SPEAKER_01: Here we are, end of Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: You can go ahead and go there.
SPEAKER_01: It is the very last one.
SPEAKER_01: One of our leaders, Andy Thorin, kicked off this series at the beginning of the summer with Psalm 1.
SPEAKER_01: And instead of making us all go through the next three years of Psalms, we kind of just jumped around.
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you read through it this summer, but we are in Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: It is the last one in this book of praises.
SPEAKER_01: We introduced this word.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually what Psalms means.
SPEAKER_01: It is tahilim.
SPEAKER_01: Tahilim.
SPEAKER_01: It just means a book of praises.
SPEAKER_01: It's this compilation, this kind of uh now that's what I call music, as we have looked at every single week.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna be in Psalm 150 and wrap things up.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have some fun today.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You thought I wouldn't?
SPEAKER_01: I will.
SPEAKER_01: There might be more later.
SPEAKER_01: You never know.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have some fun.
SPEAKER_01: I stole that from the worship team.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: They probably showed up today.
SPEAKER_01: We won.
SPEAKER_01: Where's our tambourine?
SPEAKER_01: Pastors with props.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for 150 because it's the big finale.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Psalm 150 is.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we said this tahilim, this book of praises, this compilation of songs that we call Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: And each one is a tahilah.
SPEAKER_01: So just like we have uh you know singular and plural versions of words in the English language and Hebrew, you'll you'll see that too.
SPEAKER_01: And this tahila is a song of praise, which actually would end up being translated into different languages.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, your Bible was written in languages that are not English, Hebrew, Greek, and a little bit of Aramaic.
SPEAKER_01: And so as Old Testament was translated into different languages, then you had the New Testament was written in Greek.
SPEAKER_01: And along the way, your Old Testament scriptures that were of utmost importance and value to the Jewish people would be translated into other languages because the message of the gospel was being spread, and they were trying to get this full picture of God's divine word out to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And along the way, the Greeks came up with two words that we compiled in our English language to equal one word, and the word is doxology.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you've ever heard the word doxology.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe, yep, you've said, okay, we're gonna pray this doxology, we're gonna sing this doxology.
SPEAKER_01: And doxology simply means an expression of praise.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when they looked at this particular song as this closing doxology.
SPEAKER_01: They said, okay, Psalms, this compilation of songs, ends in 150 with this final expression of praise.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the the big finale.
SPEAKER_01: Is any has you ever been, has anyone ever been in like a performance, like a theater show or maybe a program at church or something, and you were in the big finale.
SPEAKER_01: Is anybody, anybody, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Three of us, great.
SPEAKER_01: But you've seen this before, and maybe some of you, like I this was me.
SPEAKER_01: When I was 11 years old, I was in a performance uh at my home church, 3,000 miles that way, called the Living Christmas Tree.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a Christmas and it's September, so look, we're ready to start celebrating Christmas now.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm giving everybody a pass with this.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're like, what's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows Halloween is just Christmas pregame.
SPEAKER_01: We all know that.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Here we are, it's 96 degrees, and we don't care because we're in San Diego, and that's how we Christmas it up.
SPEAKER_01: But when I was in uh middle school, uh the sixth grade, I was in a performance at my church called the Living Christmas Tree.
SPEAKER_01: It's a big old, big old performance.
SPEAKER_01: They built this massive tree that human beings actually got in and they staggered, and it was this big choir that you put in this giant Christmas tree, and it was a fun Christmas variety show.
SPEAKER_01: And uh they were out here as well, East Coast and West Coast, and it's this fun Christmas show, and throughout the entire program, people perform different numbers, and you get to be in some, but at the big finale, everybody gets to participate.
SPEAKER_01: So even if your entire job was as a kid, you couldn't hold a tune, but you could deliver a fake present on stage, and that was your time to shine for those 16 seconds, and then you ran backstage and you got to eat all the snacks and everything with everybody back there, and that was your experience.
SPEAKER_01: When it came time for the big finale, everybody comes out.
SPEAKER_01: The full orchestra is doing its thing.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody who's had any form of role whatsoever crams their way on the stage in front of the stage, and this program that we did called The Living Christmas Tree would always conclude after the final number the big finale of the Hallelujah chorus.
SPEAKER_01: Does anybody know what that is?
SPEAKER_01: The hollow hallelujah, but you know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_01: I told you more was coming.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we would do.
SPEAKER_01: And we I remember as an 11-year-old me, the energy in that big finale of just like, I'm here, I'm here, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: You're looking around, and there's everybody.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason it was so special is because it was the full might of the production, the full might of the cast, the full might of the efforts.
SPEAKER_01: Boom! Right there as we concluded it.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 150 is going to look like that when we read it.
SPEAKER_01: You are going to hear the words praise or praise him 13 times in Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: Let's read it together.
SPEAKER_01: You can follow along screen, or you should have it in your Bible or your phone.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God in his sanctuary, in his dwelling, praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him according to his excellent greatness, praise him with trumpet sound, praise him with lute and harp, praise him with tambourine and dance.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with strings and pipe.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with sounding cymbals.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with loud crashing symbols.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I read Psalm 150 and I will admit this to you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm challenged.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it'll challenge all of us when we dig into it.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're going to learn some practical things we can do with Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: But I think as we dig deeper, my prayer has been that the words of Psalm 150 would adjust maybe a little bit our posture, perspective, or maybe even philosophy of worship.
SPEAKER_01: Then my hope for us is that we we read these words and we learn from it today, and it it sits in our spirit, and it does something to us.
SPEAKER_01: Because I will admit this the weekend happens every weekend.
SPEAKER_01: We gather together and we do what?
SPEAKER_01: We sing worship songs.
SPEAKER_01: We gather, we fellowship, we linger in the lobby, we meet new people, we serve, we learn God's word together.
SPEAKER_01: But there is a kind of uh hinging moment in the weekend for just about every church in the world, and that is singing songs of praise together.
SPEAKER_01: And how many of us, not out loud, but maybe internally, would admit this to ourselves that yeah, before we're ready to do that, we're gonna need a little bit of caffeine from the cafe.
SPEAKER_01: Or we come in and we're waiting for our song to hit.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but I like the guitar line in that song.
SPEAKER_01: Or I like the I like the beat in this one.
SPEAKER_01: I like, I like the I like the vibe of of this one.
SPEAKER_01: And if we're not careful, we can easily do that.
SPEAKER_01: Because why?
SPEAKER_01: Music is an art, and art is subjective, and so as music speaks to people in different ways at different levels to different depths, we can kind of base our posture of worship towards how the melody makes us feel instead of this posture in this final, as we call it, doxology, this closing expression of praise we find in Psalm 150 that says, Praise the Lord, that that posture is one we come with, we don't wait for.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to remember that.
SPEAKER_01: Because worship is not a posture we wait for.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is a posture we come with.
SPEAKER_01: And we see that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's break it apart.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary, in his dwelling, praise him in his mighty heavens.
SPEAKER_01: In your translation, you might see the word praise him in his expanse.
SPEAKER_01: That word was basically meant to describe the area between us and the heavens, what we can see and us, and almost to describe in galaxy-esque language the floor of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And so what the author here says is praise him in all the places we can see and all the places we can't see.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on, praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him according to his excellent greatness.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent greatness sounds like it's a bit of an exaggerated or hyperbolic thing, but there were no words to describe the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so the author here has to double them up.
SPEAKER_01: He has to load up on them because excellent greatness, as you pair those words in the original language as it was written, says, praise him for his abundant greatness, his unmatched greatness, his unrivaled greatness, not just, ooh, the quality is good, yes.
SPEAKER_01: But it is unmatched by anything ever created.
SPEAKER_01: It is unrivaled by anything that has ever existed, and it is in abundance beyond what we could even count.
SPEAKER_01: His excellent greatness.
SPEAKER_01: Do we see God like that?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider God like that?
SPEAKER_01: Do we look up at the stars at night and consider the greatness of God that he hung those stars?
SPEAKER_01: Does it get us?
SPEAKER_01: Or do we just get distracted by the planes flying overhead?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider it?
SPEAKER_01: Listen to the words of the psalmist here.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with trumpet sound.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever wonder why we utilize musical expression to declare praise to God, it is because it is a prescription and uh process, a template offered to us for thousands of years, because musical expression tends to speak to people in a unique way.
SPEAKER_01: You and I understand this on a basic level.
SPEAKER_01: You'll think of it right now as I say it.
SPEAKER_01: There's that song that when it comes on, it takes you there.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because music speaks to the soul in such a unique way.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have that in Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: Praise Him with trumpet sound, with lute and with harp.
SPEAKER_01: These are stringed instruments.
SPEAKER_01: Praise Him with tambourine and dance.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Baptist background, you are uncomfortable with verse four.
SPEAKER_01: And you're wondering, well, Scott, that's not the same dance.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm not going to Andy Griffith show episode you and get into an argument of what dance is and dance isn't.
SPEAKER_01: And we all have the internet and we know what kind of dance probably does not honor God.
SPEAKER_01: And no, I will not demonstrate as I did the tambourine.
SPEAKER_01: But when it says dance, you know what it actually means.
SPEAKER_01: It means a physical expression of praise.
SPEAKER_01: Does the greatness of God actually cause a response in you?
SPEAKER_01: Wow, God.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Does it cause that?
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't mean that you gotta run around the worship center or, you know, start two-stepping or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need no.
SPEAKER_01: That's your own personal expression and how God has gifted and wired you.
SPEAKER_01: But it says, praise him with the and he builds, right?
SPEAKER_01: The trumpet sounds like, oh, okay, yeah, trumpet, we're building.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, got it.
SPEAKER_01: And then tambourine, you're like, that's the one you don't give to kids because they'll just be loud in the house.
SPEAKER_01: The lute and the harp, those are fun, right?
SPEAKER_01: The string instrument, we're weaving it and then dance.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, okay, that's for people who can't play an instrument but want to move their bodies.
SPEAKER_01: Because you wonder, like, could everybody play stuff?
SPEAKER_01: No, some people just had to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything.
SPEAKER_01: That hat breath.
SPEAKER_01: That's the extent of my dancing.
SPEAKER_01: That I'm willing to show you.
SPEAKER_01: Because you don't live in my house.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with strings and pipe woodwinds.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with sounding symbols, with loud clashing symbols.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this.
SPEAKER_01: You ever had those moments you're driving down the road, worship song comes over, you pull over because you're like, oh, Jesus, take the wheel, and I should not be driving right now because you're just having a moment with God.
SPEAKER_01: You ever had those?
SPEAKER_01: We have those.
SPEAKER_01: Those are beautiful moments.
SPEAKER_01: We've also had those quiet moments of just praise.
SPEAKER_01: But when God's people gather together, it is meant to be a thing.
SPEAKER_01: Not simply to observe worship being led, but to participate in worship of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is meant, you can see in all of the manners and mechanisms provided to us for how we worship God.
SPEAKER_01: It is meant to be special, involved, meaningful, and stand out.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That same word breath in the Hebrew language is the exact same word in the book of Genesis when it says, God breathe life into Adam.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has been given life by the one who made life praise the one who gave life.
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful how the Bible ties in together here.
SPEAKER_01: The creator of all things, God, who is deserving of our worship.
SPEAKER_01: And look at what he said.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, praise, it's the whole purpose of the Psalms and Psalm 150, this closing doxology, this concluding expression of praise.
SPEAKER_01: The entire purpose is praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what it does.
SPEAKER_01: It tells us, it kind of prescribes to us where to praise God, praise him in, praise the Lord for what?
SPEAKER_01: And praise the Lord with what and who.
SPEAKER_01: What does it say?
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord in his holy place.
SPEAKER_01: When we gather together, we set aside this time.
SPEAKER_01: It is sacred to worship God.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens to us?
SPEAKER_01: The weekend happens every weekend.
SPEAKER_01: And so worship becomes a weekly exercise, but maybe we don't come ready for it.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever, this happens as as you um, I'm not gonna say getting old, as you mature and you want to continue exercising, it takes you a little while to warm up before you start hitting the gym.
SPEAKER_01: And you spend about 30 minutes at home, you're like an old truck.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, just give me a minute.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta, I'll get started.
SPEAKER_01: I'll get there, but I gotta get it.
SPEAKER_01: It takes me a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us enter into worship gatherings like that.
SPEAKER_01: I know we we gotta worship here, and so we get here and we we spend our entire moments that we set aside for worship kind of doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: God is great.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God is great.
SPEAKER_01: Yep, ah, he's great.
SPEAKER_01: Yep, oh he's great.
SPEAKER_01: God is great, God is great, God is great.
unknown: God is great.
SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm ready to worship.
SPEAKER_01: And then I come out and you're like, ah, I missed it.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing arbitrary, there is nothing normal about gathering together.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing normal outside of the fact that it should be a perpetual, constant practice in our lives to praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Are you showing up ready to worship, or are you showing up needing to stretch out first?
SPEAKER_01: Do you come expecting, well, praise the Lord in his holy place, praise the Lord in his mighty expanse, in the floor of heaven, things we can see and things we can't see?
SPEAKER_01: Do you take those moments, even driving down the road and looking up at the sky and understanding that there is a painter, his name is God?
SPEAKER_01: Do you take those moments looking at people in your life and think, wow, what a beautiful creation, this human being, such an intricate design.
SPEAKER_01: How beautiful God is for the things he creates.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord in his holy place, in his mighty expense.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord for his mighty deeds, for his excellent greatness, his unmatched abundance, the abundance of his magnificence.
SPEAKER_01: See, we don't often approach worship like this.
SPEAKER_01: We don't often approach praise like this because this seems lofty, and it's like, how do I wrap my head around this?
SPEAKER_01: You you you seem to be telling me that I need to walk around like my spiritual readiness is consistently drinking a Red Bull.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us feel like that.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, Scott, I just don't have that personality.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not, I'm I'm not, I'm not there.
SPEAKER_01: So how do I?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be loud, it means that it needs to be acknowledged.
SPEAKER_01: God, you are great.
SPEAKER_01: You have delivered.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have those stories where God delivered us from addictions, God delivered us from near death, God delivered us from dark, dark places that it grieves us to remember.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have those stories of God's deliverance.
SPEAKER_01: Do you praise the Lord for his mighty dignity?
SPEAKER_01: For his excellent greatness, his unrivaled magnificence.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord with a trumpet sound, harp, lyre, guitar, stringed instruments, tambourine, dancing, woodwinds, pipe, loud cymbals, not just soft ones.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has breath.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Do we worship like this?
SPEAKER_01: What a challenge.
SPEAKER_01: What a challenge for us.
SPEAKER_01: Philosophically, in our posture, do we come ready to exercise the gift of worship?
SPEAKER_01: Or are we still shaking off the cobwebs?
SPEAKER_01: And we get to shake off those cobwebs every day in our own mind and hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Of God, I've gone through life.
SPEAKER_01: Life is real.
SPEAKER_01: This is hard.
SPEAKER_01: But God, I still want to praise you because I have been given life.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that has breath.
SPEAKER_01: Life breathed.
SPEAKER_01: It is the same word.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: The very breath we have been told God breathed life into existence.
SPEAKER_01: It is from the one who gave it and deserves everything we have.
SPEAKER_01: But do we think like that?
SPEAKER_01: Do we worship like that?
SPEAKER_01: Is this doxology, is this expression of praise?
SPEAKER_01: And it's a challenge for us, because I get it.
SPEAKER_01: And as personalities differ, again, loud praise.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't necessarily mean earnest praise.
SPEAKER_01: And quiet praise doesn't necessarily mean reverent praise.
SPEAKER_01: You can be loud, jumping around, dancing, expressing all sorts of things, and still not be considering the abundant magnificence of God.
SPEAKER_01: You could simply be considering the emotions of the moment.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise, quiet.
SPEAKER_01: Quiet praise doesn't necessarily mean reverent praise.
SPEAKER_01: Quiet praise could just simply mean I am not an emotive person.
SPEAKER_01: I don't express things, so I'm going to sit here and contemplate my grocery list.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of considering the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_01: The quality of our praise is not determined by the volume.
SPEAKER_01: It is determined by the posture our hearts take toward the life-giving God who deserves everything we have.
SPEAKER_01: Do we praise like that?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider the abundance, the unrivaled, the unmatched greatness of God when we worship?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider his excellence when we worship?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider his mighty deeds personally and universally when we worship?
SPEAKER_01: Do we declare this doxology?
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Because let's be real, nowadays it's hard to get impressed, and I think that's the thing for a lot of us.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to be impressed.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know why?
SPEAKER_01: You can go on your computer, you can pull up your phone.
SPEAKER_01: And artificial intelligence will create for you things like that.
SPEAKER_01: We used to be impressed.
SPEAKER_01: We're used to being impressed.
SPEAKER_01: The things that impress us over time have grown, haven't they?
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's journey back to the 1900s and think about things that impressed us.
SPEAKER_01: Let's start with one that hopefully will I'm gonna I'm gonna try not to go too far back.
SPEAKER_01: I want to let everybody kind of resonate with stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Let's start with something called the VHS.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in case you were not born in the 1900s, the VHS looks like a book.
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
SPEAKER_01: You put it into this box and it plays movies and television shows.
SPEAKER_01: And what did you have to do?
SPEAKER_01: What did you have to do?
SPEAKER_01: If you wanted to skip past the credits or you wanted to watch it again, what did you have to do?
SPEAKER_01: You had to walk up to your uh VHS player and do this.
SPEAKER_01: Your finger got tired and you swapped it out with the other one.
SPEAKER_01: Because Blockbuster told you that kindness was happened when you would rewind your videotape.
SPEAKER_01: Be kind, rewind.
SPEAKER_01: And then they came out with a fancy fast rewind machine, and it was separate from your VHS player because your dad was super impatient.
SPEAKER_01: He bought one at Circuit City.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you were like, Circuit City, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Pour one out.
SPEAKER_01: You put it in there, you shut it, and you just watch.
SPEAKER_01: We were so impressed by that.
SPEAKER_01: And then what happened?
SPEAKER_01: Something called the DVD came out, and our minds went, You mean to tell me I just hit a button that says skip, and all of a sudden, here we go, ready to roll?
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, aliens do exist.
SPEAKER_01: They must have made this.
SPEAKER_01: And we were so impressed by it.
SPEAKER_01: And then streaming services came out, and now we're like, uh, it's not streaming.
SPEAKER_01: Find the DVD.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the closet underneath your old shoes.
SPEAKER_01: And now your DVDs become decorations in your house.
SPEAKER_01: We're so impressed over and over and over by things, with man-made mechanisms.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's hard to sit with the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_01: But nothing could create you other than the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing could create the mighty expanse, the floor of heaven other than the Creator God.
SPEAKER_01: His unrivaled greatness.
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider it?
SPEAKER_01: It is an exercise and it is a discipline because we are impressed by things all the time.
SPEAKER_01: But do we sit with the original?
SPEAKER_01: Do we sit with the creator?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the interesting thing.
SPEAKER_01: All of the inventions, including artificial intelligence, had to be built by people with intelligence.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning it's not robots that receive those returns for NVIDIA and all the other stocks and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: It's people who get that money.
SPEAKER_01: When you invest in AI and stuff like that, you understand this?
SPEAKER_01: And all of it can be traced back to who made the mind.
SPEAKER_01: Who?
SPEAKER_01: God.
SPEAKER_01: Do we trace the dots back?
SPEAKER_01: Do we connect?
SPEAKER_01: Do we sit with it?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider who God is when we worship God?
SPEAKER_01: Do we consider his greatness?
SPEAKER_01: When I was 15 years old, we visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and we stayed in a town called Sedona, Arizona.
SPEAKER_01: I'll show you what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: This is Sedona, Arizona.
SPEAKER_01: It's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01: Sedona, Arizona consistently ranks as one of the most beautiful places, not just in America, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
SPEAKER_01: It is breathtaking.
SPEAKER_01: And they want to preserve the quality of beauty there, so much to where there are ordinances, laws in the city of Sedona that do not allow for certain bright neon colors that we would see in every other city.
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, if you go to McDonald's in Sedona, Arizona, it's not the golden arches.
SPEAKER_01: They are kind of earth-toned tan arches.
SPEAKER_01: It's really weird.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like somebody power washed the golden arches and then just let it sit out in the hot sun for five years.
SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason they do that is because the natural beauty in Sedona, Arizona is unmatched to a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01: And we we took a trip out there and we stayed just outside of Sedona, and my grandma and I were taking a walk one day, and we came upon this fence, and it was a ranch that you could see kind of in this gully.
SPEAKER_01: Like it went, you saw the hill go down, and at the bottom of it, you could just see this massive compound.
SPEAKER_01: And on the sign that was on this huge metal gate, it read El Rojo Grande Ranch, which translated means the big red ranch.
SPEAKER_01: And we were standing there looking down on it, having that conversation, and I said, Daddle, who do you think lives down there?
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's that's something else.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the size of this thing.
SPEAKER_01: And right about that time, we saw a man come up on a horse.
SPEAKER_01: And this is 1999, and he just, you know, cars were doing real well.
SPEAKER_01: Real good.
SPEAKER_01: Cars were thriving in the 1900s.
SPEAKER_01: They really were, especially the late 90s.
SPEAKER_01: He rolls up on his horse.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Howdy! And I'm like, I like this guy already.
SPEAKER_01: I like this guy.
SPEAKER_01: Cowboy hat, full-blown cowboy.
SPEAKER_01: We strike up a conversation with him, come to find out.
SPEAKER_01: This ranch was built by the great-grandson of William Wrigley.
SPEAKER_01: Wrigley as in Wrigley's Field for the Chicago Cubs.
SPEAKER_01: Wrigley as in Wrigley's Gum, Wrigley's Spearmint Gum.
SPEAKER_01: They would go on to own Orbitz Gum, Lifesavers, Starburst, this is billions with a B into it type of company.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1994, the great-grandson of William Wrigley built the El Rojo Grande Ranch because some of the flavors of gum like juicy fruit and double mint and spear mint were popular.
SPEAKER_01: But his favorite was, you may have heard of it, Big Red Gum.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody heard of that?
SPEAKER_01: Big Red Gum, the cinnamon-flavored Wrigley's gum.
SPEAKER_01: And he built El Rojo Grande Ranch.
SPEAKER_01: The great-grandson had a commission.
SPEAKER_01: He built it.
SPEAKER_01: He bought this property out there.
SPEAKER_01: It recently sold for about$15 million.
SPEAKER_01: It is a gorgeous property, and it just happened to be that that cowboy who rode up on us was, according to him, the great-grandson of William Wrigley.
SPEAKER_01: And we got a photo with him and had this conversation.
SPEAKER_01: And as my grandma is having this conversation with him and asked, okay, but you guys have roots in Chicago and different places.
SPEAKER_01: Why Sedona, Arizona?
SPEAKER_01: He built it for the family so they could sit in the serene peace of nature.
SPEAKER_01: Now he wasn't a believer, but even this man who wasn't a believer saw that and said, wow.
SPEAKER_01: For the Christian, we know who made that.
SPEAKER_01: And even for the non-Christian, it points to the one who made that.
SPEAKER_01: So here is the challenge for us.
SPEAKER_01: Philosophically, when it comes to our posture of praise, do you consider the cause of your praise?
SPEAKER_01: The creator who made all, who gave life.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has breath.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we worship God?
SPEAKER_01: Because He's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we worship God?
SPEAKER_01: Because He deserves it.
SPEAKER_01: Because above anything else in our lives, God deserves our worship.
SPEAKER_01: And we understand life is full of ups and downs.
SPEAKER_01: There is uncertainty in life.
SPEAKER_01: There are disappointments in life.
SPEAKER_01: There are successes in life.
SPEAKER_01: There is satisfaction and dissatisfaction in life.
SPEAKER_01: There are pleasures and pain.
SPEAKER_01: But for every person who has been given life, breath, the same thing is true no matter the season, the stretch, the person, the background.
SPEAKER_01: The same thing is true.
SPEAKER_01: God deserves our worship.
SPEAKER_01: He is unrivaled.
SPEAKER_01: He is unmatched.
SPEAKER_01: He is magnificent.
SPEAKER_01: Consider the cause of your praise.
SPEAKER_01: The creator of all things is worthy.
SPEAKER_01: Is that our posture?
SPEAKER_01: Notice something about this song, this closing expression.
SPEAKER_01: What are the first words of Psalm 150?
SPEAKER_01: They are what?
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how we get practical.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how we, I'm gonna get made fun of for saying this for the thousandth time.
SPEAKER_01: You might even be able to say it with me.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how we lace up our shoes.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Let's get practical with Psalm 150.
SPEAKER_01: You know what it starts with?
SPEAKER_01: It's bookended by a certain phrase.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: What does it end with?
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I read that over the last several weeks and I was challenged with this because it's gonna be super practical.
SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna almost sound obvious, but it's doable for every single person in the room because we all have a rhythm.
SPEAKER_01: Either the alarm goes off or we hit snooze or the alarm doesn't go off and somebody comes in and wakes us up, or the dog wakes us up, or we eventually wake up, whatever it is when we start our day.
SPEAKER_01: We all have that first thing we do.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us just think about how bad our knees hurt or our back hurts, or how, oh, we only got up twice in the middle of the night to use the restroom.
SPEAKER_01: Great, that's a win, you know, whatever you're wherever you're at in life.
SPEAKER_01: You wake up, you think about what you got going on, you do what?
SPEAKER_01: You reach for your phone.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the challenge as I read this song.
SPEAKER_01: Do your days start with praise the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Is that the easiest thing you can do when you wake up?
SPEAKER_01: God, praise you.
SPEAKER_01: And do your days end with praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna do something to you.
SPEAKER_01: I've been experimenting with this as I've been digging into this psalm.
SPEAKER_01: And when you start with God, thank you, God praise you, it adjusts your posture for how you approach everything else in the morning and how you get the day started.
SPEAKER_01: And when you end your day with praise the Lord, let me tell you what it's gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna want to sit in bed and you're gonna be frustrated at things that maybe happen that day.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be stressed about things that happened that day, stressed about things that are coming up the next day.
SPEAKER_01: Your brain's not gonna want to shut down, and so what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna put that crazy, you know, true crime documentary on Netflix on, because you know, that'll help you relax.
SPEAKER_01: And you hope you can fall asleep to it and whatever that looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And your brain just keeps going and going.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I've found?
SPEAKER_01: When you end your day with praise the Lord, it settles you a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: We can get practical with that.
SPEAKER_01: Would you maybe even starting tonight, end your day with praise the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: And tomorrow, start your day with praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's a challenge.
SPEAKER_01: There's practical things we can do.
SPEAKER_01: We can observe things to be thankful for.
SPEAKER_01: We can observe things to pray for personally and church wide.
SPEAKER_01: You can create a thank you list.
SPEAKER_01: You can actually do this.
SPEAKER_01: You can do it on your phone, you can do it on your tablet, you can you can get it get an actual sheet of paper and write it down, or you can just exercise it audibly or internally in your head.
SPEAKER_01: And you can come up with a thank you list.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we will do this and we encourage others to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you take your phone out every day, and each day you add to the thank you list.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm grateful for this.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for this.
SPEAKER_01: And you type it out, or you write it out and you keep it and you save it and you come back to it from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: And you go through your thank you list when life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: And you go through your thank you list when you're stressed, you go through your thank you list when you want to feel sorry for yourself and life's not going the way you want it to, and you're not happy with life right now.
SPEAKER_01: You're frustrated with life right now.
SPEAKER_01: And so you pull out your thank you list.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: What does that help you do?
SPEAKER_01: It helps you posture your heart with praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: These are practical things we can do.
SPEAKER_01: This is 13 times we are told to praise in this closing expression, this final song, this big finale.
SPEAKER_01: 13 times we are told to praise.
SPEAKER_01: Repetition produces results.
SPEAKER_01: It is a practice of praise that helps us creating a thank you list allows us to refer back to it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you even put that even in your personal prayer time.
SPEAKER_01: Is that you have different things that you thank God for?
SPEAKER_01: Kind of different praises.
SPEAKER_01: And that as you pray, you open up your phone or you pull out that sheet of paper or you pull out your tablet and you've got those praises.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, God, I've got things to ask you about.
SPEAKER_01: But before I get to my petitions, I'm gonna start with my praises.
SPEAKER_01: God praise you for this.
SPEAKER_01: And it can be simple things.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for life.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that there's one to start with, let everything that has breath.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not dead, God's not done.
SPEAKER_01: And there is still an opportunity to praise Him.
SPEAKER_01: That can be the very first thing you start with, and you add to that thank you list.
SPEAKER_01: You add to that prayer list, and it becomes almost an anchor, something you go to in life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you put sticky notes around the house.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for this.
SPEAKER_01: God is, and you list a character trait of God that blesses you personally and ministers you, and you put it right on the bathroom mirror.
SPEAKER_01: So when you're brushing your teeth, you are reminded to give God thanks.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you pull up your computer and you put the stickies on your computer like that, or maybe you put them at work somewhere, or you put one in your car on the dash, or something that you can see.
SPEAKER_01: It's little things we can do that posture our hearts to praise God.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we do this.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I will do this, and maybe this is for you.
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's maybe a little bit more tech forward.
SPEAKER_01: You you uh calendar on your phone, what I call a praise pause.
SPEAKER_01: And you literally pull up the calendar on your phone, and for five minutes, because those are the smallest increments you can get, that at 8 o'clock in the morning to 8.05 a.m., you're going to schedule an appointment on your phone, on your calendar, and it just says praise pause, and you set the alert to go off at the time of the event.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're going on about your morning, and all of a sudden your phone goes off, and you're like, What is that?
SPEAKER_01: And you grab your phone and you say, Praise pause.
SPEAKER_01: God praise you for filling the blank.
SPEAKER_01: It's a simple thing, but it's practical, and it will sometimes get you, because sometimes the mornings are hectic too.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you do it in the evenings, or maybe you do it in the middle of the day.
SPEAKER_01: Life is rolling, and whatever the chaos of the day is giving you, and it just causes you to stop for a moment and just praise God.
SPEAKER_01: We call that a praise pause.
SPEAKER_01: You can schedule it on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: There are practical things we can do to start our day and end our day and carry us through our day with a posture of praise.
SPEAKER_01: At the core, philosophically, what does Psalm 150 have for us?
SPEAKER_01: Consideration.
SPEAKER_01: Consider the cause of your praise.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna sing one last song.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pray and read this psalm one more time.
SPEAKER_01: And as we prepare to sing this one last song, here's what I want to encourage all of us to do.
SPEAKER_01: Consider the cause of your praise.
SPEAKER_01: There is a God, He hung the moon and the stars, he made everything under it, including you.
SPEAKER_01: And in his perfection and his grace, defined, designed, and delivered love to us in such a way that said, perfect God loves imperfect person so much that he would send his only son Jesus to give us hope we could never manufacture on our own.
SPEAKER_01: So as the band comes and readies to lead us in one last song, I want us to consider the cause of our praise.
SPEAKER_01: And then practically this week, maybe pull out your phone and calendar a praise pause every now and then.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe put out a sticky note around the house or on the computer or at work in the car that would prompt a praise moment.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe start to craft a thank you list and return to it this week.
SPEAKER_01: Start your day with praise.
SPEAKER_01: End your day with praise as we prepare to utilize the resources that God has given us musically to sing.
SPEAKER_01: Let us audibly recite Psalm 150 together.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to the words and follow a long screen and read this with me as we ready our hearts to sing together.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God in his sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him in his mighty heavens.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him for his mighty deeds.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with trumpet sound.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with lute and harp.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with tambourine and dance.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with strings and pipe.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with sounding cymbals.
SPEAKER_01: Praise him with loud clashing cymbals.
SPEAKER_01: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with me.
SPEAKER_01: God, be praised.
SPEAKER_01: Be praised.
SPEAKER_01: All we have is from you.
SPEAKER_01: Love, grace, mercy, truth, life is from you.
SPEAKER_01: Hope is from you.
SPEAKER_01: May we consider the cause of our praise.
SPEAKER_01: So in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church.
SPEAKER_00: We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you.
SPEAKER_00: If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us.