The Lord Delights In You

Well, last week I was on a plane ride back from Atlanta on Sunday morning, and we were on Frontier. Has anyone ever flown Frontier or Spirit? They have really cheap flights, but they have no amenities. And with Frontier, at least, you can get a personal bag, and they’re really hardcore about these measurements. If you are not within your personal bag limit — we saw a lady throwing stuff away, because they were going to charge her a hundred dollars. So she was throwing clothes away, and my friend and I were coming up with our strategy in case we ever overpack. She was like, “I’d be wearing those flip-flops on my hands.” We were just amazed.

So anyways, we were flying back from Atlanta, and there’s no entertainment. I forgot to download some stuff, and I just had one playlist on my phone. It’s a special worship playlist that I have. And the song came on called “Wouldn’t It Be Like You,” by Katie Torwalt. She’s just talking about how Jesus is better than we could ever imagine: wouldn’t it be like You to do it different than I thought, different than I could ever imagine. So for probably the last thirty minutes I just kept listening to that song over and over. And we land, and I turn on my phone, and emails start popping up, and then I see that Jay’s message is “Jesus Is Better.” And I just thought, what an amazing thing — I was just sitting and meditating on the idea of what it means that Jesus is better than I could ever imagine, and then Jay’s message is “Jesus Is Better.”

And so this is my reminder to you. I love that song. That song carried me through when my dad passed away. It was like the Lord gave me that song about a year prior, and that song just carried me through, to see the faithfulness of God, of restoration, of healing, of hope, of joy in the midst of grieving. So that song means so much to me. But it is so true that the Lord’s heart is to do things better than we could ever imagine. And the reality is, we can only imagine so much. There are some people who are so creative — their creativity is beyond me. I’m like, how do people come up with those things? I was not gifted with that kind of creativity. But we all are limited, and Christ is so much better.

And so that’s my encouragement to you today, before we even get into this message: Jesus is better than whatever circumstance, however you think these things need to play out in your life. He wants to do it better. And He loves us. I keep going back to that.

“As you delight in him, I delight in you”

And the message He gave me for today is actually a word that He prompted and gave me about a month ago. I was in my room. It was a Saturday, the windows were open, and I heard my youngest downstairs talking to the dog. He had just gotten home; he had been gone. And so he’s outside in the backyard, I could hear him, and he’s super excited, talking to our dog.

Now, our dog Hank is the cutest dachshund ever, okay? He’s a long-haired dachshund. He gives you crazy side-eye. He whines when he wants something. He’s just so adorable. And he gets so excited when any one of the kids comes home, and because he’s a dachshund, the back of his butt kind of rotates and his tail rotates.

And so I could hear my son talking to the dog, and I was in my room, and I just got up with excitement hearing his voice. It wasn’t the fact that he was talking to the dog, but I just heard him, and I got up so excited to go downstairs and talk to him. And as I was literally moving from my bedroom down, I just heard the Lord say, “As you delight in him, I delight in you. As you delight in hearing his voice — that’s what it’s like when you come to Me.”

And so I started thinking about how excited I am when any one of my kids comes home. If I’ve not seen them, the first thing I do if I hear them talking is, most times, I’ll go downstairs and find them and ask them, “Hey, how’s your day?” And just hearing their voice brings a delight into my heart. Just knowing that they’re home brings a delight into me. Just knowing that they’re around — there’s just this delight in their presence. And this doesn’t mean this idea of perfection, or that everything’s hunky-dory all the time. But I will tell you, the majority of the time, even in the hard times, hearing their voice, hearing them talk, there’s a delight that I feel towards them.

And so my encouragement — and I felt like the Lord was giving me this word for us this morning — is that He wants you to be reminded that you are His delight, and He has great affection towards you. You are His delight. He longs for you to sit with Him and to learn to be in His presence.

