Playlist For | Week 5

Why is it that our worship feels weak? Why is it we can come into a room like this with all these people and a whole band leading us in worship and powerful songs of truths about God, and yet something inside us just feels like we can't connect to it.

We might even be looking around and seeing other people just pouring out praise with our arms high, lifted, pouring out praise, and something's happening, and yet we're just waiting to get through the song so we can sit down and get to the message. Why is it? That's something we're gonna wrestle with today.

That what is the proper place of worship in our lives and and and what does praise actually mean when it comes to the way we live our life and what we're called to as Jesus followers.

Over the past four weeks, we've been walking through this series all about worship. It's been through the book of Psalms, it's been awesome. Pastor Bill's preached. We had Caleb come and preach on the Psalms, and it's just been amazing. Like, don't know how you guys have enjoyed it or liked it, but I've just loved hearing these different perspectives of worship and what worship means for me and my family, my life.

But today, we're gonna tackle the longest chapter of scripture in the entire Bible because they hate me. Psalm 119 is what we're gonna be looking at today. It is 176 verses

all about this very topic. So we're gonna jump in. Psalm 119, if you have your Bibles, I'd love it if you opened up with me. If you have your phone Bibles, I'd love it if you opened that up with me. And we are gonna jump in, so I'm gonna pray for us this morning.

Father God, thank you that we get to come here this morning and hear from your word, hear your truth. God, just ask that you would illuminate your scripture to us this morning, that your Holy Spirit would speak to us powerfully, that your Holy Spirit would come down and begin to soften our hearts to hear your word.

God, pray that we would walk out of here with a greater understanding of how deeply you love us and what worship means and how we can pour out our praise on you. Thank you for all you've done, and thank you for allowing us to be here this morning. Jesus' name we pray. Everybody said,

amen. So I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Anybody ever been in the Atlanta area? Couple of you guys. Okay, so sorry to hear that. No, until I was about 12 years old, I was grew up in Atlanta,

and, you know, my my fam my dad, he was super into baseball, and he got me kinda into baseball and little league. And and we were big Braves fans, the Atlanta Braves. And, okay, we got some Braves fans. Sorry to hear that too. No, was just kidding. No, I

but so when I was young, there was this guy on the Braves team. He was a legend. He's still like a hitting coach for them, his name is Chipper Jones. You've heard yeah. He's like a hall of famer. I think in his whole career, he hit something like 468 home run. He was just phenomenal.

And my last name's Jones and his last name's Jones. And like, what a coincidence because whose last name is Jones.

But I just felt this special connection to him. And so my dad, he put me in little league and I just knew it's like, I had this connection to this amazing baseball player. Like I was just gonna, I was gonna be good. And I remember seeing like a clip talking about Chipper Jones and his hitting style and how he's such a good hitter. And he had this signature

like methodology that his dad taught him that when he was hitting, he would do this toe tap.

So like when he was gonna hit the ball, he would toe tap, so all of his weight went in, and he would shift it in, and that's how he would be able to hit so hard. And so I was like, okay, I got the toe tap. It's like, okay, that's all I need. I got the toe tap. My last name's Jones, and I got the toe tap. I'm gonna be a natural at this. And so we go to Little League, and before you get to the game, you have to do a bunch of practices.

And I'm just like, oh my gosh, you gotta be kidding me. And all these kids, they're like fielding balls and throwing, and it's like, just get me to the game. Like, I'm I got the toe tap, I got the What else do I need?

And so, finally, you know, I'm just tuning out during practice. Finally, we get to a game, it's like, it's time to shine, baby. Here we go. So I step up to the plate, get ready to toe tap, they throw the ball, toe tap, swing, and I don't even come

close to touching the ball. That And happens like a million more times. I don't hit a single ball the entire game. And I'm so upset. I'm like, what is wrong with me today? Like, what's happening? And I throw my helmet in the dugout, and my dad comes over. He's like, Hunter, what is wrong with you?

I was like, I got the toe tap and I got the It's not working. I don't know what's working. I was like, Hunter, you can't just What you're seeing, like with Chipper Jones, what you're seeing is the result of hours and hours and hours and days and months and years of work.

