Made to Worship | Week 3

Well, sorry. Sitting there talking to Sean. Go, wait. I gotta go out there. We gotta get going. Hey. How's it going? Hey. You know what? Today is Veterans Day, and and so what we wanna do is we wanna celebrate and say thank you to the veterans

in the room, but here's what we're going to do. Since we're celebrating that they stood for us, I'm not going to ask them to stand. I'm going ask them to stay seated, and can we all stand up? If not a veteran, stand up. Yeah. Stay seated if you are. You can see where they're at.

Just sit there. We're going to say thank you. Just clap and say that. Excellent. Then I want to do one thing before you sit down. I want to count to three. I simply just want us to say thank you as loud as you can. How's that sound? Sound good? Alright. One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome.

That is awesome. Now sit down. Speaking of saying thank you and honoring those who stood up and defended us, it reminds me of a time when I was in high school that someone said thank you to me, but it wasn't honoring. It was I

became a believer in high school, but I really embraced this idea of what we've been preaching through in this series, that I was made by and for God, and that's really what worship is. Worship isn't a thing we do. Worship is

a thing we are. We are to be worshippers, and to be a worshipper means that I embrace with all of my life being made by God, but also being made for God.

And then if I embrace that, then that leads me to things that God's asked us to do that helps us embrace what we are made to be, and that brings glory to God. So we've been unpackaging those different elements, and last week we looked at the private practices. The idea of how being in the Word and prayer is an element of worship, because you can't worship a God you don't know, and you can't know God if you don't know the Word. And so we talked about that, but today I want to talk about public worship. And I remember when I was in high school,

I had embraced this idea, but I don't know if I understood it.

Because I really, I went to church every time the doors were open, and back in back in my day, you know, we the church the little church I started going to had Sunday morning service, but also had a Sunday evening service. But it was not a repeat, it was a second service.

And so we would go in the morning, and then go have lunch, goof around, and then come back and do church again. And I remember this one Sunday night, I'm sitting there with my friends, because I was in. I was in. I I made it a point to be at church.

And I'm but I'm looking on the list, and I saw who was preaching. It was this other pastor on staff, and I'm like, I don't like this guy. He's boring to me. And then I was looking at the you know, would in the bowl, they used to have a bowl, they'd tell you what songs we're gonna sing in the hymn book and whatever. And I looked and I go, I don't like any of these songs.

So in my heart I kind of was disconnected, because I'm like, well, this is there's nothing in this for me. So my friends agreed, so we started goofing around a little bit. And we tried to stay to the level that we didn't get tapped on the shoulder by the ushers, but we were starting to play this dumb game that they still play today, I found out that that that that we did. It's like, where you you try to do this and get your friend to look, and if they look right at the loop, you get to punch them. But if they don't directly look and stick their finger through the loop, they get to punch you. Some of you guys in the room like, thank you. You just taught me something, now your kid's gonna get sent to the principal's office. Sorry. But We were doing that, but we tried to keep it controlled, so we tried to stay so it's more like

That was basically the whole service for us.

Well, at the end, nobody nobody looked at us. No. We thought we kept it under control. And then all of sudden at the very end, get up and we turn around and this this sweet older lady in our church that we knew, she smiles as she always does, And she goes, hey, boys. I just want to tell you, thank you. You really

ruined that for us. And then she turned out and walked out. I mean, aunt B just, like, throat punched me of all throat punches. And you know what made it worse? She didn't even act mean. That's that made it scarier.

You ever get so mad at your kids, you just smile at them? And kids when parents just start smiling at it, that's when you gotta get scared.

And so I was like, woah. And you know what? She's right. I realized in that moment, I made a point to be at church, but I didn't really understand the point to being at church. I didn't understand why we do this thing called gathering as the body of Christ corporately in what we call public worship.

And you know what? One of the things she taught me in that moment, I learned right away that what I was missing is

worship was actually about the people around me as much as it was about with me. It's about God, but there's an element that when we come together, that when we show up here, the reason we should be committed, the reason we should be here, the reason we should engage, is not just for God, not just for us,

but for what the Bible calls the testimony we are to those around us. In other words, just right off the bat, guys, in seventeen years that we've started this church, every single service we've ever had, there is new people here. Every single time. And the Bible says, yeah, isn't that awesome? And if you're new here,

thanks for being here. And the idea is when people come in new, guess one of the main ways they realize, especially if they're not familiar with churches, how important is God? And what does this