Learning to sit in His presence

And what I mean about being in His presence is something that Jay taught me really early on. Jay is pretty chill. I used to be way more — believe it or not — on the go, running, energetic, always having to do something, fill my space with noise and noise and noise, and talking, talking, talking. And not that that’s bad. That just was really young Suzie. She was really out there. And actually, when I met Jay, Jay was a lot more low-key, laid-back. And being married for twenty-one years, there’s a meshing that kind of happens, and we both draw from each other.

But there is this place, when we learn to be in the presence of someone in silence — it’s something different. You don’t want anything from them. You’re just good with sitting in silence. I’ve had to learn how to sit in silence with our children, and not always try to create memories or force a conversation or whatever. There’s a learning that I’ve had to continue to grow in, of just being okay with someone’s presence.

And I think what we often forget — at least in myself — is we’ll come to the Lord, we’ll come with our prayers, we’ll come with our worship, we’ll come with our requests, and we’ll come with all of the chaos that’s happening in our lives and around us. And He’s just saying, “Just learn to sit in My presence.” And that means there’s nothing — taking a deep breath and acknowledging, “Oh, You delight in me. You love me.”

Obviously He loves us way more than that, because He set a plan of redemption the moment sin entered this world. That’s how much He delights in and has affection towards us. But I believe He wants us to be people who learn how to be in His presence without needing anything from Him, and allowing His delight and affection towards us to be enough.

It’s important for us to have this revelation of His delight, because out of that delight flows our relationship with Him. If we think that He’s mad, He’s angry, He’s judging — He is a judge, He is a just God, all of those things are absolutely true. But He wants us to learn that’s not how He’s coming towards us. See, right now we’re in a time where reconciliation is possible, and He’s actually putting off His judgment of the world so that we can be reconciled to Him.

So I think we want to understand: yes, there are consequences — we’re actually going to start in Genesis — there are consequences to our decisions sometimes, or choices, or whatever it might be. But the Judge, King Jesus, has not returned. He’s waiting right now for us to be reconciled to Him, and He wants us to understand His presence now. When we don’t have the appropriate understanding and revelation of His delight and His love towards us, that’s when things begin to get skewed.

Everything given in delight

So if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Genesis chapter 2. We’re starting in the beginning. It’s kind of interesting: in chapters 1 and 2, they go through the creation, and then there’s a little bit more understanding and detail to creation. And so here we’ve read that God has created the heavens, the earth, the animals, the water. He’s done all of that. And we pick up in chapter 2, verse 8. It says, “The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” — which is Adam. “And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that was pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

So here, immediately, we see that Adam is given a few things right off the bat. It says that every tree that was grown and put in there was pleasant to the sight. So, what we see in beauty — yesterday our kids had homecoming, and we were out at Epic. Has anyone ever been to Epic? Epic is the medical equipment center out in Verona, and they have this huge, enormous campus. And Jay kept going, “This place is amazing. Oh my gosh, these plants, these trees.” And I was like, “Come on, we’ve got somewhere to go.” We were going from one place to another place, and we’re kind of on a schedule, and he’s literally just casually walking: “Wow, these trees are great. These flowers, these bushes.” And I’m like, any other day, but today I am on a schedule. And so anyways, he was enamored by all of this pleasant beauty of nature.

And so it says that every tree that God created was, number one, pleasant to the eyes. The second thing — oh, there’s a page missing. Oh no, it’s on the back side. Okay. Not only was it pleasant to the eyes; it also said that the trees were good for food. There was the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So this is the scenario that’s set up. God creates man — Adam and Eve, man and woman. He creates all of creation, and then He gives them the absolute best of the best. And not only does He give them the best of the best, but He does something that is so beautiful — and I bet some of us would say, “Why would You do that?” He gives them the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Right out of the gate, He gives them everything that they could possibly need, including the option to be in relationship with Him.

See, He gives us free will right off the bat. He says, “Everything you have need of, everything that you could possibly enjoy.” Right? So they’re naming animals. They have dominion. They’re walking in the best of the best. And God also gives them free will. And free will is important, because what we so often forget is we don’t serve a God who says, “You have to serve Me. You must serve Me. You must do these things.” He says, “No, I’m going to give you the choice to love Me. I already loved you.” He already loved Adam by giving him everything he could possibly need. But He said, “I want this relationship to be reciprocated both ways. I already delight in you. I already have given you the best. But you’re still going to have to choose Me.”

