Spirit-Filled Life

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Spirit Filled Life

Ben Weber:

Well welcome. Welcome is good to see you one final time. Now, you probably already know this, but unfortunately, this is our last co-live for the summer. Notice some good news that comes with it.

That means that school, even though it’s going to look a little different this semester is about to return. So we’re excited that you’re joining us one last time. If you’ve been with us for the past seven Seal Lives, you know that this is the best way to start the week.

We are trying to create an environment where each and every week you can learn more about the gospel and then turn around, start to talk about it, and discuss it with your classmates. And tonight’s no different. Trust me guys, we are saving the best for last.

We have an incredible testimony and incredible message coming your way in just a moment. So here’s the first thing we’re going to do this evening. We’re going to hear another student’s testimony.

This week our testimony is coming from Mobile Alabama, a senior named Lucas Mordecai is going to be sharing about how the gospel has not only changed his life and the way he relates with God but also how he relates to other people. Y’all check this out.

Lucas Mordecai:

What’s up, guys? My name’s Lucas Mordecai and I’m going to be going on staff with campus outreach at the University of South Alabama I’m going to be sharing with you a little bit about my story.

So I grew up a really good kid, always going to church every Sunday and even going to a Christian school. And I had this thought that if I do good things then I get good things including a relationship with Christ and being with him in heaven for eternity.

But as I grew older, I just got to be really tired of being on this treadmill of always having to do good, to get good, and never being good enough and just grew to be really tired. And so by the time I got to college, I was just broken and empty from this.

And I eventually got involved in a Bible study, one-on-one where someone started to walk through the gospel with me week by week. In one of those weeks, he shared with me Romans 3:23, which said, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life, your Christ, Jesus our Lord.

And I came to understand over just the fall and spring and in the Beach Project that it wasn’t something that I had to earn. It was something that Christ purchased for me and died for me so that I no longer had to try and do good things in order to have a relationship with him or even have eternal life, but it was Christ who achieved it.

But if he was willing to die for me, then that means that I get the privilege of living for Christ. And not only is that a privilege, but I get joy from him in that. And so living for Christ looked a lot like sharing the gospel with men in my fraternity and becoming a more godly boyfriend of the relationship I was in.

And I was just able to see God provide a lot of good things through that and just a greater, more enjoyable relationship. I’ve seen guys come to Christ in my fraternity over the three years and just seeing the long-term investment that he calls me to really pay off in some very eternal ways, brings a lot of joy and I can’t wait to do that in the next couple of years with campus outreach at the University of South Alabama.

Ben Weber:

There we go. There we go. Well, thank you Lucas for sharing your story. I’ll give you one quick little highlight. I know Lucas pretty well. Lucas is actually no longer dating Maggie. They’re getting married in just two weeks of big congrats to Lucas.

We’ve seen how the gospel not only changed his life but also now his very own soon-to-be marriage. So that’s great to hear. Well, guys, it’s our last week. We know that you’ve been on Zoom meetings and FaceTime phone calls all summer with your classes.

The last thing you want is a long drawn-out meeting. So we’re going to keep it super short, super simple this evening and we’re going to move right into our talk. So this evening our featured speaker is Pastor David Platt and unfortunately because of some scheduling difficulties, we weren’t able to get him on live.

But trust me, this is a message that he wrote, drafted, and delivered just for you, just for our campus outreach students. Now, some of you are probably familiar with David Platt. He’s the author of several books.

One is called Radical, another is called Follow Me. He is currently serving as the lead pastor in McLean Baptist Church in Virginia. And I’ll just say this, God changed my life when I was a junior in college and one of the first Christian books I read in my new walk with Jesus was the book Radical.

And it really challenged my understanding of the gospel. If you had asked me early on in my walk with Jesus what was the good news of the gospel, I would’ve said something along these lines that Jesus died for my sins or that God has blessed me.

