Okay, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Psalm chapter 90, verse 13 through 17. We're going to do our third and final part in the series of look up, look in, and look out. Psalm chapter 90, verse 13 through 17, and I'm reading out of the NASB.

Do return, O Lord, how long will it be? And be sorry for your servants. O satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us and the years we have seen evil.

Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands. Let's pray. Dearest and loving Father, we've gathered here together because we want to hear from you.

We don't want man's voice. We don't want man's opinions. We want your voice, Lord God, so that we may know what it means to follow you. I pray that you would help us cut through all the distractions of our lives, that you would speak to us. Open our ears, open our hearts.

Help us have ears to hear. May your word, Lord God, come to us in power with authority and clarity, that your church may be sanctified to grow, to be challenged, that we may live lives truly worthy of the gospel that you've given us. Bless our time, Lord God, as we have come to bless you.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. Again, as you know, it's 2019 and we started a book of Psalms, or at least chapter 90, because it was appropriate for Moses to be preparing to get into the promised land, to remind them in the beginning of the chapter that before the mountains were formed, God was.

That ultimately, going into the promised land doesn't mean that that's where your home is. And he had to remind them so that they did not get distracted and again, fall into the same sin and same trap. So it's appropriate for us to take some time to think and consider, and I know some of you guys have made New Year's resolution.

Some of you guys don't do resolutions anymore. You kind of bah humbug about that because every year it seems to be a cycle and it's like, well, we don't follow through anyway, so what's the point? Whether you do it formally or informally, every single one of us thinks about what's coming.

In 2019, some of you guys are going to have a baby and some of you guys are preparing for that. You're getting your rooms ready, baby showers, and your world is going to get rocked. You're not going to sleep. Watching movies till late at night is going to be in the past, at least for a period.

Traveling, forget it. So some of you, you're going to have children come into your life, a baby come into your life and your world is going to change and you're preparing for that. Some of you guys are in the midst of getting ready for a wedding. And so all that comes along with that.

The two people sharing apartment lives and all this stuff, that's going to come. Some of you guys are on the verge of graduation and you can almost taste it. You worked so hard for the last three and a half years, now you're taking 36 units because you got to make up for all the things you did and then now you're trying to get out.

Some of you guys just got a job and maybe your first paycheck is coming. And so to you, that means freedom. So every single one of us has something, maybe two different degrees that we're looking forward to possibly in 2019. Ultimately, what is our longing? I mean, there's a lot of little things that kind of you put together and it makes us do things that make plans and invest and sacrifice and work hard.

But ultimately, the overarching passion in you, what does that have to do with the things of God? See the Jews at the time of Christ and prior to that, constantly reminded each other by the very way that they greeted each other, shalom. And shalom basically means God's blessing upon you or peace be upon you.

So even in their very greeting, they reminded each other that ultimately, your life is good or bad based upon God's blessing upon your life. So they would say shalom. We come to the New Testament and on top of the shalom, peace, the Christians added grace. So if you look at a good chunk of the letters in the New Testament, it starts out by the author saying grace and peace to you.

That this peace that the Jews were seeking and desiring from God, ultimately was going to come to them by the grace of God. Moses is preparing the nation of Israel to enter into this new stage of their life. Forty years they were wandering in the desert because of their sin.

And he reminds them at the beginning of the chapter that the physical land is not your home. God is your refuge. He's the one who has control over your destiny. And then the second part, last week we talked about how he says in light of who he is, you have to remember who you are.

That our iniquities are deeply embedded in us. And what we experience in life is because of the fall. You know, we try so hard thinking like if we get enough counseling, if we study hard, we make the right decision, make the right investments, that our life is going to get better.

But the overarching experience of mankind is under the umbrella of this sin. And no amount of hard work can pay that off. And that's what Moses was reminding them, that your experience out in the desert and the reason why every Israelite who entered into the desert died, except with the exception of three, was because of their sin.

So if you believe what Moses said up to this point, what is the natural reaction or response of the believers? What is your response? What should our response be if we truly believe that God is our refuge? That all mankind is under this judgment of God and everything that we experience, hardship, labor, toiling, and then eventually death, is because of this sin, our natural response should be to cry out to God for his mercy.

That should be the natural response of every sinner who believes what Moses says and what the Bible says. And so the third part that we're looking at, verse 13 to 17, Moses is actually crying out for revival to happen in Israel. And ultimately, obviously, as we are studying it, in God's people.

So the three things that we want to look at, the three parts of the prayer that Moses offers up to God, first part of it, we find in verse 13, where he is basically praying for revival, for the Lord to return. He says in verse 13, "Return, O Lord, how long will it be?

And be sorry for your servants." There's a longing in Moses and he knows and he recognizes and he wants the nation of Israel to recognize that you may enter the promised land, but if the Lord does not return, you may have better food, you may have fortified cities, but in the end, you are no different than when you are wandering out in the desert.

Until the Lord returns. Unless the Lord builds his house, we build it in vain. That's why for every Christian, every Christian, if you are a Christian, God has placed in us a longing and a desire to reconnect with the Father. It is that desire to reconnect with the Father that causes us to come to church.

It is that desire to reconnect with the Father that causes us to study the Word of God, to love people, to evangelize, to go to India, to China, to Japan, wherever it is that God sends us. It is that desire to reconnect with God and connect other sinners to God.

So when Moses is asking for the Lord to return, how long will it be? First and foremost, there's a recognition that they have drifted from God. That they experience what they experienced in the desert because they sinned against God. So in other words, it is a recognition of what they have done before God.

For any sinner to have any kind of relationship with this Holy God, it begins by recognizing our own transgression. Look at David in Psalm 51, 3-4. He says, "For I know my transgressions." When he says he knows his transgressions, he's not simply saying, "I understand this. Somebody told me, and so now I can articulate what I've done." When he says, "I know my transgressions," he is saying that it is deep within him.

He knows it intimately and personally. My sin is ever before me. Again, remember Moses was a man handpicked by God to lead the nation of Israel. He said, "This is a man after my own heart." Among all the nation of Israel, that's the guy, he says, above all the other people in the nation of Israel.

And yet David, his experience as a king, he says, "If anything, it only exposed my transgression. My sin is before me all times. Against you and only you have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge." Even the way that we repent sometimes.

We say, "Of course, we're not dumb. We're not going to come before God and say, 'I'm not a sinner. I've done nothing wrong.'" I rarely meet anybody, Christian or non-Christian, who justifies their righteousness. "I'm not a sinner. I'm not selfish. I don't slander. I don't steal." Really rarely somebody is that deceived.

But typically, even in the way that we confess our sins, we say, "I've sinned, but it's not as bad as those guys." Now, I did what I did because look at the way they treated me. I did what I did because I didn't have this growing up. I do what I do because you don't know my parents and what they've done or my brothers or what's happened to me in the past.

The first step in reconciling with this holy God is owning up to who we are. I know my transgression. It is ever before me. And again, in Psalm 32, 3 to 5, if you're not a believer, I'm going to read this passage and you're going to say, "Oh, it's interesting." But if the Holy Spirit is in you, the way that David describes where he is before he was forgiven of his sins, I think every single one of us would be able to relate.

He says, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. Through my groaning all day long, for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer." Do you understand or can you relate the way that David describes his condition of guilt when he kind of tried to justify it and hide it from other people?

He said it was wasting away. My bones were being wasted away and my body was groaning all day long. The Holy Spirit in us will never make us feel comfortable in our sins. And if you are a Christian and the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you, you know exactly how this feels when you compromise.

No matter how much you try to justify it, your bones, you feel like the weight of God is upon you. And for whatever the reason in our generation, we think it is wrong to make people feel guilty. We want to be encouraging. We want to be uplifting. Life is hard enough as it is.

But without the pressure of guilt, where is repentance? Because repentance comes after guilt. But when you take the guilt out and you go from sin to rejoicing without repentance, there's no true repentance. There's no true forgiveness. It means nothing. It's just words that we say. It's kind of like if you were to write a love letter, you know, and you really have nothing to say, so you Google it and you take a piece of letter that somebody else wrote and you cut and paste and you put it into a letter, right?

And then you give it to that person to appease your wife. And it means nothing because they're not your words. You didn't put any thought into it. It doesn't represent your emotions. You just cut and pasted it because your wife is going to get angry if you don't give it to her, so I did it.

And then she looks it up, types it in, and she sees it's all over the internet. And even it has even less meaning because now for sure, this meant absolutely nothing to you. It was just the regurgitation of some words that somebody else wrote. Because until it strikes us and we recognize where we stand before God means absolutely nothing.

Until we're able to come to the point, it says, "When I didn't repent, my bones were wasted away." See, that's the state of a Christian who is in rebellion against God, who is living in compromise, who is constantly living in lukewarmness, and the pressure of God is upon that person to bring them to repentance.

Verse 5, "I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I would confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin." That's what he means when he says, "Return to us, O Lord." How long? In and of itself, he is confessing that they have drifted away from God.

Before revival can come, God always brings us to repentance. All of a sudden, we become more aware of the compromises in our lives. All of a sudden, when the Holy Spirit begins to work in our lives, even the very things that we've justified in our lives, all of a sudden seems detestable in God's sight.

And God brings us to repentance. That's why he's saying, "Return to us, O Lord." In other words, we will return to you, Lord. But what does it mean in that second part, "And be sorry for your servants"? Why would God be sorry? That word for sorry in other places literally means to repent.

I mean, the audacity of Moses to come before God and say, "Lord, repent. Repent over your servants." Obviously, God does not repent like you and I repent. In Numbers 23, 19, God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. God doesn't repent like we repent.

We did something wrong, and we need to rectify it, and so God changes his mind. That's not the repentance he's talking about. In ESV, that word is translated to pity. "Lord, pity. Pity your servants." Or the NIV says, "Lord, have compassion." It's talking about a deep-seated emotion when he sees the state of mankind.

When Jesus stood before Lazarus' tomb after his death, it says that Jesus wept, even though he deliberately went there late and waited until he died, even though he told his disciple that he was going to raise him up, that it wasn't going to end in death, but in God's glory.

So he knew all of that. He planned all of that, and yet he was standing before the death of Lazarus, and the Scripture says that he wept. What it means in that passage was he saw the state of mankind, and he had compassion, because death was the most tangible evidence of the judgment of God upon mankind, because he told Adam and Eve, "When you sin, you shall surely die." And as he stood before Lazarus' tomb, as he saw Jerusalem riding upon the donkey coming in, knowing that judgment was going to come upon them, it also says in that passage that Jesus wept.

So when here he says Moses is telling God, "Be sorry or repent," he's saying, "Lord, have compassion on us." God is not indifferent toward our suffering, and God is not indifferent toward our weaknesses. For revival to come, first and foremost, you and I need to recognize where we stand before God.

And that's, again, and that's the danger of being rich, because we don't see the consequence of our sins. We see the consequence of making bad decisions. We see the consequence of not being a good businessman. We see a consequence of not communicating well and being sensitive to your wife.

And so we try to fix all of that. But when it comes to our sin, we don't recognize what that does to God, what that does to us when we are spiritually insensitive. Before revival comes, there's always a greater awareness of who God is. There's always a greater awareness of who we are, which is the catalyst that causes us to come to him and want him.

Until we recognize the greatest need that every single person in this room brought into this room, wasn't a better job, better circumstance, better friends, better communication, better ingenuity. Until every single sinner recognizes that our greatest need in 2019 is to reconnect with this holy God. You will live your life in vain.

You will do your business in vain. You will work on your marriage in vain. You will raise your children in vain. You will travel in vain. You will make money in vain. You will enjoy yourself and live in vain in 2019 until we recognize this is our greatest need.

Secondly, his prayer is a prayer for God to satisfy their longing. Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we may sing for joy and be glad in all our days. To be satisfied, there's a prerequisite that there is a longing. God can come and bring revival, but if there is no desire, you won't even recognize when revival comes because there was no desire in you.

The fact that you and I have that desire in and of itself is a blessing. The fact that God opened your ears and desire to hear the word of God is because God's been gracious to us. In Matthew 5, 6, Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God and he talks about the beatitudes and every one of those beatitudes is a completely paradigm shifting, paradigm shifting way to look at the world.

And right in the smack in the middle of that in Matthew 5, 6, it says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." You and I typically think we made some good investments and the stock went up skyrocketed. God is so good. You moved your jobs before your company went down and now you got promoted and so you're making more money.

God is so good. You made some decisions and the puzzles pieced together. You made some relationship and all these things went well and you're healthy and you're strong. And we typically say God blessed us because we are no longer hungry and we are no longer thirsty. But Jesus said of the kingdom, "He who hungers and thirsts, they are the ones who are blessed because satisfaction is coming for them." But when we are already satisfied, we are no longer longing for him.

He says in the kingdom of God, you are not blessed because even when Christ comes, you will not recognize what he brings. He says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for those who are not satisfied, who are living day to day, knowing that satisfaction is not here." And that's why Jesus constantly told them, "I am the bread of life." If you continue to be satisfied with the bread that this world gives you, what happens the next day?

You get hungry. What happens the day after that? No matter how much you've eaten today, tomorrow you'll be hungry. Again we look at the world and we look at these people who are living in poverty and say, "Poor them. We are blessed so we need to give to them." Now every Christian should be generous.

Every Christian should not look upon the suffering of the world and be indifferent toward their suffering. But think about the perspective from God. He said it's not those who are going hungry. It's not those who are going thirsty because they don't have access to clean water. He said, "Blessed are those who recognizes that there is a longing inside of them that can only be satisfied in Christ.

Blessed are they, for they shall be satisfied in Christ." So when Moses says, "Oh, satisfy us in the morning," that prayer in and of itself is a blessing from God. To realize that my pursuit, my greatest pursuit in 2019 is to be nearer to Him. A Christian who has lost his way is no different than a child, a three-year-old child who loses his mom at Disneyland.

And I use Disneyland on purpose. I mean, it's fantasy land for children. I remember when I was a kid, going to Disneyland was a big, big deal. You go to Disneyland and you get to ride the world. It's a fantasy world and the food tastes better over there. Soda tastes better over there.

Everything's better, especially when you're a kid. But in the midst of Disneyland, if you lose your mom, until you reconnect with your mom, you can't enjoy the ride. You're not going to say, "Oh, I can't see my mom. I'm going to ride for a while for the next eight hours and I'll look for her later." You can't eat your food.

You can't rest. You can't enjoy yourself until you reconnect with your mom. See, a Christian who has lost his way, no matter what blessing that God has given us, until we are restored and are satisfied in Christ, is no different than a small child who is in the presence of all this blessing, but none of it can be enjoyed because we've been separated from the author of life.

That's what he means when he says, "Oh, satisfy us in the morning." He doesn't say, "Oh, give us bread in the morning. Oh, give us clean water in the morning. Oh, give us warm house in the morning." He says, "Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may sing joy, sing for joy and be glad all of our days." In Psalm 63, 1-4, it says, "Oh God, you are my God.

I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you." The psalmist isn't describing just a casual desire to know God. God is not somebody that you can approach and say, "You know what? I got nothing to do today. I've watched all the Netflix movies and I've done everything, so I got a chunk of time today between five and seven and maybe I'll just kind of put in my quiet time and do my little thing over here." God made it very clear.

"You shall seek me and find me when you search me with all your heart." God is God. You wouldn't go into your CEO's office like that. You don't come back after lunch and say, "You know, I got a 10-minute break. I'm just going to hang out with my CEO.

I'm just going to walk in there." And he's like, "What are you doing here?" He's like, "I was bored. I liked your sofa. I haven't talked to you in a while. What are you doing? What are you up to? You're fired." You don't go into the CEO's office like that.

He's just another human being. Our nonchalant attitude in the way that we pursue Christ may be the very reason why he feels so distant. Because we filled our time with all these other things, and then God has become the last thing that we do. And then we wonder when, when we give that part of him, why I don't get anything out of quiet time?

Why it's so hard for me to pray? Why fellowship is so difficult? The psalmist says, "I shall seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you." When was the last time you had that kind of passionate desire to meet with the Lord? Maybe the last time you had that kind of passion was right before you went on your first date.

Cleaned up your shoes, made sure your teeth, like there's nothing green, no kimchi in between your teeth. Combed your hair perfectly, got a new shirt. Because you were so passionate of getting this right. Maybe that's the first time you saw your car coming as a teenager. It meant freedom.

It could have been a piece of junk, it didn't matter. Meant freedom to you. Washed it, right? How can I better it? When was the last time that you had that kind of passion for the thing that matters the most to us? We put so much time and energy on trivial things that in the end matter, it doesn't matter at all, like zero.

Other than give you a little bit of endorphin for that short period of time. And again, it's not sinful, but when you consider how much time and effort and energy and money goes into pursuing trivial things in light of pursuing the eternal God, the author of life, is it no wonder we feel spiritually dry and distant?

It's not because God is hiding, he's waiting for us to make up our mind. Stop teeter-tottering between judgment. Will you worship Baal or will you worship God? For me and my house, we will worship the Lord. That was a frustration with Joshua. It wasn't because they were outright rejecting God, but they were playing games.

When it was convenient to worship God, they worshiped God. When it was not convenient to worship God, they worshiped Baal and they were teeter-tottering between two judgments. I want the world and God at the same time. And Joshua says, make up your mind. Until you and I make up our mind that this is what we want more than anything else, revival will not come.

Psalm 42, this is my favorite hymn. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you. When was the last time you sang this song? And it was an expression of your heart. That this was your prayer, not words that you're saying, not words that you're reciting.

As a deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you. Oh God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Are you not here? Because at some point in your life, he satisfied your thirsting. Didn't you come, decide to come to church?

Because at some point in your life, he satisfied your hungering. At what point from that point until now, did it no longer become satisfying? At what point in your walk with God, that the living water in Christ would no longer quench your thirst? Is it just some testimony of the past when you started and the rest of your life, you're going to nibble at the table of the world?

Revival will not come until the hungering and thirsting for righteousness for him, supersedes any other hungering in our life. That has to be our greatest pursuit in 2019. If there's anything else competing without desire for God, you are deeply rooted in worldliness and you may not even know it because the temptation is so great.

Look at where you and I live. Every time I travel around the world, no matter where we were, even when I go to rich countries, I never leave that country thinking, "I want to live here." Never. Maybe some of you may feel different, but I never. Japan, Hong Kong, some nicest place in the world, it's a great place to visit, never want to live there because we have everything here.

We're 10 minute drive to the beach, an hour if you want to go see snow. You can go down to Mexico in an hour and get some great Mexican food. All the best foods in the world that happen to be here because they're all here. Look at this weather.

This is middle of winter, some of you guys are wearing shorts. If we took pictures and send this around the world, they'd go, "These people are crazy." We have a great university here. We live in one of the safest places in the world. The job market is great. Even if the world is having a hard time, that's not us.

Even if we're struggling financially, we can't even ever open our mouths when we travel, considering the fact that we're even over there makes us rich. How can we possibly compete with all of this? How can any human being just say, "I'm just going to turn it off. I'm not going to love it anymore.

I'm just that strong willpower. No more. I'm just going to turn it off. That's just how I am." You can't turn it off. The temptation is tremendous, especially for me and you. What do you and I have that can possibly make all of that look like rubbish? Your friends, leadership, organization, your house.

What can possibly compete with a temptation that is around us 24/7? You already know the answer to that. Christ and Christ alone. He's the only thing that in light of all of that temptation, it looks like trash. And so the only way that we can possibly persevere and make it out of this is if we continue to fix our eyes on the majesty and beauty of Christ.

That's why Moses is saying, "Oh, satisfy us in the morning," because the temptation in the promised land is great. There's a lot of milk. There's a lot of honey in that area. There's a lot of promises of ball worship. There's a lot of things that all the other nations have that they have.

What is going to prevent us from going into that promised land and forgetting about God and becoming like all the other nations until you satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness? There is no hope. Again, when our hungering for God is stronger than any other desires in us, then revival is not far.

Third and finally, prayer for revival is God's work to be seen in man. Prayer for revival is for God to tangibly reveal himself in his work. Let me read the previous verse before we read verse 16, verse 17. It says, "Make us glad according to the days that you have afflicted us," oh, sorry, in verse 14, "Satisfy us in the morning, your loving kindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." You know that word for loving kindness in Hebrew is a very important word because it is the Old Testament Hebrew equivalent of agape.

It is a covenant love. It is not just kind of casual love where God chooses to love one day and not choose to love the next day, just like agape. Agape is God willfully loving sinners. So the word in Hebrew, kesed, that is translated here for loving kindness, he says, "We are not consumed because of his covenant love for us, otherwise we would be smashed." In Jeremiah 9, 24, it says, "But let him who boasts of this, that he understands and knows me and I am the Lord who exercise loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things, declares the Lord." It is his nature.

It is because he chose to love us, why you and I are still here. It is a covenant love. Let me tell you the distinction between a covenant love and just any other kind of love. When you are dating, your relationship is fragile. It is fragile. It does not matter.

It is like, "Well, not us." It is like, "Yes, you." It is very fragile because it is not founded upon covenant love. While you are dating, I love you because you love me. I like you because you like me. And so there are standards for that, right? But it is very shallow because there is nothing beyond your emotions that keeps you together.

I will give you a perfect example. When I was younger, there was a guy that we knew. He started dating this girl and he wanted to break up with her because they went swimming together and he did not like the way she looked when she was wet. That is serious, true story.

He saw a picture of her with her hair wet and she just did not look attractive. When her hair was wet, she did an awesome job with the blow dryer, but when it did not work, she was just not the same girl. And even our friends were like, "You are an idiot.

How can you possibly break up with her because you did not like the way she looked in her hair?" And he said, "He just could not get over it." He ended up breaking up with her. Idiote. That is the only thing we can think of. But what binds him to her?

We were saying like, "You know what? You should break up with her because she deserves better than you. She should not be with somebody that is going to break up with her because you did not like the way that her hair looked when she jumped into the pool. Tell me, get out of here." Right?

Even though we are good friends. But during that period of dating, it is that shallow. I am not saying, I am sure none of you would ever do that, but it is that shallow because what binds you? He was saying like, "Well, what do I do? I cannot help how I feel.

I am just no longer attracted to her because of her wet hair." The distinction between a dating relationship versus a married relationship is married relationships is bound together by covenant. And this covenant is not something that you and I are supposed to break. And you think that two people got together who are dating, who had all these superficial attractions to each other, all of a sudden they became supernaturally, it just all disappeared and everybody became mature as soon as you became married?

No. It is the same two human beings. Same fickleness, same selfishness, who was in the marriage relationship as they were in a dating relationship. But the difference between the married relationship is there is a covenant love that binds them together, which causes them to persevere through these idiotic things.

Our relationship with God is based upon His covenant, unilateral covenant He made with us. He didn't just love us. He said He demonstrated His love while we were yet sinners, while we were as unattractive as we could be, as our hair is as wet as it could be. He said He chose to love us.

That is His covenant love toward us. When you and I understand that that's who He is, why would anybody who believes that want anything else but that? That's what Moses is saying. Satisfy us, Lord. It's not the bread, it's not the water, but You. You come. And then again, He ends, "Let Your work appear to Your servants, Your majesty to their children." In other words, now that we're going into the Promised Land, help us to tangibly see who You are.

Help us to see Your glory. In Habakkuk 3, 2, it says, "Lord, I have heard the report about You, and I fear, O Lord. Revive Your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. Lord, show Your work to us, in Your majesty, even to their children." So remember, when Moses was called to lead the nation of Israel, Moses' first response was, "No, no, no, not me." And God didn't say, "Oh, my humble child." God says, "No, you're an arrogant fool.

I didn't call you because I needed you. I created your mouth. All you need to do is open when I tell you to open and shut it when I tell you to shut it. I'm just using you as a tool." He said, "Oh, okay, I repent." And then he goes on, and then he goes in, and Moses didn't volunteer for this, but by the time he's entering into the desert, he's known better to question God.

And he didn't want to lead these people because they already grumbled against him. They were already questioning him. Does God only speak through you? Who are you? I mean, he didn't want this job to begin with, but he requests, "I will do what you tell me to do, but just show me your glory.

Because if you show me your glory, that would be enough for me to persevere." And so God says, "Yes, your request is good, and I will give it to you, but if I show you my full glory, you will die." So he says, "I will cover you, and then as I am passing, you will see my glory passing by." And so Moses sees that, and his glory shining off of his face.

