You are invited to stop viewing worship as a checklist of duties and start seeking God with a heart full of gratitude and awe. Whether you are singing in the living room or walking down the sidewalk, let your life become a continuous offering of praise in spirit and truth. Take a moment today to ask God how He wants you to respond to His love.
Well, morning. My name is David John Phillips and I have the joy and the honor of getting to be the pastor here. There's nothing I'd rather be doing, no place I'd rather be. And if this is your first time, we as Santos said in the beginning, we pray that you would have an encounter with the love of Jesus. You have an encounter with God in such a way that you walk away desiring to know him more.
And you walk away never the same and in an ever growing *relationship* with God. Amen? Amen. That's just that's our prayer. That's what our desire is for you.
I think that's what church should be. It should be a taste of heaven in such a way that cause you to seek after a relationship with *Jesus* every day of your life and every moment of every day to hear and to know his voice. So we are in a series actually, we're finishing up a series on worship. Hopefully, you've enjoyed it. It's the last message of the series.
The first message was *worship* and waste. If that piques your interest, I'd encourage you to go to the website, check out the podcast, or go to the YouTube page and watch it. The second message was worship and work. Gabriel Mullens, our nurse anesthetist, however you say it. He's actually more of an entrepreneur than that, but he does that too.
Gabe preached probably the best message I've ever heard on worship and work. It was awesome. And if you missed it, man, you need to go and listen to it on our podcast or realchurch.us YouTube. Yeah. Shameless plug there.
And today, we're getting into part 3 of the series, and we're we're really gonna be diving into a passage talking about worship that I almost can't skip over when we're diving into the subject of worship. So let's just go to John-4. I'm gonna start in verse 22. And it says, you Samaritans, worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews.
Yet, a time is coming and has now come. Everybody say, has now come. Has You're awake. Praise the Lord. When the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit, in the spirit, and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks.
*God is spirit*, and his *worshipers* must everybody say, must. Must. Yeah. God, his spirit and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in *truth*. *Father* God, we just thank you for who you are, and we give you today.
We ask you to open up our hearts to hear your word, but not just to be hearers, that we would be careful how we hear. That we would be hearers, and we would be doers of your word. *Father*, we would put into action what you speak to us today, what you encourage us with today. Father God, let us let us hear and receive in faith and by faith and complete that faith by obedience. Lord God, let what happens today teach us what it means to *worship* in spirit and in truth.
And Father, if you want, just ask you to use my voice to speak as you will. Lord, none of me, all of you, let this give you glory in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You realize, like, God is seeking *worshipers*?
He's seeking worshipers. Like, to seek is to to look for something, to try and find something, to to dis like, try to discover. *God is seeking worshipers, but worshipers that will worship in a certain way. I don't know about you, but I wanna be a a worshiper that God is seeking*. He's looking for those that will worship him in the *spirit* and in truth.
My question is, what does that mean? We just finished a series in February, in the March, that was titled Walking by the Spirit. And, we learned in that series that a Christian is someone who is led by the spirit, and not by the flesh. As someone that lives their life by the spirit, and not by the flesh. To put it in another way, someone who lives by the spirit, and not by just everything that their body desires.
They live by the spirit and not by just the first thoughts that their mind thinks. They live by the spirit and not by just every emotional feeling that they feel. They're not led by those things, but they actually submit those things to his word and what he says over those things, knowing that what he says is better because he's our creator. And he loves us, and if he says it, then it's better for us. And so we can follow him instead of those things.
We actually enjoy a more fulfilled, more fulfilling life by living that way. Amen? Amen. Real quick. That's what it looks like.
We're following his voice because we know his voice because we're Christians, and Christians know his voice. We follow his lead because we love and trust him. When living a life is led by the Holy Spirit, we don't always understand everything, do we? We don't always understand with our logical minds. Talking about prayer and worship, Paul says, *1 Corinthians-14* and verse 14.
He says, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding. So in following the spirit, in prayer and worship, I don't always understand what's going on.
I don't always understand what I'm doing, but I trust him enough to follow him anyway. And I will do what I don't understand, and I will do what I do understand. Yeah? And talking about and this is this is prayer and worship. And talking about life, Paul says, in Ephesians, he says, to know a love that surpasses knowledge.
Meaning, can know his love experientially with my life, with my knowing in a way that my knower doesn't quite understand yet. And, my brain doesn't quite catch. I just know because I know him. Knowing that 1 day, somehow, some way, I will understand in the way that I want to understand. It's the I don't understand why I'm doing this.
