SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.
SPEAKER_00: Visit us online at the lookout.church.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this morning we are going to continue this new movement of teaching through the heart of worship.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to invite you in your Bibles, if you have your Bibles, open up to 1 Chronicles chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we were at last week.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to enter back into the story of King David as he makes some reforms in the nation of Israel, and he brings the Ark of God's presence back to the center.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to start in verse 4, and I'll give you this some context after we read.
SPEAKER_01: Asaph was to sound the cymbals of Benaniah and Jehaziel the priest were to blow trumpets regularly before the Lord of the covenant of God.
SPEAKER_01: Then on that day, David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.
SPEAKER_01: And so they kick off this new day with a song to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.
SPEAKER_01: Sing to him, sing praises to him.
SPEAKER_01: Tell of all his wondrous works.
SPEAKER_01: Glory in his name.
SPEAKER_01: Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: And later on, he continues in verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Say also, save us, O God, of our salvation, and gather us and deliver us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
SPEAKER_01: Then all the people said.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And they praised the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 37 So David left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the Lord to minister regularly before the ark as each day required.
SPEAKER_01: And also Obed Edom and his 68 brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: While Obed Edom and the son of Jeduthan and Hoash were to be gatekeepers, and he left Zadok the priest and his brothers, the priests, before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was at Gibeon, to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly, morning and evening, to do all that is written in the law of the Lord as he commanded Israel.
SPEAKER_01: With them were Heman and Jeduthan, and the rest of those chosen expressly named to give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_01: Heman and Jedhan had trumpets and cymbals for the music and instruments for sacred song.
SPEAKER_01: The sons of Jeduthan were appointed to the gate.
SPEAKER_01: Then all the people departed to his house, and David went home and blessed his household.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: So worship is what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Is worship simply a sentimental setup for a sermon on a Sunday morning, or is it different?
SPEAKER_01: Is it a wider, broader, more powerful than we actually think it is?
SPEAKER_01: See, this is David, David's movement of his heart as he becomes king of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: If you know the story of David, and we covered this last week, when he had he made the realization that during the days of Saul, they had forgotten about the Ark of God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: And it was it was a loss that had been taken captive.
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing he did as king is said, go get the ark.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna bring it back into the center of the city.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that the only pathway towards blessing was if God himself were at the center of the nation, the center of the government, education, civil life, foreign affairs, justice, there needed to be a God consciousness that did not exist in the days of Saul.
SPEAKER_01: So the presence of God, in like manner, for us, and we can learn a lot from David, David's heart was, he wanted to organize his entire life and the life of his nation around the manifest presence of God in the same way.
SPEAKER_01: There is an invitation for us that the presence of God should never be relegated to the fringes of our life, but the very center of our existence, our homes, our work, our play, our relationships, you name it, make God the center.
SPEAKER_01: And so David did this.
SPEAKER_01: He organized the nation to bring the ark back to the center, but he didn't stop there in the passage that we just read.
SPEAKER_01: What we read is that he not only did he bring God's presence back into the center of a nation, but then he would go on to institutionalize worship.
SPEAKER_01: Musicians, singers, intercessors, priests.
SPEAKER_01: From this moment for the next 33 years, the tabernacle of David became a place of nonstop worship and praise and prayer and thanksgiving before Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: They started and they never stopped for 33 years.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because David wanted the soundtrack of heaven to influence every thought, every feeling, every decision, every law, every conversation, every strategy, and every environment that he was a part of at the center of the city.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted the soundtrack of heaven to be what impulsed through the streets.
SPEAKER_01: And if he was gonna be king, this is how it was gonna be.
SPEAKER_01: So 16 years ago, yesterday, my oldest son Noah was born.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he's in the room, come on.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm about to embarrass him.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there he is.
SPEAKER_01: So my oldest son Noah was born 16 years.
SPEAKER_01: So yesterday, he actually got his license, his driver's license, which is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Which means that next week, uh I will no longer be driving him to school.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he'll be driving to school and I'll be driving behind him to critique him every step of the way.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so he's 16 and it's a it's a big year, but I was just reflecting on 16 years ago what that was like when he was born.
