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Today we're going to take a posture of peace by living where God lives and I'm not talking about

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heaven. Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything.

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Together we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.

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In Psalm chapter 91 verses 1 and 2 it says,

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he who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

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I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God in him I will trust.

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I used to think that this secret place was actually a place of escape,

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but if you read all of Psalm 91 you'll see it's a place of victory and that's such good news

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because many of us deeply desire to live a victorious life. In fact with all that's going

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on in our world right now I'm more convinced of this than ever before. We do not want to

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live in defeat, we do not want to live in fear, we do not want to live lives in which we have to

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constantly escape from. No, our deep desire is actually a victorious life, to live in victory.

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And I say I'm convinced of this more than ever before because y'all I see my news feed. So many

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of us have found ourselves once again looking around this lost, broken, problem-filled world

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and saying it cannot stay this way. And it's because we have a longing in our heart to be

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with God, to experience the peace of his presence, the joy of his fullness, and the confidence of

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knowing we belong in his wholeness. So with that longing in our heart we're just not going to

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settle for things to stay like they are here on earth because we dream of living in a place of

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absolute love, a place of victory. And it's actually not a fantasy, it's not wishful thinking,

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because did you know that this was God's desire long before it was yours? His dream before creation

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was for a people he could live with in fullness and abundance, a people on whom he could lavish

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his love and who would remain with him of their own free will. When the Father and Jesus and the

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Holy Spirit imagined us, their passion was to make us like them. Genesis 126. Have you ever

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thought about, have you ever imagined what that conversation was like between the three of them?

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What they talked about in wanting to make us in their image and likeness? I can hear them,

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you know, I'm using my God-given imagination here to just hear what they might have said. Things like

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we'll love them the way that we love each other. We'll make them joyful the way that we are joyful.

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We'll give them our creativity and imagination and we'll walk with them and talk with them and

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live with them so that they can learn what we're like and they can become a part of us and become

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a part of our community. We see this plan unfold in the Garden of Eden. It was a place of meeting

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created just for Adam and Eve to live in absolute love, to be with God.

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Now the consequences for man when they partnered with the enemy in the Garden of Eden was that

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they came into relational death. Over time, fellowship with God was gradually lost. Intimacy

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was replaced by self-achievement and performance. They were removed from the Garden, the secret

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place. But throughout all of human history, God's desire to live with us, to abide with us,

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has never wavered. Before creation, God knew the choices man would make and in his loving kindness,

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he had already made provision for us. Jesus had already agreed to die in our place and the Holy

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Spirit had agreed to become the helper, the teacher, and the comforter we would need for a

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new life in God. In the Old Covenant, after man left the Garden, God's presence became an event,

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a visit, and our heroes of the faith, people like Moses and Joshua and David and others,

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responded to God's presence, but a vast majority of people did not. Israel ultimately desired

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rules to govern them. They wanted a king to rule over them. So God gave them the law

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in commandment form so that people could still

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think towards God and meditate on his precepts.

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The law became a measuring stick of good behaviors to assess people's righteousness, their standing

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with God, and self-achievement was preferred over relational transformation.

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Over time, those Ten Commandments became 613 pharisaical rules that dominated every area

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of people's lives.

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And so we see, as we read the Old Testament, that when the self-achievement and when performance

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overrides God's actual preference for relationship, we have something coming between us and God's

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desire for relational transformation through Jesus.

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That's the nature of a visitational relationship.

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And you know, it still happens today, unfortunately.

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We go to a conference, we attend a meeting, and we're inspired and motivated towards change.

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But so often, somewhere between the altar and the street, the circumstances of life

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will contest those revelations that we received in the conference and the meeting and we default

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to our previous ways of trying to earn our relationship with God through our good deeds

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and our acts of service.

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But, but, Jesus changed all of that.

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He came as Emmanuel, which literally means God with us.

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Jesus didn't come to just give us an experience of God's presence or a taste of the kingdom.

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No.

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He came to give us himself, to be with us, to be for us, and to be in us.

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Relationship was restored.

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Instead of a building to have to go to in order to come into God's presence, like the

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Old Covenant Temple, we became the building.

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We became the dwelling place of God's presence.

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Ephesians 2 really highlights this.

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Ephesians chapter 2, verses 19 and 22, listen to this.

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It says,

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Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the

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saints and members of the household of God.

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Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus himself being

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the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple

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in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place of God in the

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Spirit.

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Because of Jesus, you and I are no longer in a visitational relationship with God.

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We are in a habitational one.

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The dwelling place of God is no longer in brick and mortar.

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It's in flesh and blood.

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The secret place, it's not a place to escape from your problems.

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It's not a place to go cower while the world goes off the deep end.

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The secret place within you is a place where you engage with and respond to the empowering

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presence of God in you, and that's where you go to discover earth-shaking, life-changing

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possibilities and solutions.

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So this week, that's what we're going to be talking about.

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We're going to talk about the secret place, because the key to living in victory is learning

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to live where God lives.

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The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26.3.

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In Hebrew, it is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing

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broken.

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This is who you are in Jesus, because of Jesus.

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You are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win.

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With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's

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defeat on replay.

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You are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win.

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With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat

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on replay.

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