And you're just seeing the result when he shows up to the game. If you wanna hit like him, you gotta do the work behind the scenes like him. And by the way, that's only the loving throat punch that a father can give. Can we give it up for all the fathers in the room who are just, thank you, fathers.

So sorry, this is just a random aside, but know, Mother's Day is one of the highest attendance in church around the country, and Father's Day tends to be one of the lowest. So if you're a father who's here because you brought your family here, can I just say thank you for leading your family? Genuinely, thank you.

That's amazing. Anyways, my dad, he's like, if you want, if you wanna hit like this guy, you gotta do the work. You gotta do hours and hours and days and days of the practice behind the scenes. And so I said, okay. Like I understand. I understand what it's gonna take.

And so the next week I decided I was gonna go to practice and I was gonna go up to my coach and I was gonna tell him, I quit because I don't wanna do this.

I ended up playing out the rest of the season, but the truth is I think you and I, we can tend to have the same mentality about worship that I had about hitting. It's like, man, I just wanna show up on a weekend, and I just wanna put I just wanna get filled up, and it's gonna be amazing, and I'm gonna feel unbelievable.

And then I'm gonna it's but the reality is when we look around and we see people pouring out their praise and and and and is touching and something is engaged they're engaged, It's actually the fruit of the work that happens behind the scenes. Worship isn't this single piece of following God. It's the culmination

that comes from walking each and every day with Jesus. This is what we're gonna see in Psalm 119.

In the big idea, the main thought that I want us to wrestle with today is this, the power of our worship comes from the purpose of our walk. The power of our worship comes from the purpose of our walk. If we wanna show up in here and actually have worship that means something,

that engages every piece of us, and we're not here to be poured into, but to pour out our praise. It actually comes from a life lived walking with the Lord. So in Psalm 119, this is a blueprint on how to walk with God. It is a blueprint on how to live this Christian life

where you can get closer and closer and closer to Him. And praise and worship is such an important part, but it's a part. And so as we jump into Psalm 119, just a little background, we don't know who the author is. And so I'm gonna refer to him as the psalmist or the author or the writer, but we don't know who he is.

One really cool thing about Psalm 119, and this is like, this is why it's so long, is it's an acrostic poem. And so in the Hebrew, which the Old Testament's written in Hebrew, there's 22 letters. And so in this poem, each letter has eight verses in it. So it starts with, you know, our equivalent of A, and it goes,

each line starts with A, about following God and loving his word and being obedient. And then the next eight verses are all B.

Beautiful are God's words and best is God and all that stuff, right? You're understanding. And so that's why it's so long. And it's this wonderful, amazing, crafted poem about the beauty of life lived with God. And so in the theology behind that, what's being taught behind that is actually

following God and worshiping him and beginning with his word. It's this isn't the ABCs of it's not like the cute starter pack. It is a throughzy, worship. Living a life with God is everything that should make up our life. And that's actually why

this He chose this style of poem to write all this. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna read the first chunk, all the A chunk, the first eight verses that Johnny just read. And I want us to reflect and think on what kind of person the psalmist is describing. What would my life look like if

that was true about me? So verse one, it says, Joyful are people of integrity who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths.

You have charged us to keep your commands carefully. Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees. Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands. As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should. I will obey your decrees. Please don't give up on me.

So this sets up the entire psalm, all 176 verses, because it talks about the kind of person you become when you continue to walk with the Lord over and over and over. And so

don't know if I should tell you guys this. I know you guys think I'm super cool, okay? But secretly, I'm a nerd, all right? And like specifically when it comes to Bible stuff and study, like I went like level 10, DEFCON nerd on on this, studying Psalm 119.

And so I I just was reading over it and looking over it, and I realized there's these these these stages that the psalmist goes through over and over and over as he's growing closer to God.

And I I found it popped out like six stages. I actually I went through and I was like, I see it all over. And so I got highlighters, and I highlighted every single line of Psalm one nineteen. I printed all of it out. I actually have a picture when I was done. It took me, like, two hours to do this.

But I highlighted I know. I'm a nerd. I'm telling you guys. I highlighted every single verse. Just because as I looked at Psalm one nineteen, I I just realized, man, there's these six steps of what it means to follow God and grow closer to him and grow in our holiness and grow in our righteousness.

