Playlist For | Week 1

But hey, you know, Jared came up, he just read Psalms one. And we're starting this series called Playlist. Because if you think about it, when it comes to music, music has this ability to attach the heart to the head. And so whenever we're struggling with stuff, like we all tend to like,

built us for that. We're built that there's something about music that is that is moving. And and I don't know about you, don't how I bet every one of us, many of you, you have multiple playlists on your on your phone or whatever it is, like different and you've set them up differently. There's different kinds of music.

Like like, you know, when I'm happy, I get the celebratory music. When I just wanna study, you got something more reflective. When you're sad, for some reason, we like to listen to sad music. I I don't know why. We just do.

It's maybe like, wow, that poor guy is more pathetic for him in that song than what I'm going through, so I'm okay. I don't know. For me, personally, I I I always with most of my moods, I I just I like to listen to eighties music. And it's probably because that's the last time

everything didn't hurt in my body, and I thought at least thought I was kinda cool. So it's easy to reflect back. But the deal with worship,

because worship is all of our life. It's surrender. We've talked about that. But there is an element of why we come together and do this corporate worship thing that involves prayer, involves giving, involves the word of God, but it also involves singing. And that's always been a critical aspect,

and it has been for God's people since the beginning. You see, the book of Psalms is 150 basically poems that are filled with wisdom and God's truth, but they cover pretty much every emotion that we hit, every season that we're in, and that's because the Psalms was a playlist for God's people. They sang these.

This was their their their hymn book. That's why every now and then, if you have your bible and you're reading a psalm that says, written by so and so, played to the tune of, and then some song. Like, they actually had some of them had directions on what musical tune they were using to to sing them.

And God calls us to sing and praise and all that. But why? Why? And what we're gonna see as we we we go through this is today, we're just gonna unpackage the beginning of the series. And the big idea is is because worship is the playlist for our battles and our breakthroughs.

Worship is the playlist that we use to connect the heart and the head with God's truth, and it's for going into battles. It's about fearing battles of life. And I'm not talking about, like, physical battle, but any kind of thing that you're going into that that just when life gets heavy, when it gets hard, when you you're just trying to trust God,

it's worship should lead the way. When you're fearing one out there, if you're in the middle of one, and it's also for the breakthroughs, when you celebrate, when when when God has shown up, when when things have you've had a victory. It's the act of gratitude and reminder of who did this. In other words, we as God's people

should choose worship no matter what season we're in. Because that's what the Psalms were for. And and and what I wanna do for today is actually go to a passage in in second Chronicles to kinda show how this works, where where this spiritual

melds with the actual physical realm. Like, there's we're gonna look at something as a real battle. It's this real battle because what's happening is Psalms one and two. Go read them. We just read Psalm one. Psalm one and two actually sets up what all these songs are about, basically what they're for. And Psalms one

is is really about this idea that that that it's what shapes you, what we just read. What do you let shape you? In other words, what playlist do you put on repeat in your life? The worlds or the words? And then Psalm two says, and out of that, who do you trust? Which who's your real king?

And then they go through. And then the rest of the Psalms, like, there's there's battle songs in the Psalms. There's grief songs. There's victory songs. There's worship songs. There there's everything in between because it's where our heart meets the word and it meets the truth.

So I wanna show you in in second Chronicles 20.

There's this battle that happens, and it's with with with God's people. And and what's happening is they've been surrounded like these nations around them have allied together, and they've decided they're gonna wipe out Israel. And the and they can on paper. They they they are facing an enemy now united that is vastly

outnumbers them. It has better technology. I mean, they are on paper, they're they're there's no way they can win this. And this has happened during the time that the Southern Kingdom, they they they the Northern Kingdom, Southern Kingdom was split. The Northern Kingdom

never had a good king, and and they basically got wiped out. The Southern Kingdom Judah lasted longer because they they they had moments where they trusted God more, and they had a they they're the ones that had some good kings. And right now, their king was one of the good ones. His name was Jehoshaphat

until he went Ozempic, then he became Jehoshaphat skinny. But right now, he's he's pre peptide, so he's Jehoshaphat. But and and he calls the people together. We're gonna see what he does in this moment. And as we look at this moment, we can see how this let God let worship lead the way and how it works where it's spiritual

even as it helps in the physical realm. In other words, the New Testament says that we don't face an enemy of flesh and blood. We we we face a spiritual enemy. Meaning that everything that happens in our physical realm ultimately does have a spiritual element to it. We need to realize that and know how do I go through that.