We later read in verse 18 that Eve, the woman, is also a gift — not just of companionship, but of completion. So it says it’s not good that man should be alone; I’m going to give him a helpmate. And He gives him Eve. And so Eve is not only a companion; she’s a gift of completion. Just think about that. I always think woman was the answer to man’s problem. Literally, God created Adam and then He says, “All right, we need to do something else here.” And then He’s like, “I’m going to give you Eve, and she’s going to be your helper. She’s going to complete who you are.”

They become one. And this matters, because when we look through the lens of delight, we have to see that the Father is so good to us in all the details. So He says you’re going to have woman, and you will become one. “Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined with his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” So in all of this He’s just saying, “Here you go. I’m going to set you up to live well, successfully, and in relationship with Me, and in relationship with someone else.” Isn’t that amazing? Because God is enough, right? He’s everything. And yet He still has this place of relationship that’s needed.

And like I said, He doesn’t say, “You have to obey Me.” He says, “You get to obey Me.” See, this is important for us as we’re coming back to this lens of the Lord delighting in us.

“Has God indeed said?”

Because what we see immediately, right before the fall, is the serpent bringing God’s character into question, to bring doubt about who He is into Eve’s mind. He says, “Has God indeed said …?” Oftentimes we don’t think that the Lord delights in us, or there are ways that we refrain from coming closer to His presence, because the enemy will tell us in our mind, “Are you sure He delights in you? That behavior, that action you did, or those thoughts that you think — why would He delight in you?”

See, the enemy’s strategy has not changed from the beginning. Everything that we see addressed in Genesis — if we begin to peel back the layers of our own junk that we all have, and look at those roots, those roots were from the beginning of time. He still comes after the same things over and over. In Genesis 3, verse 1, the serpent says, “Has God indeed said …?”

And then in Genesis 3:6 — I’m going to read it to you, verse 6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food …” Didn’t the Lord already do that? Didn’t He already say it’s pleasant and good for food? But now Eve is saying, “Wait, wait, wait, there’s something better here. Look at this tree right here. Oh, this is good for food.” “That it was pleasant to the eyes …” Didn’t we just read in chapter 2 that it was both pleasant to the eyes and good for food? So all the enemy is doing is twisting what God has already said, what He’s already put in motion. “… and a tree that was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave it to her husband, and he ate.”

See, we know that she loses sight of the fact that all of creation was already made with that intention. He already said this was all for you, and all of a sudden now Eve’s like, “Oh, this tree — this one too.” Adam loses sight that the Lord created everything with him in mind. And what they don’t realize is that it was a choice, that the gift that was given to them was given out of delight for who they were.

See, I often think the strategy from the beginning has been this. The Lord says: “I will give you all I have. All I have is yours. I’ve created all of this with you in mind, and I am always with you.” The enemy’s strategy from the beginning has been: “I have come to create doubt in you about the Creator. I will have you work out of shame and try to solve your own problems, and you will inevitably fall short. But I’ll make you think that it’s God who’s working against you.”

And so we see it right here. God says, “All right, here it is.” And then the serpent comes and says, “But did He really say?” And then she says, “Oh, well, I must not be wise enough. I must need more.” And so she says, “Oh, well, look, this is pleasant,” as if it’s her own idea.

Hiding among the trees

We’re going to read down to verses 7 and 8 of Genesis chapter 3. It goes on to say — I need a bigger font in my Bible — “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.”

How many times do we avoid Him? Do we avoid His presence, thinking that we can hide from Him? See, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord in the midst of the garden.

I remember, right at the beginning of COVID, I was headed to Thailand as this was happening. There was the beginning of all this turmoil. And in Thailand, oftentimes people wear masks or coverings over their face because of the level of smog and the motors. That’s just how they live their life. And I remember thinking, gosh, people just walk around hidden. Their face is hidden. Their smile is hidden. You only see this part. And I remember thinking in the airport, gosh, how many times do we live hidden? I remember that being the thought.

But it’s so true. How many times do we avoid His presence, or we avoid others, or deep relationships, because we think we can hide from people? How many times are we there trying to sew the fig leaves that are inadequate? If you see the pictures in kids’ books, right, they’re sewing these leaves to cover their nakedness, but it’s not all of their nakedness. It’s not even a full covering of who they are. They were fully naked, and they were only covering — well, at least that’s what the pictures show, right? But they’re still naked. It’s still inadequate. They’re still not fully covered. Because what we can do on our own will always be inadequate. And He’s saying, “I don’t need you to figure these things out on your own. I have a better solution and plan and hope for you. But you need to come to Me and not hide from Me.”

We avoid the deep places, because the enemy always wants to bring doubt and separation from the intended relationship that God has for us. He delights in us so much that He gave us relationship — husband and wife, male and female, right? He created them so that we could be in relationship. So, a few intended relationships that God has given to us that I came up with: our intended relationship with Jesus, right? For some reason we think we can hide. They thought — literally, it was just them and God in the Garden of Eden. He had created it, and they’re still there trying to hide from His presence. So the enemy is always trying to bring doubt and separation in our intended relationships: in our relationship with Jesus, in our relationship with our spouse. Think about how many times we’ve hidden ourselves from the person who’s intended to know us the most. The enemy will bring separation in our relationship with our family, and then oftentimes he’ll do it to bring separation in our relationships with one another.

See, all of these relationships are an expression of His love and His delight towards us, but the enemy has come and brought distortion. And depending on what your life is like and your relationships are like, you can reflect on all of the broken places of those relationships, and at the core the issue is sin. We’re in broken relationship with family not just because of things someone has done, but because of sin that’s innately in them that they’ve yet to have resolved. We have broken relationship with Jesus because we think our sin is too big, and so we try to hide and cover with our fig leaves and try to make ourselves be good and do all the right things. And Jesus is saying, “No, just come to Me. I can already see. I already know.” It says in Scripture there’s nowhere we can hide from Him.

We can see how trusting ourselves and what good looks like is self-preservation, which only causes deeper division between us, each other, and God. See, in that moment — what if their thought process would have been, “Oh no, God gave us what was already good. He gave us all this. He must have a way”? Instead of that being their answer, they decided, “Okay, no, we’ve got to fix this.” All of a sudden — I just think about His presence. His presence was there in the cool of the day, and they thought, “No, no, no, we’ve got to figure this out.”

See, the enemy’s plan is always to create doubt in our mind: that He doesn’t love us, that He’s ashamed of us, that we are not His creation, that we are not His workmanship, that we are bad people, that if you really were a Christian you would be … That’s all the voice of the enemy. And Jesus is saying, “No. I created you. I delight in you. I love you.”

And yes, there is stuff we have to work out. We see immediately after, when He comes, He addresses the sin of the woman, He addresses the sin of the man, He addresses the serpent. And then what does He do? He brings reconciliation. So it’s not like He’s just saying, “Oh, I delight in you, just keep struggling.” No, He’s saying, “I want to address a few things.” There are a few things in my heart that I need Him to show me. Why do I keep circling back to that stuff? Why does that thought keep coming into my mind? What is happening? There are things that need to be addressed. But Jesus is always about reconciliation to us. He wants us to be free.

So the more we try to hide, the more we end up staying bound. But the world would say, “No, you hide. You lie. You don’t tell the truth. You preserve. Because if they really knew — if this person knew, if your pastor knew, if your mom knew, if your dad knew, whoever — then they would reject you,” whatever the case may be. And so then what do we do? We project that and put that on Jesus: “Well, if it’s true about my dad, then it must be true about God.” The only difference is that we are human, in flesh, and we’re still being perfected until He returns. He’s already perfect, and He has a way out and a strategy for us, because He delights in us, because He loves us.

Nothing can separate us

Romans chapter 8, if you have your Bibles — Romans chapter 8, verses 31 through 39. I thought I had it marked with an envelope. Romans 8:31–39. It says, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” If God is for us, who could be against us? And then immediately they begin to address why we think God might be against us, or what might come against us. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?” We are God’s elect, just so we’re clear. “It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”

Right now, as we’re talking about this, He’s interceding. Interceding means praying for us — for every one of us, for all of creation. He’s praying that we would encounter, that we would have breakthrough. I don’t know what that intercession looks like, but He’s interceding on all of our behalf.

And then here it goes. It says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Let me stop right there. I have always read past this, but do you see what’s in there that seems a little obscure? Nakedness. It wasn’t until I was actually studying this that I realized it. It’s kind of an obscure thing, but He’s saying even then, there was nothing that could separate them from My love. Not tribulation, not famine, not distress — all of those things are happening, just so we’re clear. But then He puts in there “or nakedness.” He’s literally saying, from the beginning of time nothing has separated you from My love. Nothing could separate you from My love.

Verse 36: “As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor anything created, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing we can do can separate us.

I believe that’s important, because we’re coming into a time where, I believe more than ever, to walk in the authority, or to contend for the things you’re praying for, there has to be a revelation that He loves and delights in us. Because if not, we will continue to stay hidden and covered up and hold things in and not surrender, in fear. And then if we are not surrendered, how can He work in those things? We can’t live compartmentalized lives. We can try, but we will always feel this barrier, and we’ll project it as being God, when in actuality it’s just that I’m not wanting to live in surrender and in humility about my own life, my own mess. And He’s just saying, “Would you just know I already love you? There’s nothing that can separate it. Nothing you’re walking through will change My perspective of My love for you.”

And just like there is the excitement when I hear my children’s voices, how much more when we come into His presence? I’m convinced of it — I’m needing to still be convinced of it — that, Lord, You want nothing but me. You want nothing but to just have me aware of the magnitude of who You are over every circumstance. That I don’t have to sew these things up and fix them on my own. That somehow You do it. It says You heal the brokenhearted. I don’t know how You do it, but You do it. You say whom the Son has set free is free indeed. But I feel bound, and I know only in Your presence will I find mercy, will I find grace, will I find truth. But the enemy would have us think, “No, you’re going to find judgment. You’re going to find condemnation. You need to figure this out.”

He longs for us. As you hear this, as we’re going through this, I want you to consider what your own inner dialogue is. Maybe you’re like, “Yeah, yeah, I know,” or, “I don’t know.” But what’s the inner dialogue? What’s the story you’re believing in your head as you’re hearing this? Because that is telling — where the enemy might be speaking to you. And it sounds a lot like your voice, because it’s maybe things that you’ve done, things that you struggle with. What’s the inner dialogue that’s going on in your head?

“He delivered me because He delighted in me”

As I was reading, I found this place in 2 Samuel chapter 22, verses 17 through 20. This is David, and he’s praising God for deliverance. In the midst of this, as he’s telling out his story of what’s happening and he’s penning it out, he says this, starting in verse 17: “He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy.”

Now, David was a man of war, so the dynamics of what was happening are not like our dynamics. But yet there are things we’re all warring against in our own lives. There are things that are coming up against us that feel like a strong enemy attacking us, through our thoughts, through our actions, right? So David is saying, He’s delivered me “from my strong enemy, from those who have hated me, from those who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.”

See, His delight isn’t just in the midst of rainbows and roses. David is saying, in the midst of all of this that is happening, all of this chaos, He is one who delights in me. And because He delights in me, He lifts me up — simply because of that, simply because of who He is, not because of who I am.

God has never abandoned us, because He delights in us. He does deal with the stuff we have going on, but He never abandons us. And the enemy would have us believe, “But where was God?” How many times have you heard that? “If God was a good God, why did He let that happen? If God was good, why is this happening to me?” And we begin to question God’s goodness. And that’s the wrong question. It’s, “God, this is happening to me. I don’t understand what’s going on, but where are You? Because You are somewhere. Because with David, when he was going through everything, You pulled him up. You lifted him up.”

