← City Light Church Las Vegas | Jabin Chavez
City Light Church Las Vegas | Jabin Chavez
The Battle Of Proximity | Marcus Mecum | City Light Church
00:30:05
The Battle Of Proximity | Marcus Mecum | City Lig…
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, chapter 6. I want to talk to you about the battle of proximity. Deuteronomy is written by the great Moses. It means new law. The very first verse of the book of Deuteronomy kicks off with Moses saying, these are the words to a new generation. Deuteronomy has a focus and a purpose and it's to speak to a brand new generation. This generation has been born in the wilderness. Their parents had been in the wilderness for 40 years. They were there when Moses went up Mount Sinai and came down with all the instructions concerning what God expected of his people. So most of this generation that Moses is speaking to in the book of Deuteronomy was either very young or had yet to be born. And so it's not really a new law, though that's what the definition is. It's the same law written to a brand new generation. And so let's look at verse 12. Be careful that you do not plant. I'm sorry. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt and out of the land of slavery. Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods. Listen to this. The gods of the people around you. This is speaking about the issue of proximity. The gods of the people that are around you. Moses is in his final days. He's 120 years old. He's about to be pushed aside. He's going to walk up the mountain and die. The Bible says God himself will bury Moses. Imagine that's the only one that's attending Moses funeral is God himself. God. Can you imagine what kind of eulogy God could give for a man like Moses? So he's about to wrap things up before he goes. He's got 11 days to tell this new generation how to live for God. He's 120 years old. So I'm imagining he would struggle to relate. Maybe he didn't get their words or the way they phrase things. Maybe he didn't understand their style. Maybe he felt out of touch. I'm sure they thought, what does he possibly know about our generation? I mean, what could he possibly understand about our struggles and our problems? So this is a brand new generation. Their parents had missed it and Moses had 40 years with them. 40 years to contend with them. 40 years to teach them, to instruct them. But now he has 11 days. And he's done 11 days to pass the baton and his assignments finished. He has a limited amount of time to get this mindset of this brand new generation ready for this new land and the new problems they're going to deal with. 11 days and he's out. 11 days to inspire them for the problems that they're going to face. 11 days to help them get ready for the challenges that lay ahead. He's got a big job. He'll be standing before God and face God for the job that he does. He's trying to finish strong. He knows that he's missed it, that their parents missed it, and he's going to discuss their failures. But now he gets to chapter six, and he's turning the page to talk to a new generation about new challenges. Now, these challenges have never been faced before in previous generations. They are completely new to this generation that he's talking to in the book of Deuteronomy. And the issue that he's dealing with is the issue of proximity, the closeness that these gods will be all around you. Now, every generation has its own unique struggles. It's not that other generations had it easy. It's just that there are temptations that exist today that didn't exist before. Today there are temptations and struggles that you have to deal with that didn't exist before your arrival on the planet. It's not that my generation didn't go through things. There's just things that we never had to face that you had to face. I mean, we could look at Israel and know that they didn't have it easy. In Egypt, God protected them from the ten plagues. God had to protect them from Pharaoh and his army by swallowing them up in the Red Sea. God had to protect them from the bitter waters in the wilderness by showing them the tree so the bitter waters could be made sweet. God had to make sure that they had water that miraculously flowed out of the rock so they didn't die of dehydration. God had to make sure that they die of starvation. So he provided the manna every single day, that every single day they would wake up in the hot desert sun of Las Vegas would be there beating down on them. I added that. That's okay. You're like, that's not in the Bible. Just making sure you're on your toes. God would provide the fire to keep them warm during those cold desert nights. God even protected them when they were in Egypt, though they were in slavery. God put them in an area called Goshen, which was not in the same area that the Egyptians lived. These are entire territories that were dedicated to the Israelites and the slaves of that day, entire territories that were thousands of miles away from where the Egyptians actually lived. So God's protection for the previous generation was the distance that he put between the children of Israel and the Egyptians. They weren't neighbors with the Egyptians. They didn't live in their neighborhoods. Their kids did not attend Egyptian schools. They never had to deal with Egyptian temptations and gods. All they ever knew, even in Egypt, under the oppression and the bondage of slavery, all they knew was the God of Israel. All they ever heard about was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and. And Joseph. When they went out into the wilderness, they didn't face the type of struggles that this new generation is going to face, because all they ever experienced was the provision of God. Every day, all they experienced was the protection of God. Moses getting the instructions of the law and coming down and teaching God's people. So it's not that they didn't have enemies to face sin to resist. It's not that they didn't have fear and negativity. It's not that. It's the proximity of those. Things have changed. And so now there's a new generation. They're moving into a new land, and there's going to be new challenges that are unlike anything the previous generation had to face. They're going to move in next to people and have neighbors that know nothing about the God of Israel. And these neighbors are going to have their own gods. And he says, these gods are going to be close to you. As a matter of fact, they're going to be all around you. They're going to be in every city, in every town, in every culture, in every school, in every neighborhood. 