That's what worship is for. I just want to read the first few verses and I'm to make two points about how worship, why? Why is worship the playlist for our battles and our breakthroughs, and how does that play out in this passage?

So it says this, after this, the armies of the Moabites, Ammonites, and some of the Munites declared war on Jehoshaphat. Messengers came and told Jehoshaphat, a vast army from Edom is marching against you from beyond the Dead Sea. They're already at Hazan Tamar, which is another name for En Gedi.

And look what it says. Jehoshaphat's feelings, his emotions were genuine. He says Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news. But look what he does. And he begged the Lord for guidance. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting. So people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord's help.

So he was terrified, but the first thing he did is he went to the Lord in prayer and then fasting, and then he called everyone together in worship. All of that was worship. He didn't sit there in his terror and and try to figure out the solution and then say, hey, God, will you bless this mess?

He said he went straight to the Lord in his fear, prayed and fasted. And then as they did that, as you go down, it's like it says that they got together. They started to pray. They started to fast.

And 11 verse 13, it says, as all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives, and children, the spirit of Lord came upon one of them. And the Lord it's like the Lord spoke to one of them, and he spoke courageously and said, hey. The Lord says this is his battle,

and we're not even gonna have to fight. We just have to go to it. We just have to head where God's telling us to go, be prepared to fight, but the victory is ours.

And out of that worship, that's kind of the result of that. And then Jehoshaphat gets up down a little bit, he goes, don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged by this mighty armor for the battle is not yours, but God's. So he was afraid. But through worship, he now said, we can go this direction.

And what's interesting here is I'm talking about this, guys. I I'm talking directly about the worship part of singing. And I find that verse 13 interesting because it says, led that? Who was the first to sing? Who was the first to worship and pray? Who was the first to stand?

The men. And says they brought their little ones, their children, and their wives. They brought them into the worship.

This is where I see us, where we get distracted, men. We should be the first to stand, the first to sting, and we should be the loudest singers in the room Because that's what it means to be a man. That's what it means when the Bible says men are leaders.

When we get confused by this, our society gets confused by this because we even promote this weird manliness that says a man is the boss, a man is macho, a man is this. That's not what the Bible says. Leaders means you go first. Your wife, I guarantee if you ask your wife, if you go first in that way, they'll follow you.

But that's where courage comes from. And all those desires we have to be manly, God planted those desires in us. We just apply it incorrectly. I know this because we like adventure. We like this. I just spent the week in Montana with a bunch of pastors

and and fly fishing, and I caught the liar fish. I actually did. I got the I got the biggest trout of the week, 23 inches. And and then we shot things, shot skeet shooting, and just so manly. I mean, I think my testosterone level is a 100 points higher now that I'm back. But

what God calls manly courage goes beyond just that. It's are we willing to lead the way? Every church I've ever seen that God did amazing, amazing, powerful things through, Men were the loudest singers. They were. But why do we not? I don't know. Maybe we think it's weird. It doesn't seem tough. But

the Bible, this passage we're going to see says, worship is our weapon. Worship is our battle cry. Worship is what we line up behind and we go into the fight. We win the battles before they ever happen if we lead with worship. The battle in your home is worship. The battle in your heart is a worship issue.

This whole chapter in Chronicles makes it very clear that it wasn't about strategy. It was about surrender. It wasn't about war. It was about worship. And all those things we face, just like they faced a real army, we face real things. And we need to lead with worship. And that's the first point. Why? Because worship resets

what fear replays. Worship resets what fear replays. There's something powerful when we sing God's word, and we do that resets. It's the playlist that resets. Because we're either playing that playlist or we're playing

the world's playlist in our head over and over again. He was afraid. He was terrified. He's like, I'm not strong enough. I can't do this. That's the whole point. And worship is victory through surrender.

