The Heart of Worship - Into the Deep Series- Week 7

What if the loudest part of church is drowning out the very thing that gives it life? We open this message by naming a hard truth: the heartbeat of a healthy church is the heartbeat of Christ, not the perfection of our programs. From there, we follow a path into the deep—past comfort, past image, past control—toward worship that actually changes us.

Anchored in John 12, we sit with Mary as she breaks a jar of costly perfume and anoints Jesus. That act wasn’t scheduled on the run-of-show; it was sacrificial love that filled the house and offended the religious spirit. We unpack why worship without sacrifice slips into performance, how Judas-style critique still hides behind pious language, and why Jesus’ defense of Mary shows that real devotion brings prophetic clarity others miss. Along the way we talk about busyness masquerading as faithfulness, small daily rhythms that build hunger for God, and how praise can alter the atmosphere of your home, your team, and your city.

This isn’t about chasing a vibe. It’s about becoming a people who carry presence—who find validation in serving, who set healthy boundaries for the soul, who bless God in stress, and who make room for the Spirit by saying, with Jesus, not my will but yours. If you’ve felt stuck in shallow water, consider this your invitation to go deeper: guard your time with God, choose surrender over optics, and bring him the costly thing. Listen now, share with a friend who needs the reminder, and if this encouraged you, subscribe and leave a review so others can find it too.

Ending

Transcript

Not About Us: Jesus At The Center

SPEAKER_01 0:01

A lot of times we fill churches with sermons, properties, worship, music. I think we get to finish the cycle. And we forget that this is not about you. That at the heartbeat of a healthy church is the heartbeat of Christ. In the heartbeat of Christ. He is about the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He is about going out into the places where nobody else wants to go. Calling people out of the trees. They can't see for themselves, but they need some help. And he says that he has come down from there. Today I'm going home with you, and we're gonna sit together, and I wanna spend time with you. The church people are good at making things work when we forget to do the work of the Lord on this earth. We get caught up on what the church should look like or how we should sound or what we should say and what programs we need to have for what kinds of people and do we have a spot for this person and are they gonna serve and not gonna serve and we offended anybody if we live by scripture? Oh that will take care of itself. Because it's not about us, we've got to remind ourselves daily that it's not about me, it's not about you, but it's about Jesus. The one true mission of the church should be to get people to Jesus, and then we have to plug it on through our face that people that are in the church are no longer captive by what used to find them for the living freedom. Because what the spirit of the Lord is, there it is. So when we drive, when we walk, when we speak in the Spirit of the Lord, our lives will be loose. Our lives will no longer be bound, addiction chains will fall off in the name of Jesus. Demons will shake and tremble and flee when we make it about Jesus. The will of the Father would have not been done unless Jesus would

Into The Deep: Beyond Comfort Zones

SPEAKER_01 2:30

put his will aside and said, not my will but yours. Maybe the will for God in your life hasn't happened yet because you had to put your will aside. Y'all, you ready for that sermon? Look over to Romans chapter 12. Romans, I'm sorry, I said Romans. I'm gonna get to Romans. John chapter 12, John chapter 12, verse 3. It says that Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it. How many of us know in the Pentecostal charismatic movement we like being anointed, but we forget to anoint others? We want all the blessing, but we don't want to pour out the blessing. I'll be first in line to tell you I want all God's got. But I oftentimes get so busy after I get his blessing because how many of you know blessings get you busy? If you ain't blessed, you're bored. Anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your mercy and your grace. I pray, God, for your spirit to flow through this message, Lord, today. Pray anybody here under the sound of my voice that does not know you or have not fully given their life over to you, Lord. I pray today that they get a divine revelation from your throne room. That the word of God come alive to them, convict them of their sin, and that we together celebrate with them. Because all who was lost is now found. In your name we pray, amen. If you've been blessed, say amen. Woo! About three-quarters of you. We're gonna get to the rest of you. Well, we're in into the deep series, so if you don't know what that means, we've been trying to map out what it looks like to go into the deep, what it looks like to get closer to God, what it looks like to get off the shore, get past ankle deep, get past knee deep, get past, here's where it gets most of you, waist deep. Let me tell you why. Some of y'all are gonna be like, that's weird. That's right. When we were on vacation this past summer, it was summertime, it was up in Branson. We had a little pool at our place that we stayed at. And I don't know if it was because it was cloudy a lot or it had rained a little, I'm not sure. But every time we got in that water, we tried twice and it was so cold, my feet went numb. Now, did you hear me? My feet went numb. Because about here, things that I hold dear to me and are precious to me didn't want to go deeper in the water because it was uncomfortable. Y'all ain't that's all right. You it ain't landed for you yet. You're still caught up with what I'm talking about, but you're missing my meaning. We won't go deeper in the waters with God because the things we care about and hold dear are so precious to us, we don't want to lose that. So that'll hit some of y'all home about halfway, and you'll be like, oh, wait a minute. It's all right. But today, if you didn't notice, we we pulled this old song out. We're gonna