And they're all over this Psalm. We're not gonna read all of Psalm 119 because if we did, we'd be here as long as when Bill preaches.

But I do wanna give you the cycle and I'm gonna show you, we're gonna walk through this. And so how do you and I live out this life cycle of growing closer to God as modeled through Psalm 119? So there's this cycle with six stages. The first stage we're gonna see today is word, word. The second one is walk. And after walk,

we go to war. And after war, we go to wait. And after wait, we go to wow, and after wow, we go to worship. And the way the cycle works, worship sends us right back to word. And it's something we do over and over and over that we see the psalmist proclaiming as he's

writing this. And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna walk through each of these steps. What does this mean? So the first one, the first stage of a life cycle of a believer is the word. What we see the Psalmist start with over and over and over and over in Psalm 119.

I think there's only two verses that don't mention the word of God. He keeps going back to the word of God, to scripture. Why? I mean, well, look at this. Verse fifteen and sixteen. It says, I will study your commands and reflect on your ways. I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.

You know, when I first hear that, and it's like, man, I I delight in your word. I will study on your command. I will reflect on it. Part of me is like, man, what kind of Bible's that guy got? It's like, what translation is he reading? Because sometimes I show up to the Bible, and I have no idea what's going on.

Sometimes I you know, the pastor's preaching on a passage and I'm like, that sounds awesome. And I open it in my Bible and I'm like, I don't get it. It's like it just doesn't feel the same. But the psalmist, he's like, I delight, I love your decrees, and I will not forget it. What the psalmist understands

is that the Bible, scripture, God's word, this book, it is the story of who God is.

In this book, we understand his character. We understand what he loves, what he hates, what he wants, what he does not want, what he wants for us, how we were made, how we were created, what we should love, what we should hate, how we can grow close to him, how we can go far away from him. He tells us about the enemy. He tells us about the people who are against us. All

of that is found in this word. All of that, all the reality of truth should stem from God's word. And that's what he's saying. It's like, Man, I just love your laws. I love your decrees. I love what you've written. I will study your commandments.

You see, I think the way that we get to this place where we just love God's word is actually the rest of the cycle. And so we're gonna go over that. But just a little tidbit on how we can connect with God's word and how we start and how we begin to fall in love with it, is we have to read scripture

like women read text messages. Okay? So like, guys, when we read a text message, we read the surface level and it's like, okay. But women, you guys are so gifted in communication, you will think about everything going on behind the scenes. I have an example just to prove my point. So

we wrote this text message, and I'm gonna This is what a guy would read, Hey, I think I'm gonna stay in tonight, but I hope you have a good time tomorrow. Talk to you later. I read that and I think, Okay, they're not coming tonight, and I'll see them tomorrow. Right? Pretty straightforward.

Now, had one of my friends who is a female write everything that she would see and imply from this text message, okay? So here we go. Okay, Three y's. Nice, but passive. Oh, so you've been thinking about bailing. We never use proper punctuation. Can't go out today and tomorrow? Why did they use a period?

Why did they use an extra space? So even punctuation's being brought into this. It's like we're not just looking at the words, we're looking at what's not said. And then we're looking at the punctuation.

And then we're we're thinking about the relationship. And then we're thinking everything that's ever happened in our relationship and the way that they looked at me last week. And all of that is being brought into this one text message and how I should interpret it. It's like, right? That's actually

a really good concept to hold when we're reading the Bible Because it's all connected. God is so brilliant in the way he wrote scripture. He used 40 different authors, but everything's connected.

You know, when I'm reading in Acts and I'm reading about how the Holy Spirit came down and people go out and they start speaking

in their native language, but everybody's starting to hear it in their native language, and everybody's being drawn together. It makes me think of a story in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter six all the way in the first book of the Bible when when these people try to come up to God, and God says, I know I want you to disperse, and he curses them with with having different languages, and now they have to disperse. It's like a reverse. And then you start to attach so many stories of like, oh my gosh.

That sounds like that, and that sounds like this, and this is connected to that. And and then you start to understand more and more and more about who God is. That's what it means to study God's word.

