Eagle Heights Cathedral

Bishop James E. Collins: Amen and amen. Please grab your Bibles now. Turn with me to Matthew 11, beginning at verse one. "And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities."

"Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto him, 'Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?' Jesus answered and said unto them, 'Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.'"

"And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, 'What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken in the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written, 'Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.' Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.'"

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Father, I pray that You would cause that to be a reality that springs up in the depths of our souls. That in this hour we have a mandate to take the kingdom of God and bring it with authority into this earth, and take the kingdom and make it come in by force, by anointing, and by power. So Lord, anoint us to have ears to hear, eyes that see, and hearts and the desire to draw near, my God, to Thee. To You be glory, and honor, and praise. For this I pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. I wonder, is anybody else like me? Does anybody ever just sit and wonder? There are many things that I have often wondered about. I have often wondered how is it that a man who has been faithful for years can seemingly suddenly walk out on his wife and children and into the arms of another woman. I have often wondered how is it that a person who loves God and has lived at such a high level of integrity can seemingly suddenly lose that level of integrity and descend to a level of stealing from his own company.

I have often wondered how is it that a young woman who loves God and has managed to hold on to her virginity for years seemingly suddenly yields her virginity to this one guy. I have often wondered how is it that we preachers can work so hard and spend time building a great work, a ministry where 100 percent of our desire is to bring glory and honor to God, and yet I can see that one of us dies and months later it comes to light that he had been having an affair. So now his testimony is marred. His reputation will be not because of the 99 percent he did right, but because we know how people are; they will remember the one percent that caused that scandal.

There are many things that I have wondered about and still wonder about. Let me give you one more. I wonder why it is that most Christians struggle to live godly lives, or many of them don't even care about trying to live godly lives. I wonder how it is that Jude 24 tells us that Jesus is able to keep us from falling, and yet so many are falling by the wayside this day. When we're falling, we're not having minor falls. They are major falls that lead to destruction of families and ministries.

I believe that the answer is found in the third marker of a kingdom-focused life. The kingdom-focused life is marked by an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God. Matthew 5:6, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Let me talk about that scripture just for a moment. This is what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, and it begins with what is called the Beatitudes, meaning these are the attitudes, these are the truths for a life that is truly a disciplined life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is saying that if you're truly my disciple, this will be your attitude. We've either made this statement or heard other people say it: so-and-so has an attitude. Let me say something. All of us have an attitude. The question is which attitude are you carrying? The dictionary defines attitude by your manner of thinking, feeling, or behaving that reflects a state of mind or disposition. It also means something in the negative. It's a negative or hostile mind, a cool, cocky, defiant, or arrogant manner. Let me tell you, I've been on both sides of those at some time in my life.

We all fall into one of those definitions. The question is which one? Jesus is telling us that there is a kingdom attitude that defines our discipleship. Now watch this. While every one of these Beatitudes can stand on their own, they are not merely separate and other from each other. Each one builds on the previous truth. The first few speak to the condition of the heart. The second group deals with the relationship with the Lord. The last group deals with our relationship with others. Now listen very carefully.

Whenever you read and study the teachings of Jesus, you will find that He always begins with the heart. When you read His teachings, He begins to dig into our hearts. When He pronounces a blessing on those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, He speaks and He touches the inner heart. One commentary I read said this: the word "blessed" in the Beatitudes signifies deep joy, filled contentment, and an inner state of spiritual well-being. Church, to hunger and to thirst for righteousness is to possess an active longing. It is something that you never stop doing.

King David said in several passages, watch this. Psalm 42:1-2: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul longs after You, God. My soul thirsts for the living God. When can I go and meet God?" Psalm 63:1: "You, God, are my God; earnestly I seek You. I thirst for You; my whole being longs for You, in a dry and parched land where there is no water." And then Psalm 143:6. He said, "I spread my hands to You; I thirst for You like a parched land." Church, I want you to understand that what we're talking about here is not some passive movement toward God. It is a fervent seeking.

The servant who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is a Matthew 6:33 servant, the one who seeks God's kingdom and His righteousness and His presence above everything and everyone else. The servant is blessed because he or she experiences a satisfied heart. It is the servant who can say no matter what their stage in life, no matter what they're dealing with in life, it is well with my soul. Righteousness speaks of a right relationship with God. And Jesus said in Luke 6:21, "Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied."