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a difficult delivery for my wife, not only because it was her first child, um, but it was completely different than everything we thought.
SPEAKER_01: She had gone into the hospital to be induced, and uh for a variety of different reasons, and I'm not gonna go into all the details.
SPEAKER_01: You can ask her.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we thought it was gonna be a short visit to the hospital.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go in and come out and have a baby, right?
SPEAKER_01: It ended up being 48 hours of delivery of labor from Began.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so that was obviously a bunch different than we thought.
SPEAKER_01: There was just some things we didn't expect.
SPEAKER_01: And so we went into the hospital and had everything going.
SPEAKER_01: All the nurses and doctors got, you know, we're trying to get everything going, and and uh hours started to go by, and hours turned into more hours, into more hours, it turned into an entire day.
SPEAKER_01: And and every time the nurses would come into the room, it was uh, you know, it was it was a new kind of let's try this, let's let's do this differently, or maybe this is what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody kind of had their own angle, their own opinion.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's going on, or that's not work, here's why that's not working, or here's my concern now about why that's not working.
SPEAKER_01: This is what that could mean.
SPEAKER_01: And so every time somebody came in the room, there was something else coming into the room with them, right?
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, we had our own stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We were starting to feel a little bit discouraged, like, oh my gosh, what is going on?
SPEAKER_01: Like, Lord, what is what is happening here?
SPEAKER_01: And we were tired and we were we were discouraged that this was not going to plan.
SPEAKER_01: And and the longer time was passing, the more negative our thoughts and feelings were getting.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: The longer time passed, we were just like, oh God, uh what what is happening here?
SPEAKER_01: And so about a day and a half in, I called a friend, and we got on the phone, and he asked if he could pray for us.
SPEAKER_01: And I put him on speaker.
SPEAKER_01: And he prayed over us in the room.
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember as he was praying, and he was just blessing us, and he was just inviting the Holy Spirit into the.
SPEAKER_01: I just remember all at once the atmosphere started to shift.
SPEAKER_01: And it was all it was almost like everything that we had been marinating in for the last day and a half just started to dilute, started to fade away.
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember as he was praying, there just became this awareness of faith that no, we have not been forgotten or forsaken, that God is with us in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna see this through because he loves us and he loves our child.
SPEAKER_01: And and so the way that we started to pray was different.
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, we we went and got a speaker, a boom box, and we put it in the room, and we just put on worship music.
SPEAKER_01: And and all, and and from that moment on for the rest of the night, we had intercessors come down into the hospital waiting room.
SPEAKER_01: We had friends come into the room to pray with us in this moment, but there was something that flipped where all of a sudden, because somebody introduced a new thought and changed the script, and we were able to put on music that reflected the type of atmosphere we wanted to be in.
SPEAKER_01: The soundtrack of the room started to change.
SPEAKER_01: We started to we started to agree in worship about the reality of who God is and who we were, the reality of his goodness, the reality of his nearness, the reality of his faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Worship became the soundtrack of that room.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of worrying about what could happen, we began to thank the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And then it was then that my wife's body started to respond.
SPEAKER_01: And things started to progress.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, we started to see signs of movement, signs of life where her body wasn't responding.
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, it started to move.
SPEAKER_01: And every time we saw progress, it became another opportunity of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01: Just that one bit, just that one, not even the whole thing, just that one bit.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we thank you that you are God.
SPEAKER_01: You are God over our family, you are God over our son, you are God over this room.
SPEAKER_01: And every time we moved, every chance we got, we got to respond in thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: And then shortly later, early in the morning, 1.23 on September 9th, uh, he was born into the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that photo that I showed you is the first photo of me holding him, and it was really a testimony of uh not only the faithfulness of God, but what happens when you change the soundtrack of your thinking.
SPEAKER_01: When you change the soundtrack of the environment that you're living in, what can happen?
SPEAKER_01: See, this is what David knew.
SPEAKER_01: David knew that when he became king, if he was gonna see any change, he needed to change the soundtrack of the nation.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is this, listen to me, the reality is this.
SPEAKER_01: We are all influenced by a script, a soundtrack in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: You all have one playing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: We have narratives that tell us what to believe about reality.
