The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 17: Give Thanks

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! – Psalm 100:4 We all live on a continuum between gratitude and entitlement. Do not let this world drag you away from thanksgiving and into despair.

Amen and amen. How many of the church? Doing good? You look great. You sound really good. You sound a little extra, which is great. It means that you're learning things

about the Psalms, all right? How many parents of school-age kids are we have in the house, all right? That's why you sound good today. Oh, right. Glad you get back at school. How many of you've been quoting Matthew 28 this week?

Therefore, go. That's all you quoted, all right? Teachers, we love you, man. We didn't know what you were doing. Y'all tried to make us do it a couple years ago. We ain't doing that no more, so you can have them. All right.

Hey, grab your Bibles. I hope you got them. Psalm 100 is where we're going to be. And this is a Psalm that is about worship. A Psalm that is about worship. Now, I'm not going to primarily talk about singing and that kind of stuff I did it a few weeks ago. This Psalm does include how we're supposed to sing. But I want to talk about worship because that's what this talks about.

And I want to ultimately just ask this question. Like, when you worship God, what can you bring to God? I mean, what could you possibly bring to God? bring to the almighty sovereign king of the universe. You see, this is the year of worship for the church of 1122. This is why we're studying the book of Psalms. If you're new and you want to jump in with us, we're on week 17, so you're kind of in at the end of the movie, but no problem. You can text the word Psalms to 44, 1122, Psalms to 44 1122. We will send you a psalm every single day so you can jump on board with us. We've still got a few more weeks of it. This is the year of

worship. And if you read through the Bible, here's a couple of things about worship you will find out. One is that God desires to be worshiped. You're going to see it multiple times in Psalm 100 that God, it was God's idea that we sing to him and we pray to him and we worship him, that God desires to be worship. And he commands us to worship. He doesn't say sing if you feel like it. He just says sing.

So God desires it and God commands it, but check this out. He don't need it. God is in need of nothing. I mean, God is not in need. of our worship. I mean, how do you think it works? You think God sit up there in heaven today tuned in to 1120

online going, I hope she sings my favorite song. Is that how you think it goes? The almighty sovereign king of the universe with all of the earth declares his glory? And you think your little crappy song is going to do anything around him?

In fact, think about it. How big of a deal do you think your little voice is in light of all of the cosmos? Think about it. All of the planets and solar systems. your little la la la is going to make a difference. In fact, the Bible is going to tell us in the book of Revelation

that John has a revelation of what's happening in heaven right now. And in heaven there is this forever worship service going on where the elders are gathered around the throne of Jesus casting their crowns upon his feet and these weird four-faced animal creatures with a bunch of eyeballs. They are there, the cherubim which are like angels are there and they are continuously singing forever and ever and ever. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

who was and is and is to come. And you think our la la la la does something. Is that what you think? Is that how you think it is? You think God actually came up with this idea? It's like, I know, I will create a people that will sing me songs on the weekend and then disobey them all week long.

You think that's how it goes? So if he demands it and commands it, but it doesn't need it, then what's going on? Here's what's going on. You need it, and I need it. I mean, we need it more than the air that we bring. And you say, where do you get that, pastor? Here's where I get it.

The title of this Psalm, given by the Psalmist, is this. His steadfast love endures forever, a Psalm forgiving thanks. His steadfast love endures forever. I don't know if you were here on Father's Day when Dr. Mac Brunson was preaching. Anybody here that day? Glory. Just go back and listen to that one again.

How much do you learn when Dr. Brunson's here? Oh, my gosh. Every time he preaches, I'm like, I am not smart. That's what I think the whole time. Okay? Thank you for not amening that. But he taught us that the Hebrew language is like a visual language. So Hebrew words have a picture.

So like he taught us that the word for cat in Hebrew is to curl up. A little nasty things. By the way, do you know that at the Orange Park cross-raising, somebody put an I Love My Cat's sticker on my truck? I don't know who you are, but the Lord knows you're going to hell. That's a fact. So anyway. All right.

the word picture in Hebrew, the word is Hasid. Say, Khasid. You gotta have a little ha in the front of it. If something doesn't come up, you ain't doing it right, all right, Haseed. Steadfast love is Haseed. We translate as steadfast love, but the word picture is that of a mom nursing a baby.

Baby cries, and all you mammas that have nursed a baby, you know this to be true. When the baby cries, the cry of your baby creates physiological response in you where the mom releases the milk in that moment. And what's crazy is what the baby is crying for is what is provided by the mama. And so when the Bible says things like God is jealous, by the way, that's why Oprah says she left her fate, because she said, who could worship a jealous God? And I'm thinking, to be so smart, how do you miss this? God's not jealous of you. A mama doesn't look at her little chunky baby. It was like, gosh, I wish I had those

little chunky thighs. That's not, that's not what's happening. Here's what the mama knows. The mama knows, in order for you to survive, baby, you need me. You can try everything else that this world has to offer and it will not sustain you. But the thing that you are crying for is me and what you need is me and what I provide for you is the very thing that you need. And this is what it is when we worship. We cry out to God, hallelujah, and then God gives to us the very thing that we're crying out for his steadfast love, and it's his steadfast love that sustains us all of our life. By the way, a little just public service announcement. Sometimes in here a baby will cry. If it's your baby, let me just tell you this. No problem, man. Now, if it's crying crazy,

like pea suit and the head's spinning and we need to cast out a demon, go ahead and take him on out to the lobby. But if it's just a little bit of a baby cry, let me tell you who is bothered by that. People that don't have babies. That's it. All the rest of us go, oh, that's sweet. Praise God, it ain't mine. That's what we do, man, no problem. And every single time we hear a baby cry, I want you to think about this very thing.

