January 7, 2024 / Worship God

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest

questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search

and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead

pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth

for the life we're searching for. So happy that you're with us this morning and kicking

off our Next Step series. Next Step really involves four practices that change everything.

And that's a pretty big promise, isn't it? Four practices that change everything. But

we're going to begin today talking about the practice of worship as we worship God together.

Take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 11, if you were at Romans 11. We're going

Romans 11 · chapter mention

to start in verse 33. We're going to read through just the last three verses of that

chapter, the first two of Romans chapter 12. And I want to talk to you about your corporate

Romans 12 · chapter mention

worship. I want to talk to you about how you worship God. And I'm going to tell you today

that the practice of worshiping God will change everything in your life. The absence of worshiping

God will cause everything in your life to be less than what God has called you to. Romans

Romans 11 · chapter mention

chapter 11, beginning in verse 33, let's stand together. I'm going to read just several verses

and we always stand in honor of the reading of God's word. Romans chapter 11, beginning

Romans 11 · chapter mention

in verse 33. And we need to begin today realizing that Paul is saying something that he doesn't

normally say in a way he doesn't normally say it. Paul probably is not an emotional

kind of guy, very reasonable, very rational, very logical kind of thinker. His theological

books are amazing. In Romans, there's a book of theology. But there is one portion of Romans,

this verse we're going to read, where Paul burst out. I want you to see that he's bursting

out saying something, moved by all that he's been reading and all he's been writing. And

we need to be moved by the same thing. He says in verse 33, all the depth of the riches,

both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how unfathomable

his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, who has become his counselor, who has

given to him that might be paid back to him again? For from him and through him and to

him are all things. Don't you love that line? For from him and through him are all things.

I think it's one of those great lines that you need to have in your mind, your heart.

And he ends that by saying to him be the glory forever. Amen. And then in chapter 12, therefore

I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice

acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed

to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove that what

the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. This is an amazing

passage today, by the way. And as we sit down in just a moment to kind of break this passage

down, I want you to grab pieces of this today. I want you to put them in your notes and in

your mind and your heart today, because this is something that should live with you for

a long, long time. Father, in Jesus' name, my prayer is that you will allow your Holy

Spirit to illuminate the text in our minds, in our hearts, in our spiritual ears. And

Lord, the second part of the prayer is that you will illuminate our lives. Show us where

we fall short of this. Show us what decisions we need to make, what actions we need to take

in order for worship to be a priority to us. Thank you for every person in this room. I

pray for this new year and all that's ahead of us. And Lord, I know that we can only navigate

this wisely with worship and with you. And I ask this in Jesus' name. And all God's

people said, amen. Please be seated if you would.

Well I'm sure like me, you've read all the articles, you've heard all the little videos

and all the stories, maybe on social media, maybe on television, maybe in magazines where

you're getting all kinds of great advice for 2024, right, the new year. This is the first

Sunday of a new year. And I'm sure you're all aware of that. 2024 is uncharted. We don't

know what's ahead of us. I can't believe it's 2024. I mean, this is a guy that was born

in 1957, okay? Now while you're calculating that, that's just a long time. That's all

there is to it. 2024, who thought we would be here? And 2024, we have no idea how it's

going to go. But everybody has advice for us, don't they? Everybody has advice about

how you're going to navigate the best possible 2024. And I've read all the articles. I've

seen all the things that people have to say. I read an article that talks about having

a spirit of gratitude through the year. And if you have a spirit of gratitude, it'll transform

your life. I don't disagree with that. Someone else said in one article, read books. Just

read books. They don't say what kind of books, just read books. Read instead of doing what

you normally do. Someone else wrote an article on eating healthy in 2024. I'll pass that

article on to you. I didn't really read it off. Someone else said your exercise habits

are the most important things in 2024. That may be true. Another one said, figure out

who you are in 2024. And to that I say, it's about time somebody does that. The one I liked

the best was the article that said, focus on your habits instead of your outcomes. And

I think there's a lot of reasoning behind that because you are the result of your habits.