SPEAKER_01: We all have a framework that is actually built over time.
SPEAKER_01: Before we were born, as we grow up, as we're shaped, and as we're formed, we continue to have this baked into us through various things in an immediate, saturated world, we have more inputs and soundtracks than ever before.
SPEAKER_01: All around us, each message trying to convince us of what is true about reality.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys understand that?
SPEAKER_01: And this is why this matters.
SPEAKER_01: That's why worship is not just about feeling good, it's about really rewiring your thinking around the reality of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, what happens is we have a lot of things that we receive and a lot of messages that come in, and we start to rehearse those messages.
SPEAKER_01: And they come in.
SPEAKER_01: And what worship does is worship elevates our vision, roots us back into what is true about God's intentions and his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: So we can come in, and maybe we even came into this room this morning with this thought, God has forsaken me.
SPEAKER_01: We have a thought that says, God has forsaken me.
SPEAKER_01: But as we come into worship, we're actually convinced, no, no, no, his goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life.
SPEAKER_01: God has not forsaken you, he's following you with mercy and goodness.
SPEAKER_01: All the days of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody that was for you.
SPEAKER_01: You just say amen right here.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are left with the thought, you the soundtrack of your mind is saying, I'm all on my lone I'm all on my own.
SPEAKER_01: This is it.
SPEAKER_01: But the soundtrack of heaven says this that God is our refuge and strength.
SPEAKER_01: He is my ever-present help in times of trouble.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not on my own.
SPEAKER_01: He is my refuge and my strength.
SPEAKER_01: My help in times of trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have bought into a soundtrack that says the next generation is off the rails.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what the scriptures say.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the scriptures say?
SPEAKER_01: That one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: That's true, that's true.
SPEAKER_01: That's true of our kids.
SPEAKER_01: And you may not see that yet, but listen, the promises of God are that his work is unstoppable.
SPEAKER_01: And it will continue from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are catching up.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you play the soundtrack that says, Wicked leaders are running this world.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms 2 says, He who sits in the heavens laughs, and the Lord holds them in derision.
SPEAKER_01: Which means what?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we might have wicked leaders running in this world, but we have a God who's sitting on his throne, and he's not sad or on the edge of his seat trying to hope that we just figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: He's on his throne laughing at the intentions of mankind to try to derail his purposes as if that could happen.
SPEAKER_01: He sits on his throne.
SPEAKER_01: Alas, see, listen, the reason that you have to change that soundtrack is because we are dealing with a lot of stuff in this world.
SPEAKER_01: But if we forget who God is, then we forget who we are and we forget his purposes on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us are more influenced by the person sitting in the oval office than the one who sits on the throne in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not just about our oval.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you can have whatever opinion you want about any leader.
SPEAKER_01: But if you are, if that soundtrack is louder than the soundtrack of heaven, I'm telling you, you are not headed the right direction.
SPEAKER_01: What is happening, you need to saturate your thinking with the soundtrack of heaven, the atmosphere of what the angels are crying out before the throne of God, which is holy are you, Lord, your kingdom will last forever.
SPEAKER_01: That's the soundtrack of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's reality.
SPEAKER_01: It's not an opinion.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I love is God is not in heaven tuning into CNN to try to figure out what's going on on earth.
SPEAKER_01: He's not listening to Fox News trying to say, like, gosh, what are the anchors saying about this?
SPEAKER_01: I wonder, gosh, did I miss something?
SPEAKER_01: No, the Lord is on his throne and the earth is his footstool.
SPEAKER_01: Wake up to reality.
SPEAKER_01: Wake up.
SPEAKER_01: This is reality.
SPEAKER_01: So for David, the center for David was an environment marked by declaring the reality of God through songs, prayers, laments, thanksgiving set to music and set to words.
SPEAKER_01: Not because God required it, even, it's because David willed it in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: This is what David wanted.
SPEAKER_01: So much of what David would do in the chapters that follow were about the movement of his own heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he wanted to honor, yeah, the commands of God and what God commanded so that God could have a resting place on earth.