It's an act of choosing to surrender. And I think a lot of us, we don't wanna sing men and women. But guys, I think some of us especially too is because we think I'm not feeling it. And ladies, you do this a lot too. You make a worship is emotional. It's an emotion. It's not an emotion.

You think worship was only good if you cried or just felt overjoyed? Worship can and often is and does evolve emotions and can be very emotional. But at his very heart, worship isn't an emotion. You're not chasing a feeling. And you're not responding and only doing it when you have a feeling.

Worship is a discipline and a choice. And that's why sometimes I'm just not feeling it or I don't like to do it. Then back to the guys, our version is we don't wanna sing, we don't wanna engage because

it's whatever. It's like, it's just repetitive. I'm not really into it. It's kinda boring to me. And then I talk about your sports career that you once had. I've actually had professional athletes that come to this church tell me, just don't like to do the worship part. It's just I'm not into music. It's boring. And

I'm like, okay. So when you played your fifteen years in the NFL, how much did you love preseason drills and practice in the weight room? They'd look at me and say, that's one of the reasons I finally decided to retire.

And we same thing. There's something that we want to be good at. Well, I was up there fly fish, never done it before. So I thought this is going be embarrassing. And first few it was. I thought I would do better. I go, I've seen a river runs through it, I watched that Madison show. I think I know how to do this.

It's more complicated than it looks. And and I was just mad because I'm like, I'm an athlete. I should be able to make this little bobber thing go further than straight down and then hook me in the leg. And now I'm like, caught something. Me. But you know what you have to do? Just keep doing it. Keep doing it.

Keep doing it. So men especially and ladies, you tend to think it has to be an emotional thing to be good. It does not. And guys, why do you like games more than practice? Because that's where you're in the fight. You're in the mix and they can be hard. But guess what made you like the games more? The practice.

Because if you never practice, you're bad at the game. A lot of us are having a hard time out there because we won't worship in here. Worship is our weapon. It's the most manly thing we can do, guys. It's the most manly thing we can do. As a matter of fact, Jesus is the perfect man. He's the God man. He was courageous.

He was tough. And when he was on the cross in his darkest moment, he called out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You know what he just did? He quoted song lyrics. That's Psalms 22.

He wasn't acting negative. You go read the Psalm and understand, he was declaring faith in the Lord. He was declaring he knew who he was and what his mission was. He was declaring he went to the playlist. So if you think it's uncool or unmanly or boring, Jesus even needed it and used it.

So we gotta understand that don't let the fears replay. And and for fear, guys, I understand. We process a lot of things through anger. Half the time when we're frustrated or mad, we're afraid. We won't admit it's fear. As a matter of fact, I don't even think sometimes we consciously even understand it to be fear.

But we go right to anger, and that's usually because you're letting something that's fearful replay in your head. And then it distracts us, and we choose to not do the one thing God gave us as here is the way to victory. Here's the way to handle it. Otherwise, get stuck.

Because the bottom line is the playlist you repeat becomes the path you walk. And in Psalms one, when it talks about you need to meditate, and he's talking about this as we go into worship. Worship is partially meditation. It's a Hebrew word, Haggah.

In Hebrew, probably says, Hachar. You know, it sounds like you're coughing something up. And it means to rehearse and repeat internally. And when you think of meditation, usually you you think of that. But it also means to mutter. To mutter to to to be saying something.

I know I I I at some point in in in me getting older, I had this switch that stayed off. That that when I thought something was talking it through in my head, it stayed in my head. But then this switch turned off, and and as I'm alone sitting there talking in my head something, repeating it, it starts coming out out loud.

And my wife's like, who are you talking to? No one. No. You were you were talking. And you were laughing too. Are you okay? I go, well, I was going through my sermon. Well, why are you laughing? I told a funny story. And I made myself laugh, and she's like, you're weird. So it means what's on the inside utters outside.

And that's the singing we worship. It's the way we let the Lord's word go through us. And and because what we do with that, like I said, what you repeat becomes the path you walk. Or CS Lewis said it better. He said it this way, we become what we behold. So here they are before this battle. And before they pick up swords,

they knelt down in surrender and lifted up their hands and they praised the Lord. They worshiped. And I think we struggle with that. And I think some of the reasons we get distracted by that, even being in a worship service.