And I'm telling you, once you get into it, it is addictive, and it is amazing, and you get to this place where it's like, wow, this is awesome. You're putting all the pieces together, like watching all the Marvel movies. It's like, oh my gosh, the Infinity Stones, you know? And

I know a lot of us, we hear that, it's like, Hunter, that sounds great, and I wish I could get there, and I wanna get to a place, but it's just tough. It's hard. How am I supposed to get to a place where I just wanna show up to God's word? Well, wanna read you this.

A study was done in the past couple years by the Center of Bible Engagement. Over the span of eight years, they surveyed more than 100,000 people from around the world about their spiritual lives and consistently found that engaging the Bible for four or more days a week changed their lives. So they looked at people

who read their Bible once a week. And compared to people who didn't read the Bible at all, there wasn't really much life change or behavior change or anything going on in their life.

They looked at people who read their Bible two to three times a week, and they actually saw a little bit of change. It was negligible. It was small, but they could see it. But then once people started reading their Bible four or more times a week, the stats started going off the charts.

People who read their Bible and engaged their Bible four or more times a week. Here's here's just some of the highlights. You can look up the rest, but I just had to grab a couple. Here's some of the what the research revealed. It said loneliness

dropped 30% when you engage your Bible four or more times a week. Anger issues dropped 32%. Bitterness in relationships dropped 40%. Alcohol consumption dropped 57%. Feeling spiritually stagnant dropped 60%. Viewing pornography dropped 60%. Sharing your faith increased 20%.

Commitment to discipling other believers jumped to 200%. And all of this is just a study of people around the world of like, does reading your Bible actually change your life? And the research shows absolutely. Four days a week, when the word, rather than the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will change.

I know it's hard, and I know it's difficult sometimes, it will change your life. So what does it look like for you to begin jumping into God's Word consistently?

So the first step in this life cycle is we start with the word, and we keep going back to the word. That's what we see. After that, the next step that we're called into, growing with Jesus, is walk,

Walk. Verse 34, it says, Give me understanding, and I will obey your instructions. I will put them into practice with all my heart. Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.

So once we come to God's word and hear about who he is and what he wants for us and what our lives should look like, the very next step is actually to obey what God has asked us to do, to walk out in obedience, to walk out our faith. You see, this is the peace that takes faith.

When we say like Christians, we live by faith, this is what we mean. We trust

that God is gonna ask us to do hard things. God is gonna ask us to do difficult things. God is gonna ask us to do things that don't make sense, and the world would say, that's ridiculous. Why would you ever do that? And God actually knows better than we do.

So my entire life, I've been cursed with making popcorn badly. I don't And so like, I would always make the popcorn, and it would be like burnt and half popped. And I just said, this is just my lot in life. This is what I got. This is the cross I have to bear. I have this bad popcorn making ability.

And so I remember when I was dating my now wife, I was over at her house at the time, and we were watching a movie, and she asked if I'd go make popcorn. So I go to the pantry, and I grab the popcorn, and I make it, and it's burnt and half popped. And so I come back, and I give it to her, she said, what is this?

I said, this is all I got. This is me. I make popcorn this way. She takes the bowl, she throws it away. She says, show me how you just did that. Okay. So I go to the pantry, I grab the popcorn, I take the plastic off, open the microwave, I flip the popcorn upside down

and I put it in the microwave. She said, What did you just do?

It's like, this is a cool thing that I found out. Like, you know how the popcorn is to trifold, and if you lay it up, it folds in on itself. And so I am smart enough to know that if you flip it upside down, it folds out, and that way it doesn't fold in on itself. She's like, Do you think maybe that's the reason popcorn is horrible?

She said, Hunter, do you really think you're smarter than the inventor of popcorn? There are three instructions on a bag of popcorn. And one of them is to just take off the plastic. Do you really think you're smarter than the person who invented this?

So we flipped it over, pressed the button, and best popcorn I've ever made in my life. So many of us, we come to God and we hear God say things like, you need to love your enemies and forgive those who have hurt you. And we're like, I don't think so.

You need to pray for those who have persecuted. No.

We actually look at God who designed us, who created us, who loves us more than we love ourselves, and who's given us instructions on how to live the greatest life we could ever live. And we're like, I think I got this God. I think I know a thing or two. Okay? It's like, are are we serious?