And what Plat helped me understand is that my view of the gospel was too small. In fact, it was incomplete because yes, God has blessed me, but that’s not the whole story. God has blessed me. Jesus has saved me so that I can bless other people.

And I’ll be honest, this has actually changed the trajectory of my life so that I’ve given the last 15 years of my life not only to understanding and embracing the gospel but also passing it on to everyone I come in contact with. So Plat has had a big impact on my life and this evening he’s talking about what it means to lead a spirit-filled life.

And here’s why we chose this topic for the very last week. Co-live is coming to an end school is starting in a couple of weeks, and so you’re about to lose some of the accountability, the structure, and the encouragement that you’ve had throughout the summer.

So it’s probably more important than ever, especially in this day and age of social distance and isolation, for you to develop a deeply personal individual walk with Jesus. Now, we never walk with Jesus alone or in isolation, but now it’s more important than ever for the next couple weeks to develop a deep spirit-filled life.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to turn it over to Dr. Platt. He’s going to give us a great talk and then we’re going to come back for a little discussion. Hope you guys enjoy this.

David Platt:

What’s up Campus Outreach. It’s good to be together with you even through this medium. I wish I was there in person with different of you. Obviously a lot going on in the Covid world that makes that really challenging.

But even the opportunity to be able to encourage you, I hope with God’s word. Lemme just say from the start though, how thankful I am for campus outreach. So yeah, I praise God for his grace in the way he is using campus outreach to lead students to Christ on college campuses, to teach students to follow Christ, to make disciples, and not just on campuses here, but the way that’s spreading the ripple effects of campus outreach in churches and particularly with the unique connection between campus outreach and churches, the way the ripple effects of campus outreach spread to churches and to the ends of the earth, the way God is raising up, sending out students from campus outreach and from ministries of campus outreach on different campuses that are leading to the sending of missionaries around the world, even as we at radical or are working more intentionally to get the gospel, the front lines, the most urgent, spiritual and physical needs in the world.

I praise God for men and women who are being sent out from campus outreach and churches associated with campus outreach for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. So I could keep going on and on there, but I just want to say I’m thankful for you for the ministry you’re doing and even for how this is playing out in the middle of a pandemic.

So I was asked to share just for a few minutes about spirit-filled life, daily walk with Christ, and how that plays out practically in our lives even when it comes to disciplines in our everyday routines. And I just want to go super practical, but based on God’s word I want to share just from the overflow of Matthew chapter six.

This is when Jesus is teaching in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, he addresses prayer and says when you pray and just the heads up, this is the lead into the Lord’s Prayer when he teaches us our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name before that. Jesus says, that when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.

For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who’s in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

Then he says, when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do for they think they’ll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

Pray then like this. And this is where we get the Lord’s prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom comes, you will be down on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The Most Important Thing in Our LIfe is Intimacy with Jesus

So just stop there. If there’s one thing that I could communicate to you right now, it’s this one truth, the most important thing in your life is your personal intimacy with Jesus. I guess I prayed for you about how I might encourage you during this time.

This truth just kept coming to the surface. The most important thing in your life is your personal intimacy with Jesus, your personal authentic intimacy with God. And the reason I go to Matthew chapter six here is because Jesus is speaking at this point about religious leaders and religious people who are hypocritical, who do all kinds of things on the outside, but they’re missing an authentic relationship with God in their hearts.

And he’s saying, don’t be like these people. Don’t be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues on the street corners to be seen by others. Like no, they’re missing the whole point.

Truly I say to you, they receive their reward. But when you pray, so here’s the contrast. When you pray, go in your room, shut the door, and pray to your father in secret, your father’s season’s secret will reward you.

The picture Jesus is saying here is there is a reward waiting for you and me every day in time alone with God. Reward is the word he uses. Like find a place where you’re alone, set aside a time where you’re alone, get alone with God and there’s a reward just waiting for you.

And even what he says next, it’s so interesting because he says, don’t be like these hypocrites, gentiles even who up, heap up empty phrases who think they’ll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

Think about that. When you pray, don’t just use a lot of words. God already knows what you need before you even ask him. If you think about that, in a sense that kind of seems to undercut prayer, doesn’t it?

I thought the purpose of prayer was to express my request to God. Jesus is saying He already knows what you need. So apparently God is not up in heaven like with a steno pad like writing down. Oh yes, I’ve not thought about that.

That’s very helpful. Thank you for that. No, he knows everything. He knows what we need better than we know what we need. So you start to think, well, what’s the purpose of prayer? And as soon as we ask that question, we’re starting to get to the heart of prayer and we’re starting to uncover a truth that will radically change not just your prayer life but your life.

So if the primary purpose of prayer is not to express all these things to God, now he knows what I need. What’s the primary purpose of prayer? Maybe the primary purpose of prayer is not to get something but to know someone.

Let that soak in the primary purpose of prayer and your life is not to get something from God, but to know someone, to know God, to experience. Now come back to reward in God. This is what God has designed for you.

God has designed reward, supernatural reward for you in intimacy with him in life with him. And this is why I say this, not just about your prayer life, it’s about your life because everything flows from this. Everything flows from intimacy with Jesus or lack of intimacy with Jesus. Like the decisions we make on campus, who we date or don’t date, who we marry or don’t marry what we do with our lives.

It’s a whole nother thing we could go into. We don’t have time to right now, but to be a disciple of Jesus is to let the words of Jesus, the cause of Jesus, and the purpose of Jesus dictate every single thing you do in life, every single thing you think, every single thing you desire, every single action you take word you speak dictated by intimacy with Jesus, which is why I say the single most important thing in your life is your personal intimacy with Jesus.

Now that can seem, as soon as I say that, even again it seems in a sense so basic, almost like it’s assumed. Yeah, we know that. But lemme just give a window into my own life to say we’ve got to be careful not to assume that.

And just because we know that in our heads doesn’t mean we’re experiencing that in our hearts. I think about a time in my life when, so I was a pastor, I was pastoring a church that was growing a lot and all kinds of people were coming and exciting things happening.

I had written a book that a lot of people were reading. I was getting invited to go preach in a lot of different places. On the outside it looked like everything was going great and there were a ton of good things happening on the inside though for a long period of time, I don’t know exactly how long, but many, many months, maybe multiple years, I just don’t remember exactly how long.

But my intimacy with God was virtually non-existent. My time alone with God in secret never hardly ever happened. Yeah, I would study God’s word to preach on Sunday, but time alone with God in prayer was inconsistent at best.

Non-existent most days, time alone, just reading through and meditating on God’s word. As long as I wasn’t preparing a sermon, I really didn’t. Yeah, I wasn’t soaking in God’s word at all. That is frightening to me, how successful, at least in the eyes of the world, even the church world, how successful I could be in ministry, but do it totally apart from intimacy with Jesus.

And I’m so thankful to God for his grace. There are so many different directions that could have gone. I was so vulnerable during that time spiritually and God protected me in my life and my marriage and my family and church.

But I look back and I know it is possible to know what I’m saying right now. It’s possible for me even to say these things and not be spending time with God alone. And that’s frightening to me. And I want to encourage you, I’m guessing, I obviously don’t know where you are right now when it comes to your personal intimacy with Jesus, your time alone with God, like authentic love for God, what’s happening in the secret of your life.

God Desires Intimacy with Us

But I want to exhort you certainly, if you’re in any way close to where I just described, let this be a wake-up call in your heart and your mind and your life right now because God loves you. God desires intimacy with you.

He desires you to experience reward from him. He desires for you to know him and experience the wonder of walking with him. I was thinking about one of the other verses that I was praying through, this was just Genesis 5:24, Enoch, Enoch walked with God like, oh, may that be the story of your life.

You’re walking with God. So I said, I want to be super practical. So I just want to give you three acrostics that I use in my life that we use in our church where I pastor here in metro Washington DC three acrostics that we use that are all intended to help fuel intimacy with Jesus just practically.

Pray to Fuel Your Intimacy with Jesus

And so the first acrostic deals with prayer. So PRAY, pray. And so what do you do? What do you do when you get alone with God in secret? What do you do? And what we encourage our church members to do is what I do in my own life, I use this acrostic, P-R-A-Y-P, for praise, like you get alone with God and just start with expressing authentic love for God. Like I get on my knees, I turn on some worship music, I read through a psalm slowly, and I praise, and thank God.

Just spend time and gratitude, and give thanks in all circumstances. Just spend time adoring, praising, thanking God, and fixing your eyes on who he is. So praise PR, repent. So examine your heart. Just ask God, what in me is not pleasing and glorifying to you right now?

Where do I need to become more like Jesus? My thoughts, my desires, my actions, my words, my decisions. So to spend time searching me, oh God, test me. Know my thoughts. Lead me in your way. So praise, repent, ask.

So yes, I mean Jesus goes on to instruct us here in Matthew chapter six about different things to ask for. And so yes, we lift our hearts and our burdens to him just trusting him with things in our own life, praying interceding for others.

That’s all. Another thing we could dive into right now, like the privilege of intercession, is how when we pray we can walk through scripture and show when we pray, God acts, God acts in response to our prayers.

There’s a whole theological mystery to how that works, but it works. Like when we pray, God responds. So to ask to intercede for others, I have just intentional things I pray for on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in my life I want to be intentional, pray for, and then just let the Holy Spirit lead me, and prayer for things beyond that.

So praise, repent, ask. And then why yield? Just to say in that time alone with God, ideally in the morning to say, my life is yours, lead me, guide me. Help me to pray continually. What I find in my life is that if I have concentrated time in prayer like that in the morning, then it leads to continual time in prayer all day long.

If I don’t have that kind of concentrated time, then that continual time is oftentimes much more lacking. And then to close the day in a similar way. So PRAY, praise, repent, ask yield. I offer that across the tube to the extent that it might be helpful to you.

Fast to Fuel Your Intimacy with Jesus

The second acrostic would be actually what Jesus goes on to teach right after this. After talking about prayer, he talks about fasting. He says when you fast, and I don’t know if fasting is a regular part of your life.

If not, I want to encourage you to make fasting a regular part of your life. You’ll notice Jesus in Matthew chapter six, he talks about giving, praying, and fasting. And he says, when you, you pray when you fast.

So fasting is just as basic as praying and giving. So we don’t ask should I give? We know we should give. We don’t ask, should I pray? We know we should pray. God calls us to pray. We often ask though, I mean, should I fast?

Or maybe that’s just totally non-existent in our spiritual lives. Like when you fast, Jesus calls us too fast. And so you could spend a ton of time talking about fasting. But FAST, so just an acrostic again that we have found helpful.

F focus on God, the whole picture in fasting, and what Jesus talks about here is in Psalm 63 kind of a way to say, oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you my soul thirst for you. My body longs for you. In a drying, we land where there is no water.

I’ve seen you in the sanctuary, beheld your power, your glory, your love is better than life. My soul will be satisfied in you as with the richest of foods. So fasting is saying, I want you, oh God, more than anything in this world, even the basic daily necessity of food.

And I certainly want you more than I want others’ approval. So Jesus talks about how we don’t make it. And certainly, there’s a place we see all over scripture for public fasting, for fasting together with brothers and sisters in Christ, but we’re never fasting for others’, approval for others to think we’re spiritual in some way.

Put that kind of motivation down, and focus on God, that’s FA abstain from food. So just to set aside food to the extent with which that’s physically possible, and there might be rare ones of us who just can’t do that for even a meal, but to the extent of which you can for a meal, for a day, for two days, for three days, whatever it might be to set aside food and instead of eating during that time, spend concentrated time in God’s word in communion with God.

So it’s saying, yes, my body, my stomach wants food, but more than I want food, I want you. So that’s the S we substitute time that we would be eating with time and with God and his word. So just not eating.

So if you skip breakfast, you’re not like, okay, that was fast, or you skip breakfast and lunch. Okay, that was fasting. It’s substituting that time. You would be eating with time with God in his word, just saying, yeah, your word is my daily bread to use words from Matthew chapter four.

It’s my sustenance, it’s my strength, it’s my joy, it’s my satisfaction. Yeah, I kind of want a sandwich right now, but more than I want a sandwich, I want you. And so focus on God abstain from food, substitute that time with prayer and the word and the process, T taste and see that God is good, that God is better than anything this world has to offer us.

So I encourage you, to make fasting a regular part of your life, whether it’s once a week or once every couple of weeks where you’re spending this amount of time, or maybe it’s in a more extended fast for a couple few days, once every couple months or whatever it might be. So we don’t have specifics in scripture about exactly how often we should fast, but it’s clear that God calls us to fast.

Study the Word to Fuel Your Intimacy with Jesus

So focus on God, abstain from food, substitute that time with prayer and the word, and in the process taste and see in Psalm 34 kind of way the Lord is good. So those are the first two acrostics, pray fast.

And the third one that we use deals with God’s word and what we use is maps. MAPS. So think this is a guide to intimacy with God through his word maps. M stands for meditate and memorize.

So don’t just read God’s word. You look throughout scripture, we actually don’t see commands to read. We see commands to meditate and to meditate means to let it soak in. So to read slowly, thoughtfully, to think through each word that you’re reading, what is it saying?

What does it mean? How does it then apply to our lives? But we’ll get to that in a second. But meditate and memorize. So if there’s not some kind of intentional process of memorization of scripture in your life, I want to encourage you to make that an intentional process, that one discipline will totally transform your Christian life.

Memorizing scripture. You might think, well, I don’t know if I really have ability to memorize. And there’s no question, that different people have different capacities to memorize. But Psalm 1 19, 1 72 says, the law of your mouth is worth more to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

So I would just ask, what if I told you I’d give you a thousand dollars for every verse you can memorize between now and tomorrow? At this time, you’d probably learn to memorize like Jesus wept John 1130 $5,000 pretty quickly.

And there are all kinds of other ones. So you’d start to memorize. So the question is, is it worth more than money to us? Is God’s word that valuable to our hearts? If so, then we will memorize it. So meditate and memorize, like let it soak in.

So whether it’s memorizing verses, paragraphs, or chapters of scripture, like memorizing and meditating on what? So have an intentional process through which you’re opening God’s word. You’re meditating, memorizing.

That’s an MA application. So as you meditate on what God’s word means to all people of all time, there are like 10 sermons in this, but meditate on what God’s word means. Then a, apply it to our lives. So the way we think about the application, we think about the head, heart, and hands.

How does this word change the way I think? How does this my head, how does this word change what I desire in my heart? And how does this word change the way I live my hands? Just ask those kinds of questions.

What does this passage mean? Meditate on that and then apply. How does this passage change the way I think? Desire and live, head, heart, hands that lead then to pee. So maps, meditate, memorize, apply, pee, pray.

So all those other things we just saw earlier and the prayer acrostic. So praise God according to his word. How does what I just read lead me to praise God? How does what I just read lead me to repent before God?

How does what I just read lead me to ask for certain things before God? This is where, oh, we really starting to get into the beauty of asking and praying for things that God has said in his word.

Ask me for whatever you wish. According to my word, it will be given to you. This is a promise from Jesus. So we ask for things that we pray the word. It’s a whole podcast that we created along those lines called Pray the Word.

But anyway, the whole point is to say, let’s let God’s word drive the way we’re asking for God and asking from God in prayer. So let God’s word lead you to PRA, praise, repent, ask.