The thing that they're crying for is that mama, and when we cry out to God, we are crying out for his steadfast love, his chesed that endures forever. A psalm for giving thanks. So what can we offer God? That was so perfect. Well done, parents.

A song, we worked on that. that all week. Okay, so what is worship? Worship is more than singing, but it's nevertheless than singing. Four weeks ago, week 13, I preached on Psalm 98, a whole bunch of instructions from the word on why sing and why songs matter and all that kind of stuff, so go back and listen to that. And though this chapter, Psalm 100, it's going to give us instructions there, it's going to be much broader than that. In Psalm 100, we get seven directions, seven imperative, seven commands, on how we are to worship. Psalm 100, verse one, imperative number one.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Now for the longest time I thought that man, if he can't sing, just sing anyway, all right? That's not what that means. This is not an excuse for you to be a terrible singer. Now if you are a terrible singer, you're still supposed to sing as loud as you can and go for it, all right?

But that's not what this word means. Joyful noise doesn't mean singing. There are words for singing. This word in Hebrew is ruah, sound familiar? Not ruach with a k on the end. That means breath of God or spirit of God. This word ruah means a

war cry. The first thing that we are told in worship is that you get together and you have a war cry. All throughout the Old Testament, the people of God would gather underneath the king of God and then they would declare victory before they ever went into the battle.

Here's what this means, man. Worship is war. We have an enemy that wants to steal, kill, and destroy. But we have a war cry. And our war cry is this. Jesus is Lord and the tomb is empty. The victory has already been won. And so when we get together, man, this is what we do. Through the sermon, through our songs, through our prayers, we make a joyful noise. We declare the victory that has already been won by Jesus Christ. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. You see, and if you see there, if you hope you open your Bibles, Lord is capitalized, capital L-O-R-D, all caps.

This is from the Hebrew word Yahweh. This is the covenant name of God. This is the God that gives his name to Moses. In Exodus chapter 3, Moses thought he had disqualified himself with his life. He's out there just working for his father-in-law, tending sheep, and then he encounters God through a burning bush. And God says, Moses, I'm not done with you. I want you to go to the Pharaoh. the most powerful man on the planet.

I want you to stand before him, and on behalf of me, I want you to say, let my people go. And Moses is super nervous. He's like, I don't talk good, and what, what, what? And so God says, I tell you what, man, I'm going to give you Aaron so he can talk for you. And then Moses says, well, who should I say sent me?

And he says, you tell him that my name is. I am that I am. That's how we translate it in English. The eternal being. Not past, not future, but eternal. eternally now. His name is Yahweh. It's four letters in Hebrew. Yahweh. It's supposed to sound like breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. Yahweh. That the God of the universe is as close to you as your next breath. And the reason I think that the psalmist uses this name, God's personal name, is because that's exactly what Moses did.

He comes marching in there to the Pharaoh, and he says, you let my people go. Who sent you? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the I am that I am. And then God sends ten plagues. And the reason he sent ten plagues is because there was a bunch of little G gods that the Egyptians worship, like a g-god and a river god and a moon god. And so every single one of the plagues was to declare God, the Almighty God's victory over those little G-gods.

And then the last one was the plague of the firstborn because the Pharaoh thought he was the king of kings. in the Lord of Lords. And so God said, I'm going to send the angel of death. And whoever has the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of the house, I will pass over. And then he takes his people through the Red Sea, crushes the Egyptian army, because he is the victorious God.

When the church gathers together and makes a joyful noise, we gather together to declare Jesus is Lord and he is risen. And our victory is found in that. He is the victorious God. make a joyful noise to the Lord. It don't say golf clap. It says make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Number two, serve the Lord with gladness. You see, worship is not just what you say out of your mouth. That's what you do with your whole life. And one of the ways that we worship God is to serve him with gladness. There's so many opportunities to serve. Listen, right here at 1122, there are three different ways that you're. you can serve. You can serve at the local church. You can serve locally in our community, or you can serve globally around the world. You can serve right here. And what I would say, to all of our served

staff, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, because we couldn't do this without you, okay? Thank you. And there's a great opportunity coming up for you to worship God by serving because on September the 11th, we are launching our next new campus. We are launching in Orange Park. Amen? Amen. On September 11th. Now, you're not clapping here at San Bobo. You don't know where Orange Park is. All right. It's over there, long ways.