But I love what Matthew did. He intensified it. He added the word "thirst." Why is that important, church? Because those who thirst for righteousness, they receive that water that Jesus offered the woman at the well. He said in John 4:14, "But those who drink the water I will give will never be thirsty again. It will become a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life." Now stay with this. The term "filled" or "satisfied" in the Beatitude means that there are some pangs of hunger and thirst. They are passive. Why are they passive?

Because what Jesus is trying to teach us is that that hunger and that thirsting will never be satisfied by church. It will never be satisfied by praise and worship alone. It will never be satisfied by people. It means that you and I can never have a right relationship with God that goes beyond salvation until we totally accept that His eyes must be upon us, our eyes must be upon Him, and only He can fill the void that's in our souls. Someone paraphrased it like this: deeply joyful, spiritually whole are those who actively seek right relationship with God, and in so doing, discover that He alone can completely save and satisfy their souls.

John 6:35, then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." Then He said in John 7:38, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." I like the King James version. It says, "Out of your belly will flow rivers of living water." You know what that means? It means there's something flowing out of you that people who don't know God can feel the flood of the presence of God that's upon your life.

People who are antagonistic toward God, when you come into the room, they can feel the flush of the flow of the anointing of God, because out of your belly is flowing a river of living water. It is there that I believe I find my answer to the many things I've wondered about. When we lose kingdom focus of an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God, we become easy prey for the enemy of our soul who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Someone, watch now, it means someone who is no longer spiritually hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for the presence of the living God.

It means that you're no longer spiritually alert. And I believe, church, that we don't lose that hunger just like that. I believe it's a slow process. I want to give you three things very quickly that happen, and they are signs that you are losing a hunger and a thirst for God and righteousness. The first one is this: loss of appetite for the Word of God. 1 Peter 2:2 says, "Like newborn babies, crave pure milk." He's talking about of the Word of God, "so that you may by it grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."

Let me tell you something. You need to understand the very first and clear sign that you have lost your hunger and your thirst for righteousness is a loss of appetite for the pure Word of God. Now notice Peter didn't simply say desire the milk of the Word. He said desire the pure milk of the Word. I hate one percent milk; I hate two percent milk, anything in between. I want whole milk. I want to be able to taste the flavor. Watch now, Peter is saying you need a word that has not been diluted.

A word that has not been watered down, spiritual nutrients have not been taken out of it. And if you lose your desire for the pure, strong word of God, that is the first sign that you have lost the kingdom focus of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Now let me just give you a scripture. I want to shoot a warning shot out to the kingdom of God. We are living in the days where we will see an increase of Amos 8:11-13. Most people don't even know Amos is in the Bible because we never go there. Well, let me go there.

Listen to what it says: "'The day is coming,' declares the Sovereign Lord, 'when I will send a famine through the land. Not a famine of food or thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. In that day the lovely young women and strong men will faint because of thirst.'" Now church, from time to time, and it's usually mostly in the second service with the younger mothers, I can look out into the audience and I notice a mother who has a baby in her arms.

Most of the time they are sitting near the rear of the sanctuary so that these mothers, if they need to, they can get to the nursery if the need arises. When that baby starts whimpering a little bit, I've noticed that the mother will first try to pull out a pacifier, give it to the baby to try and appease the baby. That's fake food. It's a piece of rubber designed to trick the kid. It's designed to make the kid feel like it's getting something of substance and subsequently quiet down. So the kid, watch now, it will start sucking and gradually it will suck harder because he realizes that nothing is happening.

Have you ever heard or said this to somebody? "Don't try and pacify me." What are you saying? If you're not going to apologize to me and it's not going to be real, just keep it to yourself. Watch this now. I know that kid is just a baby. He hasn't been living very long, but the boy is not crazy. That baby quickly comes to realize that the pacifier is not food and that his mother is trying to temporarily distract him from his real craving. You see, the baby wants real milk. The baby wants the real deal.

The mother normally realizes then that she has two options at this point. She can reach into her bag and she can pull out a bottle, or she can go somewhere private and she can pull out something else. Now watch this. She can try and hold the baby off as long as possible, but eventually the baby will start whimpering, and then it will start crying, and then it will start screaming because it is hungry. He's tired, watch this now, he is tired of being pacified. He is hungry for the real thing, not for a substitute.