place think about God? I could say all I want, but guess what they're gonna think about what our attitude is towards the holiness, majesty, and love of Jesus when we're singing, and they look around. You realize that us engaging is also you ministering and sharing your testimony,

and I didn't realize that at the time. So I learned that, But then I learned to grow and learn to understand more, and that's what I want to talk about today is simply

this big idea of this is the bottom line of what public worship is all about. It is for God's glory

and our good. It's for God's glory and our good. It's both of those, and you have to understand how they work. It starts with God's glory, but then it becomes our good. If you try to take either one of those and make it just one or the other, you run into a problem. If you just say, it's for God's glory, and you leave out what it's what God says it is for us, and what it's about for us, what you end up being is you have this really weird, ancient, kind of legalistic view of who God is. And you will come to church, and your approach to church will be, I need to go there to check off the list because I gotta bring this offering

in order to appease the angry God. Meaning, like, how old, you know, you watch a movie, and the old time religion, they come to bring their sacrifices so that God, you know, won't make the volcano erupt or whatever. In other words, or they go, we gotta we gotta go worship this ritualistic moment. We have to go do this ritual,

so God will make it rain. Right? Well, guess what? Many of us, we don't think like that, but we we do think like that. A lot of us, church is a checklist thing, and you still want God to make it rain. Still want hey, see, I'm hip. And and we still want that. That's not what it is. If you do the other one, and you say,

public worship is for our good, and you leave out God and God's glory, that's where I think a lot of us out here in suburbia struggle with. It turns into what I was thinking when I was looking at that list of the church service. I don't like the speaker. I don't like these songs. You you make it all about you.

And even if it is godly things, it's more about what am I going to learn from the Bible? Are those songs going to make me emotional? Am I going to do and so it becomes very you centered. Me centered. Even if it's about God, it's still about me.

And then you'll say stuff like, well, I didn't like that message. I hate that they open with the video announcements, because you know, I I came in late to miss some of the music, and now you and they're going to do some at the back end. I just got tricked. You're going to force me to sing. Yes, we are.

You get mad at that, and you look at it, you're like, I didn't like that sermon. I didn't like that. I don't you know, whatever. But it's for both. Let me show you. Hebrews chapter 10. If you have your Bibles, Hebrews is is way to the right. It's almost near the end.

And the book of Hebrews, its very name shows you that God likes coffee.

You guys have already had more coffee than first service. Good job because you caught that right away. Some people didn't realize it halfway through I'm talking we're all serious. They just got the Hebrews joke.

And and in here it's talking about Christ's sacrifice for us, and in chapter verse 19 of chapter 10, he starts describing this call to persevere, and part of that perseverance is to worship. And it kind of explains in a few verses here what I mean when I say public worship is for God's glory and our good.

And and here it says it says, and so dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place.

Boldly enter what he's talking about is we can go into the presence of God. And he says, why? Because of the many good things we've done. Nope. Because we try really hard. Nope. It says, because of the blood of Jesus.

And by his death, Jesus opened up a new life giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. Through the curtain see, this written in Hebrews, so you gotta understand what's going on. In the temple, their worship was divided up, and and and it was kind of to accentuate what I talked about a few weeks ago, that we will never truly worship if we don't mind the gap between the majesty

and the greatness, that chasm between who God is and where we're at. And and and that's really how the Old Testament how the temple worship was set up. It reminded them of the gap. They could come in and worship a God who loved them, but the presence of God at this moment, he kept it specifically into what was called the Holy of Holies. And behind in the holy of holies, this little area of the temple, there was this thick curtain, and no one was allowed to go in there except the high priest one day a year

to offer this sacrifice for all. And that's why this passage starts off, but Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. They do a sacrifice every year, And so this system was that sounds kinda like mean, because when the priest went in there, he had to prepare himself ritually, and get all ready. And and and when he went in there, they tie a rope around him. Because if he went in incorrect, had the wrong attitude, or didn't do right, he would be struck dead.

Not by God. He just would you'd hear a thud, or he wouldn't come out when he should. And so they knew they had to just pull him out with a rope, because no one's allowed to go into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies.

Now that sounds like, well, that kind of worship is just about God's glory. In a sense, it was. Because what God needed his people and for us to understand is we will never see the greatness of God's love if we don't see the depth of our separation from him. So it was set up that way on purpose,

because God was preparing to bring a sacrifice that tore that curtain. So then you could see what we were separated from. You could see the love of God in being invited in. That's what he's talking about. Isn't that awesome? Yeah. Amen. And and and so it says here,

and since we have a great high priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him. So because we see what he did, his glory,

we now have been invited in by what Jesus did. We can go into his presence. It doesn't say you must, you have to, you better. It's more like you realize you weren't allowed in there, and now you are. We should want to. We get to

gather in the presence of God and worship. That's the difference between that Old Testament worship and what we do when we gather as the church today. There is no holy of holies. We're in it. We get to sit here in the presence of God because of what Jesus did.