Let me tell you who's screaming right now, Fleming Island, because they sit on each other's laps. They ain't got nowhere to sit at Fleming Island. We're full. Now, listen, every time we launch a campus, we relaunch all of our campuses. And if you would like to serve at 1122, if you will text the word serve to 44, 1122, then we will follow up with you this week. And not only do we need, I mean, we need all kind of stuff, right?

We need people in kids' ministry and in the parking lots and to restuff the seats and all that kind of stuff. But the reason that you serve is not the need a need. The reason that you serve is because you need it. Because it's a part of the way that we experience the steadfast love of God. You could also serve locally in our community right here in Jacksonville. For that one, just hold your horses. When we roll out the 10-10 life, I'm going to give you about 10 different lanes that you can serve folks right here in Jacksonville.

And then also, you can serve globally. We are, thank God, sending mission teams all over the world again. Africa, Brazil, Panama, all over the place, okay? And so part of what we do here at 1122 is we go. Why? Because Jesus says, therefore, go and make disciples of all the earth. And so that's what we do. And if you're new here, let me just clue you in to one of the things that we do is that if you're going to be an 1122er, you've got three years, and then you've got to go on a mission trip. Okay, you got three years. And if that offends you, then pray about it, and sign up and go. Now, because of COVID, though, because of COVID, we're gonna give you a little grace.

Now because of COVID, you have three years and three months, and then you gotta go. Got it? That's it, man. That's it. Why? Because Jesus disciples the disciples for three years, and then he said, therefore, go and make disciples.

So that's it. I want to be like Jesus, so we'll disciple you for three years. You don't have to wait three years, you can go right now, but this is what we do. We serve here at the church, we serve our local communities, we serve globally, and we want you to go, why? Here's why. The brother of Jesus in James chapter two says this, Chapter 2 says this, what good isn't my brothers?

If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them things that they need for the body, what good is that? Let me answer it. Not good. It's worthless. So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Not only do we worship God by singing songs to Him, but we also worship God by serving people. Serving people. Matthew chapter 25, kind of the final exam of heaven. Jesus says when he returns, he's going to gather everybody together. He's going to put the sheep on the right and the goats on his left. And to the sheep, he's going to say, well done. You nailed it.

For whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me. And to the goats on the left, he's going to say, depart from me. Because whatever you did not do, you did not do for the least of me. And you'd be like, no, no, no, I sang the songs neat. But if my grace has impacted you, then it should flow through you and we should serve one another. In John chapter 13, right before Jesus is about to go to the cross the next day. The Bible says that he knows that all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto him.

And so to demonstrate his love for his disciples, you know what he did? Didn't preach sermon. Didn't do a miracle. He dressed himself as a servant and he washed his disciples feet. And then he looked at the disciples and he says, I have set for you an example. You will be blessed if you do likewise. So what's the blessing?

The blessing is that we begin to understand the steadfast love of God in our lives when we serve one another. Here's an easy way you can serve if you attend San Pablo. We need a hundred of you to park off-site. We need a hundred of you to go to C-O-E-22.com slash. parking and we need you to begin to park somewhere else. It's not very far. And here's the thing, you will be blessed. You'll get a shuttle and it'll pick you up at the front door. And two weeks from now, it's going to rain like crazy and all the selfish people are going to be walking in the

rain and you're going to get driven right to the front door, okay? And you will be blessed, but that's not why you do it. You do it because who would have thought in this big old parking lot, we would have parking problems. Can you believe that? Those are good problems. That's like sitting around at the house going, honey, what are we going to do with all that money, all right? By the way, if that's you, let me know I can help you with that. Okay, so. So we serve, we serve, we serve. That's part of the way. And notice it says this, with gladness, not grumpiness. Serving with grumpiness ain't worshiping the Lord. You ever tell you a kid to do something? And they do it, but they do it with grumpiness. Does that bless you? Do you feel honored?

Hey boy, your job is to take out the trash. And all of a sudden they get like asthma, they breathe all out. what's wrong with you breathing, man? You can't breathe now? And they're just all, you know? What do you want to do? You're going to put them in the trash and be like, go ahead and take them too. That's fine with me.

All right? So we serve the Lord with gladness. The third imperative is this. Oh, we take this one for granted so much. Ready? Come into his presence with singing. Come into his presence with singing. We take this for granted.

Do you realize that when the Hebrew people heard this when it was originally written and they heard coming to his presence, they thought that was a very limited invitation because they couldn't go all the way into the holy of holies into the very presence of God. You realize that?

There were outer courts and there were Gentile courts and there were courts for men and courts for women and there was only one man, the high priest, one man on one day of the year could enter into the holy holies into the presence of God.

