You are invited to shift your focus from your problems to the amazing mercy of Jesus. By surrendering your heart and hands in praise, you allow God to invade your atmosphere and change your life. Take a moment today to count yourself dead to sin and alive to Christ in worship.
Welcome to The Real Church Podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
We are continuing, the series on worship, the worship series. Last week, we talked about a worshiper the father seeks. How many of you guys would like to be a worshiper that the father that the heavenly father seeks? Yeah. I know I would like that.
Right? Couple of you guys would like that. No. Really. How many of you guys would like to be a worshiper that the the heavenly father seeks?
Yeah? Good. Yeah. Just hey. It's kinda good to move and wake up a little bit sometimes.
Right? But we're continuing the worship series today, continuing the conversation about worship. And before we do, I want to pray. So let's pray together. Father, I just thank you for who you are.
*Lord*, and I thank you that you're here. Lord, I thank you that you're teaching us. Lord, teaching us about worship, teaching teaching us what it means to worship, that it's about you. It's not about us, Lord. It reorients our focus to you.
So thank you for that, Father. Today, I I I pray that you get us out of the way. Get me out of the way, Lord God. Let it be your words that speak. And because if it's just me, it's not gonna change any hearts.
It's not gonna change anybody. But if it's you, it will impact everybody under the sound of my voice. Whether it's the podcast or people right here in service, it will impact them for eternity. People will walk away changed with a deeper understanding of your love for them, a deeper understanding of who you are. So father, let us sit on the "edge of our seats" today.
*Lord god*, let us be in tune to hear what you have to say and every distraction be gone in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. So we're just gonna dive right in. We're gonna go to my favorite 1 of my favorite scriptures about talking about worship, and we've referenced it many times. The beginning of this may be a little bit of review, but that's okay.
Let's go to Romans-12:1. It says this. It says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Basically, this verse says, therefore, because you see this, do this and all of that is worship.
Right? Therefore, because you see this in view of your mercy, do this, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, and all of that is your true and proper worship. You guys see that? So let's just break that apart. The therefore, when you see a therefore, I mean, if you ever ever been in church and there's a therefore, the preacher always says, well, you gotta go back and see what it's there for.
Right? So let's go to right beforehand in Romans-11:33-36. So therefore so this is showing why we worship. *Romans-11:33*, it says, oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of *god*. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out.
Who has known the mind of the lord or who has given who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to god that god should repay them. For from him, everybody say from him. And through him, say through him. And for him, everybody say for him.
Are all things to him be glory forever and ever. Amen. It's interesting. Therefore, so why we worship is what we just read and it has nothing to do with me in there. It has nothing to do with I.
*Worship* reorients our focus from me to he. It reorients our thinking from us to him. When we worship, you can't worship God and be so focused on your problems. Right? We take our focus off of the problems, off of what we're going through, and we put our focus on who he is, on what he has done, on what he is doing, on what he can do, on on just everything about him that is worship and it's amazing and it's wonderful.
That's why we worship. It's about how amazing Jesus is. So, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of god's mercy. Just another dig. It's another thing.
Hey, we're we worship because we're seeing him and what is mercy? Not getting what we do deserve. Out of his goodness, out of his amazingness. Like, we deserve because of our past sin and because of our junk, we deserve to be separated from this loving god for eternity. We deserve death and hell.
We deserve cursing. We deserve all kinds of junk in our life. You know, I may think, well, I've been a good person. I don't deserve well, thing, if if you've done 1 thing wrong, you're guilty of doing everything wrong according to the Bible. Right?
And so because of what we've done, we deserve junk. But because of his mercy, he doesn't give us what we deserve. You know, a lot of times, I think we focus on what we don't have as a bad thing. When we should focus on what we don't have as a good thing, *God*'s not giving us what we deserve, the junk. So thank you Jesus for what for for what I don't have in my life.
I don't have punishment for my sin because all of the punishment fell on Jesus. I don't have all of this this junk. I'm not in hell right now. Thank you, Jesus, that you love me. Thank you for your mercy and your grace towards me.
You love me. It's amazing and wonderful. It causes me to take the focus off of me and what I don't have and put it on him. Or amen? Okay.
In view of his mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, *holy and pleasing to God*, this is your true and proper *worship*. Now, question is, how it kinda seems a little bit vague. What does it mean? How do we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? Right?
How do we put that in today's language? What I mean, what does that really mean for me today? I I I want to let let's put that just to the side for a second. Let's go to another verse. Romans-6:12-13.
It says, therefore, this is right in line with that, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey all of its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. So we we have this word offer that's in both verses. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Here it says, don't offer your members or the parts of your body as an instrument of wickedness, but offer them as an instrument of righteousness.
And why do we do that? Well, it says, therefore, why? Right before, in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. What it's talking about there, and we talked about this a little bit last week because we had baptism. We had 8 people get baptized last week.
How amazing is that? Yes. Why do we offer ourselves, our our bodies apart as instruments of righteousness? And we're gonna dig into this, so don't worry. We do that because we count ourselves what does it say?
We count ourselves in this dead to sin but alive to Christ Jesus. Why do we do that? Well, we talked about baptism last week. It's a burial ceremony. Right?
And I know I'm just I'm I'm re I'm going over some things again, but I wanna I want to really dig this down so we can get the rest of it. Baptism is a burial ceremony. When you go into the water, you don't you don't bury someone that's still alive. You bury someone that's dead. When you go into water, you're recognizing that the old David John Phillips is dead and gone, buried, done away with, crucified with Christ.
It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Dead to sin. But when I come up out of the water, I have been resurrected to new life in Christ Jesus. I have his life in me. I'm not who I always felt like I was, and sometimes I'm not even who I feel like I am now.
I am who he says that I am. His word trumps what I feel and what I always thought. Right? So because of all of that because of all of that, then I present my members or as instruments or my body parts as instruments of *righteousness* and not "instruments of wickedness". Now hold that in your mind.
Hold that in your thoughts. Let's go back to Romans-12:1. We're gonna connect it all here in a second. *Romans-12* verse 1. Once again, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies, offer your members as instruments of righteousness and not wickedness.
Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to god. This is *worship*. How do we do that? How do we do all of those things? The next verse tells you.
The next verse gives the practical of how. *Romans-12:2*. What does it say? Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Hold on.
What is the pattern of the world? The pattern of the world is sin. The pattern of the world is choosing not god. What is that? The Bible says, anytime that you know the good, you should do and don't do it, it's sin.
Bible says anytime you know the oh well, anytime you know the good you should you should do and don't do it is sin. So anytime you know the bad you shouldn't do and do it, that's sin too. Choosing not him. That's what sin is. Right?
That's the pattern of this world. What's an example? Well, gossip, lies, rage, unkindness, selfishness, greed, sex outside of marriage, dirty joking, cheating, lies, white lie, little white lies. Somebody cuts you off in traffic and it's and and instead of when cut they you off in traffic, you turn the worship music down, you say, what? You cuss them out, and then you turn it back up.
Anybody? Well, okay. Just just being real. So so just hold on. Trust me.
It's gonna get encouraging in a second. What are all of those things? All of those things, a lot of them we do without even thinking. They're habits that we have that we have been trained because we grew up in this world and the power of sin in this is in this world and we just grew up thinking that it's normal and they have become habits. So, our inch our our our bodies have become instruments of wickedness instead of instruments of righteousness.
Now hold on. Let me let me connect this. *Romans-12:1*, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. This is your true and proper worship. So to worship, we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to god, instruments of righteousness.
Right? How do we do that? Do not conform to the power of this world but be *transformed* by the renewing of your so there's some kind of connection between offering our body and having our mind renewed. There's a connection to your body being an instrument of *righteousness* and the **"renewing of your mind"**. See, when you give your life to Jesus, when you receive Jesus into your heart, when you say, you know, god forgive me and you receive that forgiveness.