And he says, so we should fully trust him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Meaning, when we become followers of Jesus, Jesus doesn't see our sin anymore. He sees who He made us to be.

And that's awesome.

And so it says, let us hold. So now here's the for our good. Well, that's obviously for our good. We're saved. But then he says, look, let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm. So now he's saying hold tight just like in Colossians, it says, we must not just believe something, but we must stand firm in it. So now he gives us these acts of worship. One of the reasons why we come together, and he calls us to commit to being here together,

is is he says, let us hold to this. He goes, let us hold tightly without wavering

to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. So we come here and we realize we're praising God because we know he keeps his promises. In verse 24, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another. So think about it. He's saying, let us come together, and he's saying it's good because we're invited into the presence of God to praise him, to mind the gap. And when we come together and worship together,

there's something powerful in that moment that motivates

us to love and good works. And part of that good work is the testimony of the people that are in the room. It motivates us because you might be down, but when you come in and choose to praise and the whole church comes to praise, we're in this pep rally moment, there's something about the teaching of God's word publicly.

The praying together. They're participating together. That that transforms us. So when we come to bring glory to God, it ends up being for our good. Because here's the point, if God made us to to bring him glory, if God made us to be worshipers, when we do what he made us to do, that is always good.

And it's good for you, and it's good for me. So if you think of this as something I just have to do, and I'm hoping to be as good as I can so God doesn't curse me, you got the wrong view of God. This is an opportunity that the Old Testament saints, the the the Jews at the time,

could not even fathom the fact of the Holy of Holies. And when Jesus died on the cross, it says in the Gospels, what does it say happened to that curtain literally?

If you if you know the story, it says there's an earthquake when he said it is finished, and that holy of holy and the curtain's not like flimsy. It was thick. It tore all the way down from top to bottom. Not bottom up. It's not like we got our way in. God said, alright. You can come in now. And ripped it open.

And that is why we come and we do this. That's our opportunity. That's what we get to do. So so what I want to spend the rest of our time talking about before we take communion and sing a little bit more is I want to invite someone up to unpackage that thought a little bit. Like, why what does that look like here? Why do we do what we do? So I wanted to bring out a special friend, and if you've been here before, you think it's it's not my wife. This guy is much more bearded than than her. And not like she's bearded at all, but but I just thought about that. It's like, that could be taken wrong, can't it?

She's sitting right there giving me stink eye right now. And but it's Sean, which you saw just a few minutes ago. My good friend Sean, who we've worked together for a long time, and Thank you. I'm excited to have you up here in the main because you helped do part of my job,

and I know that you'll never ask me to return the favor. So it's it's it's it's really cool. They wouldn't let me do that. No, they wouldn't. So, Sean, let's since I tell stories a lot to get to know me, you're usually leading us. Share a little bit of a flyby of of your story as we get into this. Okay.

I grew up in the Midwest. Any Midwesterners here? Hey. Party. I grew up in the Cincinnati area. Man. Nope. There's somebody. I feel like those were, like, pity cheers. So if I said hootay Hootay. Hey. We Fantastic. Got For you non Bengals fans, that's a Bengals thing.

So I've suffered a lot as a fan of the Bengals. That's just That's why we connect so well. Yeah. Have franchises that have broken our hearts. And some we've been broken our hearts with with the same quarterback too at some points. I didn't wanna get emotional. Yeah. Alright. On with the story. Alright. I grew

up in the Cincinnati area in Ohio and Indiana, because if you know Cincinnati, there's a it's right on the border of the two. I grew up in church, my grandpa was my pastor, my dad led the singing, my mom played the piano, and when I was

probably around five or six, I don't know the exact time, when God really got ahold of my heart and I remember sitting in a message, my grandpa was preaching about how Jesus died for my sins, that he he took my sins for me and that he offers his righteousness in himself and I asked him how God just broke my heart

and my mom took me into my grandpa's office and I kneeled down and prayed and asked God to be my savior and from there on to about my teen years is where God really just laid on my heart the call to surrender to him, my life for him, for for the ministry.