But then Jesus comes along. The word made flesh and he looks at his disciple and he's like, no, no, no, but you come here, come here, abide in me and I will abide in you. That means coming to my presence. stay close. And when Jesus pushes up on his nail-pierced feet on the cross, and he says,

it is finished. That an earthquake cracks right through the middle of Jerusalem, right through the middle of the temple. And inside that little room called the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God dwelt, there was a curtain that separated the people of God from the presence of God. But when Jesus says, it is finished, that curtain of separation is torn, not from the bottom to the top, like you earn your way there, but from the top to the bottom, and it is God's invitation for his children to come into his presence. We take this for granted so much, man, that we just get to roll into the very presence of God.

It's a really, really big deal. Because of Jesus Christ, because he is the great high priest, and he is the mediator, guess what? You don't have to have a mediator to go on your behalf of God the Father anymore, that you, if you're a believer, check this out, Catholics. Ready? You're a priest. Yeah, Google grandma and tell her that.

I just found out I'm a priest. They already think we're a cult, so just tell them. You got to tell them what the Bible says, but that's it, bro. That the king of the universe through the blood of Jesus invites all of his children into his very presence. Who gets to walk into just the presence of the king without an appointment? His kids. Do your kids have to make an appointment with you? No, man.

In fact, they act like everything else you're doing it in your life. ain't that big a deal anyway, right? They just roll up in there with their request. You ever be laying in bed, parents, middle of the night, and you have a dream? I feel like somebody's staring at me. And you wake up and you're little psycho kids, just like, you're like, how long have you been looking at me, man?

No problem. And the king of the universe invites us. In fact, I've shared this with you before, man. When you get to the book of Revelation, John on the Al of Patmos has this revelation about the end times. And one of the things he gets invited to is he gets invited to He gets invited up into the heavenlies, and he sees this eternal worship service going on, where the angels and the elders are singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is to come.

And if you read through the first seven chapters, man, there's a lot going on. There's horses, there's trumpets, there's seals being broken, there's stars coming down, there's locust, there's dragons, there's a lot going on. And in Revelation, chapter 8, verse 1, God Almighty says, to all of heaven, he says, to all of heaven, hush, hush, Michael put up the trumpet. Calm your horse down. Locus, stop. Why? And there's silence in heaven for 30 minutes. You want to know why? Because the saints have lit some incense, and the Bible

says that the prayers of the saints are making their way up to God. When we first started the church, Pastor Ben said, listen, this is why singing is such a big deal around here. Because in our liturgy, in our order of service, it's the only time all of God's people in this family called 1122 that were all singing or essentially praying the same thing. And it's a really, really big deal. And at this point, at all of our campuses and online and through God's sovereignty and omnipotence, even if you tuned in three days from now in Tupelo, then when you join your voice together, we sing the same songs. Then with one voice, God's children are crying out to him. And in Revelation 8.1, the reason God shuts it down for 30

minutes is because he says, heaven, I want to hear the prayers of my people. Come into the presence of the king with singing. It's a really, really big deal. That's how we worship him. And then the fourth imperative is this. The fourth imperative is know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and we are his, we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. There is so much here.

He says, we got to know, not just feel. Feelings are fine, man. Emotions are fine. They just make terrible lords and terrible decision makers. And he says, so we don't just feel that the Lord is God. We've got to know that the Lord He is God. It is he who made us and we are his. That means none of us are accidents.

I don't care what your biology teacher told you or your parents. There are no accidental children. Plenty of accidental parents, no accidental children. That's right, man. He has planned everyone, and he knits them together in their mother's womb, and he made us, so we are his. And he doesn't neglect us. It's not like he's a watchmaker, and he just makes it and says, all right, good luck. But we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

This means that he loves us. He knows us. He's the good shepherd. And the only way to know him is to know that the Lord He is God is we've got to know his word. There's that word, Lord again, capital L-O-R-D, that Yahweh. way is Adonai. This means that the personal name of God is the title God. That's what he's saying. And the way that we know God is through His Word. This is why we study the scriptures here. And the reason that we study the scriptures is not just to know the scripture. Bible study is not

the end in and of itself. Now oftentimes when I talk about the Old Testament and talk about the law, I will say that the law, the Ten Commandments, they're both a map and a mirror. They're a map to show us how we live rightly before a righteous king and a mirror to hold it up and go, uh-oh, there's a problem, we need a savior. But the Bible is not like a mural or a painting that you gaze at. It's more like a window through which you see Christ so you can rightly see him. It matters. One of the ways we worship God, this is why we teach the Bible around here, just word by word by word. Because how many of you have known some people, and they know a lot about the Bible? They just don't seem to exude the love of Christ.

spoken of in the Bible. Ever met somebody like that? Well, Jesus did. He called him the Pharisees, and here's what he said. In John chapter 5 about the Pharisees, he says this. He says, and the Father who sent me has himself born witness about me, his voice you have never heard,

his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you. This was so insulting. All the Pharisees did is study the Bible. And Jesus is going, you're missing the whole thing, man. He says, for you do not believe the one whom has sent me. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they

that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. In John 15, Jesus is going to say, abide in my word and I will abide in you. This is one of the primary ways that we worship God and one of the primary ways that we know that the Lord is God, that we lean into His Word, and he leans into us. I do not know the person that walks in a deep and abiding relationship with Jesus that doesn't do a deep dive into his scriptures and let it read us. Man, I don't know how to make you love what I love, but I need you to love the Word of God. It ain't just a book, man. It isn't just an ancient document with trueisms in it. It's not. It's living and it's active. It's supernatural. It's a miracle that we

we have this in our possession. A few hundred years ago, people would give their lives over a copy of the Word of God in a language that they could understand, much less carried around in your pocket and get zapped with a psalm every morning at 8 o'clock.