So listen to me, saints. Many people go to church on Sunday where they are satisfied with a pacifier sermon, a pacifier worship service, songs that make them feel good, only to discover that they are still hungry. They are still thirsty because I want you to understand something. The soul demands righteousness, a craving for right relationship with God, or else the soul goes hungry and thirsty. And the first thing that happens when a person is no longer has an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God is a loss of appetite for the pure milk of the Word.

Let me throw this out here and then I'll move on to the next point. How is it that we can go to a church, and when we first start going to that church, oh, my pastor is the best preacher I've ever heard. Then all of a sudden you disappear and we can't find you. One day the word comes back to the pastor concerning your departure is that I wasn't getting fed anymore. I wasn't growing anymore. Let me talk to you. Yet there are still people who have been in that church longer than you've been there. They are more mature than you are.

They hear one sermon every week and they walk out and in that sermon, they can pull something out of it. Let me tell you something. What really happens, the preacher didn't get bad; you lost your hunger and your thirst for the Word of God. Your appetite is gone. Number two, the second thing that happens is a loss of appetite for true worship. Now notice what I said. I said true worship. Some of you used to rush in, well, not this service, as this service you guys are always on, you're connected.

But some people rush into a service and they just rush in and they used to run in so they could get to the front seat, because they wanted to get under the fire of the anointing that they knew was going to break out. Now some people when they occasionally show up, they show up late so they can get a seat in the back of a church. Now all of a sudden the music's too loud, the songs are too long, the preacher's too short, and there are too many females on the platform, we need some males up there. Let me talk to you.

Let me tell you what happened to you. Nothing has changed in the atmosphere; you've lost an unquenchable hunger and thirst for the presence of God. Let me tell you how we get to that place. There is the story of a dog that loved his master. The master was just a little teenage boy, but the dog was full of joy and his tail was wagging all the time. When the boy went to bed, the dog would jump up on the bed and lay right beside him. When the boy got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, the dog would jump off of the bed.

He'd walk through the door and sit by the bathroom until the boy got out, and then he'd jump back up on the bed. When it was time for breakfast, the boy would get up, get ready for school, the dog would jump up, follow the boy to the table, and he would sit at his feet until the boy finished eating and was on his way to school. He would walk outside with the boy until the boy went to the bus stop, then the dog would sit and he would wait for the bus with the boy. When the bus came, the boy would get on the bus, the bus would drive off, the dog would run as far as he could before the bus would outpace it.

When the boy came home from school, the dog would be sitting right there at the bus stop waiting for the boy to come home. The boy would then go home, the dog would walk with him and sit at his feet while he ate dinner. He would follow him around until it was time for him to turn in for the night. At this point, he would jump back up on the bed and go through the whole process the next day and the next day, day in and day out, always wagging his tail. How can a dog do that day in and day out for his little teenage master?

Listen to me, because when the boy found the dog, he was wandering on the street. It was a mangy, unkept mutt. It was headed for sure disaster by the dogcatcher. If that dog had never been caught, it surely would not have been adopted but instead it would have been eradicated. But the boy found that wandering mangy dog. He took it home, and he washed it, and he bathed it, and he resurrected and he fed it. And the best of all, he loved that dog. It became apparent from the dog's tail that the dog never forgot it.

Wherever that boy was, that dog was going to be there because it was evidence that the dog never forgot where it had been before the boy found him. Let me talk to us saints. Oh, at one time in our life, no matter how good you were, we were all wandering on a street called sin. We were all mangy sinners. Some sinned and you didn't even think about it. Some sinned and you didn't even care. Others of us were secret sinners. We didn't do it where folks could see us.

But if somebody opened up your closet door, God knows what would be revealed. It would be clear that we were just as mangy as the folks who did it out in public. Others of us, listen now, we were white-collar sophisticated sinners who never did anything outright. We just kept it all in our minds. You need to hear this now. No matter what kind of sinner you were, He found you. The grace of God discovered you where you were. You heard the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and He saved you.

So my only question to you this morning is where would you be if He had not found you? Is your gratefulness evident in the way that you respond to the master? Church, look at me for a moment. I keep hearing this constantly these days. People keep saying, "Don't you understand that this praising God and worshipping God is too emotional? We need to get back to the days of less expressive praise and worship. We need to get back to classical guitars or be more liturgical." Now let me pause for a moment and say this.