The Heart of Worship: Surrender Over Style

SPEAKER_01 6:20

do that a little more. I know some of y'all are older than dirt, so we're gonna try to get some older songs where you know some of y'all are like, wait a minute, hold on. It was like a five-second delay where it was like all of a sudden these people start going, hey, but hold on, hold on. The heart of worship. That is our sermon title today, The Heart of Worship. We want to not just focus on the outside, but if you notice, when people begin to let God do what only God can do and what the Holy Spirit can do, something on the inside begins to move and transform things on the outside. They don't look the same. I'm not talking about the clothes you wear, although that may affect some of you. Some of you that used to walk around with your butt cheeks hanging out of your shorts when God saved you, now you wear things that cover yourself. Some of you that used to show your waist every okay. All right. You used to let it all hang out. Now it's holy to you. Now it means something to you. And if it don't, pray to the Lord that it will get there. Come on, somebody. How many of you know we got to go through a process? I ain't talking about legalism, I'm talking about being holy before a holy God. There are things that are appropriate and things that are not. If you wouldn't let your daughter wear it, you shouldn't. Hallelujah. Come on, somebody. Let's get back to the text. That was free. That wouldn't even so we'll be coming directly from John chapter 12, 1 through 8. So we're gonna kind of piece this apart. But the theme for today's message is this true worship flows from the heart that values Jesus above everything else. Did you catch that? I'll throw it again. True worship flows from a heart that values Jesus above everything else. Deep worship isn't a song, it is a life that is fully surrendered. Y'all didn't like that surrender word because that means you got to give up control. There was one person that said, Amen. Hope you brought your steel toes. We've been on a journey into deeper with God, deeper surrender, deeper in growth, deeper in mission. And last week was mission and maturity. We all need to understand that we have a divine assignment on our lives. Every person has a purpose. If you're living a life and you're not being fulfilled, it's because you are standing outside of the divine purpose for your life. Divine purpose doesn't mean that you're gonna hold a microphone and preach the word, but it does mean that every person is called in a spiritually mature manner to preach the word of God through the life they live. People shouldn't have to ask you if you're a Christian. Some of y'all get upset in the bed you've made. Let's just go on. But today we're gonna look at worship, worship, worship. What is the heartbeat of worship? You can't go deeper without worship. What is our so some of you will see a shirt, a t-shirt pop up around here? It says five, five, and five. Five minutes of prayer, five minutes of worship, five minutes of praising the Lord every day. Worship is important. Why? God inhabits the praises of his people. When you praise in spite of how you feel, when you praise in spite of how you see, things begin to shift. Attitudes that used to be there no longer exist. You can't praise when you're angry. Now you can start off that way. Come on now. I don't want to. I ain't lifting my hands, that's weird. But something happens inside of you when Jesus comes in and makes his place be known. Something inside of you makes the outside of you become weird. You do things that ain't normally of you,

Mary’s Costly Perfume: Presence Over Performance

SPEAKER_01 10:30

but it's of God. You lift your hands and surrender, you talk out loud and you sing out loud, even if you can't carry a tune in a bucket. Some of y'all thank God we ain't got a microphone next to you. But that's okay. Make a joyful noise. Y'all know that one real good. Come on, somebody. We're quoting scripture up in this place. Make a joyful noise. It didn't say you gotta be on tune or on key, and don't get mad at when I don't hand you a microphone. If you're gonna ask me an honest question, I'm gonna give you an honest answer. In love. No, I don't think that's I don't we don't need anybody else. If I've ever said that to you, that's what I was saying. You ain't doing it.