Like, God tells us that sexuality is something that, man, he's given us, and it's a blessing, and it's a miracle, and it should be it should be in the context of marriage. And we're like, well, God doesn't understand sex in the twenty first century. Come on.

It's like, God, you're so in the dark age. No. God created sex. And God sex is the same in the first century, in the twenty first century, in the twenty first century BC. God wired us and created us, and human nature hasn't changed. He knows better than us.

You see, once we see what God has said, the very next step is we have to walk it out. And so many of us, we're good and we read our Bible, but we're like, I don't think so. I checked my box. I got my little daily Bible time. But if we don't walk it out and obey, then what's the point?

I know a lot of us are thinking like, well, do I have to a bit? Am I still saved if I don't? It's like, yeah. But is that really the life you think Jesus saved you too? You think he saved you to live a life of burnt half pop popcorn life? You're just walking around with with a horrible version of what Jesus wants for you?

It's like, yes, the greatest miracle that's ever happened is when you said yes to Jesus and he saved you, but but there's so much more. There's so much more goodness found in following Jesus. And there is sacrifice, and it is hard, and it is difficult, but but he saved us.

He saved us to live a life and a life to the full.

Some of us, I think, we're like, okay, but what do I start to obey? I would say start obeying what you know. Jesus said love your enemies. Okay. Jesus said forgive those who have hurt you. Some of us are holding on to unforgiveness.

And what if God actually knows better than us that we need to let that go? We need to forgive and trust God with the rest. We need to walk out right now what we know now.

So we start with the word, and then the walk. And next comes war. See, war is the resistance that we are going to feel and we are going to encounter when we start to try to walk out what God has asked us to do. And this is the reason a lot of us, we try it, we try to be obedient, we hit resistance, and we stop.

Look at what the Psalmist says in verse 139.

It says, I am overwhelmed with indignation, for my enemies have disregarded your words. Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and that is why I love them so much. I am insignificant and despised, but I don't forget your commandments. Your justice is eternal, and your instructions are perfectly true.

As pressure and stress bear down on me, I find joy

in your commands. Here's what the psalmist shares over and over that we're gonna get resistance from a couple of areas. When we're trying to walk out what God has asked us to do, we're gonna we're gonna feel resistance from ourself because we are prideful and we are selfish.

I never realized how selfish I was until I became a dad. And I'm like, this little thing hasn't done anything for me. And I wanna be on my phone for three hours. Okay? It's like we are so selfish just internally. We're gonna feel resistance from ourself because God is gonna ask us to do things that are self sacrificial.

We're gonna feel resistance from the people around us, people who don't want us to change, people who want us to keep continuing in their sin. Because when we start living righteously, they're gonna feel like we're judging them. And the truth is, we're just trying to follow Jesus.

And we're also We are going to feel resistance from an enemy, because we have an enemy, an enemy who does not want us to worship God, does not want us to walk in righteousness. And we are going to feel spiritual resistance. And I think a lot of us, we think like, why would God

If God wants us to follow him, and that's the best thing, why would he allow it to be hard? Why would he allow us to have that resistance? And the truth is, the reason God allows us to have resistance is actually the very next stage. It's the very next step in our life cycle. Because the very next stage, we go from war,

we then move to wait. To wait. And this is a moment of utter and complete dependence

and reliance and waiting on God. Verse 81 says, I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word. My eyes are straining to see your promises come true. When will you comfort me?

You see, God allows resistance to come into our life when we're trying to walk when we when we read his word, and we're trying to walk it out, and then we encounter resistance. He allows that because that causes us to get on our face and come to him and say, God, would you give me the strength to actually

do what you've asked me to do? Because otherwise, we think we can live this Christian life without Christ. We can actually do everything God wants us to do without his power and his Holy Spirit empowering us.