Please understand, this one man says this about us: today everybody expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time. Everyone must be amused or they will switch. Switch brands, switch channels, switch parties, switch loyalties. This is the intellectual reality of Western society today, even when it comes to the church. In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated, but not now. They want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but boredom.

Watch now. Praise and worship is not about flashing lights, smoke and fog machines. Worship is not about young ladies on a platform dressed and acting more like Los Angeles Lakers cheerleaders than worship leaders. It is about us seeking to get to a place where we experience corporately intimacy with God. With that said, we don't need to go back to the times of strumming guitar worship and singing only hymns, and if that's what a church does, there's nothing wrong with that. But here is what I want us to understand.

Too many people think that praising and worshipping God in a certain way is too emotional. What we've got to understand, church, today is the difference between emotion and emotionalism. Emotion is when there's a big play on the basketball court and everybody gets up in excitement about what the players did. Emotionalism is when you jump up and you're excited and ain't nothing happening on the court. Here's what I want to say. We have a lot of emotionalism masquerading as praise and worship where folks are getting worked up and excited about nothing.

There is no sense of the presence of God. But listen to me now, what we need is legitimate emotion, true praise and worship because God is something to get excited about. Because when we were mangy sinners wandering on a street called sin, He found us. He saved us, He delivered us. And some of you are sitting there looking at me; before Jesus came you had no reason, you had no rhyme, you had no kind of feeling of worth until Jesus came. You know, I'm going to get to the last point in a minute.

By the time you go to bed tonight, you will have taken 23,000 breaths. That's a lot of breath. Make sure you brush your teeth and take some mints. When was the last time though you thanked God for those breaths? You see, the process of inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide is a complicated respiratory task that requires physiological precision. We think and tend to only thank God for the things that take our breath away, and there's nothing really wrong with that, but how about we just thank God for the breath that we breathe that takes our breath away when we see things?

And when you have lost your appetite for true praise and worship, it means you no longer possess an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God. Pastor Clint Brown had this guy in his church who had been in his church for like 25 years. It amazes me how some people can be in your church for 25, 30 years, never give you a problem. Then all of a sudden they've got a problem with everything and you look at them and say, "Who are you and what did you do with the person I knew?"

This man, every Sunday, he would literally stand up, I was told, and go, "The music's too loud!" Finally, one Sunday, Pastor Clint Brown looked at him and said, "Let me ask you a question. Did you get saved in this church?" "Yes." "Did you bring your family to this church?" "Yes." "Did they get saved in this church?" "Yes." "Did a family member of yours get healed in this church?" "Yes." Now, he's less politically correct than I am. He said, "Well then, sit down and shut up!"

Because you know what that man's problem was? It wasn't that the music was too loud. Suddenly he lost his appetite for true praise and worship because he no longer had an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God. Thirdly and lastly, a loss of appetite for the House of God. Psalm 122:1, King David said, "I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'" I want to bring a little context to this verse before I work this point.

When David refers to the house of the Lord, there is a context in ancient culture that makes this scripture powerfully palatable to our walk with God. The house of the Lord in this passage refers to the temple of Jerusalem, which was the center place of worship where the Ark of the Covenant resided. Let me tell you about the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant, before Jesus died and rose from the dead and the Holy Spirit came, the Ark of the Covenant was this box that housed the anointing of God.

It was in the temple at Jerusalem. It was literally the place where the very anointing of God Himself resided. Listen very carefully because the Western church could use some of this thinking. For the Israelites, the temple was not merely a building. It was a spiritual heart of the community. It was a place where heaven and earth touched each other. David's expression of gladness in this verse is a profound reflection of his deep-seated love for God and his desire to worship Him. I'm talking about an unquenchable hunger and thirst for God.

Now watch this. When he said, "I was glad," he wasn't talking about some chintzy measure of giddiness. He was saying, "Listen, church, I can't wait to do this. I can't believe I have the privilege of doing this." There is an overwhelming joy and fulfillment that he knows lies ahead of him if he can get to the house of the Lord. Please don't miss this. The joy that he felt was rooted in the communal aspect of worship, which he understood when he said, "I was glad when they..." notice what he said, "when they said unto me..."