SPEAKER_01: But so much of what we're talking about is not just about duty.
SPEAKER_01: It's about, no, this is what we want and what we need.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that God doesn't need your thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't need your praise.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't need your worship.
SPEAKER_01: He longs for communion with us, but he's not a narcissist as if he's just waiting for someone to adore him.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the point.
SPEAKER_01: It's us who are in need to be worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: We're the ones with the need.
SPEAKER_01: You're the one with the need.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have the need.
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: You need someone to give your praise to that's beside yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You need something worthy of your worship.
SPEAKER_01: You need a purpose that demands your very life.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you're made for.
SPEAKER_01: You were made to give yourself to what and who is eternal.
SPEAKER_01: That is where life is.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what worship anchors us in.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're made for.
SPEAKER_01: We were made to give ourselves to the one and only true God.
SPEAKER_01: That all other gods are worthless false idols.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody prays with me.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what you say, he sits alone.
SPEAKER_01: He does not share his throne with another.
SPEAKER_01: It's not possible.
SPEAKER_01: This is reality.
SPEAKER_01: We're the ones who are in deep need.
SPEAKER_01: We were designed to walk in the garden with in loving union with our Maker.
SPEAKER_01: And so we need Him just like we need water, like we need air, like we need a pulse.
SPEAKER_01: We need to direct our attention and our affection to what is eternal and good and holy and beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: The deepest craving of the human heart is to know him and to be known by him.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Augustine, St.
SPEAKER_01: Augustine said, You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
SPEAKER_01: You have made us for yourself, O Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And our hearts are restless until they find a rest in you.
SPEAKER_01: So what we speak and what we sing is the reality that we agree with in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: It's the reality that we're making.
SPEAKER_01: That's why what we sing and what we speak is so important.
SPEAKER_01: In worship and praise, we begin to agree with God about his thoughts and his intentions, his heartbeat.
SPEAKER_01: And the kingdom comes.
SPEAKER_01: His kingdom is actually established through the power of agreeing with him about reality.
SPEAKER_01: You guys realize that?
SPEAKER_01: It's about saying, This is what you've said, and I'm going to come into alignment with that.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is what we see all through the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: So this song book in the middle of the Bible, these psalms that are wild and kind of messy and kind of all over the map.
SPEAKER_01: And it encompasses the entire scope of human emotion and human experience.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing on there's nothing edited.
SPEAKER_01: It's like Trav was saying, it's like wherever you're at, just come before Him.
SPEAKER_01: Because we can only meet God in reality.
SPEAKER_01: So we just bring whatever you have, you bring before you.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't try to convince us out.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that being said, authenticity is not actually the end goal, authenticity is the pathway into his presence.
SPEAKER_01: We come and we present himself, but it's in his presence that he begins to heal and to change and transform us from the inside out.
SPEAKER_01: So come authentic, but listen, you just know that you're meeting with your Maker.
SPEAKER_01: Your Maker.
SPEAKER_01: He made you, and He can remake you.
SPEAKER_01: So the Psalms, Walter Brugeman said like this, he said, the Psalms are just this wild collection of a movement.
SPEAKER_01: The Psalms are a movement from orientation to disorientation and reorientation.
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the Psalms are just acknowledging who God is and what He's made.
SPEAKER_01: That's orientation.
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of Psalms, David and the writers coming to God completely disoriented.
SPEAKER_01: Completely disorient.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know which way is up and which way is down.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you are, right?
SPEAKER_01: But then so many of the psalms have this wild way, this beautiful way of moving into a reorientation of I am disoriented, yet this is what I know to be true of you.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reorientation.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a transformation that happens even as we sing and even as David writes these Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms 22, for instance.
SPEAKER_01: This is the psalm that we catch Jesus singing while on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And crying out with a loud voice.
SPEAKER_01: This was so baked into him.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?
SPEAKER_01: Has anybody ever felt like that?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer by night, and I find no rest.
SPEAKER_01: So we come as we are, not pretending to be something that we're not, but we also get to reorient ourselves around what is more true than my emotive, emotional state.
SPEAKER_01: There's something actually more true right now.