The Christian life is a life of dependency. It's a life of surrender. It's not a white knuckling, I just gotta do better. I just gotta grind harder. No, it's, God, I'm just gonna sign the check,

and you fill it out. You take whatever you want. I just need more of you. I'm surrendering to you, I'm depending on you, would you give me the strength to do whatever you're asking me to do? He allows resistance so that we rely

on him. So we're borrowing a car from my in laws right now, when my father-in-law gave it to me, he said, Hey, just so you know, the back tire, it leaks, so you're gonna have to fill it up with air once a week. I was like, Okay, all right, sounds good. And so I start driving the car,

then soon someone was like, dude, your tire is so low. I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot to fill it. And so I fill it up and then I drive and then another week goes by and somebody comes up to me and is like, dude, your tire is so flat. I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot to fill it. And that keeps happening over and over. And I'm like, I'm just so used to just filling up a tire once and being good and just going and everything being fine. But the tight it just keeps dray it just keeps leaking, and I just have to keep going back to the air over and over and over to fill it up. And actually,

God designed you and me the same way. He didn't design us to just be filled up. We say yes to Jesus, and we're good to go for life. We're we're He designed us to constantly need to be coming back to him over and over and over to be filled up by Him. It's how we're designed because that's what He wants.

Now, yesterday, someone was like, Can I buy you a tire? No, you can't. It's fine. So don't ask. Some of us in our marriages, we are just in this crazy cycle of hurting each other and struggling and avoiding and fighting.

And for some of us, in the midst of our marriage, we know God has asked us to love our spouse. We know we've been asked to love sacrificially. We know we've been asked to submit to one another. And it's so hard in the midst of pain to actually do that. But

what it looks like to wait on the Lord is you read what God's word says. You decide to walk it out, and when it gets hard, and when you feel hurt, you step away and you go to God and say, God, could you give me the strength to love my spouse? I don't have it in me right now.

Could you fill me up with strength to love them?

Some of us were struggling with with our job and our boss just keep it's like they have it out for us and they're attacking us, they're going after us. We need to step away in the midst of that because Jesus said to love our enemies. We need to step away and say, God, I wanna love my enemy, but it's hard and they're hurting me. Would you give me the strength? And I'm gonna wait until you show up and give me the strength.

Help me obey you, God. Some of us, we have adult children who are living a life that just our heart breaks, and we're trying to chase after them and tell them what they're doing wrong and try to correct them. And some of us, we need to just realize that we've gotta start praying for them.

And we've gotta ask God to intervene in their life and put the right people around them and get on our knees and ask God, and we've got to wait. Wait on the Lord.

An incredibly important step of what it means to follow God is to ask for him to give you the strength and to wait. To wait. So what do we do once we're waiting? Well, the very next step in this life cycle, and this is the best part, is what I call the wow stage. And this is when God's grace steps in.

This is when God's power and His Holy Spirit comes down and actually empowers us to follow Him in a new way. Look at verse 25, it says, I'd lie in the dust, revive me by your word.

I told you my plans, and you answered. Now teach me your decrees. You see, when we, in faith, we're trying to do what God has asked us to do, when we decide to walk it out and we encounter resistance and we

come to the Lord in desperation and say, God, I wanna do what you've asked me to do, and I'm waiting on you, and I'm waiting, and I'll wait as long as I need to, but I need you. I'm telling you, God will step in. And His mercy and grace will step in in our lives that we'd never imagined. There's this

guy named George Mueller. He lived in the 1800s, and he was an Englishman, And he lived this life of sin, was radically saved and converted to Christianity

as a young man, and he gave his life to Jesus. He said, Jesus, I'm going to do whatever you ask me to do. He became an evangelist, went around talking to people about Jesus. And then one day, he felt like the Lord, as he was reading scripture,

it said, take care of orphans and widows and the least of these. And so he decided, felt like God was leading him to start an orphanage. And so even the story of how he got the land and the building is just all miraculous. But there's this famous story of him running this orphanage.

And there's 300 kids in the orphanage at the time. And he's in the orphanage, and the headmistress comes to him early in the morning and says, George, we've got a problem. Got the kids up, they're ready, their hair is brushed. And I went down to the kitchen and there was no food. We don't have the money to buy them food.

We've got 300 hungry kids. What are we gonna do? And George said, set the table. So they put the plates out and the cups out and the napkins out and all the kids sit in their seat. He goes in front of all 300 of these hungry kids and he says, bow your heads.