I mean, I think some of the reasons why half y'all, a bunch of y'all are gonna leave during the the closing songs because for some reason, you we don't have the attention span to stay the whole time. And a lot of that's because what's what's happened in in in our in our in our culture,

Like, on attention and formation, I love all these studies. People spend money, and a lot of times, it's our tax money to study and come to a conclusion that every one of us said, well, you coulda just I coulda just told you that. I have kids. I understand attention spans.

And this study, researcher, Gloria Mark from UC Irvine found that constant digital interruptions have dramatically shortened sustained attention spans and increased mental fragmentation. Duh. Did we need studies to know that? But it's affected all of us. We are used to constant interruptions. We are not used to sitting still

and focusing on something. And it says the results the conclusion was what constantly interrupts us eventually shapes us.

Then they did a study in neuroplasticity, which I don't know what that means, but it sounds science y, so it must be a big deal. No. It just means neural pathways and how they can be created. And it says neuroscience research on neuroplasticity shows repeated thought patterns

literally strengthen neural pathways in the brain. In other words, repetition forms us spiritually just like it forms us mentally, like what I already said. And when someone says, well, these songs are repetitive, it's because we're repeating God's word. That's the whole point.

And our brains are actually wired to have a neural pathway that way. You can either use that for good things, like repeating God's word, math, you know, stuff like that, or bad things, pornography. It performs a pathway that you can't break out of. It gets very difficult. It's like the Oregon Trail.

I've actually seen part of the Oregon Trail still exists, and it's super Reddit. Like you see these wagons that run, so they've sunk down. There's a mound in the middle. Like they can't Like it's like the original self driving car.

Those guys near the end of the Oregon Trail, it was so rutted, you could fall asleep and your wagon would stay on the trail. And so the things we repeat over and over become they get neuroplastic, they get a pathway formulated, and it's very hard to get out of that. So the world in other words, it's like

what you choose to repeat over and over becomes a pathway that is hard to get out of. So then we come in here and go, I don't have time to say, I'm not this music person. I'm not that. And then social media algorithms.

Researchers have noted that algorithms reinforce emotional fixation by continually feeding users more of what they already captures their attention. So we want more and more of just this isolated thing I already believe,

and and and we get fixated on that. And it makes us emotionally fixated, and we get very emotional about certain things. Politics are just just one example. But there's diet in certain things. People are like, if you eat this chemical, you're gonna die, and the whole world's gonna die and everyone's gonna die.

If Jesus doesn't come back at some point, we're all gonna die anyways. Chill out. Eat a french fry. Wait, chips and salsa, may I recommend?

It's and the conclusion was this. They said this as it relates to worship culture. That whole thing adds up. If you're not intentional about your worship, culture will disciple you and determine what you pay attention to. If you're not intentional about your worship, culture is gonna disciple you. And so it's true.

They've also found in studies, this was a good one, music and anxiety. Research on spiritually oriented music has shown reduced anxiety levels and increased emotional regulation during hardship. What that said is singing spirituals on worship, singing actually keeps you calmer when things are hard. It brings peace

that surpasses all understanding. If you don't understand that, you'll say I can't worship because life is so hard. Mean, this battle is terrible. Where's God in all this? The emotion takes over and you get fixated on that. And then

you're mad at God, and you're saying, why doesn't he just change this? Take me out of that. Give me that. He goes, you don't have to have all those things happen for you to be at peace right now. Worship is what will do that, because worship resets what fear replays.

And then secondly, my second point, my only other point is, it also reminds us where our refuge is found.

And this is critical for people that are, hey, I'm doing good. And some of us, we don't worship because, like, life's good. I don't Some of us run to worship when when life falls apart because you're like, I gotta get God back on my side is what you think it is. But some of us, when things are going good,

you're like, I don't need it. But we do. We worship after as an act of gratitude. It reminds us where the victory comes from, and it resets our hearts, and we celebrate. Because that's what goes on here. If you look at this last part in

as they went into the battle and even after they came out of the battle, here they go. It says they worship before they go. And then in verse 19,

it says, then the Levites from the clans of Korah and Korah stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud shout. Early the next morning, the army of Judah went out to the wilderness of Tekoa. On the way, Jehoshaphat stopped and said, listen to me, all the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be able to stand firm. Believe in his prophets, and you will succeed.

