SPEAKER_02: Tim, thank you so much for not only leading us in worship, but also allowing us to be reminded that God is a good and worthy God, and he has been praised for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_02: I remember in 2004 when Chris Tomlin uh released that song, and I just I love how great is our God.
SPEAKER_02: I'll never forget that.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Jim, no, you probably remember when that one in 1914 came out.
SPEAKER_02: You were probably sitting on the porch, you know, in your early 20s.
SPEAKER_02: It was it was a good song.
SPEAKER_02: I bet you remember that.
SPEAKER_02: But I just I love thinking that for people all around the world, for thousands of years, we've been lifting up God as our Lord and Savior.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad that we got to continue our worship this week with that.
SPEAKER_02: So I want to show you something, uh maybe a confession.
SPEAKER_02: Um in December 2015, um, I gave this vacuum to my wife as a Christmas present.
SPEAKER_02: And so I think the question you're asking is Um, how am I still alive?
SPEAKER_02: How did my marriage not end in divorce or homicide?
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so I want to take just a few minutes and I want to tell that story.
SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna have to go way, way back, back to 1975 in Fort Worth when Jennifer Lee Tyner uh was born uh, what did I say, December 15th, 1975, to John and June Tyner, a a very kind, humble, hardworking, middle class family.
SPEAKER_02: That was their first daughter.
SPEAKER_02: 15 months later, they would have twin daughters.
SPEAKER_02: So, in a matter of just 15 months, they had three girls, and they decided that was the end of the baby making, and so they had that was their their whole family.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, they grew up uh learning in quiet submission.
SPEAKER_02: Um, the the kind of phrase that was used in the Tyner household for the girls was they were to be seen and not heard.
SPEAKER_02: I may have shared this with you, um, but they were they were taught um in uh to be reverent in church.
SPEAKER_02: And so in order to help solidify that, they would play church on Saturday nights, which meant that they would sit on a couch with no TV and no books, no coloring, no toys, and they would just sit on the couch in silence for 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_02: So they knew when they showed up on Sunday morning, they knew how to sit still and not ask for goldfish.
SPEAKER_02: That's what they did.
SPEAKER_02: And uh shortly after Jennifer, I guess she was about in fourth grade, her mother took a secretary job uh at a private school in the Metroplex, Fort Worth Christian, and because she was a secretary there, they were able to send all three of their girls to private school there at Fort Worth Christian.
SPEAKER_02: Nineteen days before Jennifer was born in Fort Worth, I came into the world at Arlington Memorial Hospital in Arlington, Texas.
SPEAKER_02: She was the oldest of three girls.
SPEAKER_02: I was the youngest of three boys.
SPEAKER_02: Um, our family went to church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_02: If the doors were open, we were there.
SPEAKER_02: And the fact is, if the doors were open, it's probably because my dad unlocked them when we got there and he locked them back when we left.
SPEAKER_02: That we lived our life in that church building.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that was a big part of our lives.
SPEAKER_02: However, unlike the Tiners who were very quiet, the crumbs were not.
SPEAKER_02: Never were we quiet.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we were just a moving force, a ball of loudness and noise all the time.
SPEAKER_02: When I was entering into my fourth grade year, my mom took a teaching position at a little private school in the Metroplex called Fort Worth Christian.
SPEAKER_02: And because she was a teacher, we were allowed to go on scholarship to attend that private school.
SPEAKER_02: And so Jennifer entered into Fort Worth Christian in her fourth grade year.
SPEAKER_02: I entered uh Fort Worth Christian in my fourth grade year.
SPEAKER_02: We were born 19 days apart.
SPEAKER_02: We were in the same class.
SPEAKER_02: And all throughout our schooling, we stayed at the same school, and I surprisingly passed, and so I stayed with her the entire year.
SPEAKER_02: We had about 40 kids in our class.
SPEAKER_02: By the time high school had come about, um, we were in very different groups.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Jennifer, of course, was beautiful, uh, very athletic, very smart.
SPEAKER_02: Um, she uh in her freshman year, she was already the starter on every varsity sport she played in, which was volleyball and basketball and softball.
SPEAKER_02: She wasn't just the starter, um, she was the star in most cases.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she'll get mad at me as soon as I say this, but she was Fort Worth Star Telegram player of the week multiple times in those different sports and was just phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02: Uh she was good with her grades, she was great on the court or the field, wherever it was.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, she was popular, she was well liked, and she was really quiet.
SPEAKER_02: By the time high school had shaken out, I could hardly make the team.
SPEAKER_02: Forty kids in my class, people, think about this.
