Last worthy of our love and worship. Come on, y'all. Want to greet everybody? Out in Alamance. Everyone watching online. We love you. We're one church together. And wherever you're watching from, we love you. And we're with you. And God is working and moving. I love being a part of a spiritual family and seeing what God is doing in our midst. I just want to celebrate what God did this past week. We in our student ministry, we kicked off our three week super series, y'all. We had 200 high school middle school students that showed up here. It was epic off the charts. I mean, they turned the whole kids ministry into laser tag, and they had people spinning and running and getting, I mean, whatever, okay, I'm an old guy. I don't do any of it. But, uh, here's the best part. 12 students came forward, gave their lives to Christ, met with our ministry team, and lives were changed by Jesus. It was so good. And we got two more weeks. Um, this Wednesday, next Wednesday is just going to be amazing. And so anyway, we just wanted to celebrate with you. Want to briefly mention we've got Serve Day coming up on, uh, March 14th. Uh, where we go out, we've got 90 projects in Chapel Hill and Alamance, and we're going to go out and blitz our city. Uh, being the hands and feet of Jesus and you can be part of it. So fun doing it with such a huge group of people.
You could help clean up a park, serve a meal, put together a care package for first responders. Um, so many different opportunities to do something. Uh, interactives. Do something behind the scenes.
Whatever you would enjoy, be comfortable with. We would love for you to participate. Um, it not only impacts our community, it changes us. We're meant to, um, be part of the solution. And I think this is one way that we can do it. So, um, today, we're continuing our series on disciple. A disciple is a follower. Jesus gave his disciples. He had 12 disciples this invitation to follow me. But really, we get that same invitation, right? To be a follower, to be a disciple. Jesus invites us to he says, follow me. And we've been talking each week. What does that look like in the 21st century? Right? What does that look like in our day and our time? How can I be a follower? How can I go deeper with the Lord? We talked about be with me and how we are. We get to walk with God, become like me. We get changed. We talked about rest in me. We talked about hearing me and hearing God's voice, knowing God's will for our life. And today we're going to do Worship me the invitation to worship Jesus and what a life of worship looks like. And, uh, again, before we dive in, I want to take just a moment and honor a good friend of mine, a member of our church, Gus Neville, who I've golfed with for many, many years. We were texting this last week yesterday while he was golfing, he had a heart attack and one of the members of our church passed away. And he woke up this morning to the best worship service ever. Joseph's 86 years old. I married him and his wife, Nancy. They're just a wonderful couple. You can please pray for Nancy through this. Uh, they were one of the first people to when we started a Thursday night service to to serve.
And, um, Gus was just a sweet man. Incredible golfer. Uh, but a better human being. And, uh, it has really been an example and inspiration to to many of us. So, anyway, we just I just wanted to honor Gus, and I thought it was kind of cool to say, Lord, I want to honor Gus at the beginning of this message, talking about worship, because, y'all, he's having a good worship experience this morning and every day is a gift. And I think there's a way in which when we consider eternity, it helps us live our lives today for what really matters most. And so thanks for the inspiration, Gus. So from time to time Jesus would give these statements. I don't know about you, but I'm reading the law and I'm like, whoa, kind of causes you to stop in your tracks, pause for a moment. And he had one of those statements for me. That was when he was talking to this Samaritan woman. Now, talking to the Samaritan woman, there was kind of two, two strikes here. Strike number one was she was Samaritan. And the Jews, the Scripture said, had no dealings with the Samaritans. Secondly, she was a woman and man talking with a woman in the middle of the day, like at a well, was not kind of normal.
Third was her relationship status on Facebook. Um, um, she had been married five times, divorced five times, and she was currently cohabitating. So the fact that Jesus was talking with her was out of the cultural norm. More amazing is this he gives her the most clear and compelling comprehensive teaching that we have recorded in Scripture on worship. Is that amazing? Like you would think Jesus would do his most clear, compelling, comprehensive teaching on worship to the religious leaders who are leading in worship to his disciples who are going to implement worship in the early church.
But he chooses a a Samaritan woman at a well. And interestingly, we never learned her name. We never learned her name, which actually happens quite a few times in Scripture. It's pretty interesting. And I think it's kind of cool because I think in some sense God's saying, hey, these are timeless principles. Her name does not matter.