You see the difference in this? “God, You delight in me. You love me. I’m going through these circumstances. What do I need to know about what needs to happen? What do You want to show me? Because I believe that You love me, and You delight in me, and Your affections are towards me.”

See, the world and the enemy would have us say, just like Eve, “Ooh, that tree is pleasant and looks good,” right? And what is she doing? She’s questioning God. She’s questioning the Creator by saying, “Well, maybe, just maybe.” And too many times we’ve believed this lie. It’s been preached; we’ve heard people say, “Well, God must have wanted that to happen.” Or, “Oh, why did God let that happen?” And I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “Oh my gosh, we had such good luck. This happened, and luck was just on our side.” And it’s like, well, why is one thing luck and the other thing God? We’ve got to reconcile here. Let’s start not just being people who just say things. Let’s consider: God, if I’m walking through this, what do You want me to know? What is this revealing about what’s in my heart, with sin? What is this revealing about the places I put my trust?

Because the other thing is, every other person has to choose God as well. I was thinking about this circumstance — and I’m not saying that this is what happened — but someone was sharing a circumstance where a kindergarten class, or a little kids’ class, went on a hayride. And when they went on this hayride, the trailer that they were on flipped over, and some kids were injured, and it was not great. And I just started thinking, you could either think, “Why did God let that happen? Those kids are innocent.” Or, what if someone didn’t do their job right? What if someone was cutting corners who should have been doing something, and because of their own fleshiness, something happened?

It just was a thought that I began to entertain, instead of, “Well, why would God let that happen? He must have had a purpose for that.” I just had to back up a little bit and think: every day, everyone makes choices that sometimes have nothing to do with God, and absolutely impact the children of God.

Because the truth is, our God delights in us. From the beginning of time, when Adam and Eve had everything in front of them, He still chose to show mercy.

Psalm 147:10 says, “He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of man. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, and those who hope in His mercy.” Who hope in His mercy. He takes pleasure in those who fear Him. That’s reverence — who revere Him.

Not like, “Oh, I can’t go to God.” Sometimes we’ll hear people say, “Oh yeah, when I go to heaven, I’ll be like, ‘Hey, what’s up, God?’” And I’m like, I think we are all underestimating the presence of God, the glory of who He is, and the magnitude of all of that glory in heaven, when the veil and everything has been torn and you have full access. I don’t think that’s going to be what it is. There’s this place where we’ve tried to humanize the relationship, and what we miss is the reverence of who He still is. So the Lord takes pleasure in those who reverence Him, who fear Him, and in those who hope in His mercy, and not His judgment.

This all matters, because if we don’t believe that He delights in us, that He has mercy towards us, we’ll all be trying to avoid His judgment. And we will avoid Him so we don’t have to deal with His judgment. And all He’s saying is, “No, come into My presence.” We see later in Genesis that He puts together a garment for them.

Reaching for the hem

We’re not going to turn there because of time, but this is what I think our call is today, and it’s pretty simple. If you’re familiar with it — and if you’re not, I’d encourage you to go read it, because it’s one of my favorite places in Scripture — there’s the woman with the issue of blood. This woman had been bleeding, and culturally, in that time, she was considered unclean. She was not able to come and live everyday life like everyone else. And then she was a woman, so she had all of these cultural barriers between her and where she lived. And this woman had spent lots of money. For thirteen years this woman bled nonstop. She went to all the doctors, did all of the things. None of it worked.

And on this one day she decides, “Today is the day. Today is the day I’m going to go after healing,” and ultimately that would be her freedom. And so she’s broken, she’s bleeding, she’s cast out, and she’s hidden. And she decides in this moment — and there are throngs of people. Jesus is on His way to go heal somebody. Think about the biggest celebrity — if you guys have ever seen celebrities out, and everyone’s kind of around them, wanting to take their picture, wanting to do all these things, right? So Jesus is going, there are people all around Him, He has disciples with Him. And this woman, who is an outcast and only knows to live hidden and in shame because of the problem that literally keeps her an outcast in her community — she comes, and she decides today is the day.