unknown 11:15

Huh?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Does that hurt you? It shouldn't. There's something inside of you that is desiring to be validated with the microphone. And if your validation comes from being on a stage, you don't know Jesus the way you think you do. You should be able to clean the toilets, mow the yard, and find your validation serving the kingdom than any other position in this church. Y'all ain't here, maybe that's all right. Some of y'all get it. Some of you are like, wait, what? I can't sing? Sorry. We can't go deeper without worship. We can't be transformed without worship. You can't fulfill your mission without worship. When was it? Some of y'all need to understand this. The process of Jericho and the walls when they fell down. Now there was first silence. Some of you need to get that one down first. Some of y'all just went like, what? Did he tell me to shut up? I said, no, but maybe you're talking too much in your power, in your authority, and maybe you need to be quiet and let God do something. Hey, I got the mouth faster than any of y'all, and I'll jack up my life faster than any of you. I'm not talking about something. I ain't trying to get myself underneath God's authority. I'm saying sometimes those of us who talk a lot need to shut up and let God speak. None of this is in my notes. I don't know where it's coming from. Some of y'all just need to hear it, I guess. You can't be transformed without worship. Worship is not what we do when the music is playing. It's how we live every moment in response to who Jesus is and what he has done in our lives. That is worship. In John chapter 12, if you've turned there already, you know this. We see a picture of a deep, undignified, undignified. Some of you won't cry in the church because you're scared your makeup's gonna run. Uh-oh. I don't want people to see me like this. Who cares? What is it that we're holding back from God to give our full attention and full worship? What is being held back from us because we won't give him everything? It's undignified when you worship in true spirit and in truth. When you you don't care what you look like, you don't care how you're acting, you just want God to take it all. You want God to be in control of it all. This extravagant worship through Mary of Bethany, this was not routine and this was not safe. Think what happened here. This was personal, it was costly, and it was also prophetic. It was also prophetic. So, point number one, we're finally here. Worship values his presence over everything else. John chapter one, I mean John chapter 12, verse 1 and through 3, it says, Six days before the Passover, the celebration began. Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus. Now you have to understand, this is a dude that was just dead. Okay, let's pay attention. Martha served,

Worship Costs Something: Sacrifice vs. Show

SPEAKER_01 14:30

the man had been raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor. So they are trying to honor Jesus for just raising up Lazarus. They're trying to do something good for Jesus. Okay, keep that locked away in your mind. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary, if you if if he was dead and now he's alive, being able to eat is proof. Come on, somebody. Then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. Mary could have kept her perfume. They didn't go there for this. Follow me here. The event that was taking place in the house was not for this that happened. It was to honor Jesus, it was to feed him. How many of you know? If you want to honor your pastor, just feed me. Come on, somebody. Just take me out and give me. I ain't picky. I'll find some on any menu. They were honoring him by feeding him. And so Martha is busy doing good. She is doing what they set out to do when they Lazarus was raised. They come back, they want to honor Jesus. But here Mary took something that was worth a year's wages. Where others sought out a routine, a routine dinner, Mary saw sacred opportunity. Worship begins when we recognize the worth of Christ in your midst. Real, raw, authentic, nasty makeup, run and snot. Here we go. Give me a box of Kleenex because I'm about to need it. All these things. Some of y'all getting grossed out. Psalms 27, 4 says, The one thing I ask of the Lord, the thing I seek most, is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord's perfection and meditating in his temple. Deeper worship doesn't need platforms, it needs awareness. We can be on a platform singing the best written songs that can all be theologically sound, but if we do it with empty motivation that is not to worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, it is all for nothing. The same if we fill this church up from wall to wall, we have all the best programs. Our kids and youth are popping, and everybody's loving our live stream and they're following the little reels. Go do that, by the way. And then all the things we got the followers, we got the people watching us. But if it is for a man or it is for a man's kingdom, it is for nothing. It starts with being aware that Jesus is in the room. John 12, 3, the Mary took a 12-ounce of dispensive perfume and it anointed Jesus' feet with it. Worship always should cost you. The main thing people don't let loose and really worship the way they feel, maybe they should, or they don't let their life be a life of worship, is because they are scared how they're going to look. Well, if I lift