I don't understand how this is gonna work out, but I know this is God, so I'm gonna "step out in faith" and do it anyway because I know that Hebrews-11:3 says, by faith we understand. And I also know that faith comes by hearing his voice, but also faith is completed by obedience. So there's some things and really many things in walking with God that I'm not going to understand until I obey. And as I obey, as I'm in the midst of the obedience, or as I'm after the obedience, as I'm past it, then I'll look back and begin to understand why God was doing what he was doing, what he was doing, and what he was teaching me, and it's just the way of faith. You guys ever ever experienced that before?
You're like, I don't know why God's telling me to do this, and then you just say yes. And as you do it, you look back, you're like, oh, it all makes sense now. But if you had to have the, oh, it all makes sense now from this side, you never would have followed God. God longs to be loved by you. My wife's really beautiful.
I just looked down and her big old eyes were just looking up at me. Anyway, that was unplanned. *God* longs to be loved by you. He doesn't just want you to follow him out of duty. He doesn't just want you to read his word, go to church because you're supposed to Sing songs.
Clap every now and then because you're supposed to. Stay married. Do the right thing. Be faithful in your job and in relationships just out of duty because it's the good Christian thing to do. He wants you to do those things, but he wants you to do it out of love because you're in pursuit of him, and you want to obey him because you know what he says is best because you're seeking relationship that impacts every aspect of your life.
In a romantic marriage, there's this aspect of playfulness and joy. This aspect of seeking just to be in the other person's presence, not out of duty, but out of love. Like, it's that random go to lunch, the random date. It's the it's the randomly bringing home chocolates or or flowers, or ice cream just because. It's the randomly leaving the light on at night when the other person's gone, and staying awake just to to be there because you don't like going to sleep until the other person gets home.
It's the randomly sacrificing the things that you want to do or the habits that you normally have in order to do the things that you know that they like just because it will make them smile or take some of the pressure off of their day. Those are the things that make a marriage good. Like, awesome. And marriage is created to be a reflection of our relationship with God. God loves you, but he also longs to be loved by you.
I'll give you an example of this in my personal life, just as your pastor being transparent. I'm laying in bed, it's about midnight, Courtney's asleep, kids are asleep, lights are off. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. It's time for me to go to sleep or really, probably go back to sleep.
I'm sore all over my body because I started a new hobby doing jujitsu. And, I get beat up frequently. But, it's fun. It just is. But, I'm exhausted.
And, it's time to go to sleep and I have the thought, it's like the Lord was leaving the light on for me. Hey, why don't you go in the living room and worship? Now, I can submit to my own logic, my own understanding. That would be dumb because I'm sleepy and I have to get up early in the morning. Or, I can give in to the leading of the *spirit* to go and love my Lord even though my flesh doesn't feel like it.
So, praise the Lord, this time, I get up out of the bed, put my robe on, go into the living room. All the lights are off. And I just because this is the way I do it, stand there, lift my hands like this, and I just kind of tilt my heart, if you will, up to the Lord. And just begin to say thank you for who you are. Nobody knows, nobody's in there.
But as soon as I do that, Holy Spirit, his presence fills the room. Meaning for me, I just get tingles all over my body. I have this supernatural sense of peace, and a big smile can't help but feel my face because I know he's with me. It's just awesome. Does it always happen like that?
No. But, I love the tingles when it does. It's beautiful. Yeah. And, I'm just there thanking him for who he is, and for loving me, and that I have a relationship with him, and that he's blessed me with the ways that he has, and it's awesome.
A couple more, about 3 to 5 minutes of that is all. And, I feel in my spirit, hey, you can go to bed now. I'm like, But no, this is good. You gotta wake up early in the morning, go to bed. Yes, Lord.
So I go to sleep, sleep like a baby. Well, some people's babies don't sleep well. So, I sleep like our baby. She sleeps well. But, just relationship.
I was worshiping in spirit, but I was also worshiping in truth because this is the character and nature of our God as seen throughout scripture. It's just real. I'll give you another example. A lot of times when we worship in spirit and truth we're gonna talk more about it, but I just but a lot of times when we worship in spirit and truth, not only will we be filled, but God will use that to fill those around us. Last night, I'm going over the message that I had written.
