You know, over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about what the Lord had spoken to me about 2025. And as I began seeking God about this year, he began to talk to me about pressing in. He gave me four ways that we are called to press.
One he gave me press in. Second was press on. Third was press through, and the fourth was press out. He said, 2025 is a year to press into me. This is an invitation from the Lord to press in to know Him. And pressing in to know him is not just knowing more about Him. It is about truly knowing him personally, intimately. He is inviting us to deepen our personal relationship with Him.
This is a intentional pursuit on our part of an intimate relationship with God. What we saw as we went through the first three sessions is there are three key words that define press in the Greek, and they are diligence. Pressing is being diligent. Pursuit. Pressing in is pursuing. And perseverance. Pressing in is persevering. Pressing is a determined purpose.
I like what it says in Philippians 3:10. And this is from the amplified version. Paul said, my determined purpose is that I may know Him. This was Paul’s daily endeavor, daily purpose. It wasn’t something he was thinking about doing. It was his focused intention. He set his heart to press in to know the Lord, to pursue the Lord. What we learned was by pressing in through consistent diligent pursuit, persistent perseverance in worship, prayer, study, and meditating His Word, we will come to know him and experience his fullness.
Wow. The second thing the Lord said to me about pressing was to press in. As you press in to know Me, you must press on to obtain. And what we saw here were that the word obtained there in the Greek means to be given or furnished with something from the Lord. So as we press in to know him, we press on to obtain from him all that he has for us. One of the things we are given, Scripture tells us, is his favor. We saw that he takes pleasure and delight in us. He extends goodwill and accepts us.
We are his desire. As we press on to obtain from Him. God is bringing us to a place of walking in his fullness. We are learning to take into ourselves, into oneself all God has for us press on to obtain. God wants us to know him and possess his fullness and experience his gift of eternal life completely. Now, the third thing The Lord said to me about pressing was press through to overcome. Paul told us that by being strong in the Lord and the power of his might, we will overcome. God has given us everything we need to be victorious in this life.
Because Jesus Christ is the victor, the conqueror, the overcomer. And he has made us more than conquerors. And through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit, Spirit of truth, we are empowered to overcome. Also through our relationship with Jesus Christ and walking in righteousness, we are empowered to be victors, to overcome, to be conquerors. Above all, through our faith and belief in the word of God, we are empowered to overcome. These are all qualities that I just described. These are all qualities of the full armor of God. When we steadfastly apply the power of God’s full armor, Satan will flee from us.
He has to flee from us because he is defeated. He is defeated. So today we are looking into the fourth way of pressing. The Lord spoke to me about, and that was this press out to the world. Now I want to go back to something we studied back in November, beginning of December, and that is this. God loves us all. Everyone who is on this planet right now, all those who are coming onto this planet, all those who have been on this planet are loved by God. His heart is and always has been to be in relationship with all of us.
I taught a few weeks ago on John 3:16, For God so loved he gave. We saw there how deeply God loves mankind. Everything flows out of God’s heart of love to us and for us. And he wants us to flow it through us and in us. Love. Here in John 3:16, we saw is the Greek word agape, and it comes from the root word agape, which means the God kind of love. It’s a foundational meaning, is to love by choice, not by feeling, not by emotions. He loves us because he chooses to love us.
It’s beyond feelings and emotion. It’s an active, intentional choice. Everything I’ve shared with you about this word is based on God’s choosing, His choosing us. When it says here that God so loved the world, it’s talking about you, it’s talking about me, it’s talking about all of us. This verse could read, God so loved you, you could put your name in there. God so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son. Think about that. God so loved you that he gave his only begotten Son.
Huh. Wow. I want you to keep that in mind as we move forward today. In fact, this is something to keep in mind daily. God loves you. Get up every day and remind yourself, God loves me so much. He gave his all for me. Love.
Here in John 3:16, we all had multiple meanings. You know, in our culture we use love and we use it for everything. You know, I love chocolate, I love football, I like or love these kind of clothes or this car, whatever. But in Hebrew and Greek they had specific words and definitions. Well, the God kind of love has multiple meanings, multiple depths here that we can look at. And we did that. But I just want to review this real quickly. God loves us and that means this to be full of goodwill towards someone and exhibit that goodwill to them.
Now this is an active word. He. This is something he’s doing. God is so full of good will towards us toward you that he gave Jesus. He gave His Son for us and to us. And this is not something that was just one and done. Yes, Jesus went to the cross, died, shed his blood for us, was resurrected and redeemed us. But every day he is giving Himself for us.
Every day he is looking to exhibit his goodwill toward. You know that the second thing, expression of this word love is to have a preference for and regard the welfare of someone by God’s love. He so prefers and regards our welfare that he gave the gift of Jesus to redeem us and save us. And he did this to redeem us and save us from doom and destruction. He prefers you. He regards you highly. He wants you to fare well in all life. The third thing here is the benevolence which God in providing salvation for man is exhibited by sending His Son to us and giving him up to death so we could have the gift of life.