They bowed their heads, and George thanked God for the food that he was going to provide before it was ever there. And he thanked God that he was going to show up, and he thanked God for all these kids, and he said, amen. And everybody looked up, looked around, and it was silent,

because the plates were still empty and the cups were still empty. Moments later, there was a knock at the door.

He opened the door and it's the baker from down the street. He said, George, God wouldn't let me sleep last night. And I couldn't sleep, and I got up and I just started baking bread, as much bread as I could, and I just wanted to bring it to you. And all the kids got bread. Moments after that, the milkman

knocks on the door, opens it up and says, sir, my wheel broke right outside your orphanage. The milk's gonna spoil by the time they get it fixed. Do you want this? Do you want the rest of the milk? There was enough milk for every kid to have a cup. And what I love about that is George

prayed and thanked God that he was going to show up. And God was already working on the answer before he even prayed the prayer. God was already working on the solution. See, this isn't a story of a guy who lived in the time of the Bible

two thousand years ago. Now, like, I think there are people who walk through real things, but a lot of times we're thinking like, okay, that happened then, but that's so different from now. The truth is the same God that works there is the same God working here. And God wants to show up in the same way in our lives.

This is a guy who lived a hundred years ago, who saw the miraculous hand of God, and I'm telling you, God wants to move in your life the same way. When you read his word, when you choose to walk it out, when you encounter resistance, when you wait on the Lord, I'm telling you, he will show up.

So here's my challenge to you, rock point. Try it. Do this. Read God's word, see what he wants you to do. When you encounter resistance, wait on the Lord, and see if God shows up. And I'm gonna ask you, if and when he does, if and when you do this, would you get on rockpoint.io,

or go to our social media, or go to our email, and would you tell us the story of how God showed up in your life this week? And next week, Rocky's gonna get up and he's gonna share a couple of stories. But if nobody has any stories about how God moved, he's gonna stand up here and tell you that God didn't do anything.

So try it. See how God moves in your life.

So we have word, and then walk, war, wait, wow, and then the culmination of all of this is worship.

It's worship. Verse 171, it says, Let praise flow from my lips, for you have taught me your decrees. Let my tongue sing about your word for all of your commands

are right. See, praise is a response to the goodness that we've experienced from God. It's not something where we come to to to Sunday service and we're like, all right, I'm gonna be filled up today. No, real worship is pouring out because you've walked, you've gone to God's word and you've seen what he's asked you to do and you've walked it out, you've encountered resistance, you were in desperation reaching out for God. He showed up and now

I can proclaim what an amazing God. Now I can't help but but but pour out praise on a God who showed up in my life when I desperately needed him, who changed me, who transformed me through his word and through showing up. And then once we encounter

worship and we encounter praise and we pour it out and we feel filled up and we encounter this moment that we could live in for the rest of our lives, man, I'm telling you, that is going to send you right back to the word of God. Because you're just gonna want more. You're gonna want more of him. You're gonna wanna

more with him. You're gonna wanna see him show up again and again and again in your life, and he will. You see, this cycle is something, as Christians, we should be living every single day after day after day, month after month, until it becomes an entire life cycle that we live.

Each week, we should be coming in here pouring out worship because we actually saw God show up in different ways in our life. And I'm telling you, he will. I'm telling you, he will. If I could pop that cycle out and turn it into a three d image,

we would just see the cycle going upward like a staircase, higher and higher and higher as we grow closer to God over the course of the rest of our life. Because this is what it looks like to grow closer and closer to Jesus. We go to God's word,

We just say, God, whatever you say, I'm gonna do it. And we walk it out, and we're going to encounter resistance. And when we encounter it, we step in we step into desperation, and we wait on the Lord. And when we see him show up, that's when we pour out our praise. Because praise is a culmination

of a life lived with Jesus.

So I'm gonna wrap up our time today with this story that's been shared around from different pastors. And I just think it's such a beautiful picture of what we're talking about today. So there was this conference that

It was a Christian conference center. And on one side of the conference center, there was a bunch of pastors. They were coming to get refilled and to learn. And on the other side of the Christian conference center was an addiction recovery ministry of the people who have just been the lowest of the low in life.

And they've just been struggling. They've seen their marriages fall apart, their lives fall apart, just recovering from addiction, and they're encountering the love of Jesus.