SPEAKER_01: And what's more true right now is that God, you are holy, and you're actually building your kingdom on our praises.
SPEAKER_01: I love that this Psalm says that God is enthroned on the praises of his people.
SPEAKER_01: That means that God's kingdom comes, his throne is wherever there are people who agree with who he is, and the desire of our hearts is that he would make his home here.
SPEAKER_01: That's how his kingdom is established on the earth, is through partnership with us.
SPEAKER_01: He desires to partner with us for his kingdom to come to earth.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So whatever is happening in heaven, we want to agree with that.
SPEAKER_01: So earth matches that, right?
SPEAKER_01: There is something about, there's something that Jesus even taught us to pray of just say yes to whatever's happening in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Just say yes to that.
SPEAKER_01: Hollow it, God, your name is holy, your name is set apart.
SPEAKER_01: I'm turning my attention to you.
SPEAKER_01: Now let the kingdom of your rule and reign actually come here and affect our relationships and our marriages and our families and world wars and injustice that happens all around us.
SPEAKER_01: Let the atmosphere of heaven come, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would say again in Matthew 18, he said, if two of you agree on any uh on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.
SPEAKER_01: This passage it really has to do with reconciling of relationships and forgiveness, is what happens when we come together.
SPEAKER_01: And there's something about when we come together, having reconciled our relationships, and we come together to agree on anything in his name.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's something about a his promised presence that is that God is always present, but there's times, there's environments that he rushes into, and he rushes into an environment where two or three are say, we're going to say yes to what you're doing in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Are you guys alive?
SPEAKER_01: This is really good news, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: There is power in agreement.
SPEAKER_01: And so why does all that matter?
SPEAKER_01: Because worship, when we recover the heart of worship, like David, when we understand the power of worship and praise in our life, what it what it's doing is it's helping us to agree with God.
SPEAKER_01: And when we agree with God, things shift.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven comes to earth.
SPEAKER_01: And we agree with God.
SPEAKER_01: So what is praise?
SPEAKER_01: Praise is agreeing with who God is.
unknown: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: They welcomed him with praise, which gave him there was an invitation or there's a permission to rule among them.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't rule among people he's not invited to rule among.
SPEAKER_01: He's in authority over all the nations of the earth are his, but he he doesn't go where he's not invited as well.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys understand that?
SPEAKER_01: There's something about inviting his presence and his rule and his reign.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we that's how we walk in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see David and the people welcomed him with praise.
SPEAKER_01: When we sing these songs of praise, we're we're just saying, God, this is true, who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just we're gonna elevate our thinking to align with who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this.
SPEAKER_01: I this is what I love about praise.
SPEAKER_01: I so last Christmas, there's kind of this funny moment where we were uh on Christmas Eve, we're in this room and we were singing Silent Night, which is a beautiful song.
SPEAKER_01: You guys all know it.
SPEAKER_01: Silent night.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and oh the I think it was a second or third verse.
SPEAKER_01: It says Silent Night, Holy Night, Son of God loves pure light, radiant beams from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, what Jesus, Lord at thy birth?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, your Lord, at your birth.
SPEAKER_01: And I was singing this, and just all of a sudden I'm like, yes! And then my wife turns over, she's like, Your mic is on.
SPEAKER_01: And I realized during silent night, I'm just like, I ruined the moment for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: It's like this was supposed to be a really serene moment.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, but this is so good.
SPEAKER_01: Lord of the boom! I'm happy to ruin any moment for you, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: But there's something that wells up inside when we sing something that's true, and everything inside of us says, yes! It should.
SPEAKER_01: There should be something inside of you that says, This, there is nothing more real than this.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing more real than this.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna announce it to my body, it's to my mind.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what praise is.
SPEAKER_01: It's agreeing with God about who he is.
SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving is agreeing with what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the people in the tabernacle of David were given the full full-time job of thanking God.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm uh I'm the chief thanker at the local tabernacle.
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever have a bad day on the job if you your full-time job is thankfulness?
SPEAKER_01: How was work today?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: Eight hours of just reflecting on God's endless goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Oh it's like, no way, these had to have been the happiest people in the city.