24 strange gods. It's not that these people are bad. It's that the gods that they are going to be waking up to will be all around you. You'll move into their houses and their gods will be buried in the foundation of those homes. They'll be hidden in the walls. You'll walk out on the front porch and look up at the high places and you'll see sacrifices and offerings being offered on altars to these false gods. When you walk down the street, they'll be there. When your kids play with their kids, when you eat a meal with them, when you go to work, when you go to school. All of this is going to be close and the proximity is going to be the issue. It's not going to be distant like it was in the previous generation. Every day of your life, 24, 7, you're going to be dealing with, with these Gods that are all around you. And that's what is new. It's that they're surrounding you constantly. And Moses is warning them, encouraging them, watch out for these gods because they're going to be around you. It's not that other generations didn't have to deal with temptations and struggles. The change he's looking at and dealing with is the proximity of the closeness of the struggle. And that changes the spiritual battle they're going to have to fight because these gods will be all around them. You can't get away from them. You can't move away. You can't sell your house and somehow move to a new place. Everywhere you go, in every home, in every city, in every town, these gods will be all around you. And he's saying, I want you to understand you're going to be facing something brand new. And will you be able to live for God when these challenges and these temptations and these gods are all around you? Well, Judges 1, in verse 12, it says, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods, the gods of the people that were around them. That's the temptation. That's the battle of this generation right now. It's the gods that are around this generation. It's the proximity. And that proximity has never been in former generations like it is in this generation. Again, they existed, but there was a distance. Our generation didn't have to deal with this like yours does. But this generation has its own unique struggles because of the proximity of how. For example, when I grew up, we didn't have computers. We had like a Commodore 64, which is like a glorified typewriter, just had like green letters on a screen. We didn't have the Internet. When I woke up in the morning in the summer, as soon as you could, you got kicked out of the house. And you don't come back in the house till the street lamps are on at night. The truth is, we raised ourselves. Our parents didn't know if we died or got kidnapped. There was no phone. They weren't checking in with you. They weren't trying to figure things out. They didn't care if you were thirsty. You had to go find a hose somewhere and take care of it. They didn't care if you were hungry. You had to sneak in the house and steal some Little Debbie's or maybe make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then get out before you got caught. I never went to school and worried about somebody coming in and shooting up the place. I mean, we had kids that weren't right, but never thought they were going to shoot anybody. I never heard of the word fentanyl. I never imagined you'd have to have police officers at church. There was never a political agenda in the classroom. You learn math, you learned science, you learned history. I'm not being ugly, but we grew up knowing the difference between a boy and a girl. We did. We did. I know. I know. I'm talking about a long time ago. Never heard of the abuse of prescription drugs. No one ever talked to us about add, adhd. If you couldn't act right, they beat you. They sent you to the principal's office. He had a paddle and he used it. And your parents thanked him for using it. The difference is the proximity, that you don't even have to look past your hand. It's in your pocket, it's in your eyes, it's in your ears. Some of you can't even go through a church service without checking it. We know you're not reading your Bible. We know you're not taking notes, ordering something on Amazon, checking Facebook out. Isn't it wild that the touch of a button, the proximity of it, and the bottom line is this was not around my generation, but it's all around this generation. If we woke up on a Saturday morning, which is the only time you could get cartoons, you couldn't just go and watch a cartoon whenever you wanted to. You had to wake up on Saturday morning when they played cartoons. We weren't being targeted. We weren't being targeted as children. That's what's different about this generation versus previous generations. It's that the gods are all around you. Things we didn't even know existed when we were young. I was never tempted growing up to think maybe I'm a girl. It never crossed my mind. Never. I'm not saying that things did not exist. I'm not saying people did not have their struggles. I'm saying that they were distant. But the danger lies when it's around you, because you cannot be tempted