And they decided at the end of the week they were gonna bring everybody together as one kind of big worship session to praise all together, to finish both conferences. So they brought everyone together, and they started singing worship songs. And they began to sing this hymn, Amazing Grace.

It goes, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. And as one pastor, he looked around and he noticed, the other pastors in the room, as they were singing these words, they were smiling.

Some of them were raising their hands. Some of them were closing their eyes as they were worshiping because they were singing truths about God and these doctrines that they knew to be true about God, and they were proclaiming, man, amazing grace. How sweet the sound.

And then he looked around at the people who were from the addiction recovery ministry, people who in the middle of are in the middle of their lives being pulled out of the pit. They are proclaiming

this truth, and they're singing this song, these words, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And what he noticed is there are tears pouring out of their eyes, and they can't lift their arms high enough. Why? Because they're not singing theological truths that they know to be true. They're proclaiming

truths about a God who absolutely radically loved them. And when he they didn't deserve it, his grace stepped in.

See these people in the middle of their brokenness, in the middle of their addiction, in the middle of everything falling apart, they heard in God's word that there was a God who desperately loved them and wanted to save them. And they said and he said, if you repent

and if you turn your life around and turn to me and surrender,

you will be saved. And so they walked in obedience, and they encountered the resistance of breaking addiction and and trying to repair these relationships. And they got on their face, and they depended on the Lord, and they asked for healing, and they saw God show up.

And they're sitting in this room proclaiming, pouring out love to a God who showed up. Man, that's the picture of worship that Jesus calls us to, that God calls us to. It's a worship that pours out praise because we can't help it, because we saw him show up in our life. So church, in a moment, we're gonna worship.

And you know what? Maybe you haven't been reading God's word. Maybe you haven't been walking in obedience. Maybe you haven't encountered resistance. Maybe you haven't been depending on the Lord. Maybe you haven't. Maybe you haven't seen him show up in a long time.

But as we worship, I want you to reflect on the fact that God brought you here today. I want you to think of all the all the valleys that somehow, someway you got through. All of the broken relationships that somehow, someway you got through. Maybe God has showed up before and you were just in awe of him then,

but you've forgotten that. Remember that moment. Remember what God has done in your life. And as you're thinking about that, I want us to worship as we're pouring out praise on a God who showed up. So we're gonna sing these words, what a God. What a God who who said my story's not done. And as we pour out a praise

and think of what God has done for you and worship him with everything you've got. Stand as we worship.

Church, it took me a really long time to get to a place where I could truly sing words like that and really believe it in my heart that God is everything to me. When I first gave my life to Jesus, I actually really wrestled with God and struggled

with the very first commandment he gives us. He says that he should be first in our lives, that we should have nothing else before him. And I really wrestled with that. I thought, why does God need to be number one in my life so bad? What does he need from me?

But as God is so kind and gracious, he wasn't mad, he wasn't disappointed, he humbly and gently started to show me who he was, that he's the God who spoke the universe into existence. He doesn't need anything from me. He just simply wants me.

And I started to realize that it's not for his sake that he asked to be number one in my life. It's for my sake. Because if I build my life on anything other than him, if I build it on my marriage, if I build it on my kids, or my career, or my business, those things are not guaranteed. They could be gone like that.

And so he says to build your life on the firm foundation that is the rock that is Jesus because nothing in this world can take that away from you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. So build your life on Jesus. Worship him with your full heart. We're gonna continue to sing. We're gonna say we're gonna build our life upon the love of Jesus Christ. So come on and sing these words with us if you know the words. Sing it.

Well, there's no other name but the name of Jesus.

Well, church, I hope you take, pastor Hunter's challenge seriously that

ask God, what what do you want me to do this week? And when God shows up, we'd love to hear from you. Either email us or through our social media, and we love to celebrate what God does this week. Again, to all the dads in the room, I hope you have wonderful, wonderful Father's Day. If you need prayer, we have a prayer team to my right, your left. We'd love to pray for you. Otherwise,

have an incredible Father's Day, and we'll see you next weekend.

Thank you so much for joining us for church online this weekend. Make sure to stay up to date with everything happening here at Rock Point on our social media or by visiting rockpoint.io.