SPEAKER_01: Like, all you're paid to thank God with like all of your brothers, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: You're like, does it get any better than this?
SPEAKER_01: This is like amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Chief thankfulness, because why is thankfulness so powerful?
SPEAKER_01: It calls us to remember the testimonies and stories of God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: When we thank God for who he has been, it stirs up faith for who he will continue to be.
SPEAKER_01: Why was the ark lost in the first place?
SPEAKER_01: Because they forgot.
SPEAKER_01: His soul forgot.
SPEAKER_01: So David says, we're gonna stop forgetting.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna, I'm gonna bankroll some thankers to come into the city, and we're gonna thank God continually.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we thank God, we agree with everything that he's done.
SPEAKER_01: And there's all kinds of psalms about that.
SPEAKER_01: Coming into his courts and entering his gates with thanksgiving is courts with praise.
SPEAKER_01: This is our, this is our beautiful call that we have.
SPEAKER_01: So praise is how we agree with who God is.
SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving is how we agree with what God's done.
SPEAKER_01: Intercession is agreeing with God's will, and there's so many psalms of intercession, and intercession is where we live as well.
SPEAKER_01: Intercession is songs and and and prayers that that acknowledge that we're not quite where God wants us to be yet, but we're going to uh we're gonna announce his will until his will is done on earth.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms 2 is a prayer for nations and leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 67 is uh calling the earth back into God's will and design.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms 10, verses 1 through 1 through 3 says, Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
SPEAKER_01: Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble and arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor?
SPEAKER_01: Let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised, for the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty bad.
SPEAKER_01: But you do but fast forward to verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted, you will strengthen their heart, you will incline their ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
SPEAKER_01: It's a psalm of intercession, it's a psalm of there's injustice happening, and your desire is that no one be fatherless and no one be oppressed.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna sing about that until your will is done on earth.
SPEAKER_01: You guys see that?
SPEAKER_01: So that's why justice, true justice, begins with coming into alignment with God's desire for all people.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of justice movements that happen, but in worship, we're actually filled with the true essence of God's heart, and that becomes our fuel for righteous justice on earth.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that need course correcting and things that have to be addressed on this earth, oppressed people's wickedness all across the board.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is where we're seated into the atmosphere of heaven so that we can move out, agreeing with God about his purposes on this earth.
SPEAKER_01: That's what intercession is.
SPEAKER_01: Talk to me, people.
SPEAKER_01: Prophecy is agreeing with God's future intentions, his ultimate purposes.
SPEAKER_01: Prophecy is all through the Psalms as well.
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple different kinds of prophetic psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Some are messianic, so basically psalms about the coming of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: But some are just some are just foretelling psalms, like psalms about God's ultimate uh desire for the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 96, 11 through 13 says, Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice, let the sea roar, and all that fills it, let the field exalt, and everything in it.
SPEAKER_01: Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Here it is.
SPEAKER_01: Before the Lord comes, for he comes to judge the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he will do, and this is actually good news.
SPEAKER_01: We want God to be judged.
SPEAKER_01: This is sobering, but this is good.
SPEAKER_01: This is how he sets what is wrong right.
SPEAKER_01: He will do that once and for all.
SPEAKER_01: He is the righteous judge, and there's coming a day where he will judge the earth rightly.
SPEAKER_01: All of us.
SPEAKER_01: And David said, Hey, listen, this is the future we're coming, we're we're working towards.
SPEAKER_01: So let's start singing about it now.
SPEAKER_01: And let's come into alignment with this fact that he is coming and this is who he is.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys see?
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys see this?
SPEAKER_01: That worship and praise and thanksgiving, this is how we tell our minds and our hearts and our bodies and our spirits that this is what is true about God.
SPEAKER_01: And when we start to believe that, it unlocks not only the flow of blessing from our lives to our community, but to the nations of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this about the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: David always had a picture of what God is doing here.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want to do just for us.
SPEAKER_01: This is about the way he wants to bless the entire world.
SPEAKER_01: In worship, we are reset, we come into alignment.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the wild part, too.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of new studies, or even from a from a neuroscience point of view.