I didn't know the ministry at that point. All I knew was that God had said, I want all of you, no matter what. And so I said, okay God, I'm gonna surrender to you whatever you want of me. And then in my later teens, I realized God was calling me into music and music ministry specifically,

so I've been doing music ministry for sixteen years now, and, in 2005, because and one of the cool things is now I get to do music ministry with my wife which is so awesome. My wife is Sarah, who sings up here quite a bit. She's singing at this spot right here this weekend, so you may

beautiful, wonderful woman. Think last service I said, that one is the one that's my wife. It wasn't as, like, praise praising as it It was have that it's less bearded, but No, that You got that going I always feel better about the things I say after you say things.

True. But she was living out here, I was living in the Midwest, we were dating long distance, and she was coming to Rock Point, and she's been here for fourteen years, and I flew out in 2005, and she said, Hey, why don't you come lead worship at our church? And so I came, and we have a picture of last from the past

of the first I prefer the ahs over the laughs people. And

I haven't changed a bit. 2005 Bobby Brady right there, folks. Uh-huh. So

that was 2005. That was the first time I came out, led worship. It was at the Higley High School in the cafeteria. And then the next time I came out we have a picture.

And this was the next time I came out to visit, and that's Nate Finfrock. Does anybody know Nate? Anybody? Yeah. Nate. Yeah. Awesome. Nate was our first worship pastor, and it was on this day that you came up to me and you told me that God had told you that I was supposed to be here.

And of course, I walked away thinking, who is this guy? What is he talking about? It was really a ploy because I didn't have much money to pay or anything, so I just had to use the name of no. I'm glad we get to find this out now. It's all been a sham. No. So but you were right. And God was calling me out here. And so

in 2006, I came on staff as a worship leader and eventually became the worship pastor. But we have another picture of a few years later from that. That's when we got back from our mission. Right?

See, this is funny. That was actually your joke, but you didn't wanna say it, so I did. I believe I mentioned something about restraint, which was completely overlooked. And so now I've been here. We've been doing this together for twelve years. Well, thank you for being here. And in those twelve years,

we've been blessed. I've been blessed because if you've been in churches, a lot of times worship and and lead pastors, they they they they don't get to work together for so long. And part of it is because our values so align. One of those values is we both see our job

as the same. We have the same job. Right? And so could you explain to them what we mean by that? Because obviously, how's that the same job? They do completely different things. Yeah. And as you had mentioned, not really interchangeable always. Well, you're actually better at interchanging with me than I am with you.

Well, I can teach you a thing or two. But our roles I mean, we're both called to be pastors, which is such a great responsibility that comes with so much, like, gravity and weight to it. But ultimately, the Bible talks about how, pastors are called also shepherds and they're called to equip the people

for the ministry and to build up the church, and in order to do that, it's through the preaching of the word and it's through singing of songs that are, rooted in scripture. Ultimately, that in everything we do, people see Jesus. Ultimately that we are pointing people

to Jesus in everything we do, that he would be revealed and that we would respond and that's what worship is. And you had a a word for that, that what we are. Yes. Two. Two words. Two words. Yeah. Two words. Tour guide. That's the two words. Yeah. It is. But I'm sorry, guys. We joke a lot back and forth.

Sometimes hard to keep up. Yeah, a worship pastor had given this example, and it was so powerful. He's talking about how he went on a trip to Israel,

and they went on this trip, and one of the most impactful things for them on there was the tour guide that was with them. What was so cool and made that Israel so special and powerful to them was that here's this tour guide that was so knowledgeable and so passionate

about the sights they were seeing, that it got them excited and them passionate. The whole point of the tour guide was saying, I gotta tell you something about this spot. This is where Jesus healed the blind man. I gotta tell you, this is where they crucified our savior. This is what makes this so special, so amazing.

This is why this is so special. And they came away from that tour, he was looking for pictures of the tour guide, and they couldn't find any because she was the one taking all the pictures. She wasn't the object of the tour.

She was just the one pointing people to what the object was and telling them how amazing and incredible and beautiful it was, and for us, that's And that's where we when we say we do the same thing.

We're taking you on a tour, and and it's okay to appreciate a tour guide and and love how they do it and what they do, But we both agree it's okay to appreciate that that if we're doing our job the way god called us, but we hope that what you appreciate is that we pointed you to Jesus.

If it didn't if we didn't point out Jesus, then we failed. It doesn't matter how much you like it, how much you enjoyed it. If it doesn't take you to see Jesus, then we we we failed. And then

we get a lot of people when they come here and see how we do stuff, they they they think, you know, it's it it it feels like a show. And and what's crazy is our answer is, it is. It is. But the problem is, you don't realize who the roles are. Who's what role?