SPEAKER_02: I think I might have told you my freshman year, I did make the basketball team.
SPEAKER_02: There were seven of us on the team.
SPEAKER_02: Bennett, you'll be not surprised at all.
SPEAKER_02: I started off on the bench and I remained on the bench.
SPEAKER_02: There were seven people on my team, and I sat the bench the whole game.
SPEAKER_02: Do the math.
SPEAKER_02: No, I didn't even sit near the coach.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, go to the far side of the bench and wait there.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing will happen for you at all.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's the way it was.
SPEAKER_02: Um she was uh very smart.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't really care about academics.
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't good uh as an uh athlete.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I I did not have women girls swoon over me at all.
SPEAKER_02: That was that was not me at all.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, imagine this right here, minus 90 pounds.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was just awkward and weird, and I just didn't really fit in.
SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, just to sum up our high school careers, um we were just different.
SPEAKER_02: I was just looking for anything to get attention, uh, and that oftentimes led me into some bad situations.
SPEAKER_02: By the time high school had ended, uh hers was filled with trophies uh and medals uh and newspaper clippings.
SPEAKER_02: Mine was filled with purple participation ribbons and hangovers.
SPEAKER_02: I was just lost.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't have anywhere to go.
SPEAKER_02: And so just a few weeks after we graduated, I could tell you that her name was Jennifer and she had two sisters, and a mom was a secretary.
SPEAKER_02: She knew that my name was Doug.
SPEAKER_02: I had two older brothers, and my mom was a teacher.
SPEAKER_02: That's in nine years, that's all we knew about each other.
SPEAKER_02: We graduated and we both started working at a daycare that summer in 1994, and I got to hang out with this amazing young woman who I was completely enamored with.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, she was everything that I was not.
SPEAKER_02: Um, she was kind and quiet and sweet, and I was loud and weird and crazy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and when I met her, uh I thought I think I would like to get to know her a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: And so for the next few months we became friends, and by our second semester of college, we started dating, and for the next four years, um, our relationship began to bloom and grow.
SPEAKER_02: Uh until finally uh we were married in 1998.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that uh when she said yes, it was the first time in my life that I felt pride.
SPEAKER_00: I was never proud of how I looked or who I was or what I had done.
SPEAKER_02: I I didn't have trophies, I didn't have accomplishments.
SPEAKER_02: There was never a new paper clipping with my name on it.
SPEAKER_02: I was just a nobody, and Jennifer Tiner said yes, and it began to change my life.
SPEAKER_02: And it really helped me to become the man who I hope I am and certainly the one I want to become.
SPEAKER_02: She is incredible.
SPEAKER_02: She is still quiet.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the guy who does not mind standing up in front of people.
SPEAKER_02: She wants to be so far back in the crowd that nobody can see her.
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't want attention, she doesn't want anybody to know about trophies or athletics or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02: If I bounce the basketball twice without bouncing it off my foot, I want somebody to know about this.
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm and but we're so incredibly different.
SPEAKER_02: And so I think the question you want to ask is what happened between 98 and 2015 that you thought it would be a great idea to buy this woman you love a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: And so I have to dive down just a little bit deeper into my story.
SPEAKER_02: Uh in 2012, we moved to Hobbes, New Mexico, and there uh I I became uh friends with an an old codger by the name of Michael Cheney.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he was uh uh in the Vietnam uh war.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he was just a great, amazing man, and he loved woodworking, and I loved woodworking, and so we started talking.
SPEAKER_02: He of course uh attend uh attends at the Taylor Street there.
SPEAKER_02: And after a couple of years, he says, Hey, hey Doug, I I I want you to try something.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I want I want you to do something.
SPEAKER_02: I do this for my wife, Julia, every year, and I want you to consider doing what's called one-a-days.
SPEAKER_02: And I said, What's one of days?
SPEAKER_02: And she's he said, Well, basically, starting December 1st, you give your wife a gift, and every day for the next 25 days, you give her a gift.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm like, there is no, I can't afford that.
SPEAKER_02: Like, there's no way I can do anything like this.
SPEAKER_02: There's uh, and he says, Listen, it's easy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you're gonna love this, just try it out.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so um I began making a list of things that I thought that my wife might like.
SPEAKER_02: Um, some of them, most of them were not expensive, they were not extravagant, um, sometimes they were kind of goofy, sometimes they were a little more practical, like the Hoover over here.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but they were always thoughtful.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what really made that so special.
SPEAKER_02: You can get away with giving one or two good gifts um for for your spouse for for Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: You might get lucky, you know.