Judas Objects: When Religion Gets Offended

SPEAKER_01 18:00

my I can do the carry on the TV. I could do the the window washing. Whatever your flavor is, just do it honest and true before the Lord. He doesn't want a certain way of doing it. You don't have to do it my way. Sometimes I feel like jumping, sometimes I just feel like crying. Majority of the time it's crying. Thank God I don't wear makeup. Yeah, say amen on that one for sure. It's about being honest with God. Sometimes worship looks like crying from the depths of your heart. Sometimes worship is just being from a thankful place. You know what? You know what is is sometimes irritating, I'm sure, to God. I could just imagine, you know. I I look up, I pray to God, and I'm like, Lord, you probably just think I'm the biggest idiot. Because he sees everything. Oh, none of y'all are idiots. That's cool. Well, I'll just let's just go on then. Apparently, that means nothing to anybody around here. And I'm just like, Lord, you got the biggest patience I've ever seen. You are so good, even though I am not. It's about being honest with God. Sometimes I think we only come to Him when we need something and we call that worship. It's 2 Samuel 24-24. You don't have to turn there, it's going to be quick. David said this: I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing. Some of you don't know how to really worship because it ain't cost you anything yet. Some of us are holding back because we ain't feeling the pain we need to feel yet. If you ain't thirsty, go out in the desert. You will be. Sometimes we have to go out in the wilderness a little bit to begin to thirst for the Lord. In Genesis 22, Abraham left everything to worship on the mountain. Jesus paid everything so you could come boldly into the Father's presence. Mary gave up something valuable to her to bless Jesus. There's a song that I can't remember the name of it, but the words are, I bless you. I bless you. It's talking about blessing the Lord. To bless God. How many of us get so distracted by our issues and our drama and our trauma, we forget just to sit for a second and bless the Lord and thank him for all that he has done. Romans 12, 1. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Worship without sacrifice is only performance. Worship without sacrifice is only performance. Worship with sacrifice is powerful and it's full of purpose. Point three, worship offends the religious spirit. The religious people don't like freedom. It's outside of their comfort zone. John chapter 12, 4 and 4 through 6. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple, who would soon betray him, said that perfume was worth a year's wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that he cared for the poor. Judas criticized Mary's act as wasteful. He masked his greed with religious language. We mask in the church of the modern house today, the modern church, we mask our self-righteousness as biblical theology. Here's the truth: true worship will always offend someone stuck in their religious behavior. When we go deeper in worship, when you begin to give God your full affection, your time, your money, your

Fragrance Fills The House: Lives That Witness

SPEAKER_01 22:30

life, people will question it. Because it is out of the realm of normality for them. Let the haters hate. Let them sit there and starve while you get fed. It's okay what they're going to say because I promise you, in the church house, they're going to say something. Let them run their mouth into the ground because it will. Let them insert the foot. The Holy Spirit has a pleasant way of doing this where they get what's coming to them and be okay if you don't get to see that in result. Come on. Jesus replied, verse 7 and 8 leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. Worship. Worship not only blesses the heart of God, it positioned you to be available, as Paul writes in Corinthians, for prophecy. Paul says to seek prophecy so that you may encourage the church. Prophecy is a one of the spiritual gifts, and Paul writes it's one of the main spiritual gifts that we should be people willing to speak out in faith, to encourage, to correct, to convict. When you worship in spirit and in truth, it positions you to be available. Mary was the only one who anointed Jesus for burial before he died. Do you know that? She was the only person that anointed Jesus before his burial. Before the cross. The others missed it. Worship brings insight others don't see. And there's been and we're we're Pentecostal. We like it loud, we like it proud. We like everybody to know what's going on. We want Longview to hear that God moved, right? That's fun. I like that. Get in my face, Lord. Do something, Holy Spirit. I want to see miracles, signs, and wonders. We should have this term. Some of y'all are newer to the faith you may not know. It's called slain in the spirit. Where the presence of the Lord would be so heavy on them they couldn't stand underneath it. Now you gotta ask yourself, now we we God moves here. I'm not belittling anything God does with the Holy Spirit here. But think about this. Imagine if we had a hundred percent participation on seeking God throughout the week. How would this place erupt when we came in on Sunday mornings? I don't know about you, but when I come in, you're you're greeted with people. We have people that are called greeters, most of them smile. And we y'all, we're trying to work with what we got here. Come on. Some of them are prettier than others, you know, it's whatever. So don't run too