We have all kinds of goals, but unless we have habits to get us there, then we won't

get there. And in some ways, what I'm talking to you about has to do with your habits, your

spiritual habits. What you're going to do with your relationship with God, specifically

today, the aspect of worship. There are three others that we'll talk about in the next three

weeks, but this one is the most important one. What will you do with God when it comes

to worship? Do you understand the importance of your worship? Do you understand the importance

of what it means to have worship with God? I'm going to make a statement to you today

that I hope that you'll take note of and keep in mind. If you'll make a commitment to consistently

worship God, you'll be positively and powerfully changed no matter who you are, no matter what

your background has been, no matter how far away you are from where you need to be. If

you will make a commitment to consistently worship God, you will be both positively and

powerfully changed. I'm going to spend the rest of my message convincing you of that.

That's a very serious kind of argument because you'll never be who you're called to be without

consistent worship. You were made to worship. You're going to worship something. You're

going to make an idol of something. If you don't, worship God. Today, the talk about

worship is coming from Romans chapter 11 and chapter 12. There are some principles here

Romans 11 · chapter mention

that I want to give to you that I believe have made all the difference in the world

in how I worship God and how He changes my life from day to day. More importantly than

that, we're going to bring a theology of Paul's worship to the tables today. With all the

practical application he gives us in chapter 12, we're going to talk about the theological

reason that this practical application will work in your life. First of all, I want you

to stay with me in chapter 11 for a moment and those last three verses of chapter 11

that we read. I want you to think with me for just a moment that really the platform

for worship, the foundation of worship is that you would be in awe of who He is, that

you would be in awe of God. Worship involves awe. Worship involves the adoration of someone

that's greater than us. Worship involves having some sense, some taste of who God is that

makes Him the worthy object of our worship instead of everything else that we could worship,

instead of everything else that we could idolize. It's Him that we worship because we have

an awe of Him. Again, if you look at verse 33, Paul kicks off this section of scripture

with this emotional adverse. I call it emotional, but it's Paul from the very depths of his

heart saying words that we need to hear. Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom

and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, how unfathomable are His ways.

Paul's basically saying, I can't get to the depths of God. He's so immense, so powerful.

I am awe-inspired at who this God is that I worship. Paul, the preeminent theologian

of the day said, I can't explain everything about God. He's greater than I am. I can't

explain to you everything I know about God. I just know that God is unfathomable, unsearchable

in all of His ways. Man, that's a great way to start a thought about worship. And that's

where Paul was. He's getting ready to talk about worship to us. But in doing that, he

starts with the awe of God. As you work your way through verse 33, verse 34, and verse

35, he's asking questions. He's excited he's saved. He's excited about God's sovereign

plan of salvation that he writes about in Romans chapter 11. And he basically asks these

Romans 11 · chapter mention

three questions. Who knew God's plan? Who else could have imagined the kind of plan

that God had? Who deserves this mercy, this love, this salvation? He's moved in his heart

by those things before he comes to that last line that we looked at for a moment in verse

36, for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Man, that's a great conclusion

to make about God, right? What role does God have in my life? Well, from Him and through

Him and to Him are all things. Everything I have comes from Him. Everything I'm ever

going to receive comes through Him. And everything, all of a sudden, should go to Him. I want

to make sure God is the center of my universe. And the only way I'm going to do that is if

I am in awe of God and I place Him there because God does not demand that of you. He does not

remove your will in the matter, but He calls you to be in that place where God is the center

of your life. And all the transformed people in scripture have these kinds of outbursts

and these kinds of exclamations about God when you read about their lives. I went through

the Old Testament and looked at some of these outbursts that different prophets and different

individuals make about God. And they all make this outburst after they realize that the

theology of what they knew about God and the experience they were having about God met

together in an experience in their lives, which is what worship is. Moses, for example,

says, your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O Lord, shatters

the enemy and in the greatness of your excellence you overthrow those who rise up against you.

