This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

We're walking through 2nd Corinthians 13 today, this is day four, we're looking
at how you and I can survive and keep on surviving for a lifetime as a servant.
Three things Paul talks to us about in these verses, reverence, trusting God's
strength like a servant, the humility to test yourself, evaluate yourself as a
servant, and then action. You do the things that a servant does today.

And Paul continues with some of those actions, some of those things that a
servant does as he closes this book. Verses 11 to 13, listen to what he has to
say, "Finally, brothers, goodbye. Aim for perfection.

Listen to my appeal. Be of one mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and
peace will be with you.

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints send their greetings. " I'd
like to start towards the end of what Paul says here in these actions, at the
end of saying these things we need to do as a servant, aim for perfection,
listen to my appeal.

At the end of all that, he says, "And the God of love and peace will be with
you. " How do you sense the presence of God in your life? How do you sense the
presence of God in a church?

Paul's talking about that here. The presence of God will be with you. We know
that his presence with us is there always.

There is no place where God is not. And once you become a believer, his spirit
is with you always. So he's always present with you.

But how do you live in that presence? How do you sense that presence in your
life? As I read these few short verses, these are the things that you do to
sense God's presence in your life.

Four things he talks about here. What do you do? You aim higher, you listen
better, you believe together, and you love stronger.

You want to sense God's presence in your life, in your family, in a church, in a
ministry? Number one, you aim higher. How high do you aim?

Paul says aim for perfection. That's pretty high. What are you aiming at?

That's a question that should be on your mind as a servant of God. What are you
aiming at? Some people think being God's servant means I just go out and I just
do whatever comes across my path that day.

I don't really aim at anything. I just sort of do things all day long. That's
not true at all.

Paul aimed at many things in his life. He was a very goal-centered man. He aimed
at going on missionary journeys.

He aimed at going to Corinth in the first place, where God directed his aim
there as he was going on his missionary journeys. What are you aiming at? Paul's
advice here is definitely challenging because he says aim at perfection.

And you think, how can I aim at perfection? I'm never going to hit it. I'm not a
perfect person.

Well, let me ask you this. What else are you going to aim at? Are you going to
aim just short of perfection?

Oh, I'm going to aim for 25% of perfection or 50% of perfection. You aim at
perfection knowing that as a human being, you may not reach it in this life. In
heaven, God's going to do some amazing things, but why not aim at it?

What you're aiming at is going to draw your faith in greater ways. So Paul says
aim at all that God could possibly do in your life. Never stop aiming for that.

There are two key decisions that have to be in my life, in your life, if we're
going to aim at perfection. Number one, don't stop aiming. And number two, don't
start aiming too low.

First, don't stop aiming. Don't start wandering through life just saying, well,
I'm just going to do whatever comes across my path today. God has something for
you to aim at right now.

What is it? What is it? As you start aiming for what God has in your life,
that's how you begin to sense his presence in your life.

That's how you begin to sense his power in your life. You sense God's presence
and power as you aim at things that you could not do in your own power, without
his presence. If you're just living a life that's depending on what you can do
in your power, you don't need to sense the presence of God, and many days you
won't.

It's in those times, and you know this, you've seen this in your life, it's in
those times when you recognize, I can't do this without you, God, that you feel
closest to him. So don't stop aiming, and don't start aiming too low. Don't
settle for anything less than aiming for the perfection of all that God wants to
do in your life.

And you might think, well it hasn't happened yet, well I'm too old, well the
circumstances in my life, the way I grew up, I'm never going to reach it. Don't
start aiming too low. Who knows what God wants to do as you aim at that?

Who knows what God wants to do, not just in your life, but maybe in somebody
else who takes it up, takes up that goal that God's put on your heart and
completes it. So don't start aiming for half or a quarter or a tenth of what God
wants in your life. Keep aiming at all that he wants to do.

You aim higher. That's one of the ways you sense God's presence. Number two, you
listen better.

Paul says, "I want you to listen to my appeal. " And we've gone through this
whole book together, we know that that appeal wasn't always easy. He was asking
them to stop trusting the wrong people, he was asking them to start living by
faith.

He was actually very, in many places, very critical of the ways that they were
acting and very encouraging for them to change. Listen to my appeal, listen
better. That means that sometimes I need to be willing to listen to criticism, I
need to be strong enough to grow through criticism, to listen to somebody else's
suggestions even.

Some of us can't even listen to that. And I think in spiritual life, in churches
and ministries sometimes, too many times we act like because it's spiritual, it
means we really shouldn't evaluate it too much. I mean, I'm doing it for God,
that should be enough.