It is miraculous. You see, when Paul is talking to young Timothy, Timothy's going to take over to the Church of Ephesus, and he's saying, he says to Timothy, he goes, amen, listen, guard your life, guard your doctrine, pay attention. Because we live in a current right now, and it is pushing us towards godlessness,

and he lists all this stuff. And if you read that list and turn on cable, news, you'll be like, we're here, okay, we're at the end of times. And then he says, but, but there's an anchor that you have, and it's the word of God. And then at 2 Timothy 316, he says this, for all scripture is God breathed. And it's useful for every part of your life. All scripture is God breed. Theos noostas. God breath. I don't know if you realize what a big deal that is. In all of the Bible, I can only find three things that are Theos Nustos. One, the very beginning, God speaks everything into existence, but when he decides to make image

bearers, he takes the dust of the ground. Aram is the Hebrew word, he gathers it together, but the Bible says, but Adam is not yet a living creature, and then he breathed the ruach, the ruah of life, the spirit, the breath of God, into Adam, and he becomes a living being. He opens his eyes and he is face to face with God. Dias Nustas. After Jesus comes, lives a perfect life, dies on the cross, He's resurrected three days later. The disciples are freaking out because they think they arrested and killed the boss. Maybe they're coming for us next.

So they're hiding away in this upper room and they locked the doors. And the resurrected Jesus, through the locked doors, just boom, he just shows up. And then he says, peace, do not be afraid. Why? Because they're freaking out. If you saw him there, you'd be like, okay, they're freaking out.

And then the Bible says in Acts that he breathed on them. Do you ever think about this? Like, how does this happen? You've got to use your spirit-filled imagination. Was it one at a time? Hey, what's something, Matthew? Peter?

I mean, what was it? Or was it birthday-style? Like, put all the candles in the middle and go, I mean, what was it? Think of it. What is he doing? Why is he breathing on people? Think about it.

Three days in the tomb. He's resurrected. He rolls up on you. He'll be like, oh, it's Jesus. Hey, man, how are you going to blow on a man's face? Stop. You ain't supposed to be blowing on people right now. You know that?

Okay. What is he doing? I think this is what he's doing. What Adam Fais is. to do, then the new Adam, the second Adam, the perfect God man, completed, fulfilled, every righteous requirement of his father in heaven. And when he shows back up for whoever would believe in him, he blows the the Stas-Nustas into every believer, and we're starting creation all over again because in Christ we were a new creation. That means you put your

faith in Jesus. It's a really, really big deal because he breathes a spirit of God into you. The only other thing in all of the cosmos that is theos-nustas is the very word of God that we hold in our hand. It is a really, really big deal. And so if you're like, it's hard to understand. God wrote it. You're not smart. You took two tries at eighth grade, okay? Give it a second.

But we've got the gift of the Spirit of God, and he is the actual preacher here. And so if you've ever learned anything from the Bible, I can promise you, I didn't teach it to you. The Spirit of God revealed it to you. So in worship, you dive into His Word so that you can know, you can know that the Lord is God. The fifth imperative. Really big deal. He says, enter his gates with Thanksgiving and its courts with praise. Now, when this was written, this was part of the liturgy in Jerusalem.

The temple was in Jerusalem and the highest place in Jerusalem. And there are these steps in every direction that come up to it. and the priest would stand on those steps as people would come into the temple to worship, and this was their instruction. Hey, when you walk through these gates right here, you do it with Thanksgiving, and you go into these courts with praise.

You see, because worship is a team sport, that we are supposed to do this corporately. The book of Hebrew says, don't let us give up on meeting together that what we're doing here matters like crazy. In fact, the New Testament turns it up a notch. The New Testament doesn't say you're just a people, but the New Testament says if you're in Christ,

you are a part of the body of Christ. And listen, especially post-COVID, we live in a world right now where people will say dumb things like, well, I don't need a church to worship God. You might want to check with God because he said it's a really big deal. Now, I'm not saying you can't worship out on the beach by yourself.

Yeah, man, personal worship matters like crazy. I'm saying that you are a part of the body. And if you are disconnected from the body, that ain't good. Let me think about it. Today, in reality, if you walk into your car after the service and there was a disconnected foot

in the parking lot, you would think this, you would think, something has gone horribly wrong, right? And I don't care, the most progressive person in here would not be like, who are you to tell this foot

what part of the body? Nah, man. Everybody knows what's going to happen to the foot. It's gross. It's going to stink, shrivel up, and die. Listen, a connected foot ain't too awesome, let's be honest. A disconnected,

foot, bro, with something's wrong. And so if you are disconnected from the body, I can tell you your future. You stink. You're going to shrivel up. You're going to die. That's your future. And here's the thing, man, it didn't only go bad for the foot. There's also some

one-footed guy hopping around. It didn't go good for him either. And so we are supposed to be connected. Like worship is a team event. A team event. You're not saved by the but you are saved into a faith family and we're supposed to be connected. We're supposed to come and do this thing together. And if you'll notice, these people were to bring a couple things to worship. They were to bring Thanksgiving and praise. And when they heard this though, when they heard

this, you see, there were different courts and there were different gates depending on whether you were male or female, who your parents were, where you grew up. It was very, very divided in the temple. But the Bible says that when Jesus came, Ephesian says, that when Jesus came, he tore down the walls of division in his house. So it is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we come in here together and as a team, as team Jesus, we lift up praise to him. And the Bible says in Psalm 22, 3, that God inhabits the praises of his people. So the gathering of the saints, what we do right now, it's a really, really big deal. It ain't just a meeting, man.

It ain't just Christian karaoke in a sermon. It is a supernatural event where the people of God make much of him and lives get changed. People get saved. Marriages get restored. Addictions get broken. Sins get forgiven. It's a really, really, really big deal.

So enter into his gates with Thanksgiving and to his courts with praise. Now, if you're worshiping with us online, man, God bless you. There's a bunch of you and you're traveling for whatever reason and you want to stay connected. Praise God for that. And then there's a bunch of you and you, and you, you're going to, you're traveling for whatever. And you've got a church that you're a member of, and you just kind of use our services as a supplement,

man, praise God for that. And then there's some of you, and you just live somewhere, and for whatever reason, you live far off, and you don't feel like anybody who will disciple you, and you say, well, 1122 disciple me, and our answer is yes, we'll be happy to. And then some of you, just lazy. And you need to get out your pajamas,

put your pants on and come to church because you live like four miles from here. So come to church, man. Just park off-site and get on the bus. and, all right, so. Yeah, it's what we're called to do. Together, enter his gates with Thanksgiving, and his courts with praise, and then the fifth one.

The fifth imperative. And again, man, this is all how we worship God. He says, give thanks to him. Give thanks to him. A big part of what worship is is simply vocalizing our thanksgiving to who God is and what he's done for us. So every single one of us live,

on this continuum between gratitude and entitlement. And the world that we live in is trying to push us to entitlement. Gratitude is a choice. Gratitude is a choice. And I can tell you, there's some things that feed gratitude. By the way, husbands, this is just free.

Unspoken gratitude is worthless. Can I get a very high-pitched, amen? No, I feel it in here. Okay, say it out your mouth, all right? God doesn't say feel thankful. He says, give thanks. I can tell you what feeds gratitude, curiosity, wanting to grow, focusing on the Lord, admitting I'm not here yet, God's not done with me. That feeds gratitude. You know what feeds entitlement? Cynicism. Focusing on yourself, focusing on your circumstances. Believing the lie, I got this.

Always blaming everybody else for where you are instead of thanking God that he's not done with you. So weeks ago, I shared with you my gratitude list, okay? And if you're new here, it's a thing I came up with years. ago. Honestly, I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself. You ever just feel sorry for yourself? How dumb is that? I'm one of the most blessed people on the planet, and I'm all complaining about whatever I'm not getting. And then I just thought, oh, cupcake, must be so hard being you. And so, I was like, I'm going to just write down some things that I'm grateful for that I didn't deserve that God has done in my life. And so we call this the gratitude list. I want to encourage you to do it. Do you do your homework? I hope you do homework. We had a staff meeting the other day. I said,

everybody got out your gratitude list. If they didn't have it, they were about to have all the of their days to fill one out because I was going to fire him, okay? Do your homework. It matters, man. So I covered it a few weeks ago. I'm not going to cover it. And then a few years ago, Pastor Britt was doing a sermon. And I don't know if y'all pay attention when the pastors are preaching. I don't know if you do your homework. I do the homework, man. Like if the preacher says do something, I do it. Now, I can't remember what he's preaching about, which is great. You can't remember even. That's why I say the same thing all the time. You'd be like, Pastor, that was a good sermon. It's my seventh time saying the same thing,

so it should be pretty good. All right. But in that He took the idea of the gratitude list that we've been all working through for years and years now. And he said, all right, if worship is thanking God for what he's done and who he is, why don't you write a gratitude list for who he is? Not just what he's done for you. And I'm going to be honest, man, I sat down to do it. And this will reveal some things about your own soul. It's a lot easier for me to write down the things that I'm thankful for that he did for me than it is to write down the things for who he is just because of his character and nature. You better abide in His Word or you'll write down some lies.

So here's mine. I don't know if you did your homework back then, but you ought to. And so I'm going to read you mine, but I'm going to read it so fast that you can't copy it down because you'll cheat and you'll do my homework. Don't do that. Do you on. A gratitude list to God about God. So I'm giving thanks to God for God. God is ultimate reality, truth, love, Trinity, perfect community, willing to create image bears, willing to sacrifice himself for us.

God is glorious, judge, righteous, willing to reveal himself in his world. Word. God is gracious, merciful, jealous, the source of ultimate knowledge, the giver of every good gift, not only timeless but outside of its bounds. God is ever present. God is here. God is returning to make all things new. God is just. He's never surprised. He's first in essence. He's long suffering. He's ultimately beautiful. He is limitless, relentless. He is father. God is humble enough to put on flesh. God is always in line with his own nature. God is creative. He is worthy and desirous of our worship. He is forgiving. He's the source of life. He holds all things together. He is the proto-toko from the dead. He is immutable. He is the conqueror of sins. God is the

friend of sinners. He is omnipot. He's a miracle worker. He is our ultimate source of satisfaction. God is good. He is all knowing, never tired, never busy, always working, mysterious, and God is Hussed. That's who he is. Give thanks to him. And then the seventh one, under the banner of worship, You see how worship is more than just the songs we sing. And then the last one is this, bless his name. Bless his name. Now, I'm going to be honest, man, when I'm writing a sermon, those first six imperatives are not hard to preach on.

And then I got to this one, I thought, how do you bless the name of God? I mean, it's back to my original question. What could I possibly bring God? how could I possibly bless his name? Well, I think if you're a parent, you get an idea of this, especially when your kids are little. What can they possibly do for you?

What do they give you? Heartburn, aggravation, insomnia, right? So the only thing that we can give God is us. Isn't that crazy? All God wants is all of you. The Shama tells us this. In Deuteronomy chapter 6, Moses tells the people of Israel.

Shema, Israel, that means pay attention, people of God. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. That doesn't mean number one on your list of priorities. It means like the paper on which you would write all of your priorities. The Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord of your God with all, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The only way I know that bless His name is by giving. giving him us. Isn't that what you want from your kids? How can your kids bless you? Is it just

obedience? Look, begrudging obedience is not a blessing. If all you want is obedience, man, get you a dog and train them up to be obedient. And it's not just relationship either. Because you might have a kid that's like, oh, I love you so much, but then they never obey. And you're like, I don't feel like you're being honest about the love part over here. It is parallel tracks of love-driven obedience, is it not? Listen, a few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, we were doing family worship. Did you guys come to family worship? This is the year of worship.

We got five or six worship events, okay? I hope you came. If not, shame on you. You missed it. You missed it. And you need to come. And I know you were like, well, I was tired. Listen, man, I was tired too.

I didn't want to come. I'm going to be honest. I didn't want to come. And it's my idea. I have to come. I made it up. I said, this is the year of worship. I said, we're doing worship nights.

Sunday afternoon. I'm like, oh, what are we doing? But every single time, bro, when you just get over, yourself and worship your way through it, you leave going, that, oh, what a blessing it was. So it was a family worship event, man. It was all ages. We had a choir up here with all ages. It was awesome. It was incredible. And during it, Pastor Adam came up and he was giving a word to the kids, and then he gave a word to the parents. And like I clearly established, when the preacher says, do something, I do the homework. And so Pastor Adam was saying, if your kids here,

pray over them. If they're not here, send them a text. And so I sent, Gretchen and I sent our kids a text. JPMRC, we love y'all so much. We are so blessed to have you as our kids. We are so proud of the young adults that you are becoming, and we thank God for you both every day, mom and dad. Now, I would expect my little girl would send me back multiple emojis.

They would include hearts and unicorns and many things. But the boy texted back, 16 years old. And he said, thank you for being the best, most understanding, and loving parents in the world. I love you guys. All's right. He blessed us.

We said we love you too. A couple minutes later are all my clothes clean. So it was short. It was short. It's a pretty good picture of what we do at church, is it not? Right. We come in here. I bless your name.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We love you, God. And then moments, hey, remember that thing I asked you about? You can get to that. Right? Yeah, man. the only way I know to bless his name is by giving him you.

It's what he desires. It's what he desires. It's not getting it right all the time. He already knows that you can go get it right all the time. It's why he sent his son, Jesus Christ, on a rescue mission to rescue you from you and from sin and hell and judgment. And he just wants you. Now what's crazy is that God starts with the imperatives, seven imperatives, which is the number of completion in the Bible. I don't think that's an accent.

And then he finally gives the why. He finally tells us why. Verse 5, here's why, for the Lord is good. That's why. For the Lord is good. We've been singing it all the time. All my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good.

And listen, man, I get it. When I say that, you say, but listen, pastor, my finances ain't good. and my health ain't good and my marriage it ain't good and I'm not to deny it I didn't say that was good

I'm saying he's good all the time and that we don't worship our circumstances and he's sovereign over our circumstances even and especially when we don't understand them and he promises us this that what the enemy intends for evil

he intends for good and he promises us that God is at work in all things for you for the good of those that love him are called according to his purposes. And even when we don't feel like it, what we are commanded and called to do is to worship our way through it.

And one day I promise, when you meet him face to face and he wipes away every single tear from your eye, then you will know he has been at work, and the Lord is good. It's just who he is. And the reason he's good is because it's just who he is. His steadfast love, his Hasid endures forever.

And his faithfulness to all generations. Not your faithfulness. Do you know what good news this is? The reason we worship God is because it's about His faithfulness and His faithfulness is a gift to us and His faithfulness endures all generations.

Aren't you glad that generations ago God didn't give up on us because of what that generation did? This applies to you too. Maybe you've been doing none of the things. Maybe he hadn't been reading his word and you haven't been blessing his name and you hadn't been coming to church

and you hadn't been entering his courts with Thanksgiving, but griping. Well, guess what, man, I got really good news. It's not based on your faithfulness. That God cannot give up on you because he can't give up on himself because he is faithful. And because of that, we worship him. And so that's what we're going to do. Now, a lot of y'all don't hear this part of most services because you jet during the last song.

now would not be the time to leave. If you've got to pee, you better hold on, hold on, okay? So in my humble, less than humble opinion, quite honestly, in my less than humble opinion, I think the next few minutes of what we do at every one of our services is the most important part for the rest of your week. It just is, man.

Dude, our singing is incredible. Our people we got up here leading worship, incredible, yeah, praise God. Praise God. It's awesome. But you can listen to the radio. You can hear all the songs on iTunes. I don't have you know.

And in my sermons, whatever. They're moderately delivered, exceptionally received. I don't know how that works, but whatever. But you can listen to sermons on podcast too. But what happens now is we give you an opportunity to respond. Because the real teacher here is the Spirit of God. I can't tell you what to do. I don't know what's going on in your life.

But he wants to tell you. He wants to guide you. He wants you to know him. And so when we invite you to sing, we join our voices together with like one prayer as a war cry, as a cry of victory. And so we're going to sing in a minute, just a minute. We're going to sing gratitude.

That's what the song's called. And just like the psalmist did, we're going to talk to our own soul. We're going to say, don't you get shy on me, because you've got a lion in those lungs. We're going to lift up our voices. And then we're going to sing, your goodness has been running after me. Your goodness has been run. All my life you have been faithful. All my life, you have been so, so good.

And if you know him, we ought to sing like it. We ought to declare that Jesus is Lord and the tomb is empty. That's why we sing and make a big deal about it. And we bring, as an act of work. If you're new here, you notice we don't take up an offering. Because we ain't trying to take anything from you, man. It ain't ours to take. It actually ain't even yours to give.

It's all his. So as an act of worship every week, like what you think? You think God needs your $20? Do you think that's how it works? You think God's up ever like, I want to do so much if I could just get somebody to give me. me alone. That's not how it works. But this world comes after us, man. We try to grab on to some things and it grabs on to us. And so as an act of worship every single week, we said, no, no, no,

you're first, your best. And so I bring to you, our first and my best. And because of the generosity of this church, you are already actively serving here, right here in the church, you're serving in our community, you're serving globally. Like when the war in Ukraine hits and And we can say, hey, we already have boots on the ground. You're like, how does that happen? Because we partner with people like Convoy of Hope and Compassion International because of your generosity. And we make an impact all over the world.

And all of that is an act of worship to him. That's why we bring. And then we pray. We pray. And I know that God can hear your prayer from way up there in the back. I get it, man. I get it. But there's something significant when you get up out of your comfortable seat and you

make the trek down here because we are a psychosomatic being. Our body and our soul and our spirit is all bound up together and we bow our knees before the Almighty King and we lift our hands and we say, Father, I need you. Whether you're just, whether you just want to cast thanks on him and say thank you, thank you, thank you. Here's a bunch of things I just want to say thank you. Or if you go to him and you just say, God, I need your help. I need your help. Then he says, enter into my presence. Because at the cross of Jesus Christ, when he said it is finished, it is the ultimate invitation for the children of God to come to the king of the universe who just happens to be our dad, 189 times in the Gospels. Jesus refers to God, his father. And so we're going to sing.

We'll sing like we mean it. And we're going to bring our first and our best as an act of worship, and we're going to pray like our lives depend on it because they do. We should be a Let me pray for you. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. And Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness. And Lord, I thank you that you have called us to worship. You have commanded us to worship. And the very thing that we cry out for is you.

And you are the very thing that we need that sustains us. God, we thank you for your steadfast love that it endures forever. When our trying harder does not endure. when our good intentions do not endure when our own self-discipline does not endure you endure forever and for that we give you and you will own the praise God we thank you that you have torn down

the divisions in your church and all God's children all followers of Jesus are invited to come to the foot of the cross where it is perfectly level and where you the resurrected Christ meet us right where we are God we worship you because you're the only one that's worth it.

We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. So, church, we're going to respond. We're going to sing. And we're going to bring. And I want to invite you to come to the altar. And we're going to pray. Let's respond.