And, you know, I'm just trying to anchor it down in my soul so I can really have it come across clearly to you guys, and I can listen to the Lord as we're doing this, you know, and just case other things need to be said and whatnot. And, I get a text from my wife. She came home while I was in the office, and she happened to throw something away in the trash can and saw the empty ice cream bucket. She had, that morning, set aside her toppings for her ice cream and was planning the whole day about having her little bowl of ice cream with her toppings. It was an empty ice cream bucket that she didn't realize had been in there all day because me and the kids had devoured it the night before.
She likes ice cream. So do I. So, I see the text and I ignore it. Because I'm doing important stuff. I'm going over the message, all right?
About 5 minutes in, it just comes back and I know I need to stop the the preparation of the message to go get my wife some ice cream. Now, I know that this is God prompting me to do it. You know why I know? *Hebrews-5:14* says, solid foods for the mature who by **constant use** have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Constant use.
I've been learning what it looks like to hear and put in practice the Lord's voice really since I was 12 years old. Like this, like I'm talking to you about. Okay? So, like, by constant use. Do I always get it right?
No. It's by constant use, you train yourselves to distinguish good from evil. Sometimes, you do wrong. And, man, he's a good father. He picks you up and says, alright.
Hey, that wasn't right, but let's keep going right here. Amen? Amen. Like, the fear of failure, you guys got to get over the fear of failure. You're never going to follow God if you keep have this fear of failure and you always have to be right.
You know? You faith is, a lot of times, spelled r I s k, risk. I got to let go of my need to be in control of the outcome and to understand in order to follow you and just know that you're good. So I I just know that this is God and so I have to trust that I'm gonna be adequately prepared even if I give this time. And so I I shut my computer and I go get my car and I go to Publix and I turn on some worship music.
As I get out at Publix, I'm walking in and I just know that I'm supposed to pray for somebody to be healed. I just know it. So, as I'm walking through the parking lot, I'm looking. Who's got a cast on? Who's got you know, who am I praying for?
You know? I walk through Publix. Nobody. I get to the ice cream aisle. I pick the ice cream up.
Nobody. I I I turn around, I walk back, and right as I get, like, about to to check out, there's this guy walk by me, and he's got this, like, neoprene sleeve on his knee. It's not anything bad, you know? I mean, nobody's gonna surely, like, I pray for him, he's healed, nobody's gonna really know. You know, I I just like, God, it's gotta be something bigger than that, so I just keep walking.
Man, it just won't go away. So eventually, I finally turn around, and I go back to where the aisle is. I see him down the aisle, and at this point, I'm like, he's probably thinking I'm stalking him. He's not. I walk down the aisle and I get to him, and I say, excuse me, sir.
Is your knee hurting? And he said, yeah, it's a little sore. And I said, well, can I pray for you? He says, sure. So I just say, you know, heavenly father, I just thank you for who you are and that you love this and his name was Todd.
That you love Todd. And I just pray in the name of Jesus. And a lot of times I'll touch the guy's knee or I'll ask to hold his hands. It didn't feel like I should in that moment, you know? Just didn't I don't know.
But, in the name of Jesus' knee, be healed. Lord God, once again, thank you that you love Todd. And, he gives me the like, the dude arm bump, you know. Thanks, man. You know.
And then, we part ways. He goes this way and I go the opposite way. You know why? Because culturally, sometimes it's awkward. And, you feel the awkwardness.
You know, you feel the fear and it's and and so, he's walking I'm supposed to go that way because I gotta check out still, but he's go I'm walking this way. I'm like, you know. You know, in in doing this, I've learned that the more you feel that fear, the more God wants to use you to touch that person, and the more the enemy is trying to prevent you from doing it. So, whenever you feel that, you just push past it anyway, and follow his leading instead of giving into fear because you got to love people more than you love how you feel. So, I walk and I look down the aisle, and there he is at the checkout line down that aisle.
And I'm like, well, he's going to think I'm I'm stalking him. So I walk to the next aisle and go. I end up checking. I'm I'm serious. All this is going through my head, you know, and I'm checking out and he's behind me.
I finished checking out real nice to the lady. He walks out. I walk out, I'm like, dang it. I'm like 10 yards behind him again. He's gonna think I'm stalking him.
He walks out and and wouldn't you know he's walking down the same aisle my car is down? So, I wait an extra 10 yards, you know, I'm 20 yards behind, so I'm I'm safe. I'm walking, and he walks to the truck right beside my car. So, I unlock my car, and I'm like, alright, this is God. So, this fear, I realized, wait a second, this fear is just the enemy trying to prevent me from ministering to this guy.