David said, great is our Lord and abundant in strength. His understanding is infinite.

It says Psalm 147. Isaiah, when he was able to see the glory of the Lord, just fell on

his face and said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. My people are a people of unclean

lips. John, in the book of Revelation, says, when I saw him, I felt at his feet like a

dead man and he placed his right hand on me saying, do not be afraid. I am the first and

the last. And what's happening is these people and their theology of God met them in their

experience with God and it overwhelmed them just like it did Paul when he started his

sentence with the word, oh, oh man, I've seen God and he's so big I can't explain him,

but I know he's real and I've met him and he met me. That's what Paul is saying. That's

what Moses said. That's what David said. That's what Isaiah said. That's what John said in

the book of Revelation. God was not this idea. God was very, very real to them and met them

where they were. You say, well, where do I meet God like that? Where do I have those

kinds of experiences? I'm going to tell you three places I believe you can find those

kinds of experiences, but before I do, I want to say this to you today. I want to say that

you need to know him and who he really is for worship to be the highest priority of

your life. You need to let what you read about him become real to you. So that's not just

an idea described with words, but it's something that has passion behind it because it's more

than just words you read on the page. It needs to be personal. It needs to be intimate. It

needs to be overwhelming because that's who God is. And for you to see God and experience

God in a very real way means you are in some way overwhelmed by who he is. God should never

be an idea that bores you. God's ways should never be something that makes you yawn. God

's ways are those that make you say, oh, how unsearchable are his ways, how unfathomable

his judgments are. So what are the three places where you can meet God where I believe all

of us can? First of all, I would just say this to you today that I experience awe when

I contemplate his universe. Now I know that's something that all of us can connect with

in some way, but I really do experience the awe that leads me to worship when I experience

the universe. There's something powerful to me about going outside early in the morning

and everything is quiet, all the lights are off, and to look up in the sky and to see

the stars and the solar system, to see the moon, to see the reflection of all that brilliant

light that God placed in the heavens. And the reason this moves me so much is not because

of the beauty of a dark sky and the bright stars against that darkness, and it's not

because of the amazing personality of the moon or anything else that I see. It's not

because of some of the brighter stars that are in our universe either, even though I

love, like anybody else, to look into a telescope and just marvel at all that. It's not because

all those things were up there that I'm in awe. It's because I know the creator that

made those that I'm in awe. It's because all those weren't there as an act of nature.

They were an act of revelation and creation. Because God put all those in place and because

God has spoken to us about those things and because God is the real one who has held this

universe together, then I am in awe whenever I see what his creation has brought about.

It's during those times, times when I look at creation, that I am in awe of God, amazed

at God, and feel very, very close to God because he has also made me and he's also made you.

I experienced this early in the morning. I experienced this in the mountains when I go

skiing and I get up on that ski lift and I go to the top and I look at all those mountain

ranges and all that beautiful snow that we have so much up in Texas, you know, and I

go up there and I look at that and I think, God, you're amazing, you're awesome. I stand

on the edge of the Grand Canyon and look at how he created that. When I'm in an airplane

and I look from a height and see even the curvature of the earth and say, isn't God

amazing that he's given us so much, he's created so much. I'm in awe of God during those times.

Those are times that you ought to look at the God who made heaven and earth and have

the same kind of exclamation that Paul had. It is unfathomable to me that God could create

all this and hold all this together somehow, but he does and he's the one that did it.

