ADORE: Drawing Near To God's Presence - Zac Acosta

Welcome to the first episode of our new series, Adore, where we dive deep into the heart of worship and what it means to be a people who truly behold Jesus.

What You'll Discover

In this foundational session, we explore throne room worship and the transformative power of drawing near to God's presence. We journey through Revelation 4 to witness the ceaseless worship surrounding God's throne, where angels and elders are captivated by His beauty and respond with unending praise.

Key Themes

Worship as Response - Learn how authentic worship flows naturally from beholding God's character, not from forced performance or meeting personal preferences.

Proximity Over Performance - Discover how worship in the Garden of Eden was simply about nearness and friendship with God, and how that original design still shapes our worship today.

The Power of His Blood - Understand how Jesus' sacrifice removed every barrier, giving us bold access to come close to the Father without shame.

Bringing Your Authentic Self - Explore why God isn't looking for polished perfection but genuine hearts that draw near in spirit and truth.

Challenging Questions

• What does your perspective of God reveal about the depth of your worship?
• Are you making worship about your preferences or about giving Jesus the glory due His name?
• How close can you come to God—and what would change if that became your daily obsession?

This episode will provoke you to go beyond singing songs to truly adoring Jesus, to shift your focus from self-centered worship to throne-centered worship, and to step into the nearness that Jesus paid for with His blood.