So, I walk up to the guy, was like, hey, man. He's like, hey. I said, you happen to park beside me. A question, do you know Jesus? Seriously, that's what I said.
He says, a little. I say, do you believe that you can have a relationship with God? He says, yes. I said, do you believe that Jesus loves you? He says, sometimes, we're all human.
I said, no, Jesus died for you to be free from sin. At this point, can kinda see that there's like he's being impacted. And I say, man, you you know that Jesus said you can't see the kingdom of God unless you've been "born again". Have you ever been born again? I'm looking him in the eyes, man.
He's like, no. I said, in order to be born again, you have to believe Jesus died for your sin, rose again, but also, you have to give your life to him. Say, I'm tired of living for me and I wanna live for you. I said, easy? He said, man, if it was easy, everybody would do it.
I said, you're right, but it's worth it. I said, if if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was standing before you right now, knocking on the door of your heart, asking to enter into your life, asking you to give your life to him, would you do it? He said, yeah, would. I said, is. He's in me.
I said, there's a reason that God had me pray for you and your knee in there and then you had you you were parked right beside me. This is a coincidence. He said, I know. I said, you wanna give your life to Jesus? He said, man, I got I really got a lot to think about.
I said, okay. He said, you do. Man, just do me a favor. As you drive away, I want you to pray, and just pray. God, if you're really real, and you really love me like that crazy dude said, I did, I said that, he laughed, just like you did.
Would you show yourself to me? Because I'm gonna seek you. Well, I know if he does that, he's gonna find him. Right? And then, I went home and gave my beautiful wife her ice cream.
But that was worship. I didn't understand. Didn't know why. But I was following him in a way that I didn't understand. In truth, because it's in line with the character and the nature and the principles of who God is.
And man, God used it to impact a man. I also invited him to church. He had to work today and tomorrow. But maybe he's listening right now. We love you, Ty.
Just loving people. Loving God by loving people. The father longs for worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. There are many people who come to a church service and it feels good. They sense peace.
They sense joy. That's good. We want that. Some even experience the power of the Holy Spirit. It's emotional.
They love the feeling. And then, they leave and feel more spiritual in their lives. But, their lives don't express Jesus anymore because they had an experience, but never came into relationship. I want you to be delicate in this, but I'm gonna read Hebrews-6. Don't think I put these verses up.
Verse 4, it says, it's impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away to be brought back to repentance. To their loss, they are crucifying the son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. I struggled with that, those verses for many, many years. And, what exactly does that mean? Because that's some tough stuff right there.
But, I'll tell you, it's defined in the next couple of verses. The next couple of verses give an analogy that gives a good understanding. Verse 7, land that drinks in the rain, often falling on it, and that produces a crop useful for those for whom it is farmed, receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end, it will be burned.
Rain falls on both land. There's the land that produces good crop, and then there's the land that produces thorns and thistles. The land that produces thorns and thistles are the ones who constantly went from experience to experience, from service to service, from conference to conference. They experienced the rain of the Holy Spirit, but they never received the word. And so, the rain wasn't watering anything.
Does that make sense? So their life never produced fruit of Jesus. And there are many. We want to *worship* and live by *spirit* and by truth. *John-8:31-32* says, to the Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
The the another version says, if you abide in my word, you are really my disciples. Another version says, if you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. Then, you will know the truth, and the truth will "set you free". Let me read this to you. The way to come into the type of relationship the father seeks, the type of worship he seeks, where you're worshiping in spirit and truth, is to worship in spirit and remain in truth.
When your spirit gets flighty, and wants to jump from experience to experience to chase a spiritual high, you must remain in the truth. Spiritual highs are awesome. And I want them for myself, and I want them for everyone all the time. And if your life is not anchored by truth, then you will live an emotional spiritual roller coaster based on whether or not your worship experience brought you enough tingles and tears. I love the tingles and tears.
I love the healing and the miracles. I love the deliverance, the full altars. Those are all part of him, and they are in him. And as I pursue him, those experiences come in more and more. I'm to eagerly desire the gifts of the spirit.
I'm commanded to. You are commanded to in 1 Corinthians-14. But, that desire grows and flows out of remaining in him. I remain in the word and constantly allow the rain of the Holy Spirit to water the truth, so that it produces great fruit in my life. The difference is, the people that go to experience and to see, but never reproduce it anywhere else.