Paul said this in 1st Timothy chapter 1 verse 17. He said, now to the King eternal, immortal,

invisible, the only wise God, be glory and honor forever and ever again. Amen. And I

think about that verse a lot when I look at creation. The second time in place I think

we can find awe with God is when we worship with others who hold him in awe. Think with

me for just a moment. Why would God from the beginning want his people to come together

and worship him as a group and not just as individuals? And someone will say, well, I

love to worship God by myself. So do I. And if you ever heard me sing, you'd know why

I like to worship God by myself in song. It wouldn't help your worship any. But you might

look on my face when I'm singing to God in gratitude and realize God is very real to

me because there's that man standing on the front singing with joy on his face because

he knows the God he sings to is real. And you may look across the room and see someone

who just went through a tragedy in their life, heartbreak, hardship. And here they are. They're

worshiping God because they know God is ultimately the giver and the taker of life. You see,

there's something powerful about being in a room filled with people who are worshiping

God, whether it's a large room or a small room is really immaterial. But God has from

the beginning said, I want my people to gather together in worship. And the reasons behind

that are encouragement and the fact that God is worthy of our praise and our worship, a

reminder that we all see God in powerful ways in our lives. And we may not see him today

or last week, but somebody else next to us did. And it brings encouragement to us. In

1 Chronicles 29, David gathers Israel together as they open the tabernacle and prepare for

the temple. And David blessed the Lord, the Bible says, in the sight of all the assembly.

And David said, blessed are you, O Lord God, Israel, our father forever and ever. Yours,

O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.

Indeed, everything that is in the heavens and the earth, yours is the dominion, O Lord.

You exhaust yourself as head over all. Can you imagine David standing up in front of

all those people and saying, look at what all God has done. Be encouraged through all

the hardships and challenges of life. God is still on his throne. He's the one we

worship. The pandemic affected us in a great way. I believe as the church of Jesus Christ

in America, maybe more particularly than other places in the world. It's a time when

we didn't meet for a period of time, but for a longer period of time, we're hesitant to.

I know all the medical reasons and all the contagiousness of COVID. I realize all that's

real. But most people who study the church of Jesus Christ, especially those who study

the church in America have said that what happened to the church is they began to value

content over the experience of worshiping God. And they began to make the experience

of worshiping God more of an option for them. We can always get content. We can always go

online. We could always hear the message later. But in some ways, many people made that the

priority. But there's something powerful about being there in the moment where other people

are there with you and you have an actual experience of worshiping God. Now we don't

really have this kind of reasoning with anything else. We want to make it home by the time

the football game kicks off, right? Even though I can look at it later. I want to experience

it as it unfolds, right? You need to experience worship as it unfolds. Because it's a journey

that all of us have together as we move towards God. We take advantage of the open door of

the veil, rent from the top to the bottom, coming boldly before the throne of grace,

coming to the altar and kneeling, coming away from that time of praying, saying, God heard

me. God is going to answer that prayer in some way. Listening our voice up, shouting

even about the God of the universe who meets with us and who gives us grace. I find that

when you worship God among a group of people who love God, who revere God, who exalt God,

you find yourself experiencing God in the midst of that. Amen. Yeah. If you think God

doesn't enjoy being in the presence of people who love him and who worship him, then you've

got it wrong. He loves it. He loves it. Thirdly, I've experienced all of God when he's met

me in my pain, my heartbreak. How many of you have experienced pretty deep pain in your

life? Would you raise your hand if you have? That's nearly all of us, I think. I've experienced

God when I didn't think I would experience anything good. Paul wrote about the thorn

in the flesh that he had on his life. A messenger of Satan buffeted him, as the Bible puts it.

For a tough time in his life, most say it was probably a physical ailment he dealt with,

but don't rule out the fact that it could have been just wicked people who were opposing

him. All of the above was probably taking place with this guy named Paul, who was the

preeminent apostle of the day. He prayed, God, take this away from me. Remove this thorn

in the flesh. God never did remove the thorn in the flesh, but he did give him something

better. God met him in his pain. Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9. He said,

2 Corinthians 12:9

and he has said to me in regard to that prayer, Lord, remove this thorn in the flesh. He has

said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly,

therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Amen. Look at me for a moment. If you're going through hard times and dark times, let me

tell you, that's some of the best time in your life where God meets with you and gives

you grace that nobody else can give you. Nobody else can give you that. And it's a time when

you can be in awe of God and walk away worshiping God. Have all the people on the planet that

could have reached out to me or helped me? They didn't. But God, you were there. And

your presence and your peace was so strong that I am in awe of the fact that you know

who I am and you know what I'm going through and you are there with me in that moment.