You see, when we do a public worship service, there's three things that happen. There's a prompter, performers, and then there's an audience. When you relate to the idea, we say it's a show, and you get uncomfortable with that, it's because usually most people have the wrong idea about what we're doing here.

They think that the prompter is God, the performers are us, and then the people out there are the audience. But that's not how it works. It's a show, but the prompters are us. That's what a tour guide is. We're the prompters. Guess who the performers are? All of us.

We're the performers. So when people go, Why don't you have a choir? We do. The choir's booked full today. Man, awesome. No audition or choir? No audition's necessary. Just show up. You're in the choir. Welcome. Prompters, performers, and who's the audience? Jesus. Jesus. So

it is a show, and that's why we try to bring our best, but it's for him. That's what it's all about. Amen? And that leads us to a little bit about this idea of talk a little bit about,

from your point of view, your vision and heart as our as our tour guide in praising. Because you already mentioned the other stuff. We come together, there's a few things we do together that that that we do that I think God's called us to do corporately.

There's the preaching of God's word, which he said. There's praying together. There's participating. Giving, and and the the, you know, the ordinances, communion, baptism, all those things. But what I wanted to focus on why I have you here is the part the the part that you lead us in is praising.

The praising aspect. Can you talk to us a little bit about the the the thoughts on how we do and what the things we do around here. Yeah. Absolutely. Philosophy. For us, and I think understanding this is something that just comes so natural to us. Praising is so natural. You

talked about how we are made by God, for God. We were all built to worship. It all depends on just what we aim it at, and the same with praise. We easily and, in fact, we delight to praise the things that we love. It comes naturally. It's not hard. It overflows in us, whether it be our our children or our family or,

whatever we look at as successes or Man, go to a sports game. Go to I mean, I wish I could celebrate more, but, go to if your team's winning, go to a game and you see what happens, just the absolute joy and exuberance of winning this game. We delight to praise

the things that we love, but as a people, why do we gather here? Why do we praise God? Well, deep foundational, truest, simplest answer is the gospel. We praise our God because God is the God of the gap. He alone intrinsically is worthy of praise simply because he's the creator and sustainer of life,

But because our God this is what's so beautiful and incredible about the gospel, the good news of Jesus, is that God is so high above, and we are so far below, and so absolutely unworthy to come into his presence like you talked about. Yet Jesus came, and he stood in our place,

and he bore the punishment that you and I deserve. And the bible says we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but we are made alive in Christ. We had no hope, but he took our punishment, bore our sin, and gives us his righteousness, and calls us sons and daughters of God, and gives us an eternity with him forever.

That's why we praise our God. Praise is a God reveals who he is, what he's done, and we respond. And that's who he is and what he's done, but the Bible calls us to do that over and over and over again. Over 400 times the Bible references singing, and 50 times, it gives a direct command to sing praise

to God. The book of Psalms, the longest book in the Bible, is a book of songs. God gave this to his people that we could remember and recall his worthiness. That we could give thanks. Thanksgiving and praise go hand in hand.

That we could give thanks for what he's done, and we could say thank you, God. Thank you. We remember your faithfulness. We remember that you are greater than any circumstance we're going into, any circumstance we're coming out of. God gives us songs to remember

and recall what he's done, not only in the moment to praise him and come into his presence with singing in joyful songs, but to remember that he is good no matter what situation.

And to kind of prove the point, I think, honestly, songs are a gift from God to help us remember. We all understand this. Cultures everywhere, get this, cultures everywhere use songs to teach. In fact, we'll use a few examples. How many of you in here learned your ABCs through song?

Go ahead. Come on. Be honest. If you guys don't know it through song, you may not know the ABCs.

And in fact, let's do another show of hands. Who here still uses the ABC song to figure out if something is alphabetical and what yep, yep. The power of music connecting to words helps us remember and store in our hearts whatever that information is. And it's not just simply the valuable things, like learning our ABCs,

but marketing agencies have really cornered the market on this, and we're gonna do another little test here to just show you how powerful it is. I'm gonna go ahead and sing something, you finish it. So if I sang, give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that. That's

so powerful, isn't it? Aren't you glad you stored that away? Let's let's try let's try this one. Ready? We are farmers.

It's moving. It just grips the soul. Luckily, you know that, and you can pull that back out at some point in life when you need it. Alright, here's another one. For all of us locals here, call Lerner and Row. It's the way to go. Call 977 Oh,

aren't you so thankful that you know that number? I hope you don't ever have to use it. But here's the sad thing. That is so unnecessary, but last week, I forgot my grandma Joy's 90 birthday.

I oh my goodness. Isn't that terrible? If she'd only if it had only been put to a song, I would have remembered it, but I know Lerner and Row is the way to go. This is the point of what we're talking about when God gives us songs

to store in our hearts, and he says, store up my word in your heart. In Psalms one nineteen, it says, your word I have hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.

God calls us to his greatness, calls us to his glory, and songs are such an incredible tool to do that. One thing I think that's important for us to realize is we were God doesn't just give us a command to do something, but we are made in the image of God, and he himself sings. In Zephaniah, the bible says that God

rejoices over his people with loud singing. I don't know about you, but that just leaves me in awe that the creator of the universe, the one that made that sunrise that I saw coming here sings over me. Jesus himself sang with the disciples, and he said, I'm gonna go in the midst of the congregation and praise your name.

And the bible says that, the holy spirit moves us to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The trinity, our God,

sings and calls us to sing. And that's why we praise our God. We respond to the good news of Jesus, and we follow in the steps of our God, and we know that no matter what circumstance, he is worthy of our praise.

Yeah. And like you said, it's like 400 times we're called to sing in scripture and 50 times directly commanded, and and and and

we're commanded to not sing beautifully, but to make a a a A loud noise. A loud The Bible says, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth, and says, make a loud noise. So it is not a prerequisite that you are able to hit the notes, which hopefully is a comfort to you that

God the Bible says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, and from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So, what comes from our heart is what God's looking for. It's not about the tonal quality. It's not about the pitch. It's just about the praise and response of who He is.

And that's I I I often thought that God sings loudly over me to drown out my loud noises. Like, He loves me and but yeah. But anyways.

But it says loud, but it also says reflective. It says be quiet, be still, and know that I'm God. There's reflective moments. Just to let you know, that's why we do kind of what we do around here. If you come here, it's like, yeah, we have reflective moments. We slow it down. But for the most part, we lean into the loud. We lean into the celebrative side. And it's for a simple reason of what we're commanded do. If you look in scripture,

the reflective worship time is actually better done when you are alone, in your private worship. Every time God's people gather in the Bible altogether, it's much more of the celebrative time. It's a simple reason. What's a better pep rally? Two people or 700 people?

You two people try a pep rally, there's no pep, and there's not much of a rally. What we do, we come together. We lean into the more joyful stuff on purpose. And I think some people reject it. It's like, well, I just don't want to be loud. I don't want to. Well, God says, I want a party.

And I want a pep rally. I don't want to And to that point too, the Bible doesn't just say singing. And I think this is important for us to get that praise is a response. It's a physical reaction to what God's doing in our lives and our hearts. So it talks about standing, clapping. It talks about bowing. It talks about dancing.

It talks about rejoicing in the Lord in all these different ways, and this is just a setup for what we're going to see in eternity, guys. It says the loud the noise in heaven of the praise is so loud it's like the rushing of waters. All all creatures

are praising, so this is just a prep. We're getting a glimpse of heaven when this happens. It's like a run through. Exactly. So it doesn't talk about stand with your hands in your pockets as someone else sings around you. Or

fold you to your arms in in protest of what's going on. It says delight yourself in the Lord. And he will give you the desires of the Which kind of brings me into the question. Now we're talking about what we do. Kind of that's why we do that. So it brings up this

last question of kind of why do we do the things we do? That answers one. But you know, there is a biblical, theological, visional, missional reason behind why we do what we do. Some of the people get the questions, for example, why do you have a smoke machine?

Stuff like that. Which is actually a haze machine. I know that probably doesn't ease any people's minds, but let this be known that it's water based, so it's actually beneficial. Yeah. It's a giant humidifier. It is not smoke. It's not smoke. If you think it's affecting your breathing, it's psychosomatic.

It's actually better for your breathing, especially if you're an asthmatic, and bonus, it's good for your skin here in our Worship and a spa day. Glory of God. Good for us. Yeah. So what about some of the other things we do up here, and and like the quality and all this stuff? Why do we why do we

Well, ultimately, I think we remember that our God is a creative God, and that he's he is the most incredible artist and and musician and singer of anything. And we look around us, and the Bible says that, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork.