Listen now, worship in ancient Israel was a collective experience. A time the community gathered to share with faith and bonded identity. See it now. The invitation "Let us go into the house of the Lord" is a whole community declaring the power and the importance of communal worship. It is a calling to leave behind distractions and concerns of daily life and then enter into this sacred space like no other, where it is dedicated to encountering God. Let me just pause for a minute.

I want to ask you a question because some of y'all got that puzzled look on your face. Were you anticipating today coming to the house of God to meet and experience the presence of God? Watch now. Their whole thing back then was getting together with one another and together they began to worship God and to see Him face-to-face. Their attitude was we're not coming to put in church attendance. We've come to meet the great Creator, and we've come to do it as a community collectively.

Now watch this, Romans 15:4 says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope." Now watch this, David was an anointed musician and an anointed psalmist, and he's trying to teach us something here. Let's learn something from this psalm that was written in our past. This act of going to the house of the Lord is symbolic of a journey, both physical and spiritual. See it now, towards a deeper relationship with God.

It is an invitation to be part of something greater than oneself, to be part of a community united in devotion to God right now because they understand Psalm 133:3 says, "For there the Lord bestows blessing, even life forevermore." So please put this in your notes. Psalm 122 is a song of pilgrimage. It is a song of pilgrimage expressing the anticipation and joy of traveling to Jerusalem. It is a picture of how you ought to be when you come to church.

Let me ask you a question. When you get up on Sunday morning and you're in your bathroom, and you're showering and getting your armpits smelling good, and you come out and ladies, you start putting on your makeup and doing your hair, and guys, we come out and we start shaving and we put on some Old Spice or whatever cologne you use, and then you go in and you start getting dressed, I want to ask you a question. What does your face look like? Does your face tell you I'm on my way to a party? I'm on my way to meet King Jesus. I'm on my way to the house of the Lord and I can't wait to get there! Or is it a drudgery? Oh, it's Sunday again.

Verses two through three the psalmist says, I love this, "Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together." What the psalmist is saying is that he marvels at the strength of Jerusalem, a city that represents the unity and the strength of the people of God. When the people outside look at the church, they ought to marvel at the strength of the unity of the body of Christ. Verses six through seven: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be a place within your walls and security within your citadels."

The psalmist's gladness in going to the house of the Lord, watch this now, it is intertwined with the well-being and desire for the people of the city of Jerusalem. What does that mean? It means that when you and I come to church, we shouldn't be coming just to get. We ought to be coming hoping that God will do something for the person sitting next to us, that God will do something for everybody that walks through that door. Listen up. Worship is not just an individual act, but it is an act that seeks the flourishing of the entire community.

Remember now, remember, things written for our past were written for our learning, which means this. Hebrews 10:24-25, "Let us consider how to spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as we see the day approaching." So here's what we need to understand. Hebrews 10:24-25 is the New Testament translation of Psalm 122. What is the encouragement?

That you don't just need to get to the house, but if you get to the house, you will find out that you are surrounded by people of like faith. You begin to add your faith to their faith and theirs to yours, and even if I didn't feel like coming, I'm making up my mind I'm going to get there anyway because I know that where two or more are gathered in His presence, He is there in the midst of them. Now let me just say something. We need to understand that when there are two or more people in the atmosphere, the potential in the atmosphere, anything can happen.

Because I'm going to say it again, worship was never meant to be an only individual isolated thing. When we come together as a community, there are things that God does for us through others in the community and through us for others in the community. Let me just say this. A little boy asked his father one day, he said, "Daddy, why do we have to go to church? It's boring." And I'm going to tell you the last part he said to his son. He said, "Daniel, we need to be there because God is there."

And the son said, "If God is there, how come everybody's sleeping all the time?" He told his son, he said, "Because, you know, God has to be gentle with us and sometimes we relax too much." Then he said this, "Daniel," he said truthfully, "the biggest reason might be that we don't want God very much. We want God to stay in His cage. We are afraid of losing control of our own lives. We just want Him to help us a little here and forgive us a little there and let us handle the rest. So we try to make church a safe place where we can get a little of God but not too much."

We don't like surprises, not even from God, so we make our churches safe places where surprises aren't likely to happen. We ask God to come, but only if He will be polite. And therefore, little kids and adult kids fall asleep even with their eyes open. Let me say something. I don't want a safe God. I don't want a polite God. I want a God who will come in, and He will fill this place with His presence, and He'll wreck everything that we brought in here that we thought was valuable.