Busy Or Hungry: Guard Your Time With God

SPEAKER_01 26:00

far. They're nice people, just come on in. We want you to feel welcome when you come in. We want you to have a friend, a person you recognize. But it shouldn't take you three songs to get warmed up. Now I'm not preaching just to you. There are times when I have come in the altars to pray for people, and I knew I was supposed to pray for someone, but I didn't have words to speak to them. If you notice at the end of every service, if you actually close your eyes, when you open them, there's people up here ready to receive people for salvation, for prayer, or whatever. They have a prayer life. I know them, I talk with them, they know how to pray. They actually do it outside of the walls. Here's the thing. Now think about this for you. Let me look up here for a second. Now think about this. If every single person that comes up here couldn't make it next Sunday, could I actually call on you because you had a prayer life? What holes are there in the church because you won't follow God in your life? Think about it. Because really, there's a faithful few that show up to every single thing we have, and every single thing we have is for all of you.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Y'all got quiet.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

This is another old school term. This is called the holy hush. But I've come down where I knew I was supposed to pray, and there was no words that I in my mind, I'm like, Lord, show me what to pray. They know. Be in prayer, be ready, ask questions, ask the Holy Spirit to lead you of what you're supposed to say, how you're supposed to pray. It's a very intimate time where it's very important to be ready for this moment because it could change someone's life forever. But if you are a mature believer, you should be the one that should be on this side of the altar helping somebody else. But the fact is, we have still in this church immature people who can't do it because they won't make time for God during the week. Now you have to ask yourself, I can't answer this. You have to ask yourself, why have you allowed the enemy to steal your time so it no longer belongs to God? When we were doing the uh the outreach a couple Saturdays ago, I was wearing my five, five, and five shirt. It says five minutes prayer, five minutes praying, five minutes of praising. And people that were out there, some of them, I'm assuming, because of where they were, didn't have jobs, and they were telling me they didn't have time to read the Bible and pray. So this told me how much more so for people that have jobs, that have families you're taken care of, that have all the things you got. How many of you got like 50 things of sports with your kids or grandkids right now? Because school has started back and you're like, dear baby Jesus, please help me. It's full, the schedule is packed, and so it's hard to find the time because if the enemy can get you busy, he's already defeated you. It's not that you've become lazy, it's that you are busy, and so priority of spending time with God gets lower and lower and lower with the amount of things you have going on in your life, and then you end up out there by yourself. You're not coming to any of the stuff of the church anymore. You show up sometimes on Sundays, or you sit home on Sundays, whatever the case may be, you don't respond to messages, you don't pick up the phone. Don't, Pastor, don't call me. I'm in the middle of my thing right now. And then when you all of a sudden go to a different church. It's this church's fault for not doing everything you wanted us to do. Woo! Come on, Jesus. The church gets healthy and becomes mature when we begin to accept responsibility for the person that looks me in the mirror every day. And