Eternal God’s benevolence is an expression of his love of mankind, accompanied by with the desire to promote our happiness. God desires to promote your happiness. He wants you walking in peace and happiness and contentment every day. God loves us so much. He is always benevolent toward us. He is our benefactor daily. God is always with us, ready to work on our behalf and bless us. The next thing this word means is to take pleasure in the person, to prize them above other things, to be unwilling to abandon them or do without them.
It means to steadfastly cleave, to think about this. God takes pleasure in you. God prizes you above all. He is unwilling to abandon you or do without you. He steadfastly cleaves to you. He will never leave you or forsake you. The next thing this word love means here in John 3:16 is to welcome with desire, to long for. God welcomes you into his presence.
He invites you there every day. Come into My presence. Come sit with me. Come be with me. Walk with me, talk with me. He welcomes you into his presence. He longs for you and desires you. He longs for you and desires you.
He invites you to come be a part of his family. Hallelujah. God wants you to be a part of his family and to know that. Wow. Are you beginning to see how God loves you? So here’s a summary of what I just said. God is full of good will toward you. He prefers you. He cares about you.
He is benevolent toward you, desiring to promote your happiness. He takes pleasure in you. He prizes you. He never leaves you or forsakes you. He wants to be in relationship with you. He will not do without you. He steadfastly cleaves to you. He desires you.
He longs for you. He welcomes you. God loves you. God loves everyone in the world in that same way. That’s why Jesus has given us a mission. That’s why Jesus says, press out into the world. So what does that mean? Jesus gave us a mission. That word mission means ascending forth to send out, being sent with delegated authority and certain powers to perform a purpose or plan.
So what’s our mission? It’s a fourth way to press press out to the world. Our general, our commander, the leader, sends out his troops, his team, his special force out with authority and power to accomplish the mission. As we press out to the world, we go in his power and authority, not in our own. In his power, in his name. We see this in Matthew 28:19. As Jesus is ascending into heaven, he declares to his disciples, Matthew 28:19, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So we see right there, he delegated his authority us when he said, go, do this in the name of the Father, in my name, in the name of the Holy Spirit. Therefore go.
That word go means to follow one, to become his adherent. It means united as one in purpose and pressed to go forth. We are united with Jesus and letting the world know what he has done for them and how much he loves them. Jesus was calling us. He was challenging us and charging us in this verse to go and share this message of love, hope and freedom with all the world to the ends of the earth. Our leader, our Savior, our Lord, was commanding us as believers to press out to the world and share the Gospel and extend God’s love to others. Paul gives us further insight into this calling what it means in 2nd Corinthians 5 2nd Corinthians 5, 18 and 19 says this now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. God has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
That word reconcile there means to exchange something of value for something of equal value. Now again, that goes back to seeing how God desires you and values you. When Christ came and gave his life for us, he saw you as being just as valuable as he was and he wanted to redeem you and win you back so you could come into relationship with him and His Father. Jesus values you so much he was willing to give his life so we could have eternal life in relationship with Him. The Father and the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 12:2 describes it in this way gives us more light and I’m reading this from The Amplified Hebrews 12:2 in the Amplified version says looking away from all that will distract to Jesus, who was the leader and the source of our faith, giving the first incentive for our belief and is also its finisher, bringing it to maturity and perfection. God is working in you through Jesus and the Holy Spirit to bring your faith to maturity and perfection. Now listen to what this says as it goes on.
It says, he, for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him, endured the cross despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. What was the prize? What was the prize? The prize was you. The prize was me. The prize was all of us. We are the prize. What God has always desired and wanted relationship with us. He for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him relationship with mankind, endured the cross despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And there at the right hand of the throne of God, he continues every day to express his love toward us, interceding for us and empowering us to go forth and be victorious and overcome.
Come as we follow him, we are forever reconciled to him. Now let’s go back to 2nd Corinthians 5:18 and get a little more insight into this. I’ll read this from the Amplified classic this time. 2nd Corinthians 5:18 in the Amplified Classic says this but all things are from God, who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to himself, received us into favor and brought us into harmony with Himself. Let’s just stop right there. That word reconciliation there means restored, received into favor. We are restored and received into God’s favor. It means to bring into harmony with another.
We’ve been brought into harmony with our God and our Lord, our Savior, with the Holy Spirit. God has restored us to his favor. He favors us above all. Not only that, he has freely received us into his favor. We didn’t have to earn it. We didn’t have to deserve it or purchase it. Work for is his free gift to all who will receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior, to everyone who will come to Him. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are also brought into harmony with Him.
Now, harmony here means a union, a coming together in peace, friendship and agreement. To come into harmony is to form a connected whole. Together we become one with Him. He is in us and we are in him eternally, forever everlasting. Let’s go on. 2nd Corinthians 5:18 here in the amplified second part of this verse says and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him. Now he’s defining our mission here. Paul is.