And we've all been there and the invitations for all of us and and we're all invited to worship. So she asked him this question about worship. And and Jesus said to her, woman, Believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father. And what he's saying is this. It's not about location we talked about in the temple on the mountain where you're supposed to worship.
How are you supposed to worship? What type of worship? Is it modern? Is it? You know, old school. Is it? Whatever. There's there's so many different forms and shapes of worship that it takes place.
But, you know, is it high church? Low church? You know, whatever you know. And worship is about the hearts. It's personal. It that that's what really matters. And you are invited to worship me. What a stunning picture of grace that where the culture and people may judge you. You may feel like you don't fit in. Let me tell you this. God invites you into a love relationship of worship. That's grace. And then Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. The next verse, he goes on the truth. This is what he says. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. Jesus is a straight shooter, y'all. Like here, he just. He's trying to help her. You're worshiping something you don't know. You're worshiping something that's less than God wants you to worship him. There is one true and living God in Jesus. Like I say, I'm telling you, he's a straight shooter. He's he. He says I'm the way, the truth and the life. And I want you to become a true worshiper. Not just worship, but be a true worship. Look at the next thing he says. The hour is coming and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth. For the father is seeking such people to worship him. And that's the thing that catches me. Is that it says the father. We're going to talk about worship in spirit and in truth here in just a minute. But, but but look at this. It says the father is seeking true worshipers. Such people. The father is not seeking the rich, the famous, the influential, the smart. God isn't looking for talent or performance. God is seeking worshipers. There's actually an Old Testament version that says the eyes of the Lord look to and fro throughout the earth to find those hearts who are fully his, the hearts of those who are fully his worshipers. Now the verse says, next verse says God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. He says God is spirit and worship. Check this out. Is spiritual that When you worship, you need to worship in spirit and in truth. Now, before we dive into what worship is and how we can grow in it, I want to take a few minutes to talk about this. What is worship? Not what is worship? Not kind of. Maybe to knock off a few misconceptions. First of all, worship is not a musical gift. Thank you Lord. Okay, some people have a musical gift, a gift, a sing or to play an instrument. Others of us do not. But let me say this. We're all called to worship. I love the verse. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. Right. Doesn't have to be on key. You can, you know, like, just. Just make a noise. Praise God I can make a noise, Lord.
And I've got zero musical talent. But some of you in this room have musical talent. You can sing you like you were given a gift by God to sing, to play an instrument. Let me just toss it out there.
What if part of the reason why God gave you that musical gift. Was to lead others into worship because we're all called to worship. What if you could use that gift for Jesus? And I love the term not just like worship leaders, but lead worshipers, because we're called to be an example. And maybe God gave you that gift, that talent for him to help others. And I want to just be I'm going to shoot straight here, a little side, little side thing here for just a minute. We are praying for more people who have musical talent, who are called by God to be lead worshipers, to arise and to step into using their gift and calling for Jesus. And I want to say this, we want you, we need you. And and you might not be. But if I'm trying to, like, encourage you a little bit, maybe don't sit on that talent. Maybe step out and tell somebody, we want to help develop you, grow you. And I think part of your fulfillment of your purpose could be to step into using that gift and talent from God for God. So just toss that out there. Now, if you're like me, you're a worshiper. You won't hear me on stage singing Praise God. Okay, number two, worship is not a personality. It's not a personality type. It's not like introverts quietly worshiping or extroverts on the stage. Worship is not a personality. Worship is not just music. We do not have time to go into all this. But let me just tell you this another message. Work is not just music. Your work is worship. Like whatever you do, do it all for the Lord. You wake up on Monday and I want to encourage you to to know that your work is worship, that as you go to work and as you serve or lead or code something, I don't know what you all do. Whatever. Like code for Jesus. Do it unto the Lord. Your life is worship. Present your bodies a living sacrifice that your spiritual act of worship and all that you can do as you do it unto the Lord, it is worship to him. You are a worshiper. You don't have to be in a building, Jesus said. You don't even have to sing. Your your your life is worship. And that's important. Um, let me give you one last thing that worship is not. Worship is not unmanly. Some guys struggle with worship, I think, because it seems more expressive or emotional. But let me just speak to the men for just a moment. You don't have to turn in your man card to be a worshiper. Best example of this is David. I mean, David was a man's man, a leader of leaders. He was a warrior. He killed Goliath.