Maturity, Mission, And A Life Of Praise

SPEAKER_01 30:20

the way we overcome and stay away from sin is worship in the mix. We must worship, we must read. And Lord knows we gotta pray. Because we have a baby in the house. I don't know if you ever had a little baby. There ain't a whole lot of quiet time. This little girl is loud. I would love to blame her mother, but I cannot. I'm talking on the phone with Jesse, and I'm not even there. And I'm like, can you tell her, can you slap her or something? Like just put a little thing over her mouth, something. She's just mama, mama, mama, mama. Over and over and over and over. And I love her so much, but my goodness, girl, stop talking. Maybe none of you are real people. I just love babies. I don't care. Well, I ain't you. I love that girl to death, but there are limits to where all of a sudden the noises outside try to climb their way inside and they claw at your brain. So what does that do? That causes distraction. Something, someone that I love and cherish. If I hear that baby cry, I'm gonna plow through anybody to get to her. If I hear her cry, I assume, whether it was him or not, that my son did something. It's a fact. I don't mean to, it just comes out. And so for the the things in our life that keep us busy can be things that we actually love and cherish. Are you understanding what I'm saying? Things we love and cherish can be distractions and keep us from being the man and woman of God that we desire to be. So you're gonna have to, you got homework this week, is to be intentional and be aware of what is distracting you and robbing you of time. Because if you want the presence of the Lord in your life, you have got to be a worshiper. If you want God to break down those walls to deliver those chains, you've got to be a worshiper. You have got to be fed. And if you've got so many things going on in your life, you're working a lot, your family, and this and that, it's hard to get fed, and then you wonder why you walk around so malnourished, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're irritable, all these things that cause issues in our life, and and then when money gets tight, well, now it's her fault, now it's his fault. Now, you know, oh well, we can't do this, we can't do that. Well, now we can't go out to eat, the world's over. You'll be okay cooking at home. It ain't that big of a deal. It just feels like you got money because you go out to eat. We're gonna get on Dave Ramsey here in a second. It's okay to learn to tell yourself no. One of the hardest things for me, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I love camera gear. I have a media company, and man, I got my eyes on some cameras right now that I just want to pull the trigger and be like, yes. But here's what I know I'm about to have a teenager on my insurance. And I don't want to cry every week because I ain't got no money. You understand what I'm saying? I can't even imagine what the goosmans are feeling because they got three of them, or they're about to have three. Good night. Woo! We're gonna have to space the next one apart like this. We can't afford multiple ones on the same bill. Stress is not the enemy. Sometimes it feels like time is. What is it that you're not allowing yourself to decompress because you feel stress? And so what happens? Mommy and daddy get at each other.