Well, the truth is, Paul teaches us all through this book that when I'm doing it
for God, it should be evaluated. It must be evaluated, so listen to my appeal.
What do you listen to?

Do you listen to just the praise for your good works or do you listen to advice
and challenge and rebuke? Listen better. What do you listen to?

Do you listen just to the excitement of what God's doing or do you listen for
the evaluation of how I could do it better because I love him? What do you
listen for? Do you listen to just your own ideas or are you able to listen for
others' input?

Paul says you want to sense God's presence in your life, you've got to listen
better because we're not in this alone. We're in this in relationship with other
people. So listen to the suggestions, the ideas, and even the criticism of other
people.

That's one of the ways you sense God's presence. I don't like being criticized.
I don't like even other people's suggestions sometimes if it's not the
suggestion that I most like.

But the truth is, if I'll listen, I'll feel closer to God because I'll recognize
that they have something that I don't have in our fellowship as believers. Now
the third thing indicates that as well. You listen better.

And number three, you believe together. Paul says be of one mind. He's not just
talking about agreeing about what's going on in the church here.

He's talking about agreeing about our faith, our trust in God. One mind. He's
not saying I want you to live and have unity amongst yourself based on a common
opinion.

I want you to live and have unity amongst yourselves based on a common belief.
Your belief in him. Your trust in him.

The scripture talks about, Ephesians 4 is one of those places that talks about
the unity that results in ministry as it talks about we have one body and one
spirit and one Lord and one faith and one baptism and one God. Now as I read
these things about unity, as Paul talks about being of one mind and he says it
in many places in the New Testament, these phrases that he uses, they do sound
and when you look at them they do sound very theological. One body, one spirit,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.

I know some people who think if we're going to really live in unity with one
another as believers we need to just love one another. We need to forget the
theology. It just separates us from one another and nothing could be further
from the truth.

Now I do understand that there are some people who have used theology, who have
used doctrine to put a wedge between people. But don't let Satan tempt you to
believe that without theology we could ever love one another. It's only through
the theological truths of God's love for us, of our unity with one another in
one body, of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it's only through those truths that
you and I can have any kind of one mind with one another.

Love is theological. What we believe about God is the foundation for how we love
each other. So we're to believe but we're also to believe together.

If I'm going to fully believe and understand who Jesus is in my life, it's not a
solo pursuit. It's something I do together with other believers as I study God's
Word with other believers, as I get to know God better with other believers.
That's how I understand better how God's Spirit works in my life.

That's how I understand better what it means to love somebody else. That's how I
understand better what it means to be part of a fellowship of a church. We
believe together.

That's one of the ways you sense God's presence in your life. Many people don't
sense God's presence because they're trying to believe alone. We believe
together.

And there's a fourth thing that we do. You love stronger. And the phrase that
Paul uses here is "live in peace.

" He's saying peace is to mark our relationships. And the word peace here is not
talking about the absence of conflict. It's talking about the presence of
something in our lives, the presence of a relationship.

And it grows out of the security that we have. This word really has behind it
the idea of the security that we have because we know Jesus Christ. The security
that you have in the fact that Jesus loves you should govern all your
relationships and give you a sense of peace in your relationships you would not
have otherwise.

Living in peace means you're secure enough to give to somebody else in love
because you know Jesus loves you. You're secure enough to forgive someone else
because you know Jesus has forgiven you. You're secure enough to love the
immature because you know Jesus loves you when you're immature.

You're secure enough to encourage someone in every circumstance because you know
Jesus encourages you in every circumstance. That's what it means to live in
peace. Now Paul says when you do these things you sense God's presence in your
life.

He's reminding us that sensing God's presence is not some mystical thing that
just happens to some and some others based on our personalities. In many ways it
is dependent on the decisions that you're making about your life of faith. So
you want to sense God's presence today, this week?

You want to sense God's presence in your life, in your church, in your ministry?
You start aiming and you aim higher. You listen to those that love you.

You strengthen your beliefs together with other believers and you restore your
relationships. You live in peace. Let's pray for these things in our lives.

Our Father we pray that these very things would happen in our lives. Help us to
aim higher. Help us to listen better.

Help us to believe together. Help us to love stronger. Help me today to make
that decision.

Whatever decision anyone else makes, help me today to make that decision I pray.
In your name Jesus, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look at the one thing that is
most important.

Without this one thing, everything else that we've talked about in this entire
book will fail.