You're "born again". You're transformed. You're made completely new. God looks at you and he sees the goodness of Jesus credited to your account. You're in right standing with him from the inside out.
His spirit lives in you and it's amazing and it's wonderful. And New here And there's still some old habits, some old ways of thinking that haven't yet been transformed. And so because there's some old ways of thinking that haven't been transformed, there's still some old habits in our members that need to be transformed and changed from instruments of wickedness to instruments of righteousness. Now what happens when we fall? Does that mean we're just a filthy rotten sinner?
No. You're brand new from the inside. When god looks at you, he sees you as forgiven and righteous and holy. That is truth. And as we grow in our understanding of who that is, the truth that's in here begins to come out more and more and other people see it more and more and more because we're being transformed into his likeness.
How? By the holy spirit teaching us and "renewing of our mind" which is changing the habits of our members. Let me show you. Let's discuss that. What happens if you had itches?
You scratch it. Right? You have an itch, you scratch it. You don't have to think about scratching that itch. It's natural.
It's normal. It just happens. Why? Because since the time that you were born, when your when your head itched or something on your skin itch, you learn to scratch that itch and you have to think more about not scratching it than scratching it. Right?
Your hand is just so good at that because it's been trained by your brain. You even scratch itches in your sleep. You don't have to it's just a reaction. It's just normal. So your hand is an itch instrument of scratching.
Drivers, you know, unless you just got your license couple weeks ago or a month ago or so, You don't have to think about how to crank your car. You just get in the car as you're on the phone and you just put your key in and do it. You don't have to think about how far how far do I turn it this time to make sure it cranks. Maybe some of us should. You know, put the brake on and then put it in reverse.
You don't have to think about that anymore. It's become natural to you. Oh, do I wait. How do I make it go again? Oh, I punch the gas.
No. It's just become natural. So natural, in fact, that you almost do it subconsciously so that you can do so many other things while you're driving, like talking to the person beside you, talking on the phone, some of you texting. I shouldn't do that. *Lord*, forgive me.
Really? I need to grow. But even eating cereal.
No.
No. But driving has become so natural. We we because of the habit of doing it, our brain has trained our body parts to do it so much that we even do it subconsciously so much we don't have to think about it. We can do other things while we're doing it. It's just become part of us.
Our body is an instrument of driving. Yeah? You guys follow me so far? Good. In the same way, growing up in this world, our body and minds learn to become instruments of wickedness, of sin without even having to think about it.
For example, you're sitting at home, somebody walks in or you're sitting in the beauty shop or the barber shop or at work in the office in the break room, somebody walks in and says, hey, did you hear about so and so? I can't believe they just and and everybody leans in. What? Tell me, what what's going on? Our ears have become instruments of gossip.
We without even thinking about it, we just naturally and normally lean in and then when we're around other people and we don't have anything to talk about, we just say, oh man, did you hear about our mouths have become instruments of gossip? Right? It's just natural. It's just normal because we grew up hearing it. We grew up seeing it and thinking it, and and all of a sudden, our brains do it subconsciously where, you know, we have to try to stop instead of trying to do it.
Another example, our eyes with when that cute man or cute woman walks by without even having to think about it, all of a sudden your eyes go and then, hey. Did you see that? Yeah. Woah. Eyes have become instruments just without even it's just subconscious.
It's just normal because our brain has trained our eyes to do it so much that it's just normal. They become instruments of lust And Jesus says, if you lust after a woman or a man in your heart, it's the same as adultery. Our eyes have become instruments of adultery without even thinking about it. And the list could go on and on and on. So the question is, how do we change this?
How do we offer all of our parts as instruments of *righteousness* instead of instruments of wickedness? How do we offer our body as a living sacrifice which is our true worship? Well, we have to allow the holy spirit to train us in relationship. This is not legalism. It's relationship with him and he's training us in the little by little what it looks like to follow him and to submit to him in the little things.
Offering our eyes, offering our ears, offering our hands, our feet as a living sacrifice to him. *Romans-12:2, by being transformed* and how does he do this? By being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let me explain. I'm I'm gonna say something and then I'm gonna explain it.
From your **thoughts come your feelings**. When you feel strongly about something consistently, it most likely becomes an action. And when actions are repeated over and over and over, they become habits. And when you have a habit that that is normal then it becomes your lifestyle and it becomes who you think that you are. Right?
And other people see you and they identify you by your habits. Right? By your quote, unquote lifestyle. Now do you realize this? Americans, really, all around the world, but Americans specifically are schizophrenic.
Meaning, we think, especially in today's culture, we think if I feel this way, it's my truth. It's who I am. I feel this way. This is I can't change how I feel. This is me.
This is this is I've always been this way. I feel this way. Therefore, it is and that is a lie from the pit of hell. Let me and and and if I just stepped on your toes, if, like, if the shoe fits, it's time to take it off and throw it away. Yeah?
If I just stepped on your toes, let me explain. See, Americans are schizophrenic because the general populace believes that if I feel it, it is my truth. However, marketers and advertisers, right, know the opposite. They know they know the truth. Because we can't you're right.
You're you're you're you're right. We can't directly change how we feel. It's impossible to directly change how you feel. You can't in a moment feel a certain way and say, I just choose to feel some other way and then all of a sudden you feel the different way. You can't directly change how you feel.
You're exactly right. But you can indirectly change how you feel. Why? Because your thoughts control your feelings. What you think about consistently controls how you feel.
If you feel a certain way, you can always go back to what have you been thinking about and it came from that thought. If you feel insecure, you've probably been thinking or comparing yourself to somebody else, or you've been thinking about what somebody else said about you or whatever this is, and all of sudden you feel insecure. So advertisers understand this. They understand that your thoughts control your feelings. And what controls your thoughts?
What goes into your eyes and what goes into your ears? What goes into your senses? The gate into your mind. So advertisers knowing this, what do they do? Well, they pay millions and millions of dollars to get 30 seconds in front of your eyes and millions and millions of dollars to get 30 seconds into your ears.
Why do they do this? Because they know that if they can shift what you see and what you hear enough, get it into your eyesight, get it into your ears, they know that they will shift what you think about. And if they, if you get you to think about something enough, it will shift how you feel about that thing. And if you feel something enough, then it will shift what you do. For instance, do you have a bottle of water, baby?
And this Zephyr heals water. It's just amazing. I'm so, my mouth is so dry right now. It's, oh my gosh. So refreshing.
My mouth went from dry to just it's amazing right now. I'm I'm telling you, I
am so my thirst is so quenched by
this Zephyrhills natural Florida spring water.
Wow. So good. Right? So some of you got thirsty. Some of you, without realizing it later, you'll go and look for a bottle of water in a gas station just because you're thirsty, and you'll you'll you'll see all the different kinds and you'll buy us.
You'll notice after I say this without even thinking about it, you'll notice you bought a Zephyrhills water bottle. You get get back in your car and you look at it you're like, wait, pastor was right. You ever see a Coca Cola commercial and and and you know, about an hour later, you realize you're ordering a coke at McDonald's or wherever you go. Advertisers understand this. It's important to understand and that's the connection that's the connection between offering your body as a living *sacrifice* and renewing your mind.
You guys follow me so far? Alright, good. So, because you're new, because you've been born again, if you've received Jesus, you have a relationship with him, what will happen then is the Holy Spirit will begin to shift your lifestyle, and you'll notice it. You'll begin to shift what you do and what you don't do, and you'll notice it. And it's amazing thing.
He's leading you into freedom. See, a lot of people think, well, Christianity is just a life of bondage. No. It's bondage living how you weren't created to live. To live in a way that you're not created to live is bondage.
Right? For instance, if I if I put a monkey in the zoo and train him to do all of these amazing things, that's awesome. But he's in bondage. Right? He's not created to live in the zoo and he's not created he's created to swing from tree to tree to tree and eat bananas and have a good time and make loud monkey noises and do all that kind of stuff.
Right? If he's living as if I put if I put an artist like this this professional artist in front of a bunch of financial numbers and tell him to be an accountant, they're going to think they're in bondage, right? Because they're created to be free and created to be painting and if I put Daniel Mannix, an amazing, you know, financial guy, accountant in in front of a painting. You're not an artist, are you, Daniel? I am not.
Okay. If I put him in front of a painting
and tell him, it's bondage to him. And the artist says, it's not. It's amazing. See? In the same way, you are created to worship your creator.
You're created not to focus on you. You're created to keep your focus on him, to be singularly focused on Jesus. You're created to live life that way, to live life for him, and by living life for him, you're sacrificing your life for others, and it's so much satisfaction. There's so much joy in living that way. But as soon as we begin living for self, as soon as we begin living, oh I need this and I want this and I don't have this and I don't have that, it's death to us.
We get depressed because of what we don't have. We start comparing ourselves to others and all of a sudden we feel terrible because we weren't created to live that way. And we're putting our sin creates bondage in our life because sin is not how you were created to live. *Ephesians-4*, I don't think I have this in the notes. I'm kinda going on a tangent here.
I'll have to come back. But *Ephesians-4:23-24* says, to be made new in the attitude of your mind and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. You're created, born again, to be like him in true righteousness and holiness. So to live outside of that is bondage to you. So the Holy Spirit's gonna lead you in that and what does it look like in the daily?
I'll tell you what it looks like for me and my wife. Over the years, *God* has changed what we watch on TV. We used to think this show was amazing and wonderful and all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit will will both get this little like, baby, I I don't think we need to watch this anymore. She's like, I I know and what the Holy Spirit is doing, he's changing the inputs into our eyes and by changing the inputs into our eyes, he's renewing the way that we think and then by renewing the way that we think, he's changing how we feel and by changing how we feel, he's changing our actions so our members, our eyes are becoming instruments of righteousness instead of instruments of wickedness which is leading our whole body and our whole self to be like Jesus. I used to listen to different music than I do now but then the holy spirit began to show me.
Hey, this music is just talking about sex. Well, the music's just talking about sex, it's going into my ears, it's creating thoughts. Yeah? So if it's creating thoughts I think about something enough, I'm gonna feel a certain way. Right?
And if I feel a certain way enough, allow myself, my brain to to consistently think about and I feel a certain way enough, then guess what? I'm gonna think that's me. I feel it. It's me. No.
It's not what the truth of his word says but but we humans get deceived by the way we feel a lot of times. Feelings are great. They're wonderful. He god god is a god of emotion and wonderful, but the enemy uses emotions to deceive us. So we feel a certain way and then I might do something that I didn't wanna do all because I allowed things to change my mind, renew my mind in the wrong way instead of renew renewing my mind to the truth of who he created me to be.
You guys follow me? So we're constantly learning to offer our body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to him, learning to walk in freedom because that's who he is and it's amazing and it's wonderful. Now, we change the inputs into our mind and in doing so, we change our thought patterns, and in doing so, we're changing our feelings, and in doing so, we're changing our habits, and we're living more like Christ. And I'm just gonna read this to you. John, would you come up here, please?
Renewing the mind is letting God create **habits of worship** in our members, in our hands, in our eyes, in our in our feet. Instead of being hands that are quick to grab and take what's mine, they're hands that are quick to give, say, and bless people instead of a mouth that is quick to down people for who they aren't. It's a mouth that is quick to speak and and and tell people who god's created them to be. Right? Shifting all of those things.
So letting God create habits of worship in our members so that as we go in our daily lives, worship is normal. Like driving, we almost subconsciously can't help but live a life of worship, offering all of ourselves to him and live out the righteous life he created to live. When we worship, our minds are taken off of ourself and put on God. Our feelings change. We sense his presence and often our body responds and that is biblical.
So I wanna introduce John Krueger who is a mighty man of *God* and he's full of Jesus. We hired John at the beginning of this year. He now leads our band and he leads our production and he leads our media. Is do you think he's doing a great job? Yeah.
I think so. And it's awesome. And the band's coming up. Yeah. But God has shown him that our heart posture, the position of our heart, it affects the position of our bodies during worship.
He's gonna teach a little bit on worship. Go ahead, John.
Good morning. Let's pray. You can never pray too much. There's power in prayer. So, as we join in prayer, lord, thank you so much for this morning.
*God*, thank you that we have the opportunity to renew our minds by the reading of your word. God, thank you so much that you have placed us here in Clearwater. God, you have given us a space to encounter you. God, and I just thank you so much this morning for who you are. I step out of the way right now and I pray that the revelation that you have just placed upon my heart brings revelation to some of the people here.
*God*, my prayer and my hope is that we come away with a greater understanding of how much you love us and the many different ways that that you have identified to us to worship. Thank you so much. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. So, go ahead and stand this morning.
We're gonna read a scripture together. Scripture's going to be Psalm 150 if you want to turn to that. Verse 1 through 6. I got my phone out because I'm a millennial. We write our notes on our phones.
So, let's read this all together as a declaration this morning, okay? *Psalms-1:51 through 6. Praise the lord*. Praise god in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens.
*Praise* him for his acts of power. Praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the resounding of the trumpet. Praise him with the harp and lyre. Praise him with the timbrel and dancing.
*Praise* him with the strings and the pipe. Praise him with the clash of symbols. Praise him with the resounding symbols. Let everything that has breath, praise the lord. Amen.
You may be seated. Are you guys breathing? Are you breathing? We should be praising the lord, right? It's amazing.
Worship is is not how we look. It's not a show, right? It's an overflow from our hearts. It's the position of our hearts, right? It's the posture.
If you've ever, if you've ever been talked to by your mom about your posture, you know what I'm talking about, right? Straighten up, right? It's a position and in Matthew, *Jesus* is talking to the Pharisees and and he's talking to them about their hearts being far from the father. He's talking to them about how their worship is in vain because their their hearts are far from him and that's the position, right? My hope and my prayer for all of us is that our hearts would be positioned close to him, that our heart posture would be towards him this morning.
So, this morning, we're going to go ahead and we're going to talk about 7 different Hebrew words throughout scripture that talk about praise and worship. And the reason why Hebrew is important is because the majority, if not all of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. If you haven't heard that. And so typically, we'll find that there's 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe a couple of different phrases in our English language for just 1 Hebrew word which is amazing. So, we find a lot of different ways that it's translated throughout scripture.
So, why don't we go ahead and we're going to dive into this right now. If you want to pull up John that first slide, the first word that we're going to talk about is Barak. You've probably heard Barak. He's 1 of our presidents. In fact.
But Barakk is actually a Hebrew word that means to bow down or to kneel before with reverence. Right? And so throughout scripture and these are not hard and fast rules. So I don't want I don't want to encourage any of you to be religious about this. Sometimes, we'll be we'll be *worshiping* and we'll do 1, 2, 3, 4 of these different things at 1 time and god will call us into that, right?
Again, it's not it's not a show. It's not how we look. It's the posture of our hearts because out of the abundance of our heart, the mouth speaks, right? So, when we're worshiping, it's out of our heart posture that we're worshiping. So, so when we encounter this word Barak, right, many times I I find myself in worship, and I just feel the Lord leading me to get on my knees.
I'm just saying thank you, father. I might be thanking him for something that hasn't happened, that hello worship that we're gonna talk about in a second. I might be praising him for his goodness. Right? Might just be saying, Jesus, you're good.
Thank you that you're good. Right? And sometimes, he calls me all the way down to to get prostrate before him, right? If you've if you've read throughout scripture, it talks about laying prostrate before the lord, right? Which means all the way down.
I'm just going to get all the way down, lord. I don't even care that this is a new shirt. God, I just wanna I wanna give you everything this morning. I wanna give you every part of me. I wanna give you my whole heart.
*God, I surrender* everything. I surrender my mind. I surrender my body. I surrender my heart. I surrender my aspirations.