Empty The Clutter: Make Room For the Spirit

SPEAKER_01 34:31

You get irritable with church people? And listen, believe me, I get it. Some of y'all got that, the other ones, you might be the problem. But here's what happens if the enemy can get us at each other, we put our problems between us and we face each other, and we're always button heads because he knows that a church that is going in the same direction is dangerous to his kingdom. How do we keep on guard? We surround our lives with worship, we surround our, we fill our hearts with worship. That way, listen, you might say, Well, I listen to this song and it's not that bad. I'm not trying to get legalistic and tell you what to listen to, what not to listen to, what to watch, what not to watch. But if you have no barometer for that, you have a problem. There needs to be a bar or a parameter that you will not cross for the safety of your soul. Because if you have children or grandchildren, they're watching you, and whether your stuff is not that bad, they will say, Well, they do it so I can listen to this. Just like how we worship God, how we pray, how we reach out to people, if we're the hands and feet of Jesus or we're the stink of the church. They will know God by how we act. Some of us in this room right now have a critical spirit and we don't even realize it. I believe at the end of the service, if if I just said that and you feel like that's you. At the end of the service, if you come down to the altar, those chains will be broken. Being critical of everything is a disease to the body. Not only yours, not only your house, but it's a disease to the church body. And I don't want to, as a pastor, to have to cut anybody off, but if I don't, it will kill the entire body. You understand what I'm saying? I value the kingdom of the Lord more than I value your opinion of me. I don't care who you talk to anybody else about me, that's fine. We're doing the Lord's work here, he'll make the truth come to light. Worship should fill the house, not only the house of your mind, but the house of your heart. It should fill the house of your home when it goes with you. If you want the presence of the Lord to go with you, the Bible tells us that he inhabits the praises of his people. So if you praise him and you're coming and you praise him and you're going and you praise him on your way to work, and you praise him in the room after you just had a fight, the presence of the Lord will be in the middle of it all. We've got to hunger after the presence of the Lord. But we can't have his presence if we aren't willing to have worship on our tongues. When the worship is real, everybody knows it. John chapter 12, verse 3, it says, the house was filled with the fragrance. When we worship, everybody can sense it. The atmosphere changes. Your worship doesn't just affect you, but it fills where you are, it fills the house. Where you go, if the presence of the Lord is with you, it should fill where you go. It touches your family, it ministers to those around you. When you pour yourself out in surrender, as Mary did in this time of being broken before Jesus, she poured out something valuable to him on him, wiped it away with her hair. She used something that God gave her for the mission at hand. Your devotion becomes a fragrance of his presence. 2 Corinthians 2 15. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. The question is, what is filling your house? We talked a few weeks ago about the stench of garbage and about how you can take out the garbage, but the residue of what was there can still linger multiple times. I have gone out to our street after trash day. The trash had run, it was empty. But when I put it back in the garage and I shut the garage door, the residue, the stench of even though the trash was taken out, how many of you know the trash will leak on things? But even more so will the worship that we allow to come out of us to be poured into us so that it can become out of us. We want to be a Christ-like frame fragrance rising up to God. What is fueling your mind? What is fueling your heart? When you consume unhealthy things, you become unhealthy. Is your life filled with complaints? Is your life filled with bitterness, with busyness, entertainment, self-righteousness, or is it worship? I want to be a man of worship. If you think me being a man of worship means I'm playing guitar and singing, you haven't listened to anything we've just talked about. It's not about the song you sing, it's about the life you live. Does your life belong to Christ? Are you living in a manner that displays your life belongs to Christ? How many of you know that we all got work to do? The Lord, oh man, he has a lot of work to do. But he will not do it until we allow him to. As we close, worship is not a genre, it's not a church service, although I love what we do here. I love it. I have a blast, but it's not a church service, it's not on point harmonies or perfect note playing from instruments, guitars, the beats perfect with drums. That is not worship. Worship is a response of the overwhelming value of Jesus Christ. It is a heart posture before the Lord. It is the words you say to those you don't like. It is the attitude to that person at your job that you just want to throw punch when they ain't looking. Yeah, I just felt that one. Worship is displaying the word from you. Worship is not a thing you do, but it becomes a person that you are. You understand what I'm saying? It's not something you exhibit on the outside, but it is an internal thing that radiates from inside out. Worship is a response to the overwhelming value of Jesus. Real worship, it will cost you something, it'll make you look foolish. Even the Bible talks about wisdom, God's wisdom to man's wisdom makes them look stupid. It breaks the bottle of pride wide open, it offends the religious. The fragrance fills the house, and our true authentic worship, it moves the heart of God. God's desire is to rest in the space that is available to Him. What does the Bible call this? The temple of the Holy Spirit. Some of us here have so much junk here that there's no room for God. There's anger, there's bitterness, there's unforgiveness, it can even be filled with depression and anxiety. Those things fill us and they control us, they manipulate us to being men and women that we never set out to do. But God desires to rest, the Holy Spirit desires to fill the temple. It is impossible to fill something that is already full. If you withstand if the prayer people can come to the front, we're gonna just taste a little bit different this morning. But I'm gonna ask you all to come down at the same time. If you're here today and you haven't fully surrendered your life completely over to Jesus, I'm gonna invite you to come down. We want to pray with you. We want you to know that you are loved. And that God sent his son for a wretch like me. And if you were coming down for me, and I know we came and died for you. Another call. If you're here today, and maybe you've made your salvation about you. Maybe you forgot. Lord, I need to remember that my worship should be about you, not how I

Invitation And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_01 45:33

perform, but who I am. God wants to inhabit the praises of his people. Maybe you've been filled up with the things I talked about a minute ago. Maybe you have unforgiveness, maybe you have past hurts, maybe you have depression or anxiety, and those things have spent years, a lifetime of filling you up. Today, I be I believe that the chains will begin to fall off in the name of Jesus. If that's you today, I'm gonna count to three, and I want everybody who this pertains to, or you need prayer for sickness in your body, come in the name of Jesus. One, two, three. Come on. If that's you today, if that's you today, if that's you today, I believe the Holy Spirit wants to empty you out, clean you up, and fill you new again in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Hey, this is Pastor Stephen, the lead pastor here at Connect Church in Longview. I truly hope today's message has encouraged you, empowered you, and challenged you to go deeper in your walk with Christ. If you would like to find out more about us, I invite you to visit connectchurch.life. There you can find ways to give what we believe, our values, as well as different ways to reach out to us so that we can reach out to you. We love you. We're praying for you, and I hope you have an amazing.