After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. And this is what they sang. Give thanks to the Lord. His faithful love endures forever. So they're going into a battle.

And he goes, you know what would be the best way to win this fight? Let's put the band in front. How do you think a musician thought? What am I gonna do with my bass guitar? How is that gonna help? You know?

But they put and it wasn't just a little bit. When they say the Levitical singers, this could have been up to a thousand of these men out in front. And they had the instruments. They had all that. So now they're they're they're they're being led by the by the the the worship team, basically. They're all behind them,

and they start singing. But you know what? You get it. Military has figured this out. They put music up because it it creates courage and and shared identity and and all of that as you march into battle. But they sing battle type stuff. It's like,

you know? But they start marching in a battle to face this army that completely outnumbers them, and they start singing a love song. It's like they're busting out foreigner or something. I wanna know what love is, and I want you to show me. It was like, this what?

And I think that's why a lot of us, especially guys, I think that's what confuses us about worship. Like, you're like, alright. I'm gonna be a leader. I'm gonna God calls it to these battles. I'm gonna be brave and courageous and go first. And then I'm gonna sing a love song as I go.

It does this doesn't match them because the world says that you have to be scary. The world says you gotta scare the enemy. I was afraid. I'm gonna make you afraid. But that's not what the word says. Because they go in front and they sing this. So imagine this army that's way bigger is waiting for them.

And then they hear that. And it says, at the very moment, verse 22, they began to sing and give praise. The Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting amongst themselves. And some of the older translations says, they were confounded. They got confused.

It's kind of like you see that one person who's just like got crazy eyes. Somebody's like just talking to you. I go, I don't think I want to mess with this person. They just got crazy eyes. I can't read them. I don't know what that means. They're probably like, why are they singing that?

I don't know. What should we do? I don't know. What do you think? I think we should I think you should shut up. I think and then they they started killing each other. They got so confused that they fought each other. So when when the Israelites showed up, it says everyone was already dead. They got to the battlefield,

and they already won. It says they took three days to collect the plunder. It's like, hey, thanks for bringing us all these supplies and the gold and some cash and some better weapons. That was nice. It was like Amazon brought you a whole bunch of Amazon guys came together, fought each other, and left you all the stuff.

And and if you look down here, it says at the end in verse 27, then all the men returned to Jerusalem with Jehoshaphat leading them, overjoyed that the Lord had given them victory over their enemies. They marched in Jerusalem to the music of harps, layers, trumpets, and they proceeded to the temple of the Lord.

When all the surrounding kingdoms heard the Lord himself had fought against the enemies of Israel, the fear of God came over them. So Jehoshaphat's kingdom was at peace for God had given them the rest on every side. So they went to this battle, and the only way it worked was they did something that made no sense.

And God provided the victory, and then they celebrated, and God gave them peace. You see, ridership reminds us where refuge is found. Refuge is a word that you hear in Psalm two. You should go read that this week because because it's it's it's what shapes me. Who do I trust? And it says,

those who run to the Lord for refuge. That's where you find hope. And most of us get that, the what that Greek, the Hebrew word means. It means to run to for protection, to kinda hide behind, but it means more than that.

When you think of God as your refuge, just the one you go hide behind, you imagine that you run to him. My god, man, I was going that way and I'm trying to get that way, but there's there's this scary problem in my way. Like as a kid, a scary monster.

And then God goes, oh, okay. Well, let me go take care of that for you. That's not what it says. It means to run to and flee to for protection and get behind and then to trust and then to trust. So what it means is we often we're running in a direction that God says don't go this direction. It goes poorly,

and we run to God and we hide, but we think what we're going to God for is go fix that. That's not what he's gonna do. He's like, alright. Come with me. And he's gonna start walking a different direction. And you gotta decide

if you want the refuge, you go with him. It's the same thing that I talked about a few weeks ago. We've sang a song. It's in the word. It's like we love to the thing that gives us hope and courage is when he says we sing about the Bible says that God goes before us,

meaning he's out in front of me. He goes before us. He comes up behind us. Well, he only does goes before you if you're walking behind him. It's not go to refuge and get God to go where you want and solve what you think you need and go in your direction. To refuge, you find the refuge when you line up behind him.