That's the thorns and thistles. It's the people that go to experience, to see, and allow it to become a part of their life. So then, they become doers and it reproduces through their life. Those are the ones that are producing fruit, so that everyone else can eat of their life and be changed to. That's a slow clap right there.
Man, I don't know if I ever got a slow clap before. Says, Yeah. Remaining in my word, you're really my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. When you worship in spirit and truth, you can't help but be set free. True worship causes freedom.
If you're constantly experiencing a deeper head knowledge, but there's no freedom in your life, You probably need to get to know the Holy Spirit. You can't worship in *truth* without the spirit because the spirit is the spirit of truth. Right? Yeah. To try and worship in truth without the Holy Spirit is to sing worship songs with no peace and joy because peace and joy are found in the Holy Spirit.
It's to read words on a page and ascend to a bigger head knowledge, but to not have the Holy Spirit cause those words to become alive and become a part of your life. It's what the Pharisees did. The Pharisees knew the words on the page, but they had no understanding of the spirit. And so when the words on the page was flesh in front of them, Jesus Christ, the word became flesh, they crucified him. And that's how you can tell "dead religion".
Dead religion always criticizes the power of the Holy Spirit. It's always critical of the work and the movement of the Holy Spirit. As a believer, I I warn you, be careful what you criticize. Don't criticize what you don't understand if you see it in scripture. And you really can't worship the *father* in spirit without truth.
Just can't. Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. You think about that for a second, what it means to worship in spirit without truth. You know? It's those people that are constantly going for a spiritual experience, but don't know how to have faithfulness and steadfastness and character in their life.
Cause, they don't know how to remain in the truth. So, the danger is, their spiritual experience is not the Holy Spirit, but some other spirit. Demonic, which is scary. Right? I want to worship him in spirit and truth.
I wanna pursue him in biblical ways that I don't yet understand and aren't completely comfortable with. And I want to seek his truth by faith and remain there allowing the presence of the Holy Spirit to cause a truth that produces fruit in area of every area of my life and through obedience to bring me into deeper understanding. Amen? Amen. Here's how you can know if you're worshiping in spirit and truth.
Because worshiping in spirit and truth will always cause freedom. It just will. You can't help it. Like, I I laugh at people who try to say, oh, know, they're they're they're trying to condemn this area of my life or this area of my life when I'm walking in just freedom in Christ. I'm just like, come on, man.
Bro, *Jesus loves* you. Not only will it cause freedom in your life, but when you worship in spirit and truth, your life will become a catalyst of freedom for everyone around you. You will be my witnesses. Amen? Okay.
So, let's just get real practical. I've kinda I don't know. I haven't really felt bad about this, but it's kinda weird. Like, we're in a worship series, and we haven't talked about singing. We haven't talked about, you know, clapping and and doing the normal things you would think about you do in a worship service.
So let's just get real practical here. I told Mary Krueger, this is for you. Like, when you think about worshiping Jesus and worshiping together, you know, those are a lot of music you think about, those type of things. And so, I just wanna show you the verses for that because I think it's important. Psalm chapter 47.
And there's a lot of verses. These are just a few that I pulled out. Verse 1 says, clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with cries of joy. Just so you know, like, what I'm gonna read in here is against a lot of people's preferences in worship.
If it's scriptural, then you better not condemn somebody else for not doing what you prefer or for doing what you don't prefer. Amen? Or, oh me? And, if it's oh me and the shoe fits, just kick it off. Right?
Like, all of this it's clap your hands. It's great. Don't look down on somebody for clapping your hands. And and maybe if you don't ever clap your hands, maybe you need to because it's in the Bible. And it's important.
It's a way to worship God. Shout to God with cries of joy. Man, sometimes when God's worked in your life and you're just so thankful and you've been delivered in so many different ways, you can't help but say like Robert does, woo. You know? It's just awesome.
And sometimes, you're in the thick of it and you can't see God around, but you just by faith need to shout for joy. Yes. Because your shout for joy isn't always dependent on how you feel. It's based on what you know he says about you. Yeah.
Verses 5 and 6 47. *God* has ascended amid shouts of joy. The Lord amid sounding of trumpets. We ain't got trumpets yet. You got some, like, California sky worship in here.
Is that old school? Alright. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises to our king.