And then why yield God’s help to follow this word? God, help me to put it into practice and this or that circumstance today. Help me to be guided by led by your word in every single thing I do by this word.

Help me to do this, which then leads to, so MAP, meditate, memorize A, apply, P, pray, and then S share. So whatever you hear from God’s word, I would encourage you one to share it with others. Like this word is not intended to stop with you.

This word is intended to spread through you. So look for opportunities. This is Deuteronomy four, Deuteronomy six. Look for opportunities along the road to encourage one another. This is disciple-making.

It’s teaching other people to obey what Christ commanded us. It’s not letting the word stop with us. It’s letting the word spread through us. Look for opportunities to encourage edify, build up, and exhort others around us.

Introduce people who don’t know Christ to the word of Christ. For those who are walking with God and who are followers of Jesus, you’re encouraging them. So look for opportunities and to intentionally think like what I’ve just heard in secret’s not intended just for me, it’s intended to be an encouragement to others.

So share. And then the last thing I would say. So again, just like super practical, the last thing I would say is in all the above, I would encourage you, and I’ll be clear, I don’t have a verse that I could go to say you need to do this, but I’ve just found this to be hugely helpful and valuable in my own life.

I would encourage you to journal in all the ways we’ve just talked about. So just a little glimpse into my time with the Lord alone in the morning. It is praying, PRAY. And I’m writing down so many of those things.

Not every single thing, but I’m writing out. I actually just use my iPad or computer and I’m just writing out, God, I praise you for this. God, I thank you for this. And what that does is it really helps me focus my mind on this time with God.

It keeps my mind from wandering in unhelpful ways. I’m writing out prayers of repentance. I’m writing out things I’m asking for. I’m writing out prayers yielding to him. Then as I’m meditating on scripture, I’m writing down what I see. I’m writing out observations.

I’m writing out how this applies to my life, and I’m asking God to help me in that application. And I’m writing out prayers based on what I’ve read in God’s word. So again, I don’t have a verse where I could point to you to say, yeah, you need to journal.

But I would just say in my own life, as I look back, the times where I’ve experienced the deepest intimacy with Jesus have directly corresponded to times when I’ve been active in journaling and writing out prayers, and reflections on scripture in my time with him. So I offer those three acrostics. So I’ll just do a quick review.

I know there’s a ton in a short amount of time, but pray, praise, repent, ask yield fast. Focus on God, abstain from food. Substitute that time with prayer in the word, and then taste and see that the Lord is good.

And then maps, meditate, and memorize. Apply scripture and then pray what you’ve read in the word and then share that with others. And maybe even just share that by starting, by writing it down in a journal.

Those are just practical ways that I want to encourage you. Now, come back to that core truth. I obviously do not know what is going on in your life right now. I am assuming that you’re involved in ministry right now, that you are doing a variety of different things right now on the outside, and I hope are good.

I trust her well. But I just want to remind you, that the most important thing in your life is your personal intimacy with Jesus. And I want to encourage you every day for the rest of your life to guard and nurture and promote that intimacy with him.

There is nothing like knowing God and walking with God. Just think about what we’re talking about right now, intimacy with God that you and I have the privilege of experiencing because of what Jesus has done on the cross, his resurrection from the grave. Let’s live in that and let’s refuse. Let’s refuse to try to manufacture a heart for ministry or a heart for missions while missing a heart for Jesus.

May your heart be enraptured in him in love with God. This is the greatest commandment. Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. So God, I pray this over brothers and sisters in campus outreach right now, even as I pray this in a fresh way over my own life, God, we pray and we pray that you help us all.

I want to pray though specifically for them just to intercede for them. I pray for each person listening right now. I pray that they will experience ever-increasing intimacy with you. God, I pray that this summer they will experience deeper intimacy with you than they have ever experienced before.