And they remember that. So now they're celebrating that. They're staying surrendered to them. And if you look at that, what they just did is they basically did what militaries do today, but a little bit different. They they they basically

lined up behind the band. They got behind there. They went they worshipped before. They worshipped on their way. They worshipped through, and they worshipped when they got the breakthrough. Meaning no matter what season, what thing they're in, they chose worship. And that's where the victory comes from.

Because it reminds us, it reminds us that we are actually fighting a spiritual war, not just physical battles. Do we want to run to him for our refuge? You win by surrender in these daily battles. What they did was very similar to what the world has figured out. I said militaries,

they'll have music and oo rahs and all of that. But it's missing something. It's just giving us courage in ourselves to go do something. And the military way of doing it, when armies face each other, the goal of the music they use is to be ominous and terrify the enemy. For example, my my ancestors,

the the the Celtic Scottish people from way back in the day. They are the ones that actually stopped the expansion of the Roman Empire. They got to them, and it went no further. They had taken over most of the world, and they came into Great Britain.

This is backward country there, and it's like they had a tactically better army, a bigger army, a better well equipped army, a trained army, and a very experienced army.

And they were marching over the world, and then they got up near the what's present day Scotland, you know, in Great Britain. They started going there. And all of sudden, they started seeing these armies come out against them that they outnumbered. But, man, these people, like, painted their faces blue. They sharpened their teeth.

And they had this instrument that they played called the Carnax. It was a huge long horn about 15 feet tall that went straight up, bent, and then it had the head of a dragon. And then they would be chanting and war crime and doing all this stuff.

And they would do it and and and imagine them coming out of this mist, this Scottish mist towards them. And I and I I added sound of the Karnacs. This is only four. There's only four Karnacs playing, but they would usually have a 100 or so. You can listen to that.

Now imagine that wasn't AI generated, and it was a real scary army coming out of the mist and you're the Roman army. And you hear that only about you know, add about 96 more of those playing in a in a misty morning early battle.

And you know what the Romans did? Their their leader, Hadrian, the the emperor, he's like, yeah. Uh-uh. Let's just build a wall, and and we're gonna be a gate guarded community because we don't want them living in our community. And but you think that that's what worship is for us. Part of it is

when when when we have you we're united. We know our shared purpose. And and and and and and our music, our worship kind of gives us that unity. It gives us courage when we sing God's word. That internal part is good. But there's a difference between what our worship is.

It's not trying to be ominous and purposely terrify the enemy. In God's word, they didn't terrify the enemy. It just confused the enemy. The enemy is like, wait, I'm coming to fight you, and you're singing love songs.

And that's what we should be doing. We should be singing it, just bolting it out. I mean, and guys, we should be bolting it out even louder, man. And you know what? I'm not some of us think, well, I'm just a bad singer. It doesn't matter about the quality of your singing.

It's what we're singing. I mean, I feel sad if you were sitting in front of me, the couple there was a couple in front of me at night of worship. I apologize to your ears

because I will when I'm in those moments, I didn't have to preach. I don't care if my voice went gone. I I'll I'll bolt it out. I have no problem singing a love song. I I will sing it. I will sing. I'll go meatloaf on that song. I will I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. You know, I don't care. Because

there's a power in that music. There's a power in God's word put to music. And when they went, they they had the band in front and they had all these instruments. They did have one instrument they used, and it was powerful sound. It could be intimidating,

but it had a little bit different tone to it and the meaning behind it. They still use it in worship today, and it is powerful.

They use it in the beginning of a song because it kinda represents the majesty and power of God. Like, God is here is what it's saying, And it's called the shofar or the ram's horn. And they would play it, and I got a video of one guy who was up on his his balcony

out over Jerusalem just playing one ram's horn. This has not been altered to make it sound louder. It's just the video camera, what it got. But listen to the power of it. But listen to the tonal quality of it. It sounds more majestic powerful, not this ominous scary kind of powerful. Just watch. Listen to this.

That's pretty impressive, isn't it? And can you tell it's got the power, guys, but it's got that mad it's got that the hope in it. It's got the God is here in it. And imagine they would have probably a 100 of those. And when they heard that and then they heard, give thanks to the Lord, his love endures forever.

Then he was like, I don't understand this. You're not trying to be scary. You're not trying to be overly aggressive. You're just saying, the Lord is here. He is before me because I'm walking behind him, and he said to come this direction, so you're gonna lose.

Have you been confused by that? And you are confounded by worship. So you're like, well, I don't like it. I'm not gonna sing it. I have a bad voice, or what does it matter? Or I don't like those songs. Or I don't like how loud it is. Or maybe it's I don't like to be bossed and Bill told me to do it, so I'm not gonna do it.

If you don't surrender, won't sing. Singing is surrender. And that's what confounded the enemy. Because we are the only army that gets victory through surrender. And that's what it means, guys, gals, kids. It's a chance to surrender. It's a chance to put the word of God to some melody that declares his love.

And it does something in our hearts.

So what if we just for a minute here, everyone stand, and we're gonna sing a couple songs. But we're not just gonna sing songs. We're gonna worship. What could it be like if you actually worship in this moment? Surrender in your heart. Find God as your refuge, means I'm gonna get behind you, and then I'm gonna walk

where you're going. And this is our Levites. This is the band that leads the way. They're not just doing a performance. They never want that. They want to declare the majesty of God and lead us in our worship. So what would happen if we just chose to do that here for a few and chose not to get distracted,

not to say, well, I came to the main part, this is the end credit scene, I'm gonna go out. This is the main part. This is worshiping the God who loves us. And worship is our weapon no matter what season you're in. Amen?

This song church is our prayer. He would give us clean hands and pure hearts. Wherever you're at, whatever season, just lay down before him.

Pray pray

it all, God. You can have it all. You can have it all, God. You can have it all. If you can have it all.

These are more than just words, church. Let's be people of faith and people of courage and call on the Holy Spirit. Come on, every voice we cry out. Pour out your spirit on our praise. Come on. Come let revival fill this place.

Like our father.

Let's not forget what Jesus did to know us, to know his children. We worship him. What a God that we serve, church. Put your hearts out there on the line and praise his name. Put a shame aside, fear aside, and worship the risen king in this place. Have some faith. Come

and We're be to midst that were just amazingly beautiful right alongside a river, and I just worshiped God. It says the heavens and the earth proclaim the glory of God and his word, and that's what we were experiencing, just seeing God's creation. But just in the midst of that magnitude

and that majesty, I couldn't help but feel just insignificant in that moment. And then God spoke to my heart.

He spoke to my heart and he said this. He said, Jared, you mean more to me than all these mountains than the magnitude of this universe because we are the crown jewel of God's creation. We are image bearers of the living God. What a God we serve that he would humble himself to human flesh, come and die the death you and I deserve. That's the God we serve. So when we say what a God, that's what we mean. So we're gonna continue to worship because he's an awesome God. So please sing this out with us as we lift our hearts and our praise. Our God

is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above with ways. Some power in love, our God is an awesome God. Come on. Let's declare it. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from

is an awesome God. He reigns.

Our God is an awesome God. Amen.

God is an awesome God. Amen. What a great time of worship. I have to admit, I snuck a peek from behind the curtain just to see you guys worshiping because the sound was incredible. So let's do something this week. Let's not leave the weapon of worship in here. Let's take it out into this week. Whether you're gonna be worshiping from a place of

battling

or a place of refuge or worshiping from a place of victory, we can carry that on through this week. If you it is not meant worship reserved, and it's not meant to battle alone. So if you're battling something today and you need prayer, our prayer room's open to my right and your left. People would love to come alongside you and pray with you. In the meantime, take that weapon of worship this week, and we can't wait to see you again next week. God bless. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. You can stay connected with us through rockwind.io

or our social media.