by something you do not know exists. And. And the danger to this generation comes by the gods of the world being all around you. It's accessible. You don't have to leave the country and come to Vegas. You don't have to leave your city. You don't have to leave your neighborhood. You don't have to leave your home. You don't have to leave your bedroom. You don't have to leave your bed. These gods will be all around You. And Moses is saying to them, I've got 11 days. I can't go with you. I wish I could. I wish I could help you. I'm 120 years old and I've got this brief period of time to teach you and help you get ready for these gods that will be all around you. They'll be on every side, they'll surround you, you'll go to school with them, they'll be on every social media platform, they'll come at you from every direction and they are against you. And they are around you, surrounding you, enclosing you. And you won't have to run off to some dark corner of an alley to find them. It's the proximity that's going to be the battle. It's the closeness of evil and wickedness and temptation and sin. And it will look so enticing at times. And these gods will be so intriguing to you because they will be around you. He's saying, don't underestimate this. Don't underestimate the gods of this generation and their proximity. Don't say, I can handle it. Don't. Don't say, I'll be okay. Don't say, it won't hurt me. He's looking them in the eyes and saying, do not allow yourself to be unguarded for one moment and notice what he says, how it works. He doesn't say, it's the gods that you have to worry about. It's the people first, then their gods. So it makes the way the enemy works so subtle and is. It's through your friendships, it's through your relationships, it's who you associate with. Before you know it, you have an affection for them, you have a care for them, you have an attachment to them. And then before you know it, you start saying, well, maybe that Bible stuff isn't quite right because I kind of really liked it. And then you start embracing the spirit of that person and it becomes normalized because to you it's an everyday, all around you experience. It's the people first, the people win, you first. And then they introduce you to their gods. In other words, Satan doesn't show up with a pitchfork and horns. I've never woke up in the morning, not one time. And there Satan is, sitting at the end of my bed, saying, I'm going to attack you today. So we know that Satan needs flesh or a body to cooperate with his agenda if he's going to carry out his plans in a person's life or in a family or in a Church or in his where all he's got to do is get somebody to begin to approach life in an unbiblical way. And it creates a crack, a door, an opportunity for him to begin to move. And so that's why you have to know when people enter your life, they bring more than a body. They bring a spirit. And the Bible says you have to test the spirit. What spirit is that person of? Discern the spirit of a person, test the spirit of a person. Because you don't have any idea, though it's a person, it's the people first, then their gods. So do they have an offended spirit, a religious spirit, a lustful spirit, a prideful spirit, a divisive spirit? What kind of spirit do they have? Because if the devil wants to wreck your life, he does it by sending a person. He knows your weakness. He knows your struggle. He knows how to attack you. And don't be deceived by the obvious. This is what's going to happen. These gods will be all around you, and that's what will make it so appealing to you. That's what will make it so attractive to you. That's why it'll entice you and. And draw you into it. Because the Bible declares there's many gods, little GS, many lords, little Ls, that are going to try to steal your affection away from the one true, eternal God. And the way the enemy does it is these gods will be all around you. The people first, then their gods, their way of thinking. Did God really say, if God and the enemy begins to find his way through friendships, through relationships, start getting confused in your mind, start wondering, do I really believe? Is that really what the word says? There's a story about a great revered saint in Catholic history by the name of John Brasco and John Bosco. When he died, they wanted to honor him. So they took his brain and they put it in a glass container and they took this brain and they put it in the church there in Italy called the Bosco Basilica. This is where John Bosco was born. This is where he was raised. This is where he lived. And to honor this revered saint, they put his brain in the church. And unexpectedly, out of nowhere, somebody posed as a saint came into the church and they stole the brain of this great saint. And the people begin to immediately lose it. The police were called. They set up roadblocks all across northern Italy. They set up prayer meetings at the Bosco Basilica. And their prayer was really simple. God help us find the brain, bring the brain back to the church. Help us get the mind back. Help do we can. And the bottom line is we need to have some prayer meetings again. Because somehow along the way, the enemy posed as a saint. He came in and he stolen our brains. And we need to pray. God give us our minds back. We're living with no peace in our minds, no joy in our minds. We're living with a spirit of fear that God has not given us, but he's given us power, love. And what a sound mind. We need to pray that God would give us our minds back. I love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, strength, my soul, my mind. Beautiful. So great. Wonderful. The prodigal son, the Bible says, went to a far off country. Notice what happens. He's close to the father, he's in the father's house and he starts to step by step, distance himself from the father. And