Part of why he was a man's man is this. And a leader of leaders is that he he had the band of disgruntled disenfranchized in that. I mean, dudes that were like, you know, on the fringe, they all loved him and followed him and turned into David's mighty men. He he he led them, but formed them and shaped them and changed them. I mean, how did he get the strength, the grace, the influence to do that? I believe it was because he was a worshiper and he loved God. Real men worship real men, pray, real men bow down. And you don't have to turn in your band card to be a worshiper. So what is worship? How can we grow in worship? I think we need to start off by embracing this first truth. Everyone worships. Everyone worships, everyone here. Everyone elements. All our worshipers. Everyone online. Let me tell you 100%.
We all worship. It's not a matter of if you're going to worship this week. The question is what or who are you going to worship? That's the question. You are a worshiper. Fact. Period. Now, the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments were given the first two commandments you showed the first one. You'll have no other gods before me. And don't make for yourself an idol. Now you put those together. Let me just say this. Whatever we love with all of our heart, all of our soul, with all of our mind and all of our strength is what we worship. And when we worship something else before God that becomes a small g God or an idol.
So what are you passionate about? What do you think about? What do you give your time and energy to? What do you spend your money on? See, our our gods or our idols can be anything that takes that first place in our hearts where God wants to be like our idol or our God to be our success, our career. I'm a fill in the blank. We we end up having an identity. I'm an engineer. I'm a barista. I'm a doctor. I'm a whatever is this? We don't say I do this. We say I am its identity. And not that that's wrong, but we can't end up making it an idol or a god in our lives. Our comfort or approval from people can become an idol. That it really motivates us. Our image being in control, our money pursuing it. You can't love God and money ourselves and having a self-centered life. Our families, even Jesus, talked about loving father and mother more than me. Like your family can be a God or an idol, even though it's such a gift from God. Worship is what you love most. Worship is what you pursue. Most worship is what you trust in, rely on most. John Calvin said this the human heart is a perpetual idol factory. Is that interesting? It's kind of. What did he mean by the human heart is a perpetual idol factory? Is that the human heart tends to love. Pursue. Put first trust in anything by God.
And the reason why it's an idol factory is sometimes we swap one idol for another. Like I used to be into the idol of working career. It burnt me out. Left me empty. But now I exchange it for the idol of my health and fitness. I exchanged the idol of money for the idol of family. I exchanged the idol of control for the idol of approval. We can just swap out idols or small Ji gods. And the worship question is this. When you are completely free to do whatever you want, spend your time, spend your money, pursue. What do you do? What are you most passionate about? What gives you the greatest joy? Another way to ask it is this what fires you up, gets you angry, get you hot under the collar. It's a really interesting like. Like, what did you last get angry about? Upset about big people are concerned about big problems. Big issues?
Small. Okay. We won't go there. Okay. These are deep, hard questions that actually Jesus often went right here. I know I'm stepping in there, tiptoeing in there a little bit, but Jesus would go after the heart. He would go after the heart. God's not impressed with outward appearances. How you dress, what you look like, your performance, your image. God cares about your hearts, your heart, God cares about your heart worship. Here's my second thought for you is this how to develop in our lives? I want to try to give you a vision. Worship is personal and corporate. Worship is personal and corporate. It's private, and public worship is expressed alone in our secret place with God when no one's looking and we worship together in community. Part of a spiritual family. In church, we're supposed to be together. Both are powerful. Both are necessary.
It's not either or. It's both. And in fact, I'll say it this way. You can't have an experience. All that God has for you, or experience all that God wants you to, or become the person that God wants you, that you have your potential in God if you don't have both. Like, think about it for a minute. If, if if if you just worship alone personally, but never come into community and worship together and be part of a spiritual community, you're going to miss out. Part of God's grace, strength, help comes through together one another. Whole bunch of one another's love one encourage, one like we need the one.
And secondly, if you only worship on Sundays in community at church, but don't worship alone and have a private personal worship life, you're going to miss out to and be weaker spiritually than you could be or should be. We need both. Now let's look at both of these. First of all, worship is personal. Worship is personal. Let me say this. No one can worship for you. Think about that for a minute. No one can worship for you. Like other things in life, you can do for other people. But no one can worship for you. Your spouse can't. Your parents can't. Your kids can't. Your small group leader. Your pastor can't. Worship is personal. No one can worship for you. And God wants you to develop a personal relationship with God. I like to say it this way. God wants you to have a secret life with God. Like when no one's looking, just you and the Lord. You and God like.
Another way I like to say is this God wants you to have a history with God. That in the secret place you've experienced him. God's worked. He's moved in your life a little bit like David.
David developed a secret life in God. I believe his source of strength and his heart and his courage and bravery was developed like in in prayer. In worship. Like, you think about this, how did David have the courage and bravery to take on this giant Goliath when a whole nation cowered in fear. Like, you know, fear spreads. Have you ever been in a, like, group setting? Fear can spread in a minute. And it like.
And in that place where fear was all over a nation, one teenage kid goes, I'll take him on. How did he do that?
You know what he said was this. This is what he said. He said, I have. I killed the lion and the bear. I was afraid they were bigger than me when I was protecting the sheep. God helped me. What did he do? He went back to his history with God. He had developed a secret place of worship and relationship with the Lord. And he'd seen God work.
You see, when the crisis hits, When the difficulty comes, the depth of our intimacy and relationship with the Lord is revealed and the whole nation cowered in fear. But one teenage kid had developed a secret place with God and a history with him to say, hey, I can trust him again. I know him, he's been faithful to me. He's been good to me. So how do we develop that secret place with God, that history with God. We do it this way. We worship on the mountain and we worship in the valley. First of all, we worship on the mountain. We worship when things are going great. Don't you love that? You worship on the mountain like woo hoo! I got the job. The door open. Got the date with the girl. Like, you know, we had a kid. Whatever, you know, like. And it's wonderful. It's good. We worship on the mountain out of gratitude. Thank you. Lord, you're so good to me. You're. You're the best. But. But let me. Just before I move on, let me tell you about the trap on the mountain. The trap on the mountain is that we would forget to come back and honor God and thank him. And we'd suddenly slip into thinking I did this. Like there was ten lepers who were healed. One came back and thanked Jesus.
And God warned us in the Old Testament, when you get into your promised land, God gives you homes and he gives you jobs, and he gives you blessing, and, and and your life is going so great. He goes.
Be careful that your heart does not rise in pride and think. I did this.
I worked hard. I made this happen. I, I got hidden here earlier and left later than everybody else. That's why I got the promotion. And you pat yourself on the back and don't realize that all that you have is from him and through him and to him. He's the source of your strength. He gave you that intelligence. He gave you the ability. Like like like honor him.
Thank him. When you get on the mountain, just just give him thanks. We worship God on the mountain, but we also worship in the valley. And there's something powerful and beautiful about worshiping in the valley. We don't worship in the valley because we're happy.
We worship in the valley because he's worthy. We bring a sacrifice of praise to him in that low spot. I've told my story about discovering that I had a cancerous tumor growing in my C6 vertebrae in my neck, which was not insignificant. We'll just say that. Saw the photo. Oh, and I walked out of the appointment, walking out to my truck, and it was surreal. I realized like no one on planet Earth but my doctor and I know this. It was just surreal. And then I thought about, I need to tell Nana my wife, like. And I thought, should I tell her when I get home or should I call her? I thought it was me.
I'd say, call me right away. I want to know now. Instantly. You know, I said, okay, when I get to my truck, I'm going to call her. And so I get to my truck. I hop up here and close the door, reach for my phone. And then I stopped. I was like, hey, Lord, um, no one knows this. And before I talk to Nana, I want to talk to you. And Lord, I just want to tell you I love you and I'm going to trust you and you're good, and I have no accusation against you, and I'm going to honor you and serve you all the days of my life, no matter how many they are. And I love you. And it was like tears are just Streaming down my eyes, and the presence of God came into that truck and I worshiped him. And let me tell you that it was one of the sweetest, most powerful moments of worship in my life.
And you can't do that on the mountain. It's just different worship. The God of the mountains. Good.
The worship. And the valley is different because you don't have all the gifts to thank the giver for. You're just worshiping him because he's worthy of who he is. It changes you. It transforms you. It's powerful. It's powerful. It's life changing. To worship in the valley. Paul and Silas were in the valley when Paul and Silas, their valley, was being imprisoned.
I won't give you the whole backstory, but they're in Philippi preaching the gospel. They come before the authorities again. I won't give you the whole story, but they get stripped. Not fun. get beaten with many blows, the scripture says, and then thrown in the middle of the prison, in the middle of the prison, not on the edge. It's interesting they got put in the middle. I think they were probably doing it for safety to make it a long way out to escape. But it also created this experience where when they were in their prison in their valley, at about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them, well beaten while chained with chains to their feet. They began to pray.
They began to sing, I love you, Lord. I mean, they just. Can you imagine at midnight? It's quiet, it's dark. And I think it's kind of cool there in the middle. Everyone's not too far away. And I would love to have heard that. What did they pray? What did they sing? What hymns were some psalms that David wrote? Were they singing the scripture about the goodness of God and His unending faithful love? I don't know, but it would be so cool. Let me tell you this. The other prisoners were listening to them, and I'll say this.
People are listening to you and watching you and they. That's not a pressure to perform or judgment. It's just true. It's just reality. People are listening. People are watching.
It's just reality of life. And and let me say this. People know when you have a secret life with God, you can't hide it when you have it. You can't fake it when you don't have it. People know, like you can kind of fake it for a little while, but at the end of the day, trust me, your family knows. Trust me, your coworkers in the cubicle next to you knows. Like it just comes out.
And that that they're not only listening. They're not only hearing. It impacts him. Look at the next verse. Suddenly there was a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken at once. All the prison doors flew open and everyone's chains came loose. Worship opens prison doors. Worship sets the captives free from the. It sets us free from the chains that bind us. And check this out, y'all.
Worship impacts those around us. All the prison doors were opened. Others got free because Paul and Silas worship. In fact, the the jailer at Philippi there and his whole household get saved and get baptized. Here's my encouragement and challenge to you challenged you Develop a personal life of worship. How's your secret life with God? Are you have an ever growing history of God where you can say, oh, I remember when God came through for me. I prayed, I sought the Lord, and he answered you.
When no one's looking. No one can worship for you. Worship is personal, but secondly, worship is corporal. Corporate. It's corporate. It's. It's meant to be experiencing community. Jesus said this where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name.
There I am in their midst. Now God is omnipresent. He's in all places at all times. But let me tell you this, y'all. Jesus said, we're 2 or 3 like Paul and Silas was enough.
Gather together in my name. They're in that place of unity, in that place of community, I am in their midst. God shows up in a special way when we worship and pray. I just made that up this morning. Like like it rhymes. God shows up in a special way when we worship and pray. It's so true. Listen. God hired hardwired that into creation.
God created six days on the seventh day. God rested. He created for us in creation. A day that he rested on. And the Sabbath day was created for two reasons. Sabbath was created for rest and for worship, and they're very much tied together. Rest is physical. Worship is spiritual. We worship in spirit and truth, rested.
We're meant to rest and worship. Rest is powerful. Now, let me just say this. I think there's a cool analogy when we rest and sleep at night.
I'm not going to go into all of these. I thought about, like rolling like a whole bunch of it out because it's really fascinating. But scientifically, it's really we all should. Like ChatGPT did. But like what sleep does for you physically at night, it helps you process your memories. It heals your body, literally restores and heals. Your hormones get regulated. It helps you emotionally process things like good rest is like it's miraculous what happens to you while you sleep. I mean, think your brain is running and processing and helping you? That's it helps. Like in creativity. Like, we could go on and on. Let me tell you this. When we worship, we worship in spirit and in truth. We love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and the way that we worship with our mind. We worship in truth. Okay, but let me tell you this worship is also spiritual. And I've heard this over and over. Maybe you've had this experience where people will say, I came into worship to Grace church for the first time, and just in the middle of worship, I started crying. I don't even know what happened. I don't even know. Like I didn't even know what happened. I wasn't, and I think this in worship, when we rest in worship, God starts working miraculously, like our bodies do at night. We don't even know how. He's restoring, building, healing, helping us regulate our emotions, giving us a new perspective. We can see the world differently. Our faith rises. Worship is powerful when we get together where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there I am. We carry in worry, stress or weight from our weak and God works miraculously. He detoxes and can lift our worry and can take away our stress. Listen, if I may nicely say, I, as your pastor, I love you. I so want you to win and do well in life. I'm so for you, so for you. And if I may say this, I don't want the enemy to distract. Dissuade us, or for us to not do all that God's called us to do or be. And I believe there's a big blessing from the Lord. God has certain things for you when worship is personal and he has certain things for you, and worship is together, and we need both. And they feed off of one each other and they strengthen one another. And and there's a way in which that if we're not feeding both of them, having vision for them and developing them in our lives. It weakens us, and it doesn't make us as strong as we could be or should be. And this issue of kind of of not fully seeing and valuing the benefit this is to our spiritual lives and to our relationships, has been around a long time. Listen to this writer. Hebrews says this and and let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Listen, even in the Bible times, the writer of Hebrews says that people like like some people show up and worship. Some people don't like. Some people sleep in and some people dive in and listen. Y'all, this is Grace church, I love you. We're good. I'm happy. We're all happy. We're all good. Like it's all good. Um, but, but, but but let me tell you, y'all. I want you to experience what God has for you. I'm speaking with a fatherly heart of love for you. Do you know, let me give you a couple of stats. On average recent, um, data. Survey stats. People attend church in America. On average. On average, 1.6 times per month. What's the average like? Like regular church attenders. Not like we're not.
We're not counting in the zeros. Okay. And, um, do y'all know how many Sundays are in a month? 4 or 5.
Okay. Y'all listen. No guilt. No, no, listen, listen, listen. Nothing heavy. Let me just say this.
I don't want to be an average church. I want to be above average church. I want to be above average and reaching people, building lives, serving the poor and the needy, making a difference in our community, seeing marriages strengthened and restored. sing. Students come to Christ. I want to be above average. And listen, y'all, I mean to take off for vacation. And. And when you're sick, stay home. Don't come and spread the love, okay? 100%. That doesn't add up to 1.6.
And I just like, like to me, what it says is this is this has been an issue for. And let me give you some good news. Do you know people choose to attend? Y'all are here. Everyone's here. Listen, not because they had to, but because they willingly chose. And do you know, this week and this morning, Sunday, today in America, more people willingly choose to go to church than any other activity in our country. Like more than any weekend in the fall for football, more than people that are going to watch the closing of the Olympics tonight, we win. And let me just say this. Church attendance is surging on the rise. Some really cool articles you can look up out there.
Most do. You know what? Try to guess this in your head for just a moment. We'll play a little, little, little game. Guess this. What generation attends church most often per month.
It's not Gen X, it's not boomers. Gen Z is number one. Give it up for Gen Z. Number two. Yeah. Hey, where'd you go? Let's go. All right. Number two. Millennials three Gen X. Okay, y'all. Like, I would not have guessed that I confess. Fastest growing demographic of church attendance. Rising 20 year old males. And all the girls said where are they?
But anyway. Okay. Just kidding. Just kidding. Well, that's another one, but okay. Listen.
Can I share my heart in perspective with you? Let me just tell you what I'm feeling. What? As your pastor, I love you. I'm so forward. Listen, our worship at Grace church is good. I think it's very good. It's very good. What I do, my personal life and with Grace church is, I think, Lord, how are you taking me to the next step? How do you want me to grow? And as a team, we do this at Grace church.
Where are we at? What's our next step? What are you doing in us? Let me tell you this. Can I tell you? I absolutely can feel it. I can see it, I believe it, I'm passionate about it. I think God wants to take our worship from good to great. I believe there's more. I believe God wants us to be deeper. He wants us to be stronger. I believe there's more that he wants to do. And, um, you know, it's leadership and we're doing our part. But let me say this. It takes all of us. It takes all of us leaning in and God feeds the hungry. When we're hungry and humble, God meets with us. Jesus would say, be it done to you according to your faith. And some of these people just say, well, you know. It was okay. Today. Didn't really give me a I felt like it was a little loud, don't you think? Did they really need that much? Hayes. I need a pastor, I love you. Do you know this? Proud people are hard to impress.
Humble people are easily impressed. God feeds the hungry when you show up, huh? See what Jakes got today? I don't like his song selection. Like, let me tell you this. Humble people are easily impressed by God's grace. I could go to any Jesus Bible preaching church in town, and there's a lot of them, and humble people will show up. They could sing a hymn. Quiet, loud, whatever, whatever. Of course, there's going to be something you might not like. It might not be your favorite or whatever or whatever, whatever or whatever.
Humble people are easily impressed or easily fed.
Proud people are hard to impress.
I'm not trying to make fun of anyone. What I'm trying to do is make fun of a spiritual condition that could get us to miss what God has for us. What you receive on Sunday morning is not determined by the stage. It's determined by your heart and the posture you come in with. And when you come in hungry and humble and and ready to receive and have faith being done to you according to your faith. And when you're leaning in and. And listen. Grace, grace, grace is grace.
Church. We're the biggest grace church. Woo hoo! Bring your coffee in. That's awesome. But you see what I'm saying lately? If I can nicely just say I want you to get the bass waltzing in.
It's a little different position than this. I'm just throwing it out there because I believe God's called us from good to great. And I think he takes all of us. And I love you, and I'm for you.
Praise Jesus. Here we go. Um, encouragement in Jesus name. Show up with faith. All right. David said this.
I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Let's go. Let's meet with God.
Let's show up with faith. Let's show up with expectation. Anticipation. The worship isn't the warm up. God's presence shows up when we worship. Let me give you one last thought. Worship is warfare. When we worship, God works. When we worship, God fights for us. When we worship, he wins our battles. He opens prison doors. There's a powerful story in Second Chronicles. 23 nations attack Judah, Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat are overwhelmed, and they're just way outnumbered. And he calls for a fast. And they pray and they seek the Lord. And they're like, we're in big trouble. And says, Joseph, I was afraid. And, and and the spirit of the Lord comes upon this prophetic person. And he says this, do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed at this great horde. We're way outnumbered, for the battle is not yours, but God's. The battle is not yours, but God's. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm. Hold your position. See the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed.
Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. And you know what Jehoshaphat does? He gets his army together, and in front of the army he puts all the worshipers.
Now, I don't know about you, but going into battle with a tambourine does not seem like the best plan. And they put the worshipers out front. And God caused a confusion amongst the three nations. They ended up self-destructing and fighting each other, and they didn't have to fight. The battle was not theirs, but it was God's. And I believe God created that picture for you and me to see is that when you put worship out in front of your life, he will fight your battles. The battle will not be yours, but God's. How do you move it from the battle? Being yours, you might feel like you're in a battle. You're overwhelmed. You're swamped. You're fighting it. You're barely keeping your nose above water. Lead with worship. Put worship out first. Become a worshiper personally. Become a worshiper in the community and see God work. Worship is warfare. And what I want to do is this I want to take a minute to to pray for you. And I'm going to invite the worship team to come on out because it'll be a little like, weird to we're going to do something elements to talk about worship and and then not worship. So we're going to do that in just a moment here. But I want to pray with you first. Um, and then I'm going to ask you to stand after I pray for you. But as we worship everyone out of the elements, do I want y'all to do this? I, I don't ask people to do stuff. People don't like being coerced. I get it, we're American. You know, I'll ask for you to consider. Let me tell you this. Sometimes when we worship. It might feel out of our comfort zone. You know, we can go to football or basketball game or, you know, go down to like, people. But then we come into worship and we're like, and here's, here's the thought, what if we did this today? Just put your hands out to the Lord like this instead of like this. I go, Lord, here I am to worship.
Here I am to bow down, bowing like opening your hands. It sometimes makes a bigger difference than we realize because our body posture reflects our heart. It's not about the body posture, but it's amazing what it can do for your heart. What do you do this anyway? I want to pray with you and for you. Father, thank you for everyone here today.
Everyone in Alamance. I do pray in Jesus name that you would create in us a heart to love you with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. That we would be worshipers and we would worship you in spirit and in truth. We'd worship you personally and corporately, privately and in public. And that, Lord, we would be hungry, humble people, easily impressed, easily moved. Because you're so, so good to us.
Lord, I pray for anyone here today that wants to make a decision to give their life to Jesus Christ. You know you can't respond to the invitation. Worship me until you first responded to the invitation. Follow me. They they become a true worshiper. You need to put Jesus Christ first in your heart, first in your life, and ask him in. And you can do that today.
In Jesus name we pray. Let's go all. Let's go ahead and stand on up.