I want a God that is so real to us that performance goes out of the room. Where preaching and singing and praise and worship, all of it is done and our flesh is eradicated because we want to glorify the King of Glory. We will truly be changed when the presence of God comes in. How I long for a God to surprise us. How I long for the level to rise to the place where the word spoken to Mary in Luke 1:37, "For with God nothing will be impossible."

How I long for the day when I'm standing in my office and I'm looking out the window as you're getting out of your vehicles, there's a look in your eyes and a smile on your face that proclaims that we're not just going into a building. We're going to the place where He tabernacles. He is there, and with Him all things are possible. Listen to the rest of his response. He says to his son, yet at the very same time, church is a wonderful place. God has chosen it, soreness and all, to be a place where He will meet His people.

Now here's what I want to close with. The first thing out of the mouth of most people when they have lost a hunger and thirst for righteousness is "I don't have to go to church to be a Christian." Well, let me talk about that for a minute. The question came up, "Can I be a Christian without joining a church?" The answer came back, "Yes, it is possible, but it's something like being a student who will not go to school, a soldier who will not join an army, a citizen who does not pay taxes or vote."

A salesman with no customers, an explorer with no base camp, a seaman on a ship without a crew, a businessman on a deserted island, an author without readers, a tuba player without an orchestra, a parent without a family, a football player without a team, a politician who's a hermit, a scientist who does not share his findings, a bee without a hive. So let me talk about the people who think they don't have to go to church to be a Christian and you want to know is it possible. I say yes, but why would you not want to obey the God who gave you life and that more abundantly?

You see, this is why we have 62 percent of the people in America who say they are Christians but only 21 percent go to church on a weekly basis. Elsie Fitzpatrick wrote a book because she loves me. She talks about the time when she and her husband were able to have a wonderful opportunity to vacation in Europe. In about three and a half weeks, they visited 13 different nations. They'd enter one country, get their passport stamped, exchange currency, learn a few new key phrases, and then off they'd go to visit the natives.

They'd wander throughout door markets, peruse museums, and sample cuisine. They'd exchange niceties with the locals, sit on the steps of cathedrals, watch the life of the town go by. Take a picture or two, purchase a little thing or something to remind them of their time there, and then they were off. She said we had a wonderful vacation. Our hearts weren't changed in any significant ways by our little visits, but then they weren't meant to be. We were just tourists. Listen to what she says next.

"It seems to me that what I've just described is very close to people's understanding of the congregational life of the local church. On any given weekend, many tourists can be found in church. They pop in for 45 minutes or an hour, sing a chorus or two, and exchange niceties with the locals. They sample some local cuisine, they might purchase a book or CD to remind them of their visit, and then they race to their cars to get to their favorite restaurant before the rush or home before the game. For many people, church is simply about being a tourist, and our land is filled with tourist-friendly churches."

She is so right. Christians can give church the tourist treatment. But I don't want our house to be that house. What the modern-day church needs to understand is that God has not saved us to be career Christians but to be authentic followers of Jesus Christ whose lives are lived consistently with kingdom focus. Here are four things that I will promise you if you have a great hunger and thirst for God and you keep pressing in. I'm going to save the first one for last because it's important.

Hunger and thirst for God increases spiritual transformation. I'm not the man I was 27 years ago when I came to pastor this church and I thank God for it. Neither is my family. And what we have seen this hunger and thirst do, number two, hunger and thirst for God positions you for divine encounters. Thirdly, hunger and thirst for God makes way for deeper intimacy with God. A couple was driving home from a lovely evening to celebrate their 55th anniversary.

She was sitting over there; he was sitting behind the wheel of the car. After a moment, she said with a little bit of ache, "Honey, remember when we used to sit closely together in the car?" Without hesitation he replied, "Well honey, I never moved. I've been right here all this time." When you hunger and thirst for God, no matter what you deal with in life, you are confident He never moved. He is right there where you need Him. Now let me give you the last one, most important.

Hunger and thirst for God will make you a target of Satan. I wrote a book about 10 years ago called Racism and the Church. Let me give you a little piece of what I said in there. As the body of Christ, we are in a war. We have been given command and authority to invade the kingdom of darkness. The devil applies the same war tactics as the kingdom of God. He targets Christians and ministries, listen now, according to their strike potential.