And God, I pray that knowing you desire that for them. So bring it about, I pray. Draw them into a deeper love for you and a deeper understanding of your love for them as they pray as they fast and as they meditate on your word.

I pray that they would experience your reward and this would transform every facet of their lives that you would lead, guide, and direct them for your glory, for your reno among the nations because they are walking in an Enoch way, walking with you. May it be so I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Ben Weber:

Amen. Amen. Well, that was a great reminder for us. One of the things I loved about what David Platt had to say is oftentimes when we talk about the Holy Spirit, there can be confusion. There’s a sense of mystery that surrounds the Holy Spirit.

We had a lot of questions, but this was a deep talk, but it was also intensely practical. It just said, look, if you want to lead a spirit-filled life, it needs to be a life of discipline. And there are some practical ways that you can go about making Jesus the very center of your life.

I know that I personally have benefited from the two disciplines that David mentioned. The first is just memorization. This is something I was serious about, about five or six years ago when I just made a commitment to store up God’s word in my heart. It has helped me walk a life of obedience, but also it has helped me impact other people because I’m constantly pointing to them, pointing them to God’s word that I have memorized in my own mind.

And the second thing is just fasting. I love eating. I eat three square meals every day, but when I give up a meal, it reminds me of my limits, that I am dependent, that I’m reliant on God, and it really stokes the hunger in my soul for God and his presence.

So thank you for that reminder. Well, here’s how we’re going to wrap up this evening the same way we always do. We want to give you a chance to respond. We don’t want you to just hear the word.

We actually want you to start the process of living it out. First thing, make sure that you are posting a takeaway on Instagram tag SVP 20. Also, we want you to have a great conversation about what stood out to you from this talk.

So here’s a couple of discussion questions to guide your time. First, here’s what we want you to think about. He did a great job talking about prayer. Very often when we think about prayer, we think about trying to get things from God.

But David said that prayer is primarily about knowing someone. How does that change your view of prayer? Second question. There were a couple of cross sticks that he threw out to us. One was called prayer.

The other was fast. The third was maps. Was there one particular acrostic that stood out to you? And what would it look like for you to start to apply that to your very life? And then third, think about what keeps you from this idea of walking with God daily, spending time in the word of God.

What would it look like for you to prioritize that? And if you did, what would it cost you? Then here’s the last question. Make sure you don’t skip this one because co-live is coming to an end.

There’s a couple weeks before school starts, and so this is going to be a time where you’re maybe feeling alone, a little isolated. So what is one discipline that you can look to cultivate over the next couple of weeks so that you can lead a spirit-filled life?

And this would be a great time for you to enlist the help of your discussion partners. Ask them to encourage you, hold you accountable, or check in with you. So that’s it. Have a great discussion. I know a lot of, you’re probably wondering this, Ben, what’s next?

We’ve met together each and every Monday for the past eight weeks if co-live is coming to an end. How do I grow now? Well, here’s the good news. Co-live is coming to an end, but their school semester is about to begin. All nine of the campuses that are represented this evening start classes in August.

Now, I recognize they’re not going to be the classes that you’re used to. You’re going to be wearing a mask. Most of these classes will be online just about every semester ends during Thanksgiving break.

But know this campus outreach, our staff, our organization, and our student leaders, we are 100% committed to helping you become a Christ-like leader. Whether that be virtually on Facebook, YouTube, live on Zoom, or FaceTime.

We want to help you grow. And Lord willing, we are jacked up and excited about being face-to-face, probably with a mask on at a six-foot distance where we can sit across the table from you and help you grow.

So if you haven’t already, make sure that you’re reaching out to the staff members at your campus. Let ’em know that you’re hungry, ready to walk with Jesus. Lead a spirit-filled life on campus this fall, and we’re going to do everything we can, whether it be in person or virtually, to make sure that you take the next step in your spiritual journey.

Well, guys, it’s been a privilege to meet with you for the last eight weeks. Have a great conversation, and we will see you on campus in a couple of weeks.