Whether you're a seasoned worshiper or just beginning your journey, this session offers fresh insight into what it means to be a restless one pursuing the heart of God.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey everyone, it's good to be with you yet again for another episode here on the Restless Ones podcast. I'm excited today to start a new uh series of conversation that we're gonna talk about. We're calling this series Adore. And it's all about worship. One of the roots of our house of prayer, one of our core values at Pueblo Ensign's House of Prayer is worship. We want to be a worshiping people, a people who adore Jesus. Every single day in our prayer room, we begin and we spend more time adoring him than we do absolutely anything else. And so this is a foundational core value to us here at the House of Prayer. And so we want to take some time and do a few sessions on worship and adoration and beholding Jesus. And so today is session one. We're gonna talk about drawing near to God's presence. And we're gonna talk specifically about throne room worship. We're gonna talk about getting close to God and proximity, and then we're gonna just talk about bringing our authentic selves, who we were made to be before him. And um I hope that this will be a blessing for you. I hope this will be insightful for you, and more than anything, I hope that this will provoke you to go adore Jesus, to go behold him. And so as we dive in, I want to begin, because I think this is so important for us as people of prayer, as a worshiping people, to consider right here and right now that God, the God who created Genesis 1, is a real man sitting on a real throne in a real place. He's not just an ethereal vapor that's somewhere out there. He's not just an energy or a force, but there's a real unseen realm where Jesus lives. And in that realm where he abides, he's surrounded with worship and song and music. There's a few instances within the scriptures that give us a peek inside of God's very throne room, the place where he hangs out, so to speak. One of those places in the scriptures is found in Revelation chapter 4. And I just want to look at a couple verses from Revelation chapter 4. This is probably familiar to most of you who are who are listening or watching this. But Revelation 4 and verse 8, it's just describing what's happening around the throne room of God. It says, and the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. And day and night they do not cease to say. So, first of all, they're weird looking, and day and night they don't stop singing this song, they do, they don't stop declaring this to God. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders, whoever they are, will fall down before him who sits on the throne, and they will worship him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, because of your will they existed and were created. Now, this is a picture of what God has chosen to surround himself with. I love the way my pastor talks about this. Brad, love you, Brad, if you're listening to this. He talks about the throne room of God taking place like a symphony, where there's voices of these living creatures crying, holy, holy, holy. There's angels around the throne, and their wings that are making sound and rhythm, and the sound of these elders' crowns hitting the floor. And there's this heavenly symphony in God's throne room that is all considered worship before Him. But here's what sticks out to me about this, because I think that within God's throne room, it gives us a uh a pattern and it gives us some explanation as to what true worship is, what it means to adore Jesus. And I think that worship is always a response to God. It is always a response to who he is, it's a response to his character. You can see this all throughout the scriptures that worship is simply responding to God. When we behold who he is, worship comes out of us almost effortless, effortlessly, almost seamlessly. When we stare at him, there's only one worthy response. I think of the throne room scene in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah sees him high and lifted up. Isaiah's like, whoa, I shouldn't be here. I'm I'm a man of unclean lips. Woe is me, he says. There's a response that's provoked from the character of God when we adore him and when we behold him. Worship in the throne room, it's not something that's forced. It's not something that God demands because he's just a God who really wants everyone to tell him who he is so that he can feel good about himself. He knows who he is. Worship is just a response to his beauty, to his character. These these living creatures and angels and elders around his throne, they don't stop saying he's holy and stop declaring his beauty because they're so fascinated and they're so enthralled with who he is. I think that sometimes we get bored in the place of worship because we've made it about so many other things rather than beholding and rather than adoring. Our songs, our prayers and our affections, they come forth with whatever expression, if it's singing, if it's music, if it's clapping, if it's lifting our hands, if it's weeping, whatever the expression is, they come forth when we encounter the revelation of God and his beauty. And this is where authentic worship begins. When we just adore, when we just behold, when we see him clearly, I'm convinced that worship becomes inevitable. And if we continue to stare at him, the worship will never stop. If this is what's happening around his throne, those who are closest to him right now, in actual proximity to the Father, to the Son, who's seated at the right hand of the Father, and those that constantly look at him and behold him never stop singing. I believe that as we draw near to him and continue to behold and adore him, our songs here on earth will never stop. I think it's important to note that worship has always been entirely about him. Every bit of worship is about him. It's not about us. Psalm 115, verse 1 says it like this: Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name, give glory because your loving kindness, because of your truth, worship is directed toward him. I think it's this type of true worship that shifts our focus off of ourselves, takes our eyes off of our own problems, off of our own situations, the circumstances of life, and it causes us to look at God, to look at his beauty, to get a different perspective. I think too often we've made worship about our own preferences, about how we feel, about how we sound if you're a singer, musician, or maybe you're not and you don't sing because you don't know how to sing, and you're like, well, I'm just not gonna sing, I'm not gonna worship because I don't sound good. Or sometimes we make it about how we feel