the ways God had intervened in his life. Can we do that? Can we look back and see all the ways God has intervened in our life? How that as an infant, his life was saved by his family.

Any number of things could have happened to him as he was set in that water.

Moses reflected on the fact of spending the first 40 years of his life being educated in Egypt. Arts, letters, military strategy. We believe he may well have been a very profound, very high-ranking general in the Egyptian army. So not only was he a man of letters, a very intelligent man, gifted along those lines, I'm sure he had his share of tremendous leadership capabilities. You don't lead 3 million people if you're a weak person. To some degree, again, this is my speculating here. I would think that he probably was in his own way, even though he may have stuttering issues. He was very charismatic.

He reflected on the 40 years of training in the wilderness. How God led him to that burning bush. How God brought him to the place where he was going to help a whole nation of people. And he knew he couldn't do that. He could not, with his own power, set free 3 million people. He knew that God had to be behind that. Brother, reflect on the things that's happened in your life. How you know that there are things that have happened in your life that God had to have intervened to do those things on your behalf. Oh yeah, there were things you had to do. You were in partnership with God. But if you weren't in partnership with God, he wouldn't have done his part. Where you came to the brick wall, he smashed it and you went through. Or you went over, or you went around. You did something, but God was there for it to help you. Moses reflected on that fact. Moses also reflected on the fact of what he was able to accomplish, bringing the children of Israel through the wilderness. All of that was God's doing. All of those were tremendous opportunities. Let's go to the very last scripture today. Well, again, another one of my favorites over here in Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter 5. It's one of the nice things about being in the ministry. You can quote the scripture you love the most. But hopefully I'm quoting the whole counsel of God over the course of time for you. Romans chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. Therefore, having been justified by faith, having passings forgiven because we have faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We've got peace because we know our sins are forgiven. We've got peace because we have a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. We've got peace because we know we're heading to the kingdom of God. We've got peace because we know how ever bad life is right now.

That our bodies are just so much clay. There come a time when that clay will cease to exist, but we're on the path for eternal life. And that gives us peace. Verse 2. Through whom also we have access by faith, access because of Christ's sacrifice, we have access by faith, by our faith in Christ, by our faith in what Christ has done for us, into this grace in which we stand. That's the phrase that always gets to me. Into this grace in which we stand. We stand in God's grace, each and every one of us. No reason for us to think so highly of ourselves. We are what we are by the grace of the great God. We've accomplished what we've accomplished by the grace of the great God. We understand what we understand by the grace of the great God.

And we see at the end of verse 2, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We look forward to that time when we're going to be resurrected. We look forward to the Kingdom. So, brethren, we asked at the beginning of the sermon, how does a Christian cultivate a deep relationship with God in Satan's world? We quoted Luke 5 and verse 16, where Christ talked about how the Bible says Christ withdrew himself often into the wilderness. We looked at some of the benefits of wilderness time. We looked at some of the nuts and bolts of how we can accomplish, how we can do, put into action, wilderness time. Hopefully, you and I will truly enjoy and make the best possible use of our wilderness time.