Sing praises. Come on. That's awesome. Let's go to the next 1. Psalm 96 8 through 9.
Did I give you that 1? 96. Yeah. There we go. Ascribe to the Lord.
I'm gonna read these from you. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Just so you know, when I say, we worship the Lord by giving our tithes and offerings, there's the verse for it. Like, hey, it's just like, we're so thankful.
Praise the Lord. Sometimes, just wanna give over and above, like, back what he's given to us. It's just it's worship. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Tremble before him all the earth.
Sometimes, I just wanna stand in his presence. Just honoring him, almost quaking before him. You know, there was a big movement of God back in the day and that's why they were called the Quakers because they were trembling before the Lord. Historical. It's real.
Psalm 98 1. 0, sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. A new song. Some people get all hippity dippity when when people start making up a song on the spot, like spontaneous worship.
If that's not your preference, I'm sorry, but it's in those scripture. Maybe sometimes you need to get alone and sing a new song to the Lord. Out of the abundance of your heart, let your mouth sing to him. And stop criticizing everybody else for them not worshiping the way you want, and begin to step out yourself in the ways that you're not comfortable, so you can grow in the Lord. Amen?
Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into "joyous song" and sing praises. Man, sometimes we just need to be joyful in the Lord's presence. Say, there's a time to cry, there's a time to worship and be solemn, but sometimes, there's a time to just jump, dance, and be happy. Have a real good time.
Verse 5, sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. I don't know what a lyre is. With the lyre and the sound of melody. A liar. You're making me a liar.
Oh, it's a guitar. My wife's like, it's a guitar. Okay. With the guitar. Why didn't they just put that in there?
With trumpets and with the horn, make a joyful noise before the king, the Lord. Man, that's good. Psalm 1 49 3. Let them praise his name with Uh-oh. No.
They gotta take that out of the Bible for some people. With dancing, making melody to him with the tambourine and the lyre, or the guitar. If you've condemned someone in your heart for shouting, for clapping, or for dancing in church, you should repent right now before the Lord, and you should try it. Repentance is changing wait, Repentance is changing your thinking and then going the other way. Psalm 1 50 verse 3.
Praise him with the trumpet sound. Praise him with the lute and harp. Praise him with the tambourine and dance. Praise him with the strings and pipe. Praise him with the sounding cymbals.
We got plenty of that. Praise him with loud clashing cymbals. We got plenty of that. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Amen?
What should your attitude be in worship? There's a verse for that. *Hebrews-12:28-29*. Therefore, let us be grateful. Everybody say grateful.
Grateful. For receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship with "reverence and awe". Man, in worship, my attitude is reverence and awe with gratefulness. And if I'm having trouble being grateful, I probably need to list out 10 things I'm thankful for, like I make my kids do, and then be grateful. Or ask somebody else to share their testimony of what God's done in their life, so I can at least thank Him for that, and He can remind me of what He's done in mine.
And then, worship Him in reverence and awe for who He is with gratefulness. Next question. Where should we worship? Worship in spirit and truth. Worship with gratefulness and reverence and awe.
*Worship* with singing, with dancing, with clapping, with shouting, with joy, with trembling. But, where? Everywhere. There's a verse for that. *Acts-2:46*, and day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.
Verse 47, and having favor with all the people. And, the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. In the temple, we call it a church. At homes, we got small groups throughout the week. But, you can also do it like I did in my living room by yourself in your home.
And also, you are a temple of the Lord. So, everywhere you go, live a life of worship in spirit and in truth. Every now and then, walking down the sidewalk just like, woo, Jesus. Maybe. Have a little skip in your step sometimes.
Real good time in the Lord. Sometimes, just a deep reverence and an awe as you're going about your day knowing that God's with you, and that he loves you, and that he longs to be loved by you. To respond and *worship* in the way that you speak, in the way that you talk. I mean, well, speaking is talking. In the way that you respond to him, but in the way that you obey him when he leaves the light on just because he wants to be with you.
*God's good and he loves* you. I wanna invite you to stand. I wanna invite Santos to come up to close us out. Before he closes us, I'm gonna pray. I just want you, if you feel comfortable with this, just to lift your hands like this.
Just kind of open, receive, and just say this with me out loud. Say, heavenly Father, how do you want me to respond today? And just sit there and listen for a little bit. Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged and with a deeper understanding of how much God *loves* you.
If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you. You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect. And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing