Worship Weekend | Rock Point Worship // Bill Bush

I won't be able to we won't be able to apply what we're gonna talk about in the next few weeks as we talk about the devil's playbook and understand that we are in a there is a spiritual realm and we're at war, And we have to understand how that works. But if I don't embrace what we're gonna talk about today,

it won't matter what I know about the war. And and let me explain it this way. Speaking of war, my my dad, which if you've been here before, you've heard this a million times, but there's always new people here. Hence, why we need you to squish or move services

but my my dad had me a little bit later in life. He was a combat veteran. He was in World War two, Korea, Vietnam. He served in the military for twenty two years. Eight of that was during wartime.

Five of those eight years, he was literally in combat for five years of his life. So he had a lot of experience in combat. He ended up leading men in combat, and so he'd been in a lot of it. So one time when it came to war, I was with my brother-in-law and stuff, and I just asked him. I go, hey, what was combat like?

What do you think the first word that came out of his mouth was? What did you say? Loud? Hell. Hell. Did you say hell or loud? Hell. What? Loud. She's saying loud. She's the first person to get it right in all four services. Congratulations.

Although she's wearing headphones right now, so she's probably sensitive to loud noises to begin with. Amazing. Good job. Yeah. Loud. You would think hell, terrifying, chaotic, you know, violent. He did say all of those, but the first word was loud.

And I go, really? Why would you say loud? Well, loud and chaotic and and terrifying and all this stuff. And I and I go, so loud was the first thing you say? Yeah. Because it set up everything else. He goes, it was so loud. It was like it was like you felt alone even though you're with, you know, tons of people are there. And it's kind of like if you go to a concert, you're with all your friends and you're at that really, like, hardcore rock kind of it's like super loud. You know, some of you feel our music is that way too. And and and and loudness

becomes a wall that even though you're with everybody, you're kind of alone in your own thoughts. You ever feel that way? Because it's so loud, you just you can't talk. You just you feel and he goes, speak that loudness makes you feel isolated. Then you have the chaos, and then you have the fearful things going on,

and all of that. And he says it was really difficult, and that's what made it so hard. That's what made it hell, and it was what made it so easy to die. Because in those moments, everything you felt like doing was the opposite of what you should do.

And so if you did what you felt like you were gonna do, you die. And if you're leading men and I did what it felt like you're gonna do and you're isolated thinking in the loudness of it all, you would get your men killed. And I'm like, well, how do you overcome that? And my dad said, training.

You have to trust your training. Anyone in any combat related or even emergency oriented you know that you train and train and train, and sometimes that training is boring, it's very repetitive, and and you try to mimic the the the the same kind of

happening like when you train in the military, that's why they would shoot live guns and make it loud. It's the same thing in sports. Why do you think football teams practice with piped in

noise when they're practicing? Because they know it gets so loud. It's easy to run your play when the wide receiver can actually yell, I'm open and you can hear them. It's another thing when you can't even hear the play being called. When it's chaotic, can you do the same thing? And so any kind of job like that, it's like you have to train repetitively over and over and over again, and so then you get in this moment in combat when it's loud and you're isolated and it's chaotic and it's terrifying.

How do I do the right thing? I need to be able to trust my training. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. There is something that we are called to do as followers that we have got to do that's like training, because what training does, my dad said, is it gives you perspective.

And what we're gonna talk about today is praise, and then we're gonna actually practice it some more. We're gonna sing some more. I'm gonna speak shorter, that's why I only got this up here, and then we're gonna sing more. And I'm just gonna warn you right now, don't leave.

You may think I don't like this part, but here's the deal. What we're gonna see about how praise, praise is about perspective, that's the big idea. Praise is about perspective.

And when we see that, what you're gonna understand is you might say, well, I'm not into praise. And what do you mean by praise? Like it's worship, but worship is more than just singing. Worship is a lot of things we do in our life. But the Bible talks over and over a thing about this thing called praise

and praise is usually 99.9% of the time, it's it's singing and being loud with musical instruments and you are crying out and singing and praising who god is. We we sing about who and that gives us a perspective that helps us go through the battles. It helps us in the loudness. It helps us center.

It's like, I don't know if you've noticed, but the last year and a half the world's been pretty loud, hasn't it? It's been pretty scary. It's been very chaotic, and there's been a lot of violence, both literally and figuratively. It feels like we are at war, And the things we want to do in those moments

is not what we should do. Like my dad said at Iwo Jima, one of the biggest things was when he landed guys on those land grab, they had to get out of the boat. You didn't feel like getting out of the boat, and then you had to run towards all the chaos,

and then the way this volcanic collar went, there's a little lip on on on on the beaches. So if you ran up and collapsed on that lip, you felt like you had some cover from the machine gun fire and all that. So in that moment, you felt like safe, and everything in you told you to stay there. But the number one thing they had to train is you will die if you stay there.

You have to get off the beach. Well, guess how you have to get off the beach? You have to run towards all of the gunfire. See how that's the opposite of what you feel like doing?

Well, it's the same thing when it comes to following the Lord. The reason God calls us to praise is we're gonna see that praise is training. If we train, if we choose to worship, as our song just said, if we choose to praise God, especially when we're overwhelmed, it gives us a perspective.

Now what does that mean? How does praise give us a perspective? Same as combat training, it gives us a perspective.

Praise is a training that that allows you to see what you can't see so you can do what you don't feel. When you trust your training combat, you you know it so well, and you've done it so much that in the moment I can't see how this works, it sees kinda crazy.

I can see something I can't see so I can make myself do something I don't feel like doing. That's what praise is about. And here's the thing, we are pretty good at praising when we're overjoyed. When we're hashtag blessed, we'll praise God.

Kinda like it was, you know, your team wins or scores a touchdown, your hands go up in praise for me, or if just the Seahawks lose, same same response.

But we we praise when we're overjoyed, but the bible over and over says the most critical time to praise is when you're overwhelmed.

See, we we say I'll praise when I see it, and that's why you don't have as many and that's why I think it's this catch 22 of why we don't praise God very much. We don't come because we if you won't praise when you're overwhelmed, you're not gonna have as many moments to praise being overjoyed.

And and it's and it's gotta be something we gotta do. We gotta do it. We gotta do it. I'm gonna tell you when we sing, I'm just gonna challenge you guys. You have to choose to do it just like you gotta choose to practice to be a great athlete. I mean, what makes a great athlete a great athlete? They'll practice when they don't feel like it. Most people, the reason they don't become as good is when they don't feel like it, they don't do it. The thing that made you great is you did it when you didn't feel like it. That's what praise is. And some of you are like, well, I'm just not into music. You know what that'd be the same as if my dad said if you're in combat and said, you know, I'm not into guns.

Well, you're gonna be into bullets then. As my dad used to say, in combat, it is better to give than to receive.

And so as we look at praise, it's about perspective. Because it gives us this perspective where we can now see what we can't see. So, I can do what I don't feel. Because we're going to have to do very counterintuitive things and praise and when I choose to praise god especially when I'm overwhelmed,

God's power comes into that and that praise becomes powerful and my worship becomes a weapon

and I'm going to show you now. The rest of the time, we're going to do this. I'm just going to look at two stories in the Bible. One in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament. We'll start in the New Testament and then we'll go old school.

The first story is in Matthew 14 and it's starting in verse 22, and this is a well known story. It's where Jesus walks on water in the middle of a storm. It's funny. It says Jesus walks on water. He's not the only one that walks on water. A guy named Peter does too.

And I wanna see what happens and how this story is all about perspective.

It's all about perspective. So look, it says, immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake while he sent the people home. After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land

for a strong wind had risen and they were fighting heavy waves. So, I've been to the Sea Of Galilee. The way the mountains are around, you can get these winds coming down and it creates deadly storms quickly. So they're stuck. About 03:00 in the morning, Jesus came towards them walking on the water.

When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, it's a ghost. See, this is what happens. When you're in the chaos, this is loud, it's scary, this is like combat. It's terrifying, they don't know what's going on, and all of a sudden Jesus walks and they're afraid of Jesus.

Sometimes when we get stuck in a storm and we're so scared, when Jesus walks in, we actually are afraid of what Jesus is gonna say. And they're afraid. But then Peter, love Peter. This is young Peter.

He's he's got the courage. He's built to be a leader. He's got faith. So he instantly goes, calls out to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking in the lord. He's not even convinced it's Jesus but he's still willing to go, I want to do that.

So, he has a very different attitude. The disciples are still afraid because we know no, he's the only one that asks. Peter say, you know what? In the middle of this storm, I wanna be able to do what you're doing. I wanna walk towards you, Jesus. I wanna walk on water in the middle of the storm. So Jesus goes, alright.

Come on. Join me.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus. Now, you know, none of the other disciples do this. Why? Because none of them asked. They're all sitting in the boat staring at the storm, still scared, probably watching Peter going, this is gonna end poorly, but at least it'll be more Chick fil A for us.

Right? Because it's not Sunday. I don't know why I say things like that. I just do. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink.

Okay, so they're in a storm, they're scared. The only thing that changes is Jesus shows up. Peter says, I wanna do that too. He gets out. He's walking on water in the middle of the storm. Nothing what made him sink? Wasn't the storm, the storm was already going. The only thing that changed is what he was looking at.

His perspective changed. He started staring at the storm.

He's like the disciples still in the boat. They're just looking at the storm.

Perspective A lot of us have this perspective. You come to church and we've been in a storm in the last year and a half and you probably have personal storms going on and if I don't understand how praise is going to help me get my perspective back, what you're going to do

is you will try to stay faithful by staying in the boat, staring at the storm, and praying for Jesus to take the storm away. But Jesus didn't take the storm away in the scenario and I think so many times, Jesus never intends to take the storm away because he wants you and I to walk on water.

He wants us to look at him and trust him and Peter did that until he didn't. So when he looks away, he then looks back to Jesus and says, save me, Lord, he shouted. Jesus immediately said, too late, you blew it, one strike and you're out, more Chick fil A for me too.

No. This is what's awesome about the love of the Lord. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him, saved him. Now he's walking again. He's back on the top of the water. And he says, you have so little faith, Jesus said. Why did you doubt me?

Think about that. You have so little faith. Why did you doubt me? Like, I'm defensive by nature, and I the first thing I thought when I first read that story in my life was, what?

If I was Peter, I would've said, I had little faith? I'm the one standing in the middle of the storm on the top of the water with you. What about those guys over there? They're all duck and cover and wondering what's going on. And the point is, yeah, Peter got to experience something they didn't.

But why he said you have so little faith was it's about where Peter is at that moment. And the truth is for all of us, sometimes we lose perspective and we choose not to praise because we think we have earned credit. Like, you could have been walking on water trusting God for years,

But the truth when it comes to the first perspective you need to understand is at any given moment, it doesn't matter how much faith you've had in the past. At any given moment, even right now in this room, every one of us is either sinking or walking on water. We are either trusting Jesus or we're not.

When he looked away, he was doing the exact same thing that the disciples were sitting in the boat. We think there's this level of I look away because I the storm is still going. I'm tired. I start looking at the storm, and you think we gradually sink.

Like, I can I'll just go down to my knees. I said, because of my faith, I'm like but I'm not drowning, but at least I'm doing better than the guys in the boat. No. You either are or you aren't looking to Jesus. And that's what praise is about, is it gives us the perspective again.

It's looking back to Jesus. It's saying, it's not looking at the storm. The storm isn't the problem. It's keeping my eyes fixed on the Lord. And praise is pointing our eyes back to the Lord. And it's especially important when you're in the storm. It's it's it's more important, I think, when you're overwhelmed

because when you do that, you end up having way more overjoyed moments to praise. Let me show you, you know, actually more literal in the Old Testament. There was a literal battle, a literal war they ended up in. And it shows how praise

was to go in and go out of the battle. And what does it mean to praise God? To sing a joyful noise. To declare who he is. And to choose to do it by choice, not by feeling. Because we need to see what we don't see in order to do what we can't feel.

And it's in Second Chronicles of Narnia.

If you're new to this church like that, that is not theologically correct. It's just Chronicles. Second Chronicles and this is a story about there's a time when a guy named Jehoshaphat was king. Lots of Israel's kings were bad. They didn't trust god. Jehoshaphat was a good king. And even though he's the good king,

they end up in a in a battle where three nations decide to gang up on Israel. They're massively outnumbered. If you know anything about these nations, they get they they there is no way tactically in a normal sense they could ever face this army at all.

So they've got a big battle on their hand. They got they got a war coming their way that they are way underpowered in. And a lot of us, that's what we face in the world right now. You go, we're but god still tells them to march into it.

But what happens is they gather, they start praising god, and they start praying about what they're gonna do. And a prophet stands up and gives them the answer. And in verse 15, it says this, listen all you people of Judah and Jerusalem. Listen, king Jehoshaphat.

This is what the Lord says. Do not be afraid. Don't be discouraged by this mighty army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. So he goes, it's not yours. It's God's battle. But then he says, tomorrow, march out against them. There's a whole bunch of these contradictions.

It's not your battle, it's god's. But you still gotta suit up and show up. You still gotta suit up and show up. It it it's kinda like transformer movies. Why do they show the people actually fighting?

Because it's always Optimus Prime in them that wins the the battle, but it's they they they they still show the humans getting involved. But god still tells us to suit up and show up even though it's his battle.

He goes, tomorrow march out against them. So march out against them. You'll find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz at the end of the valley that opens the wilderness of Jeruel. So it's it's like he gave him Google Maps too. But you will not even need to fight. Take your positions.

You're not gonna fight it, but you still gotta take your positions, your battle stations. You're gonna go into this battle.

He goes, take your positions and stand still and watch the Lord's victory. He is with you, people of Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Go out against them tomorrow. The Lord is with you. Then King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same thing. You're like, okay. They're in this somber words, oh, God. And it says they worshiped the Lord. But look what type of worship it was. Then the Levites from the clans of Korah, Kohath, and Korah stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud shout.

They got loud.

Sometimes praise gives our perspective. It looks to God, not to the battle. And you know what? Sometimes we need to be louder than the the loudness of the world. That's what praise is about. We need to be louder than they are. Not somber and scared, but loud because we're looking to God, we're not looking at the enemy.

We don't look at the enemy in fear and cry out to God, God, get rid of it. God, get rid of it. God, get rid of You look to God and say, I'm gonna trust you, and this will be your battle. And that's what praise does. And that's why we have to choose to train them because it's gotta be second nature to us. So they do that.

And early the next morning, as the army of Judah went out to the wilderness of Decoah, on the way Jehoshaphat stopped and said, listen to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and he will be able to stand firm. Believe in his prophets. So he's saying, you gotta believe in God, but the prophets represented sharing the word of God. So he said, you gotta only believe in God, you gotta believe in the word of God. Some must go, I believe in God, but the Bible lies. Nope. You're gonna get it wrong. You gotta believe in God and his word, and you can stand firm.

And then it says, after consulting the people, here's the thing that you do that makes no sense. The king appointed singers to walk out of the army singing to the lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they sang. Give thanks to the lord. His faithful love endures forever.

Now, in practical terms, the singers might think, god, the king doesn't like us because we're completely outnumbered and he's gonna put the band in front. But he trusted god. He goes, they're gonna lead us in praise as we walk into this unwinnable war.

That's what we do on the weekend.

If you're a believer, it makes no sense for you to say I'm gonna come in late because I like the teaching of God's word. The singing is just warm up and I don't care. You're missing it. Our band is not a concert. This is the singers and the musicians that are taking point for us. And we are supposed to line up behind them

and battle cry our way. Declaring who God is. Not whining about the problem we face. And you miss that perspective if you don't choose to do it. You're not trained. And that's why every time something goes wrong, you kinda lose it for a while, because when it gets loud and you feel isolated, you don't think to praise God,

and so that's what they do and here is what happens. When you do it, our worship gets weaponized because verse 21, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says, no, verse 22. Verse 21 is a great verse also but verse 22,

at the very moment they began to sing and give praise. When it says at the very moment, he's trying to tell you that these things are linked. At the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves. When we praise

in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the battle, it confuses the enemy. So everything we're gonna talk about the devil's playbook all the next weeks, if we don't choose to praise first, doesn't matter what I know about their battle strategy. If I choose to walk in there praising, putting my perspective on who God is,

the enemy defeats himself over and over. Because the Bible says the enemy Satan's like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Well, says if we know Christ, we know God, he can't devour us. He can be loud. He can try to intimidate you. He's like a vampire

lion actually when it comes to us as Christians. Like in vampire lure, they can't come into your house unless you invite them. So he can roar out loud, but he can't actually bite you unless you invite them in. And when we praise, we roar louder. And it causes confusion, and the lions attack each other.

And and and that's what happens. And if you read it, is by the time they got actual down to the field and they could see everyone was dead. All the armies wiped themselves out, and if you pick up in in verse 25, it says, when his men got there, they found plunder

to gather. They found vast amounts of equipment, clothing, and other valuables, more than they could carry. There was so much plunder. It took them three days just to collect it all. So on the fourth day, they gathered in the Valley Of Blessing. They nicknamed this place. They thought they were walking off to an unwinnable war. Now it's called the Valley Of Blessing. You know why? Because they went, alright, we're gonna trust god. We know who you are. We have no idea what's gonna turn out but we are gonna celebrate who god is. We're going to praise him as we march into this moment and when they got there, not only is the enemy dead, they left plunder. It's like, hey, Bob. What do they get? Cash and prizes but wait, there's more.

They actually scored plunder in a fight that they didn't do because they praised because it says at the moment they started singing, that is when the enemy got confused.

You know why even though you come to church all the time, you still you're the confused one that's the scared one? Probably because you won't praise god. That's the throat punch. Try it and see what happens. It's important. Because then it goes on and says, when they returned to Jerusalem, in verse 27, they were overjoyed.

They were overwhelmed to overjoyed that the Lord had given them victory over their enemies. They marched into Jerusalem to music, harps, lyres, trumpets, and they proceeded to them. They made a loud noise praising him again. They praised him when they're overwhelmed. They praised him when they're overjoyed.

And it says when all the surrounding kingdoms heard, it scared them. And then Jehoshaphat and Israel had a time of peace. That peace came because of their praise.

That peace came because they didn't run away from the storm. They chose to walk on water. That peace came because they didn't walk away from the war. They walked towards it behind the band,

behind praising God for who he is, because praise gives us perspective. When we sing God's word, there's something in our brain. They actually have done studies on this that how do you connect the rational side with the emotional side of your brain. Do you know the number one thing that helps it connect the most?

Spiritual songs. It's almost as if god made us and he knew that when we choose to sing this, it allows us to see something we can't see so we can do something we don't feel.

That's the point. That's why we sing. That's why we praise. It's not a warm up act. It's not a closing song. It's it's it's it's it's what we line up to muster to. It's our battle cry. So can we choose to praise god? We're gonna practice it right now. We're gonna sing for one. Like I said, please don't get up and leave.

Sing like four songs. Matter of fact, I'm gonna go stand in the lobby and if I see you walk out, I'm gonna go I am gonna go, really? Really? Actually, I won't do that. That's me. But I'll look at you, and I'll judge you that way in my heart. If you can live with it, then fine. More Chick fil A for us.

But no, seriously. What's the best perspective of praise to ever take? Jesus showed us the night before he died when he broke bread and said, this is my body broken for you. And he took cup of wine and said, this is my blood spilt for you for the forgiveness of sins for a new covenant.

And then he said this weird thing. Do this in remembrance of me. He asked us as Christians to do this. Why does he ask us to go back and remember the cross so much? Because that is the best perspective at all to ever see God clearly. Because think about it. Think about what Jesus did at the cross.

He literally died. He sacrificed. He broke his body and gave his blood, and then he beat death for us who are in rebellion to him. That shows his faithful love that endures forever. They were singing in the Old Testament at the cross. You see the faithful love that endures forever. And if he could walk to death for us,

what does the other stuff matter? See, it's one thing to see that, oh, Jesus walked on water in a storm. We can too. It's another thing to say, Jesus will walk before us into battle so we can win a war? Great. He walked on water. He wins wars. But the most important thing is he went to the cross.

And if you understand what he did at the cross and how much he loves you and I and the power he had and the ability and what he did to defeat death and give us eternal life, what does a storm or a battle matter? What does a war or or or or water matter?

It doesn't matter at all. If I look to the cross over and over and embrace what Jesus did, that's why he told us to do this together. This is not some magic incantation where you eat a little Jesus, you drink a little Jesus juice, and it purifies you from the inside. This is not a spiritual cleanse. This is remembering

who God is, And he loved us this much that he brought all of himself to save us. So what does a storm matter? What does a virus matter? What does politics matter? What does being stuck with the in laws you don't like very much matter?

Look to the cross and praise him. So as we sing, we're going to do it different. A lot of times we take communion. We're caught in this motive. It's so somber. We're supposed to celebrate this moment. And remember, this is a moment where we went from death to life.

So as we lead in the praise, let's do praise communion. How's that sound? Amen. Alright. Let's stand. Let's stand, and let's get loud. Just remember, when he said, this is my body broken for you, you know what that meant? That meant, I am broken so you can be whole.

I was willing to be broken so you can be whole. You can be healed. You can be you can get past all the hurt you ever had, and you can have eternity with wholeness and newness and life. Amen? Amen. Take and eat that. And then he took the cup

and said, this is my blood spilled for you for a covenant, an eternal covenant. We know blood is life force. He goes, I spilt out my life to give you a life that can never be lost, can never be taken away. How does that compare? If I die in the battle, who cares? I have all eternity. If I drown in the storm, who cares? I have life for all of eternity. So when I look at this focus, I can say, thank you God for the blood of the lamb. I am covered by that blood. Amen? Take

and drink, and let's choose to praise. Amen?

Let's fill this place with praise.

I'm and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name, I will lift up my hands.

You know, the universal sign of surrender is the lifting up of hands. Have you ever heard someone say, I give up, I surrender, usually is accompanied with them lifting up their hands because what they're doing is they made the decision in their hearts and their minds, and so they're gonna physically express it as well.

And so it's the same thing when we worship. When we sing and when we lift up our hands, our hearts are aligning with where our hearts and our minds are at in a posture of surrender, saying that, Jesus, you are worthy of all of my worship and all of my praise.

And I know for me, sometimes it's easy. Sometimes I can't help but lift up my hands. Like when your team scores the winning goal or whatever, you're so excited you can't help but lift them up. But I know probably for you and definitely for me too,

there's sometimes where I don't feel like it, but it's in those moments when I have to act on the truth of who God is and choose to lift up my hands and praise and worship.

Because here's the thing, God's worthy of my worship whether I feel like it or not, and The same is true for you. So wherever you find yourself today, we're gonna sing these words, I lift my hands up, lay my whole life down. Would you lift your hands up as we sing out this bridge?

We sing this bridge with confidence that we know that our God has moved mountains. Guys, and he's not done. We sing, I see you move.

Alright, church. We got one more. You got one more in you? Yeah. You got enough voice left? Well, come on. Let's sing as loud as we can. We're gonna sing about our testimony, how our God brought us from death to life. Sing this with me. And I saw Satan fall nightlining,

you. We're

gonna Jesus.

Gonna

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