SPEAKER_02: You can watch an infomercial or you can go online and say, what are the best gifts to give?
SPEAKER_02: But when you start trying to give 25, all of a sudden you're like, what in the world am I gonna give?
SPEAKER_02: Most of them were homemade gifts.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I've she got a a lazy Susan that I made for her uh one year that that we had sitting on our table, just kind of weird gifts.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so on December 8th, um, I decided to give her this gift uh for for Christmas, the one a days.
SPEAKER_02: And she will tell you, not in front of anybody, she will not do that.
SPEAKER_02: But if you were to ask her, um, what do you think about this vacuum cleaner, she will truthfully tell you that this is one of her favorite gifts that she's got.
SPEAKER_02: And the question is, is why in the world would such an amazing woman who married such a knuckle-headed guy really want one of these for Christmas?
SPEAKER_02: And I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_02: Because in order for her to get that gift, I had to know if that was something that she actually really wanted.
SPEAKER_02: My wife loves clean things, she loves clean floors, she loves clean sheets.
SPEAKER_02: When I was in college, I never washed a towel or sheets.
SPEAKER_02: You just you put them on at the beginning of the semester, you took the bed sheets off.
SPEAKER_02: My wife, I love her, she's a psychopath.
SPEAKER_02: Every Sunday morning, every Sunday morning, she strips the sheets, they go into the washer in the dryer, and every Sunday night we get in bed, and every Sunday night she says, I love the feel of clean sheets.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: And so every single week she does that.
SPEAKER_02: She loves a clean floor.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to know that when I showed this, all of you, and I'm pointing you out, you were judging me.
SPEAKER_02: You were, I felt the condemnation, I I felt the judgment from you, especially from the female gender.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, how dare you?
SPEAKER_02: I did not buy this because I think that a woman should be in the house vacuuming all the time.
SPEAKER_02: I did not buy this and say, hey, wouldn't it be great if we had a clean house every once in a while, honey?
SPEAKER_02: I did not give this to her and say, I want you to use this, and you're the only one allowed to touch it.
SPEAKER_02: Before this, we had a Kirby.
SPEAKER_02: In 1999, right after we got married, somebody came around and they were showing off a Kirby in our house, and we were amazed.
SPEAKER_02: I thought, I want one of these.
SPEAKER_02: And after four hours, they say, Oh, by the way, it's$2,000.
SPEAKER_02: I laughed in the guy's face as he was leaving with his Kirby still in his hand.
SPEAKER_02: I was still laughing.
SPEAKER_02: There is no way.
SPEAKER_02: So I got on eBay and I bought a Kirby.
SPEAKER_02: And for like 15 years, we had a thing that resembled a Sherman tank.
SPEAKER_02: It weighed a metric ton.
SPEAKER_02: It was heavy, and you had to have a degree in engineering to figure out how to use the hose.
SPEAKER_02: If you have a Kirby, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_02: Like all these belts and gadgets you have to twist and turn and get on.
SPEAKER_02: And I watched my wife, who loved to clean, suffer with this gigantic Volkswagen of a vacuum cleaner, try to change it.
SPEAKER_02: And every time she needed an attachment put on, she was like, I don't, she would call me, how do we do this again?
SPEAKER_02: And we'd have to get out a book and read it and figure out how do we get this back on again.
SPEAKER_02: And so I knew that she loved a clean house.
SPEAKER_02: And I knew I saw the suffering of a woman that I love as she would try to lug around that big all-metal vacuum and said, I love her, and I want to give her something really special.
SPEAKER_02: And I know what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_02: When we started this, you said, What a terrible person.
SPEAKER_02: How dare he, in in the 21st century, how dare a man give his wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: And I want you to know you're exactly right.
SPEAKER_02: But there's a difference.
SPEAKER_02: The difference is that was given not because of what I what I want her to do, but because who I know that she is, and I know what she is.
SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, this little vacuum cleaner has meant a whole lot more to her, and and on any given day, one of us will be chasing that thing around the house, vacuuming and cleaning up.
SPEAKER_02: And it's a gift that matters because it was given out of love, and it was given out of adoration, and it was given with the understanding that she knows me and that I know her.
SPEAKER_02: And so, what does this have anything to do?
SPEAKER_02: I just spent this the longest introduction I've ever had.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, are we even going to talk about worship?
SPEAKER_02: And I want to say that I think worship is a lot like giving a vacuum cleaner.
SPEAKER_02: Your worship is a gift to God.
SPEAKER_02: It's not always extra extravagant or expensive or formal.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to happen in a church building, and it sir certainly shouldn't only happen in a church building.
SPEAKER_02: Our worship to God should be thoughtful.
SPEAKER_02: It should be based on who we believe He is and what He has done for us.
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that we fall into at the last moment on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_02: It is our worship in which we participate in every day.
SPEAKER_02: Is Sunday special?
SPEAKER_02: It absolutely is.
SPEAKER_02: You see, I love my wife, and I love to talk about my wife.
SPEAKER_02: And you know what else I love?
SPEAKER_02: I love to be around other people who love my wife.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to gather around a bunch of people who don't like my wife.
SPEAKER_02: They have bad taste.
SPEAKER_02: They're terrible people.
SPEAKER_02: I love my wife, and I want to be around people who do.
SPEAKER_02: I love God.
SPEAKER_02: I love God, and I want to be around other people who love God too.
SPEAKER_02: I want us to come together and lift up our voices and our conversations be about a God who we love.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want it to be something that I just fall into once a week.
SPEAKER_02: In Amos chapter 5, God was furious with his people because they were worshiping.
SPEAKER_02: But they were only doing it as they went to the temple.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to his words starting in verse 21.
SPEAKER_02: These are the words of God speaking to people who were coming together to worship.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I hate, I despise your religious festivals.
SPEAKER_02: Your assemblies are a stench to me.
SPEAKER_02: Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.
SPEAKER_02: Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
SPEAKER_02: Away with the noise of your songs.
SPEAKER_02: I will not listen to the music of your harps, but let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.
SPEAKER_02: God was telling the people in Amos' time, and it should echo for us today, that we are supposed to worship God by the way that we treat other people.
SPEAKER_02: Your coworkers, your spouse, your kids, your neighbor on the right side that are really nice, the ones on the left with a yappy dog and the loud music.
SPEAKER_02: Your worship is the way you treat the people at your uh business, at the grocery store, when you go to eat after we uh stop this corporate worship together and Continue on in our worship the way that you treat your waitress, the way you treat the guy who cut you off and honked at you last week.
SPEAKER_02: Our worship is how we treat other people.
SPEAKER_02: God says that if you come before me with song, but you treat others with injustice, then you have negated your offering.
SPEAKER_02: And your song this morning is a stench to him.
SPEAKER_02: He has not called us to be Sunday morning worshipers.
SPEAKER_02: Like any good gift.
SPEAKER_02: Our worship should be thoughtful.
SPEAKER_02: Yelling at your wife every Friday and then giving her flowers on every Sunday is dysfunctional, it's unhealthy, and it is infuriating to God.
SPEAKER_02: Your wife deserves love and affection more than just on February 14th and on her anniversary and Christmas and birthday.
SPEAKER_02: Guys, if you think that loving your wife is hitting those high spots three or four times a year, then you should have no question as to why your marriage is not working.
SPEAKER_02: And if you really think you have a relationship with God, but it involves what happens right here, and you have nothing to do with him.
SPEAKER_02: If the only prayers that are lifted up is when you're sitting in one of these seats, and the only songs that you lift up to God, and the only adoration or thoughts that you have towards God is when you're at 1020 Austin Avenue, then you are missing out on what true worship really is.
SPEAKER_02: The best gifts are based on the knowledge of one another and the desire to please them.
SPEAKER_02: When I give my wife a gift for Christmas, it is not about others, it's not about me, and it is not what others think about me.
SPEAKER_02: When you come to worship the Lord God Almighty, your worship is not about others, and your worship is not about you, and it is not about what others think of you.
SPEAKER_02: And to a large degree, your worship is not even about what God is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I say this because we should worship God when he is blessing our socks off, or when we just aren't really sure where he is.
SPEAKER_02: We worship God because of who he is and because of what he has already done.
SPEAKER_02: True worship is when we put God and Christ at the center.
SPEAKER_02: This is true worship.
SPEAKER_02: Bible scholars have a couple of big words to describe this: theocentric and Christocentric, but both of them simply mean that we're putting God, we're putting Christ at the center of our worship.
SPEAKER_02: He is the most important, not about who we are or what we've done or what we think we've deserved or what he should be giving us, but instead we worship because he is worthy.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that there is one type of woman.
SPEAKER_02: I guess there's two types of women in this world.
SPEAKER_02: There is the one that I am married to and is the mother of my children, and then there's everybody else.
SPEAKER_02: That's just how it is.
SPEAKER_02: No one is going to get the adoration and the praise.
SPEAKER_02: No one is going to distract me from who she is.