And day into day, they're uttering speech, and night into night, they're showing knowledge. We realize that all of creation is God's handiwork, his masterpiece of bringing him glory. But for us, I think this is important for us to understand, we worship

and respond in a way in the context of the culture that we're in. And I think one of the biggest things that we struggle with in the culture that we're in is that we are often way too busy to see the glory of God in everything around us. He's calling us to praise him and to respond to him, and it's everywhere around us. But we're so busy and hectic and overwhelmed, and when we come into here on the weekends,

and I'm the same way, it's given me a lot of grace to be able to come in here and be rushing in and be like, we've got to make it in time. We're late. No. But we're the same way, because we come in, and a lot of times we think about

what's happening in our life rather than who our God is, and we're coming in carrying all these distractions. What's happening in my job, with my family, with my relationships? What are we doing after this? What's going on?

Instead of being able to focus on God and glorifying him, we're carrying this all in. So with the tools and gifts he's given us to use creatively, our whole purpose in all of this is to remove the distractions of everything else and to bring our focus to God, magnifying and amplifying the message

of the praise. Amplifying the message of the song through lighting and music and, bringing this environment to something where we can focus in and just come into the presence of our God, get loud when it's magnifying, get soft when it's intimate,

and bring it all so that we are coming before our God, bringing a praise worthy of him. And so in other words, it's about the the the term we use, undistracted excellence. Yeah. That is one of my favorite quotes, and we use it in our team is undistracting excellence.

Our aim is to do things so well that we fade into the background, that Jesus is just seen at the forefront so we can all just engage in his presence. And that's why for up here, everyone can be in the choir, but there's a process to

get on this team, which, as matter fact, you wanted to put the shameless plug in there for musicians We do have out a plug, and we're gonna put it there it is. He said, I'll come speak with you if you let me do this. I did not. Like the commercial on Pandora. Yeah. The Bible

says that we've been given gifts to serve the church, and so we know that the gifts that we use, that we've been given, we're used to serve Him with. So, for our musicians, we know that we're called to train, to be skilled, to come and bring an offering worthy of our God, but,

it's an open thing for people to come and be a part of, and we want to encourage people,

that if you're a musician, and if God's gifted you, and He's called you to this, man, come and serve with us. Come be a part of bringing that as an offering of praise to the Lord, and you can do that at any time by going to this link, and I encourage you, please do that if that's what God's calling you to.

It's available, and we would love for you to be a part of that. But the thing you gotta remember is, yeah, we want quality because it's undistracted excellence because God said, you know, skilled musicians. The Bible talks about bringing skill because we don't wanna be unskilled

and and poor that could be a distraction of itself. Right. So what we like to use is what our production team uses a great illustration about a Yeah. We our production team uses the term that we are the frame, not the portrait. That ultimately, the focus is to be on God and His glory. But in

both ways, a frame can be distracting, whether it's too ornate or too crazy, then people are not focused on the portrait. Or if it's a terrible frame, then people are distracted by that too. Ultimately, what we're trying to do in every element is to just compliment the message and bring glory to God and bring focus in to Him. And also, to the point too, don't be afraid if you're like, well, I don't know if I'm up to the level of what you need. We have so many ministries we're serving where you can grow, and and that too, I always wanted to throw that out there too. Excellent.

Can we thank Sean for for being up here? Thank you, guys. You still got some work to do. Hey. As Sean goes, I just wanna prepare us because, you know, it's interesting how a a guy named Gordon Dahl once said that we Americans

worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship. And that's part of the problem. We we shouldn't we play at worship when instead of realizing what it's really for and about and all of that and and and such. And and that's why we wanna

take communion and then sing a couple songs again to kinda reset it. Because, you know, Jesus, if you're not familiar with what it is, Jesus took bread and broke it the night before he was crucified and said, this is my body broken for you. He he he took a cup of wine and he said, this is my blood spilt for you.

And then in in in first Corinthians, it calls us to do this in remembrance of him. Why does he call us to remember this? Because it's back to that Hebrews passage, that we get to worship him because we can now come into the holy of holies. We can now be in the presence of God,

and we get to do it. And and and so in remembering what Jesus did is a moment that we can remember that not I should or I have to, but I get to because I want to. And and and the reality is is that's why in in in Corinthians, it says that we should reflect. Communion is a moment to reflect, to to do a self check,

and to mind that gap. And I go, when I look at the incredible love of God that filled the gap between me and him, what's going on in my life that's distracting me? Why did I not want to do that? In other words, bottom line, everything Sean has been sharing up here and everything we've been talking about up here has

been the idea that when we come to worship him, it's it's it's a lot like going to a birthday party. Think about it. We all grew up going to birthday parties. We still go to them, and adult parties and kid parties are different, but there are some consistent

elements in birthday parties, aren't there? When you come to a party, there's going to be some type of interaction. Engagement, participation of some kind. There's going to be bringing of gifts, and there's going to be a song. And I'm just telling you, that song that we sing at birthday parties, I would bet my entire salary

that nobody in this room, the birthday, happy birthday is your favorite song. It's probably not even in your top thousand. Matter of fact, most of us would put that in our top five of worst songs ever. But think about it. You go to a party, barely know someone, you might try to mumble and not sing the song.