Now, if you’ve ever been hurt or injured, you know it takes all of who you are. I just think of the depletion of energy. And she does the only thing she can do. She goes forward and decides, “Today is the day I go for what I want.” And so it talks about how she’s going in the crowd, and the only thing she can reach is the hem, the very bottom hem of His robe. So think about this: she’s in a crowd, and I’m picturing it — I just think of her crawling, hunched over in pain, probably even just how she’s learned to live. When I read Scripture, I try to picture it. And so she gets herself to this place, and she touches the hem of Jesus, because she says today’s the day. She has enough faith for that day. She decides to step out, come forward, get low, and reach for healing and hope and the mercy of Jesus.

And I believe the call for us today is simply that. The enemy would have us believe that we are not His delight, that we’ve sinned too much, that we can’t get it right, that He doesn’t want anything to do with us. And we might feel broken: “I’ve tried this. I’ve come up for prayer. I’ve done the things. I’ve fasted. I read my Bible. Nothing changes.” And I believe that we are to be people who come up to the hem — crawl, and do whatever we need to do to get to the hem of Jesus.

Now, we do not have a hem. I do not represent Jesus in that manner, so that’s not what I’m going to ask. What I am going to ask today — and Jay, you can come up and play — is that if you are a person who needs to come out of hiding, who needs to come out of shame, if you’re feeling broken, or you feel like you are bleeding, or there are hidden places, I believe that Jesus is asking us to simply do one simple thing, and that’s just to come forward to the altar.

And what I’m going to have you do, if this resonates at all, is just come forward and kneel before the altar. This altar is right here at the front. This represents a place where we can encounter Jesus. And I don’t know what you’re going to feel. Feelings or no feelings, I either believe and trust that I’m going to meet Jesus there, or I don’t. It’s just what it is. We’re at that place where we can’t go by how we feel, but we believe in the truth of who God is.

Because it says in Scripture that there are not enough books to record all of what Jesus did in His ministry — think about this. So if something is recorded in Scripture, it’s for us to see and understand. And so what is being demonstrated here? There are lots of things being demonstrated. Immediately after she reaches, Jesus says, “Who touched Me?” And she kind of stands up and says it’s her. And the immediate word He says to her is “Daughter.” He says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Relationship. Delight. Immediately. Not, “Did you do all these things? How could you?” No, no, no. Jesus’ immediate response was relationship, restoration.

And so I want to encourage you, if you feel like, “I just need to stop. I need a revelation of His delight in me, beyond anything I can do” — I want to first encourage you to come on up. We’re going to sing, and we’re just going to kneel. You can kneel anywhere. And it’s first between you and God. That’s the first conversation you need to have. And you just need to lay it down.

And what does it mean to lay it down? It’s literally saying, “God, I’m struggling with feeling accepted, and because I struggle with feeling accepted, I do all these things to please people. But I just want to please You. So I give my rejection to You.” Or, “I keep turning to alcohol as my answer, because I’m trying to numb the pain.” Or, “I keep opening up my computer to look at these things.” Or, “I’m walking in unforgiveness towards this person, because I feel like it’s unfair for me to forgive them.” Whatever it is — we all have our own journey, our own stuff — “I lay that down to You. I give it to You.” And then maybe you just sit, you listen, you worship.

And then, when you’re ready, we’ll have a few people who are going to come up, and if you would like, they can pray for you. I’ll be up here to pray for people. Larry, if you can come up to pray for people — if you still need to come up and do your thing, that’s fine too. But we’ll have some people who will be available to pray for you, and we’re just going to be praying and ministering to you out of the truth of who God is. You don’t have to share, but we’re going to pray and declare that God’s promises over your life would come, and that there would be a revelation of His delight in you. Does that make sense?