That is according to their ability to inflict damage to his kingdom of darkness. Let me pause before I go further in this. Many, many Christians, when they die, there's going to be a funeral service. They're going to roll out to the cemetery, they're going to drop the box in the ground, they're going to throw—and the preacher's going to say a few good things. Then they're going to throw dirt on the box, but pay attention to what I'm about to say next.

Most of the people at that funeral service will go back to the church, they're going to eat potato salad, chicken, ham hocks, cornbread, collard greens, and there's going to be laughter in the room and it's not going to be about the person they put in the ground. Let me tell you why. Because most of us do not live with such a kingdom mindset that it will matter, it will matter that we've been taken off this earth.

When you live with a kingdom focus, it will be as it was for a 17-year-old girl who died in one of our youth groups. And when we did her funeral, hundreds of teenagers from a public school came to her funeral, and we kept hearing over and over and over, "Her faith changed my life." 1 John 3:8, John declared, "For this purpose was the Son of Man manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." John tells us the main purpose of Jesus coming was to destroy or annihilate the destructive works of Satan.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20 that now that purpose belongs to us. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Jesus said in Matthew 11:12, "From the day of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."

Now I know the ultimate purpose of Christ coming was to redeem man back to God, but listen, in essence, what Jesus tells us in those verses is the whole purpose of His coming to get the kingdom of power of God into the earth out of heaven and increase our strike potential. Please listen to me. The devil doesn't care about you being saved as long as you don't become a target. He does not care, nor how large a ministry—the devil doesn't care how large a ministry is, how many people are in that place, as long as it doesn't become a target.

He doesn't even put up his missile computer load zone if he doesn't consider you a target. In natural war and spiritual war, small or large, it is your strike potential that determines if indeed you are on the devil's radar as a threat which is worth giving attention to. That is why Satan fought so diligently but unsuccessfully to take Jesus out. Do you know if you can't hurt the United States, you are not a target? If you follow modern-day warfare, even the present war in Iraq, we don't target every arsenal, military arsenal.

We only strike the ones deemed to have the greatest strike potential. There are many churches and many Christians in America that are not targets of Satan our enemy because though some of those churches may exist and are very large, they lack potential to damage his kingdom. Here is what I have found out. As my hunger and thirst for His righteousness increases, so does the warfare of the evil one. This ministry I have pastored for 27 years, it's been good. It's been great.

But I am telling you, from day one in January of 1999, it's been warfare. And one day I was praying and I said, "God, why is it? It seems like every time we're pressing out, we get blasted." And I'll never forget what He said. "It's because of your strike potential." You get attacked, you get attacked, you get attacked because the devil knows that if you ever really begin to live by kingdom focus, you can do such unbelievable damage in his kingdom, so he's going to keep coming at you.

But let me tell you what I want to tell you today. The more he comes at you, you've got to double up your forces and you've got to go back at him. You must make up your mind I'm never going to stop fighting. I'm going to keep on pushing, I'm going to keep on kicking, I'm going to keep on punching. Even if I'm on my back, I'm going to keep reaching up and punching because the Bible declares, no weapon formed against me shall prosper! It won't work! No weapon formed against me shall prosper! It won't work!

Why? Because my God will do what He said He would do. He will stand by His Word. He will come through. Say no weapon. It won't, no, no, no. Do you believe it? Lift up your heart and say, You see my God will do what He said He would do. He will stand by His Word. Yes He will. He will, say my God will do what He said He would do. He will stand by His Word. Say He will. Say no, no, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. It won't work. I tried Him and I've been through the fire and the rain, and I found out it won't work. Before we switch songs, let's say it one more time.

No weapon formed against me shall prosper. It won't work. Say my God will do what He said He would do. He will stand by His Word. Yes He will. Say no weapon formed against me shall prosper. It won't work. Go ahead and shift the song now. Just lift up your mouth and say today, I've been through the fire, I've been through the rain, but God has been there. There is no weapon that has formed against me that prospered. That's why I'm standing here today because my God, He does everything He says He will do.

Here's my question to you today. Do you remember when He found you? Do you remember when you were a mangy, shaggy, lost Christian? Then Jesus came.