He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. The mission of reconciliation ministry is those who execute the command of God by proclaiming and promoting Jesus Christ among mankind. It is going forth and fulfilling what Jesus said in Matthew 28:19. It’s pressing out to the world. Here in this verse, Paul gives us insight into the ways this ministry, this mission can be fulfilled. It says here that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Christ. This word ministry there also means those who render to others the love of Christ by coming alongside of them, by meeting needs in their life. And this can be done through charitable donations, charities providing for people what they need, helping them, coming alongside of them.
Simply put, we demonstrate Christ’s love for mankind by loving them and serving them. Our words and deeds become the platform for the message of the good news of Jesus Christ to be shared with all the world. You don’t have to have a doctorate degree in theology. You don’t have to be a preacher, a teacher. The ministry of reconciliation is fulfilled by simply let loving God and loving others second Corinthians 5:19 we’re going on to the next verse here in the Amplified 2nd Corinthians 5:19. In the Amplified, it was God personally present in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with himself, not counting up and holding against men their trespasses, but canceling them and committing to us the message of reconciliation, of the restoration to favor. What we see here is we all have a ministry. We all have been given the honor and the privilege of sharing the message of restoration to God’s favor with everyone around us.
By our words and our deeds, we press out to the world. We get to share how much God loves them and how he wants to be in harmony with them. We get to share with them the blessing of being a part of the family of God. We see an example of this in Acts 18:5. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ. That word press there means to urge or compel by necessity to solicit with earnestness. Paul was pressed in the Spirit. He was urged by the Spirit.
He was compelled to share the message of Christ with the Jews there in Macedonia. He was earnestly pressing out to those around him. Pressing out suggests actively reaching beyond oneself to spread the message of Christ. There are numerous hundreds of ways you can do that. Jesus summarizes message in Acts 18 when he said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. There it is again. The ends of the earth. Press out to the ends of the earth.
Everywhere you go. Share God’s love. Be a witness of God’s goodness and love for all. The ministry of reconciliation pressing out to the world is the work of bringing people to God and helping reconcile them with one another. It’s a lifestyle of love and grace that involves forgiving, seeking, seeking peace, helping others find restoration and favor and harmony with God. Here’s a few things that’s involved in this mission of reconciliation. This ministry of reconciliation. It’s bringing that people to that place of forgiveness.
They ask God for forgiveness and they receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And in that process, they begin to forgive others and ask them for forgiveness. It also means peace giving or peacemaking, working to create peace between people and God, working to create peace between people and others in their life. Reconciliation is simply sharing the gospel, the good news, telling others about the peace that comes from relationships with God. It’s being an ambassador for Christ. Lovely. Lovingly pointing people to Jesus. It’s seeking relational repair, helping them repair their relationship with God, with Jesus, the Holy Spirit.
And in the process of doing that, they repair their relationship with those around them. And the last thing it can mean is apologizing when necessary. Coming to that place that they’re willing to apologize for not being a part of the family of God and for the way they walked and who they were before that came into relationship with Jesus Christ. As we press out to the world, we can help people with these six keys to find above lovingly pointing people to Christ as we do. What we’ve talked about the last four weeks defines a journey God has invited each of us to take with Him. In fact, these four phrases collectively describe a journey we are all on together. Press in to know God. This is an eternal journey of knowing God more and more and more throughout eternity.
Press on to obtain. It is a journey of persevering in faith as we receive all God has for us. As we grow in who God created us to be and walk in his fullness. Press through to overcome. A journey of overcoming challenges, resisting the enemy is standing firm and our victory in Christ. We are more than conquerors, we are victorious in Christ. We are overcomers. And then press out to the world a journey of fulfilling the mission to share Christ’s love, share God’s love to the ends of the earth.
Reconciling those around us to favor and harmony with God. What a privilege, what an honor that is, what a blessing that is. As the Lord said to me a couple months ago, 2025 is a year to press in, to press on, to press through so you can press out together. We can see God’s kingdom come come and expand here on the earth. Let’s join together and press in to know our Father God, so we can press out to the world. Hallelujah. Let me say a closing prayer for you, Father. We thank you for this time together today.
We thank you for the time we’ve had over the last four weeks and hearing your heart about us pressing in, pressing on, pressing through and pressing out to the world and God. I just pray that you would give everyone who’s listening eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand what you’re calling them to what their mission is, Father, and how you want them to demonstrate your love to the world around them them. And I thank you for doing that, Father. I thank you for showing all of us. So we give ourselves to you and we pray that your kingdom come, your will be done here in the earth through us as it is in heaven. Thank you. Thank you for saving us, redeeming us, partnering with us, inviting us into an intimate relationship with you. We give you praise and glory for it all in Jesus name.
Amen. Hallelujah. Pastor Kanye is coming with a closing word. Go out, press out into the world and be blessed this week.