I wanna give you everything, *Jesus*. Right? That word barakk is so important because god calls us into these many different forms of *worship* and it's essential that we understand that that these things that that the enemy will try and tell us are scary. The enemy try will try and tell us like, oh, I don't know. That that that looks a little weird, right?
No, they're all identified in scripture. These are things that god wants us to engage in. These are these are chains that he's breaking off of our mindsets, right? The renewing of our mind. So, let's go ahead and go to the next The next 1 is halal.
Halal worship. To shine, boast, to rave about, or celebrate, right? A couple of the definitions of this word are are to be glamorously foolish. If you watch worship at all, if you listen to it, sometimes you'll see some people in videos that are just overcome by the joy of the lord, right? And that's halal.
To be clamorously foolish, to be celebrating the lord. I'm just stoked. Right? Jesus, you are so good. We dance up here because we're doing that halal worship, because the joy of the Lord is free for us to access.
*Jesus came, and he died so that he could complete the fullness of joy for us. It's right there. Right? And so to to be overcome by the joy of the lord*, to be excited, to be happy and full of joy, happiness is not always related to joy, but it's a result typically. And so it's so important that we understand that halal worship to get excited, to celebrate the lord.
Let's move on to the next 1. Shabbat. Shabbat is is probably 1 of my favorite ones. These are all my favorite but Shabbat is 1 that's that's close to me. There's a worship night that that I've attended in the past that that that's really special and and a lot of times I find myself in the back of the room and and and this this word Shabbat, if you're reading it behind me, it says to shout or command.
What does that look like? *Jesus*. Are so You are so good, Jesus. Your mercies are new every day, Jesus. We have been given all authority of heaven because we are Christ's co heirs.
We are "co heirs with him", right? So, all authority of heaven is what we are walking in. We have the authority to command, to shout loudly. And sometimes when we're in this congregational *worship*, *God leads us to to proclaim his glory over the room, to proclaim his goodness*. And it might be a little uncomfortable, but I tell you when you step out in that, it's amazing.
A few weeks ago, Courtney came up here, and there were some "chains on her". Right? And Jesus breaks all of our chains. They're broken. When you accept his blood for you, it's broken.
But sometimes they're just at our feet. Right? They're they're down there, and they're just at our feet. And God doesn't want us to just walk around like this. Right?
That's not his intention. Sometimes, we have to get uncomfortable and he causes to kick those things away, right? And so god's probably gonna gonna encourage you. He's gonna call you guys out to to engage in some of these words today maybe And I encourage you to step out into that uncomfortable spot where it's not you, but it's him. So let's move on to the next 1, Zamar.
Zamar is 1 that you will find us doing here on stage often. We sing on a Sunday morning because it's something that we can engage in together. As we read through Psalms, there's many different kinds of worship. There's dance, there's song, there's there's creative arts, there's visual art. You can do all things unto him as worship.
And and the 1 of those ways is this word to touch the strings. Right? So when we when we're up here and we're touching the strings, when when we're playing the keys, when we're hitting the drum, it's that Zamar worship, right? And at the end, typically, mostly rejoicing, right? We're rejoicing because of the good work that he's he's doing in us, that he's done in us, and that he will do, right?
He was, he is, and he will forever be, right? So, can rejoice in that. Let's move on to the next 1, Tahila. Tahila is is pretty relevant right now. If you know about worship, you've probably heard spontaneous worship, right?
It's it's pretty hot in our culture. Spontaneous worship isn't something that we just made up. It's not something that just popped up in the last couple of years and like, oh, spontaneous worship. No, it's that word to hello worship, right? To sing a "fresh song".
*God* is calling us to write fresh songs. He's calling us to sing new songs, right? He is the god that is making all things new, right? Every day, his mercies are new. He's always making things new.
Even even that second ago, he's making that new right now, right? So, sometimes, the abundance of our heart brings forth an unrehearsed song, right? That spontaneous, that tahilo worship. And so sometimes you've seen it up here. We've done it.