in that moment. We don't know the song, so worship isn't powerful, or or uh we don't like that song. We don't like the artist who's singing that song, and so we've made it all about us. But worship really is about Jesus receiving the glory that's due his name. He's the creator, Jesus is the one who came and died on a tree, he's the one who upholds everything in his hands by the breadth of his mouth. He is the only one deserving of worship. I've been leading worship for about 15 years now, multiple churches in various contexts for young people, for older folks, and everything in between. And one of the things that I hear often that is always a pet peeve is when people will come and compliment me and they'll say things like, Hey, the worship was really good today. And I think what they're actually communicating without them really knowing what they're communicating, and they're a lot of them are being kind. They want to they want to compliment my musicianship and they want to compliment um the skill set of the worship band or whatever. But what they're saying without realizing they're saying it most times is yep, your your songs this morning or your songs this evening, wherever it takes place, they really satisfied my personal preferences. And I don't fault anybody for this. I say it often, all the time too. Man, worship was so good. Um, but I think it's too culturally accepted to make worship about a moment and about our preferences than it actually is about giving Jesus what's rightfully due his name. I think those creatures and those elders, those angels around his throne, they probably don't ever look at each other and be like, hey, what did what'd you get out of worship today? What did I get out of worship today? They're only concerned with his beauty. They're enthralled, they look at him and they're amazed. They're they are obsessed, they don't care about getting something from him. They look at him and they're like, Whoa, you're amazing. And then they open one of their other eyes. It says they've got eyes everywhere. So they look and they're like, Whoa, you're amazing. Oh, you're amazing. And they're constantly fascinated and captivated all over again. They're not looking for their preferences to be satisfied for the right songs to be sang. They are enthralled and captivated by the beauty of Jesus. When we worship, we are simply joining in that perspective, that heavenly perspective. And it means we've got to lay down our own self-centeredness. It means we present our bodies, like Romans 12 says, as a living sacrifice. We present our minds, our spirits. We present it as a living sacrifice before the Lord to give him what's rightfully due his name. We can't forget this. God is the center of the story. He's the center of the songs that we sing, he's the center of our expressions, he's the center of our affection expressed. He is the center of all of it. And Lord forgive us for where we have made worship more about our preference or the songs that we like or the music style that we like, or uh the skill set of a singer or musician on a stage more than about a life being laid down to give you what you rightfully are due. God help us. Psalm 73, 25, and 26 say, Whom do I have in heaven but you? And with you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Would that really be our cry? That it's not about our preference. He's our portion, he's the strength of our hearts, he's the center of it all, he's our pursuit. I think there's lots of really good quotes out there that are probably similar to this, but I think that our perspective of God determines how much we actually value him. If our view of him is small, distant, if it's a wrong perspective, if it's vague, then I actually think that our worship will reflect that. The way that we per perceive God, I think it was A. W. Tozer who said, the the what you think about God is the most important thing about you. And I think that that's very true. The way that we perceive and understand God, comprehend God, determines the level of our worship. Have you ever met somebody who really got radically saved? They were in drugs, they were in a gang, and it's just like you name all of the worst possible things. God shows up while they're high one day, they get saved, they get immediately sober and clean. And we have I've like heard this story multiple times. Well, that person, whenever I see them in a worship context, when we're uh singing songs and with music and those things, that person's never usually just like, yeah, amen. And chill and resolved and reserved. That person is usually pretty wild and extravagant because they've encountered a God who delivered them from the pit. They've encountered a God who has radically transformed their lives, and they have a perspective of who he is and his power and his ability to save that causes that that provokes a response from their hearts, from their physical body. They get excited. I want to be somebody who has a perspective of God that that overflows into my actual physical frame. I'm a pretty excited person. If you haven't picked up on that by listening to this podcast, I can get a little rowdy sometimes, but I even get rowdy when it comes to like sporting events and when it comes to watching my favorite team play. And uh I'm a huge Denver Broncos fan. Go Broncos. Sorry for all of you. Other fans that are out there for other teams are not as good, not as cool. Um, but man, when the Broncos are playing and they finally score a touchdown or they win a game, I get so rowdy and so excited. It makes my entire day. I get so happy when when when my team scores and I celebrate, and sometimes I'm literally jumping up and down, sometimes I'm rolling on the floor. I mean, I'm just a crazy person. Forgive me if that's weird to you, but I I believe that that type of response should also come from us as worshipers of God because it's about a perspective, it's about how much we value Him. When we behold Him as the scriptures reveal, I think everything will change. If we've got a shallow view in what the Bible says about God, what the Bible says about Jesus, I think it will produce shallow worship. And shallow worship isn't bad for a new believer, but God wants to take us into the depths. His greatness is definitely unsearchable. And so the depths in worship we can go is always going to been be knit to the revelation of God that we behold. A true view of who he is, it leads to an authenticity in worship that provokes response. I think this is why it's important to value the words of scripture. I I think this brings understanding not only to our minds, but to our hearts, to our spirit of who he really is, and it brings it into right perspective. And the more clearly we perceive his greatness, his power, his kindness, then I think the more costly and joyful and wholehearted that our worship will become. Our worship rises to the level of our revelation of God. 2 Peter 3 18 says, But grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now to the day of eternity. Guys, the journey of Christianity and walking with God isn't about just getting saved and then just kind of going through the motions and doing life and reading the Bible every now and then. The journey of Christianity and friendship with Jesus is growing in the knowledge of God. Isaiah 29, 13 says, Then the Lord said, Because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote. Oh, oh, have we slipped too far into this exactly what Isaiah 29 is saying? That we've just relegated worship to the thing that we do on a Sunday morning before the preacher comes and shares about the Bible, or worship is the song that we sing. Guys, worship is far more than the 20 minutes of singing before the sermon. Worship is our lives laid down, it's songs that we sing day in and day out. It's it's coming before the Lord and surrendering and sacrificing, it's growing in the knowledge of Him, it's walking in fellowship. And there's so many things I want to say, but we I I can't do it all in this first session. But it's about nearness to God, it's about coming close to him. Psalm 73 says, But as for me, the nearness of God is good for me. I've made the Lord God my refuge so that I may tell of all your works. We've got to come close to God so that we can tell of his works. Okay, let's talk about drawing near. Let's talk about proximity that's better than performance. I always think of the garden that was in Eden in the beginning, right? We opened the Bible, Genesis 1. God creates man and Adam's living there, Adam and Eve are just living there. And worship in the garden looked pretty simple. It was mostly about proximity and it was about partnership with God. Before sin entered, there really was no songs or instruments, there's no human-built temples that were highlighted in scripture yet. Now, I think there's a good case for saying the garden was sort of the first temple that God had created, but it's probably for another time. The way that Adam and Eve worshiped was simply through nearness, it was simply through proximity. They would walk with God in the cool of the day. We see that in Genesis 3:8 when God's walking in the garden in the cool of the day, looking for them. Hey, where'd you guys go? And they sinned and they messed up. They were close to God. Their worship wasn't this formal thing, it wasn't uh a rigorous religious ritual. Come on, there's three Rs, but it was relational. Ah, there's their fourth R. It was about friendship, it was about closeness. They lived in constant awareness of God's presence, and he gave them responsibility to partner with him in tending the garden. So they weren't there trying to strive and to prove themselves. They weren't trying to sing on key and make sure that they had all their parts right in a song or worship was about flowing from fellowship. Worship was about friendship, it was about nearness. And I think that this shows God's original design for worship, it's what he desired. He wanted closeness. He wanted conversation, and he wanted co-laboring. That's his desire. John 15, 15 says, I don't call you slaves anymore. It's just the Zach paraphrase. I don't call you slaves anymore. I've called you friends. I have called you friends. This is the desire in the heart of God that we would be his friends. We'd partner with him. We'd do the things that he does. If you think about the entire biblical narrative, the entire story of Scripture, it literally is all about a God who just wants to be with his people. And we're going to journey through this and look at worship through the centuries and through the ages, but the entire biblical narrative just points out God wants to be with you. Sometimes we take the scriptures and we make it too personal. What did you get out of the Bible today? What little nugget did you get from that scripture? We've got to get back to reading the scriptures for the story and finding the desire of God within the unveiled story. And the story is all about from a garden in the beginning to a garden at the end. God just wants to be near to us. This has always been about nearness. This has always been about proximity. And He is relentless to pursue that nearness with us. It burns within the heart of God to be close to us. So much so that from a loving place, the Father sent his one and only Son to come and die on the cross for the sake of nearness. That's awesome. I don't even think I'm that great. But God really wants to be with me. And he really wants me to want to be with him. And I know if you've ever been in those moments where you have been lost in worship, where you've encountered the presence of God, there's no other place that you want to be in those in those moments. So it's true. Coming close to him is what we were made for. It's our desire. Okay. Redemption is God restoring the proximity that was lost in the fall. In the garden, things were pretty good. He said they were very good. And he walked with Adam and Eve, and then there was the fall, there was sin that entered the world. And ever since then, this has been a story of redemption where God is restoring what was lost. And by the end of this, the book of Revelation is clear that He will dwell among His people. That His kingdom will come to the earth and He will dwell among His people. James 4.8. I hope you know this one. It says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Where's the limit? Why can't we pray this prayer often? God, how close can I come to you? God, how near can I come to you? I want to be closer to you today than I was yesterday. And I want to be closer to you tomorrow than I was today. What if that became our obsession? What if we tapped into that reality? Because that's what's burning in his heart. That's what he wants. He wants to get close to us. He wants to be friends. We've got to make worship about that more than anything else. So how do we come close to God? How do we do that? How do we how do we put it into practice? Well, there's really nothing you can do. There's no right words you can say. There's no perfect song or set list or playing all of the right chords. My goodness, I mess up far too many times in worship zets. I play the wrong chords, play the wrong notes, and it comes out sounding like jazz. It's what they say anyway. When you mess up, you're just when you when you hit one wrong note, you're just a half step away from a right note. Um anyway, sorry. We come close to God not based on how we feel or anything that we can do, not because of our spiritual track record, because we're perfect and maybe we haven't sinned yet today. Or I we come close to God because of the blood of Jesus. It's always been about his blood. It's always been about what he's done for us. In the Old Testament, they had to sacrifice animals to bring atonement for their sin and to be in a right standing with God. But because of the blood of Jesus, you and I today, right here and right now, are in right standing with God, have been given access to come close to him. His sacrifice opened the way for intimacy, for friendship, and removed every barrier that sin created. So when we feel distant from God, it's because we are living in compromise. It's because we have allowed something to get in the way. It's not because God is running away from us and doesn't want to be with us, it's because we have compromise in our hearts. And some of us don't want to hear that, but it's the reality. When we feel distant from God, it's because there's compromise. Because of his blood, we can approach him boldly, with confidence, and without shame. Though we're imperfect and we still sin often every day. But worship is our ownership of the privilege of his blood. We're taking ownership of what he's done for us. Where we choose to step into the nearness Jesus paid for instead of the distance sin created. That is worship. It's saying yes, it's remembering his blood, not forgetting what he's given us access to, and walking into that proximity with God with a zeal and with a confidence like we belong right next to his heart. That's worship. I was in college, I took a Christology class, and it was my favorite class. Shout out to Dr. Stephen Todd, who is amazing. And um in that Christology class, we were studying just the layout of churches in the first century and beyond that. And it began in most churches where this at the front, front and center of the church was the table of the Lord, was the Lord's Supper, where they would remember the blood and the body of Christ. That's what Jesus commanded. Every time you gather, remember this. Remember my covenant with you, remember my blood, remember my body broken, worship, remember, recall. It's sad that at some point the table of the Lord was moved back or moved to the side, and the pulpit was put front and center. And um, what became the the the front view of worship or front the front view of the church was the sermon rather than remembering and recalling the blood of Jesus. But we can't forget this. We've got to put Jesus, what he's done, front and center always. In Ephesians 2, Paul says, But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off, you've been brought near by the blood of Christ. That's how we've been brought near is the blood of Christ. Or the way Peter says it in 1 Peter 2, it's one of my favorites. You're a chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is what we were called to do. Come close and proclaim. Come close and proclaim. Come close, behold, come close and adore. When we draw near to God, it's the outworking of our faith. It's the declaration of our faith. Having faith in God isn't just saying a prayer one time, getting saved, and you're good. Having faith in God is the practical outworking of that faith day in and day out through worship by remembering, recalling, owning his blood, not as an act of our own personal merit, but remembering his sacrifice. Let's talk about bringing our authentic selves before him, who we were made to be. Scripture shows us this. This is cool. That worship actually just isn't limited to humanity. Creation itself responds to God. There's a bunch of Bible verses about this. If you've got the study notes, get in there, dig into some of these scriptures I've listed. It talks about creation that declare his majesty, talks about the stars singing in Job. It talks about rivers and mountains echoing his greatness in Psalm 98. And even Jesus said this in Luke 19. He said that if people were silent, then the rocks would cry out. Let's just read this because this is awesome. This is the moment for context's sake where Jesus is riding into Jerusalem. Uh it's Passion Week. He's about to be crucified. Everybody thinks he's about to overthrow the Roman government, and they think it's his second coming, but it's really his first coming. And so he says, now as he was going, they were spreading out their cloaks on the road, and as soon as he was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen. They're remembering, they're recalling who he is, what he's done. They're shouting, Blessed is the king, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And yet, some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. You're not the king who's coming. Rebuke them. Jesus replied to them and he said, I tell you, if they stop speaking, then these stones over here, they're gonna cry out. Creation has capacity to worship God, which is crazy. I think worship is woven into the fabric of creation because it was all made. Everything was made to reflect the creator, to reflect Jesus. When we worship, we're just joining into a cosmic choir, so to speak, that's been singing since the very beginning of time, since its creation. Creation reveals that worship it's bigger than music. It's the natural response of creation to creator. Now, I was thinking about rocks crying out, and right now, at the time of this recording, the number one Christian song is by an artificial intelligence artist, by an AI singer. The person singing isn't even real. This is crazy. And that's what people are consuming. That's what people are, they they've listened to it so much. It's it's bypassed all of the real people who are making Christian music. And at first I was a little thrown off in hearing this news. I came across it on YouTube and I was like, whoa, that's weird. AI is taking over. Is AI bad? And I think we can save the AI conversation for some other time. But is it good? Is it bad? Is it the Antichrist? Uh I don't I don't know about any of that. But here's what I do know people are consuming something that was created by uh artificial intelligence. And at first, like I said, I was worried, but I thought about this verse from Luke 19. And if God's people won't cry out, if God's people are unwilling to write these songs and sing these songs, then even the rocks will cry out. Even the AI machines will cry out, even whatever, uh, the the rivers and the mountains will declare it. And I don't want to take, I mean, there's more worship music and Christian music that's being put out there daily than probably any time in history. So by no means is the church silent and not singing like they should be. But here's what I am saying that we can't stop singing, we can't stop creating, we can't stop remembering and reflecting because we are creation and we're called to do this. So though all creation responds to his glory, unlike the rest of creation, you and I, humanity, was made in the image of God. We were carefully crafted with the capacity to know him, to enjoy him, to be enjoyed by him, and we move his heart. The Song of Solomon says that with just one glance from our eyes, that his heart is stirred, it's ravished, he gets excited when we look at him. Worship isn't just a duty. Worship is part of our design, it's interwoven with our DNA. We, you and I, were made to receive his affection, to behold the affection of Creator God and return it back to him. And that moves his heart. That's what he's after. That's what he sent his one and only son for, was for our affection, was for our turned attention toward him. Worship, it fulfills something deep within us because it aligns with our created purpose. I was listening to one of my favorite musical artists who has a complicated relationship with the Lord and she doesn't make Christian music. She was talking about her history of growing up in church, and her love for music began when she was singing in church, singing hymns, and she said something when she would sing, anxiety would go. When she would sing, oh, the fear would would go away. And she thinks that it's the power of music, which music is powerful. Even artificially created music is touching the hearts of man, and they're taking that and turning that into authentic worship. But it's powerful in how music can stir our emotions and provoke our minds and our hearts. I was thinking like, no, it wasn't the music that got you, it was it was the it was the genuine worship. There's people around you that were singing those hymns and worshiping, and that was doing something on the inside of you. When you joined into that, when you said yes to that, by singing those hymns, it unlocked part of your created purpose. And then she's you know running from that in this season of her life. And I pray for her often, Lord, bring her back and let her make awesome, awesome worship music, Christian music. But I say that to say that there's something inside of all of us that feels like it unlocks, it feels like you're coming home, it feels like you're in the right place. It feels, it feels on purpose when we actually worship him because it's what we were made to do. It's like that last puzzle piece when you finally put it into the puzzle and it fits perfectly. That's that's what happens when we find ourselves in authentic worship. When we give God our love, we step into the very reason that we exist. He says it's the greatest commandment in Matthew 22. There's nothing greater we can do but love God. Jesus and John 4 saying that there's a time coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people, the Father seeks to be his worshippers. Authentic worship, it's not about a polished-up version, it's not about playing the chords right, it's not about singing on key all the time. It's just about bringing our true selves, who he's made us to be, before him and to behold him. We bring our body, our soul, our spirit into his presence. We draw near to him, we lay down our lives, we create space day to day for him. We we say no to other things so that we can say yes to him more. We grow in the knowledge of God, we bring ourselves to him. He's not looking for performance. To be successful in worship doesn't mean that you've gotta be the best musician or the best singer. You don't even have to be those things to be an authentic worshiper. He's just moved by your authenticity, by your honesty. You can express worship in so many different ways. You can cry, you can paint a picture, you can sing, you can make music, you can have silence, you can kneel down, lift your hands, jump around, do backflips, um, all of those things. And it's an expression of our worship. You could be still. And I think that he welcomes every single one of those genuine expressions that flows out of an authentic heart drawing near to God. So when we bring our full selves, we worship in spirit and truth. And authentic worship gives God access to the real us. Not this version that we're just keeping on the outside so others can see it. Not just a polished version of who we really are. We're just bringing ourselves, we're being vulnerable. I think of so many of the imprecatory psalms where uh David is just like, hey, life is really bad, and I'm gonna complain, and I don't even want to be here, God. Like he's honest. Those aren't words that God is just pumped to hear, like, come on, David, I'm so happy that you're sad right now. I'm so happy that you sinned. But it's the honesty that was being drawn out of David and why God looked at David when he was a young man and said, That's a man after my own heart. Because he's bringing his authentic self before me. He's he is stirred, and we'll get into a lot more, David. So I got to be careful how much I talk about David here. But David brought his authentic self. He taught others to do it, wrote down what his prayers and his songs were and gave it to him and said, Now sing this. Go around the Ark of the Covenant and sing this. He taught others how to bring their authentic self before God. Authentic worship gives God access to our hearts. He's so kind and so gentle. So gentle that he would allow for us to give him access to our own hearts. He meets us with power that transforms. I think of Psalm 139. It's prayer I pray often. Says, Lord, you have searched me and you've known me. You know, when I sit down, when I get up, you understand my thought from far away. Scrutinize my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways, even before there's a word on my tongue. Behold, Lord, you know it all. Guys, he's already intimately involved, he's already intricately involved in all of the details of our lives. He's just looking for turned attention. He's just looking for us to take a moment, a circumstance, a song, a scenario, a conversation that we had. He's looking for us to take those moments and to shift our focus and our attention toward him. So I'm not threatened by an AI artist who's number one on the Christian charts right now, because that AI artist can't take that and bring his authentic self to God. And move and stir the heart of God. But I can take his lyrics and his songs that were generated from a computer mind, I can take that and add meaning to it with my heart and with my spirit, turn my attention to God and make it valuable to God's very own heart. I'm not worried by AI. We're called into the privilege of nearness. We're called to his throne room. We're called to sing a song that never ends, to respond to his beauty. We're called to closeness with him and to bring who we are. Let's adore Jesus together. Amen. Amen. God bless you guys.