then the Bible says it says it like this, that they joined. He joined himself to these other people. And then they drug him all the way to the pigpen. He wasn't the only one there. It was the people. He joined himself to the people. People first, then their God. And he had to come to himself is what the Bible. He had to get his brain back, he had to get his mind back. And what did that say? As long as I stay here in this pig pen, I'm going to end up being surrounded by the gods of these people I joined myself to. So I've got to head back where? To the proximity of my father. Because it's the people first, then their God. Remember, the Bible actually says that there was a man who was amongst the tombs in the Bible, in Mark, chapter five. And no one could bind him. They tried to chain him, they tried to hold him, they tried to do everything they could and no one could hold this man. Jesus shows up through one encounter. And the thing that the whole city noticed was the man that no man could bind, that they had no other option but to say, Satan, send him off to some graveyard somewhere to howl at the moon. They saw him sitting in his right mind. These gods will be all around you, everywhere you look. And what's going to happen if you're not careful is it will rob you of the mind of Christ. It will rob you of the mind of God. The Bible talks about Naomi, who had two sons and those two sons died. And so she looks at her daughters in law, Orpah and Ruth, and says, go back home. You have no reason to stay here with me. And the Bible says Orpah kissed her and went back home. But then the Bible says Ruth would cleave to her. I heard a preacher say one time that there's two types of people in the church, kissers and cleavers. So Ruth would cleave to Naomi. And what did she say? Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. She made sure that she was close to Naomi because she understood proximity. Whereas the Bible says Orpah went back to her. People would end up going back to their gods, and you never hear about Orpah again. It's the people first. Ruth had no idea when she was cleaving to Naomi. She had no idea what was on the other side, that there would be a Boaz. She didn't know that there was an Obed waiting to be born, that there was a Jesse waiting to be born. That there was the great King David waiting to be born. That ultimately, through her lineage, Jesus, the savior of the world, the son of God, was waiting to be born. She had no idea that the Word was in heaven, waiting, saying, you got to keep proximity, right? The Word was waiting to become flesh, dwell among us. That the one that would not come to condemn, but save was waiting. It's the people first. Ruth's destiny was because she would cleave to Naomi, her future. We have no idea what happened to Orpah. All we know is, is that she was a kisser. Just kissed and left. That's how committed she was, not Ruth, I'm going to grab ahold of you. I know you love God. I know you serve God. And Moses is saying, I've got to help you. I've got 11 days. 11 days to get you ready. And these are his words to this new generation. Read it real quick. Deuteronomy, chapter 6 and verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Keep him close. These commandments I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Keep it close. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. The tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads. Keep them close. Write them on the door frame of your houses and your gates. What's he saying? Proximity. It's the battle of proximity. Can I say it like I really think he's saying it? Church shouldn't be an option for you. What's church? What's the Presence. What's bringing your body to church? It's about proximity. You say. Well, church isn't a guarantee. No, but it increases your odds drastically. And sometimes in life, if you're going to bet on something, you should bet on proximity. You can't just run with whoever who serves whatever God and end up close to the one true eternal God whose name is Jesus Christ. That's not the way it works. That's why you should show up at men's conferences. That's why you should be in a small group. That's why your kids should never miss youth ministry. That's why your children should always be in kids church. Why? Because you're doing what he said to do. Make sure that you're impressing it upon them that you're keeping it close, that you're giving them the advantage. Because you've won the battle of proximity. The problem is these gods will be all around you. He's saying it's no time to be distant from church. It's no time to be distant from your pastor. It's no time to be distant. It's a time to be close. And most importantly, it's a time to be close to his word. Bind them around your neck, put them on your forehead, Tie them around your wrist. What's it kind of sounds like this, doesn't it? You're as close to God as you want to be, but most of the time it's the peoples and their gods that are all around you. So you have to draw near to him and he'll draw near to you. There's effort. There's effort. Notice what Paul said. He said. He said, follow me as I follow Christ. Oh, I'm not going to follow a man. That's not what he said. Paul said, God is so big in my life. There's no way you're going to get around me and not experience Christ. He knew that God was such a big part of his life. If you got around him, you're going to hear about the Word. You're going to hear about God, you're going to hear about church, you're going to hear about soul souls. You're going to hear about a God that loves you, has a plan for you, has a. Paul would say it's the people first. If you get around me, you're going to get around my Jesus. There ain't no way you're going to get close to me and not see the God that lives on the inside of me. It's a proximity thing.