So we’re all going to stand, and we’re going to sing the song. If you would like, you can come to the altar as your beginning act of faith, saying, “I give this to You. I lay this down.” And then we will continue in ministry and in prayer.

So as you guys are up here, we’re going to just have the people who are going to pray just lay their hands on you and pray. If you need someone to pray with you, you can just let them know: “Will you pray for me?” But we’re going to have the prayer team come and lay their hands on you, and then you guys can continue to worship.

Jesus, we thank You that You are worthy of it all. Lord, I thank You. God, I just call out and thank You for Your faithfulness to us. Thank You, Lord, for Your mercy, for Your grace. Lord, I thank You that You are a God who does not look to punish us, who does not look to walk in judgment towards us, but a God who wants us to walk free and whole. And the only way we get to walk free and whole is if we choose not to hide ourselves from You.

Lord, I thank You, and I pray that we would all have a deeper revelation this week of how much You delight in us, how much You love us, how much You yearn to just be in our presence. Lord, we thank You that in Your presence there is wholeness and freedom and joy. Lord, that there is such a great exchange of covenant — that in my brokenness and my weakness I can come into Your presence, and in Your presence You make me strong. In Your presence You fill me up. In Your presence You give me hope and joy and salvation.

God, I thank You that there is nothing fair about Your kingdom — nothing fair about Your kingdom, other than that You are a just God who walks justly, who gives us not what we deserve but what You desire for us to have, which is complete and total healing and restoration and hope. God, we thank You for who You are. We thank You for the promises in Your Word, that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, that we don’t need to trust in our own understanding.

God, we choose this week not to walk looking at our circumstances and allowing our circumstances to dictate how we move, how we operate, our choices. But, God, we would be a people who would walk in faith, who would be like David, who would see Goliath and say, “All I have are these stones, but I come to you in the name of the Lord.” And that we would charge our life and our situations with the promises of God, with what You’ve already given us. God, we thank You that we can walk in complete wholeness and freedom. We can walk in grace and mercy. We can walk confidently in Your forgiveness. God, we thank You that You delight in us, and, Lord, that we delight in You. Lord, we thank You that in Your presence there is so much more than we could even imagine.

God, I pray that as we read our Scripture, as we walk in fellowship with one another, we would be people who would choose to walk in the free will of humility, of vulnerability, in Your grace. That we would not be people who would hide from one another, but, Lord, we would be a people who would walk openly and freely. Because in the light there is no death. When we bring things into the light, the enemy begins to lose control over the shame that controls us. When we bring things into the light, the enemy begins to lose the bondage that he tries to keep us in, in the dark.

So, God, we thank You that You are a faithful God. We thank You for what You’re doing. Lord, we thank You that You delight in us. Lord, I thank You that You sent Your Son Jesus because You love — for God so loved the whole world that He gave. From the beginning of time You gave us creation. You gave us the animals. You gave us the sun and the moon and the water and the earth. You gave us one another, God. And in all of that, You still gave us all that we need — the provision, the things that are both pleasant to the eyes and good for us. God, You gave us the tree of life, and in the tree of life there was hope, there was freedom, there was wisdom, there is understanding, God, that You’ve given us freely. Lord, I pray that we would be people who would receive freely and give to others freely.

We thank You for these things. We thank You for the things that have been laid at the altar, God. Lord, it says that You draw near to us. Lord, I pray that what You did here — that we would not be people who would pick it back up. That when those lies, those thoughts, those actions, those behaviors, whatever it might be, try to creep in, we would be people who would walk in self-control and say, “I laid that at the feet of Jesus. Jesus, You’ve given me everything I need. Help me to see where You are. Help me to know what I need to know. Help me to hear what I need to hear — in Your Word, through a word of encouragement, through a text, through a call, whatever it is.” Lord, I pray that we would just look up this week and look for You all around us. We thank You for these things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen and amen. Amen.

Be blessed. For those people who laid stuff at the altar: it doesn’t matter if you feel any different. Trust that God is faithful to His Word, and He deeply delights in you and has great affection and love towards you.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.