Right? God, God is calling us deeper. And out of that abundance, just a fresh song of praise comes out. And I encourage you, as as we grow together, you'll see that more up here that that will be growing and and and god is going to come and he's going to bring fresh songs of praise out of our hearts. If you've heard that song that we sing, fight my battles.
It's kind of a fun song. That song was written out of the abundance of of Alyssa Smith's heart, right, in the spontaneous, in the Tehillah worship. Let's move on to the next 1. We're almost done. Tadao.
Tadao is to extend or raise your hands in Thanksgiving. Typically, for something that has not yet happened. This one's interesting because there's probably been a time where where you're in your car and maybe you lost your job. I've been there and and you're just like, god, I don't know what to do and you just throw your hands up, you just say, Jesus, I just give it to you, right? That's this word ta da, right?
And typically, we'll we'll see that in here a lot and and and we think, oh, well, you just you just raise your hands. That's just the thing to do, right? But typically, this word tada is to raise our hands in Thanksgiving for what has not come yet because we believe that he is faithful to continue a work that he has started, right? Scripture, that's right out of scripture. He's faithful to continue a work that he has started, Right?
So sometimes that just looks like this. Sometimes it sometimes it is lower. Sometimes it's like this. Again, these are not hard and fast. This is this is the position of our hearts.
Right? So let's move on to the last 1. The last 1 is yada. This one's really interesting to me. To extend your hands vigorously as in complete surrender.
*Jesus* came to serve. Jesus came in full humility. The first sin that ever happened was pride. And Jesus came as a servant, right? Full surrender.
*God wants us to surrender* our hearts. And sometimes when we're in worship, you you'll see somebody just So, sometimes you'll see that word and you'll see it with the Shabbat as well and you're proclaiming something over the room. We walk in all authority, right? Sometimes, god prompts us and sometimes there's some junk in the room when we're worshiping together and god's just calling us into that authority to proclaim his freedom over the room. So, sometimes I'm I'm I'm in the back of the room.
Sometimes, I'm up here. Sometimes I'm on that drum set, and I'm just saying, Jesus. Jesus, I just thank you for freedom in this room. "Enemy leave" in Jesus' name. Your Holy Spirit is here.
We proclaim your goodness right now. Thank you, Jesus. With all authority that you have given me, I just proclaim freedom in this room. I proclaim your love in this room. I proclaim your love over the hearts that have never felt love in this room.
That's what you'll see when you see this this word. Don't quote me. It's that proclamation. Right? I wanna encourage you with this last thing.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It's so important. As we posture our hearts towards the Lord, worship is a is is an overflow. It's not a show. It's an over a fountain, god can take our blob of clay and he can make it into a beautiful tower, right?
When we surrender to him. When we worship, he invades our worship. Says in Psalm 22, I believe that that he can't help but come **invade our worship**, right? It's a promise. When we when we worship him, especially corporately, he comes and he he also promises that where 2 or more are gathered, he is here.
So, I can assure you that he is here. The the presence of god is in this room with us right now and the atmosphere of heaven is is in this building. We we spend so much time praying over this campus, over Clearwater, and I can assure you that God is here and with him is the presence of heaven. That when we worship, we sneak in the "backdoor of heaven", of all the angels that are worshiping God every second, of every day, We get to join them in worship. It's good.
So, I encourage you if god's calling you this morning into a "fresh praise". If god's calling you into 1 of these these words that we outlined, whether it's to lay prostrate, whether it's to to command his name over the room, whether it's just to raise your hands for the first time, I encourage you to step out into that uncomfortable place and let him be your comforter. This is a "free place" to worship Jesus together. There's room. It's here for you.
Let me pray over you guys. Thank you, Jesus, so much for the mighty work that you have done on the cross. Thank you that we have complete joy in you. Thank you, god, that you sustain us. Thank you that we have the opportunity given by you to worship.
*God, to proclaim your glory*, to come together and and push each other forward in worship. God, I pray that that what was spoken today was was maybe hit home for some as it did for me. And I thank you for your goodness. In Jesus' name. Amen.
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