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever read anything about neuroplasticity and the brain and the mind's ability to change and to heal, there's an article that came about neurophysiological benefits of worship that in environments of worship, this is what's happening this morning for you, whether you think this is happening or not.
SPEAKER_01: This is just kind of, this is part of the deal.
SPEAKER_01: When you come into worship and worship is part of your habit and your lifestyle, you experience lower blood pressure, reduce heart rate, stabilize blood glucose, reduce inflammation.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody say amen.
SPEAKER_01: Psychologically, it reduces anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritually, there's a greater empathy, forgiveness, and love.
SPEAKER_01: Worship shifts response from reactionary fear that happens in the amygdala to intentional, moral, and empathetic reasoning, which happens in the frontal lobes and the cingulate cortex.
SPEAKER_01: Heb's Law, here's the thing about your brain.
SPEAKER_01: This is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: This is how God wired you.
SPEAKER_01: Hebb's law says cells that fire together wire together.
SPEAKER_01: So repeated focus on God and worship builds lasting neural pathways that will support that that change the soundtrack of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you need to change the soundtrack of your mind that happens as you come into God's presence, as you saturate your mind with the worship and perimeteries.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, people of God, say amen.
SPEAKER_01: So when Paul says, be renewed by the transforming of your mind, this is what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01: It's possible to change the script.
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to speak to us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to come back into a time of worship here.
SPEAKER_01: And as we do, I want to challenge you that as you sing these words, these are not empty words.
SPEAKER_01: These are not words that are just exist to make you feel good when you sing, you are announcing reality, not to yourself, not just to yourself, but to the person you're sitting next to, ultimately to the entire region and to all of the rules, rulers and spiritual beings and heavenly places that need someone to announce to them what is actually true and real and good.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: This is what you're made for, and it's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: It's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Agree with God.
SPEAKER_01: Agree with Him.
SPEAKER_01: Are you guys ready?
SPEAKER_01: Come on, stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Just put your hand on your heart this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Put your hand on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: So, Jesus, as we come into this place, God, as we lift up song again, we thank you for the soundtrack of heaven to fill this place, to fill our minds and to fill our hearts, God.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you that David learned this as a young boy.
SPEAKER_01: He came into the presence of Saul, and when he prayed music in a certain way with a certain anointing and the spirit of prophecy, the evil spirits fled.
SPEAKER_01: And I thank you, God, that as we sing today, the evil spirits will flee this room in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for deliverance to happen in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you that we will be delivered in our mind, in our thinking.
SPEAKER_01: We will be delivered with things that we've partnered with that are unclean.
SPEAKER_01: Allegiances that we have given ourselves to, things that we have said yes to.
SPEAKER_01: I thank you that they're all exposed to the light of your presence, Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: Your name is holy, your name is good, and we just as a people want to take a chance to say praise your name today.
SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So as we go from this place, I'm I'm trusting that you've got a song in your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want a song in your mouth, and maybe like Travis saying, like, I I want some people with me to pray for me.
SPEAKER_01: Hope would rise, faith would rise.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we're gonna have our prayer team, our ministry team here at the front of the room, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Do not leave this room until you feel like others can pray with you and be with you where you're at, so Jesus can encounter you with this presence.
SPEAKER_01: We believe he wants to.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a room for you here wherever you're at on that spectrum.
SPEAKER_01: So as we go though, as we go from this place, we go with the song in our heart, we go with our mouths full of praise.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read the Psalm 100 and feel feel free to shout it out with me.
SPEAKER_01: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Serve the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with singing, know that the Lord He is God.
SPEAKER_01: It is He who made us, and we are His.
SPEAKER_01: We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
SPEAKER_01: Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise, give thanks to Him and bless His name.
SPEAKER_01: For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever and His faithfulness to all generations.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody give it up for Jesus today.
SPEAKER_01: So we bless you as you go, as you leave.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a guest with us, beat us in the back.
SPEAKER_01: If you have kids, go get them and bring them back up to the room.
SPEAKER_01: Don't feel the need to rush out, go see somebody, meet somebody you haven't met yet, and greet them in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Have a blessed day, go broncos.