But have you ever noticed, the closer you are to the person that the party's for, you're going to sing. Right? Matter of fact, even if you don't know them, you're going to sing a little bit. You're you're going to do it. Why? If you go to a birthday party, are you going to stand there like this?

And go, I'm I'm just not a music person. I don't like this song. Would you do that? Nobody does that. Well, actually, some of you probably do, and that's why you don't get invited to birthday parties. Because you're not very likable. But but the reality is this.

The depth of my engagement in a birthday party is directly linked to the depth of my relationship with the person that the party's for. So the reason we sing Happy Birthday is not because we like this song. It's not because we like singing. It's not because it emotionally moves us.

We sing it because it's the purpose of the party is to give praise and honor to the person that it's their party. That's what public worship is. This is Jesus' party. And he's invite you know what's funny? It's just the party he brings us to, and then you know why it's good for us? He gives us presents.

He gives us presents. And so the question is is this, is if I'm gonna reflect and take communion and remember what Jesus did for me, I need to reflect on what am I bringing to the party?

And it's not to throw punch you, but I'm just telling you, if if if I really see that love, wouldn't I engage more? Wouldn't I choose to sing? Wouldn't I want to sing? Not I should or I have to, but I want to because I get to. Think about it this way. It's Veterans Day today.

Imagine you're getting ready for a party for a friend of yours, and you were both veterans. And this person's older than They were your commanding officer, and you went to combat together.

And they became more like a father figure to you. They became a dear friend. They they were a mentor. They poured into you, You've known them for years. When you go, you know you're gonna push them around at their party because they're in a wheelchair because they lost their legs. How they lost their legs is saving

your life. Could you imagine that party? If that was the party you were going to, would you not make that party the priority every year? Would you not make sure you're not only there on time, you're probably helping plan it? Would you participate greatly in the party?

And when it came time to sing, who would sing the loudest? You would. Guys, Jesus didn't just give us his legs to save us. He gave us his life. So here is what I'm saying. When we reflect in communion, we start to sing, the question is not a guilt trip.

I'm not trying to say, how dare you not sing? You better get better at this. The deal is, would I have to tell you that if you already knew how much this person loved you? If you knew the sacrifice ever? If you engaged in that, and owned that, and embraced that. What I have to tell you, turn around. If you have your kids have a birthday party, do I have to tell you to engage in your kid's birthday party? Do I have to tell you to bring them gifts? Do I have to tell you to think about that? Do I have to tell you you you feel guilty? No. You just will. Because if you love someone, and especially if you know how much they loved you, you will go all in.

So as we sing, my question is this. If you're the person that's like, I'm just gonna stand there, and you say you know Jesus. This is not you better you better shape up. This is a moment to say, what's going on in your heart? What are you missing?

Maybe you approach God, like I said, it's just about His glory, and He's the angry God you have to appease. Can you, in this moment, see the cross? Because as Hebrews said, this is why we get to. Because there's a huge gap between us and God's glory. But he filled that gap with Jesus and his love.

So if you have a problem with engaging, if you have a problem with being here consistently, if you have a problem with doing that, please go, why? Why? And then maybe choose to see the love. Because when you see the love, you will be a worshiper. So Jesus took that bread and he broke it.

And he said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat. He then took the cup and said, this is my blood spilled for you. Drink.

Their

to

of I'm I'm

He's our hope and the object of our praise and adoration. And we can lift up a song no matter the circumstance. So sing this out. I count on one thing. The same God that never fails and will not fail me now. You won't fail me now in the way. The same God who's never late is working all things out. You're working all things out.

Oh, yes. Will lift you high in the lowest

Come on, church. We join in the song with Jesus. We're in

hallelujah.

God, we join in your song. We declare god be praised above all others. You alone are worthy for you have ransomed, redeemed, and rescued our souls. We cry out to you. Praise be to god. We worship you with all that we are. We lift up name of Jesus. You are worthy for you are the lamb who was slain.

We rejoice, god. Help us to take this praise into our lives, to declare who you are to the nations, and to those around us, that our god is the God who saves and the God who is worthy of praise. We love you. We worship you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. All these things and all God's people said, amen.