And so people recognized that he saw his glory. And because of that, they established him, and they respected him, and followed him because of that glory. So with all the mess, all the grumbling and complaining that he had to deal with for 40 years, he said, "Give me your glory.

Let me see your glory." Do you think that maybe that's what Moses is thinking as they're entering into the promised land? "Lord, as we're going in there, and there's all kinds of stuff that's waiting for us, but if you would just show me again a glimpse of who you are, but not only to me, but to all of these children.

Let them see who you are. And if they can see who you are, then we will be fine." Our greatest treasure, and I pray with all my heart that you would believe this with all your heart. Our greatest treasure, you already have. You already have it. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you already have it.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. What God has already given you. And then so that causes celebration, it causes joy, it causes work. Think about the content of our prayer, "Lord, let me have this job. Lord, let this investment work. Lord, let me be healthy.

Lord, let me get this." Think about the content of this prayer and how trivial it must sound to an eternal holy God who desires so much to give us everything. And we're begging for crumbs. I pray that in 2019, that even the things that we petition may reflect the God that we are petitioning.

That we would open our eyes and see his glory. Then he ends with this, "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm for us the work of our hands." Yes, confirm the work of our hands. His prayer for revival isn't just passively waiting for God to work.

He says, "Lord, reveal your glory by making it shine off of our work." So we're getting to the promise line. We're going to labor, we're going to work, we're going to worship. But may your glory be revealed in your blessing upon us in what we do. So in 2019, whether you eat or drink, whether it is in the church or outside the church, whether it's in business or in leisure, Lord, may your glory and majesty to be revealed in what we do.

I pray that that would be our prayer. Now with that, I'm going to transition to our India team. Okay. Was that a smooth transition? No? As you know, our team is headed out to India. And again, we're out in India and our medical team, we have I think about five eye doctors or six eye doctors that are going out and we do a medical camp in the villages and we give them eyeglasses and some of the response is very dramatic because some of these people who are old couldn't see for a long time.

And so giving them eyeglasses is kind of like giving them sight for the first time. So it's very effective. And also we have a wound care team. So our nurses and PAs, a few of them are coming to help us with that. And then we have a VBS team who's running games with these children.

And again, some of you guys who've been with us know exactly what it's like, but VBS here is kind of like one of many. In fact, when our kids were young, we probably went to like five or six VBSs in the summer because it's abundant and it's free. But over there, any activity with children, especially in the poor villages, it's the first time ever running games and stuff.

So they love it. So it's a good way for us to kind of bring the gospel into the villages. And so our team is headed out. And every year I get asked, how long are we going to do this? Because the persecution in India is ramping up. And it's like right now, and I shared this before, when we first started going in, in the persecution meter, India was ranked maybe like 32 or 33.

It climbed up to number 11, meaning right under Syria, North Korea. So it's gotten up there and it's actually moving up pretty fast. And part of the reason why is because the government for the whole nation of India came from a very militant Hindu party. So even though on paper it's illegal to persecute Christians, when they do that, nothing happens.

They don't get arrested, they don't go to jail. So they become more emboldened through the years. And so they're doing a lot of stuff. In fact, about four months ago, they targeted an Australian missionary and his kids, which is pretty big. I mean, it's one thing to hurt the locals, but if you hurt a missionary, it's going to be an international thing.

But that's how emboldened they're becoming over there. So people ask all the time, like, you know, how long can we go to India because of safety issues? We don't know. Every year we come back, we think like we're going to have to evaluate the next year, see what happens.

But the work in India, it is so crystal clear that the fruit that it bears when we do go, that we believe that it's worth the discomfort. And I'm not going to call it anything more than a discomfort, because it's just discomfort, because we're only there for a short period and we're back.

So it's not like we're risking our lives. It's because we're weak sauce. We live in Orange County, so we're not used to people even say, "You're a Christian?" Persecution. Right? So we're from here going over there. So in comparison, it seems like we're doing hard work. But in reality, it's the pastors there that we want to support.

We want to let them know that we have a church here praying for them and supporting them to do what we can. And so I'm very thankful for all the people who are going. There's 15 of us who are going to go. Every single one of them have good paying jobs that they're sacrificing to get out there.

And it is a bit, it's very uncomfortable physically because of the travel and where we're at. But if you guys can take some time to pray for them.