SPEAKER_02: She is my everything on this earth, and she helps me in my desire to grow closer to God.
SPEAKER_02: My worship to God should be only about Him, and I must not allow anything else to distract me.
SPEAKER_02: This last week, uh Gracie was at a camp uh in Merkel, Texas, just south of Sweetwater.
SPEAKER_02: It's known as uh OPCamp or Opportunity Camp.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they bring in uh kids um who come from uh difficult situations uh from Sweetwater and Idaloo and several other places, and they bring them in.
SPEAKER_02: They have a hundred and fifty staff.
SPEAKER_02: A hundred and fifty staff.
SPEAKER_02: Most of them are composed of uh high school and college students who come and volunteer who actually pay to be a part of this, and then they are um they they're a counselor and they do a lot of one-on-one time with these kids who are struggling.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, lots of them are struggling.
SPEAKER_02: Um some of them show up there uh with a garbage sack that has clothes wadded up in there that has not been washed or clothed, they don't have uh any type of hygiene products, they have almost nothing in an opportunity camp.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they they have opportunities to go into this store uh and uh a store that's been donated supplies and they get to pick out things that they need that they don't have, uh, and they're all week long, they're just loved on.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and so this this last Thursday, Jennifer and I show up to to pick her up, uh, and we walk in.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and oh it's so great to see some friends we hadn't seen in a while, and we walk into a room uh and they'd already started worship uh and it was it was dark, uh, and and they were singing songs, and Jennifer and I slid in at the very back.
SPEAKER_02: Our backs are up against the wall, the wall was dark, and nobody's watching us.
SPEAKER_02: And for about 30 minutes of just non-stop singing, we were just at the very back, just getting to lift up God and not think about or worry about what would people think about our gift to God.
SPEAKER_02: This was just us and him, it was me and God, it was her and God, and we were just there, and it was so incredible.
SPEAKER_02: And then at at one point they uh one of the the leaders led one of my favorite songs.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's called Gratitude.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we we sang it here, I think, just last week, and I I can't help but think about that song, and it just melts my heart.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I just think about I have nothing to give God.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing that I have is worthy.
SPEAKER_02: All that I have is a hallelujah.
SPEAKER_02: And it was it was so great.
SPEAKER_02: And and then one of the young men, uh Brady uh Brody Gibson, uh shared this before we closed out.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he says, I want you to know this.
SPEAKER_02: He says, your worship is the only thing that you can give God that he doesn't already have.
SPEAKER_00: I thought how incredible is that.
SPEAKER_01: Your gift of worship is the only thing that you can give God that he doesn't already have.
SPEAKER_01: He has all the stars in the sky.
SPEAKER_02: You know, he has all the cattle on a thousand hills, he has all the the land and all the time and all the riches.
SPEAKER_00: The one thing that he does is your worship.
SPEAKER_00: And folks, no matter where you are, you don't have to be in a building, you don't have to have a lot of money, you don't have to have degrees.
SPEAKER_00: We can all worship God.
SPEAKER_00: And we can give him the one thing that he wants and the one thing that he doesn't already have.
SPEAKER_02: And so I just want to ask you before next Sunday before you come in here and you file in and you and you take your chair that is your assigned seat, before you look through the song list to find out which ones are the good songs and which ones are the bad ones, before you decide if what the preacher has to say is worth anything or if you're just gonna snooze, I want to ask you, what gift are you giving God this week?
SPEAKER_00: What God are you what gift are you gonna give tomorrow when you wake up?
SPEAKER_00: It's the one thing that he desires.
SPEAKER_01: And again, it it might be a song, it might be grabbing your journal and and writing to him.
SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you, the way that you treat your coworker and your spouse, that's great too.
SPEAKER_01: We can glorify God and honor him by the way that we treat people.
SPEAKER_01: If you're struggling in your marriage, if you're struggling with your finances, allow that to be worshipped in God and you allow him to change your heart and see your spouse in a different light.
SPEAKER_01: To not allow your finances to rule every thought and awaken you, to pour into your kids, to love your neighbor, and maybe shout out in woman how much you love Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Or how you quietly minister to someone who's weeping over something.
SPEAKER_01: Let us give gifts to God every day.
SPEAKER_02: He is worthy of that.
SPEAKER_02: And this morning I'm gonna ask you to join with me.
SPEAKER_02: We're about to sing a song of invitation, and we're gonna stand and in unison.
SPEAKER_02: I want to ask that you will stand with me as we give God this gift of worship.
SPEAKER_01: Starting now and throughout this week.
SPEAKER_01: Let us praise again.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand in so much.