You want to be in awe of God. Look for him when you're going through hardship and difficulty

and take the awe that you get from that hardship or take that awe that you get from being in

nature and seeing the glorious creator in nature or take the awe you get while you're

in the assembly of people who worship God. Take that awe and you make that motivational

fuel for your worship of God day in and day out. You make it a diet in your life, a steady

diet. You want to be healthy? Worship God. You want to exercise? Well, worship God. Worship

God. Paul begins by saying you must have an awe of God. And as you have that awe of God,

there's something else that's going to happen. And when you get to chapter 12 verse 1, he

says you're going to be moved by his mercy. We're talking about change. The message is

about change, things that change your life. Worshipping God takes place when you have

an awe of God, but it doesn't just stop there. You need to be moved by his mercy. You see

what it says in chapter 12 verse 1, it says, therefore I urge you brethren, by the way,

every time you see a therefore, you know what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed

to find out what it's there for. That's why chapter 11 is so important. Don't just read

a chapter that starts with the word therefore without looking to find out what it's there

for. And everything Paul's going to say in chapter 12 verse 1 and 2 is based on the worship

that he's expressing in chapter 11. And that will be true of you as well. Chapter 12 verse

1 says, therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body

a living and holy sacrifice, accepted of God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

I want you to see the word mercy there for just a moment. It means to have compassion

and pity on someone. Therefore I beseech you or urge you brethren by the mercies of God,

by the compassion, by the pity of God, to present your body a living and holy sacrifice.

Jesus uses the idea of compassion and pity in the story of the prodigal. And you all

know the story of course that the prodigal asks for the inheritance from the father and

goes off and spends it and rides its living. And then when he's at the end of himself,

literally he says, I know what I'll do. I'll come back to my father and say, I need to

come home. I can't even eat food here. I don't have anything at all. I've been totally

embarrassed. I'll just be like one of your servants. And of course as the story goes,

the prodigal son comes home and the surprise of the whole story Jesus tells when he tells

the prodigal is the response of the father. Because most of us would say he does not deserve

to come home. The older son said he does not deserve to come home. That father ought to

teach him a lesson right there. But the surprise of the story is that that's not what the father

does. Instead the father shows compassion and pity and forgiveness and restores him

completely. Kill the father calf. We're going to have a party because my son who was lost

is now found. He was gone and now he's back. That's compassion. So Paul says, I urge you

brother and by the mercies of God that you present your body a living and holy sacrifice.

He's saying, I want you to think about all the responses God could have towards you.

He's a righteous God and we're not righteous so. He's an angry God that has wrath against

the ungodly and we're ungodly so. He's a holy pure God and we're not holy and we're not

pure so. But God is also compassionate, loving, merciful, forgiving God. Because God surprises

us the way Jesus said a compassionate father would surprise the prodigal son. And when

God surprised Paul, a religious terrorist, by the mercies of forgiveness, he said that's

what you're going to do when you worship him. You're going to come and realize the mercies

of God and you're going to say, you loved me, you forgave me, I present myself to you.

That's worship. It's worship. Don't you know the prodigal son was different after he saw

the love of the father? How could he not be? Aren't we different when we come to God expecting

one thing and God pours out his mercy and his forgiveness and his compassion. He surprises

us by all the amazing things that we don't even think about and that moves us to surrender.

You see this whole other level of worship, being in awe of God and then moving to the

place where we are motivated by the mercies of God, we surrender ourselves to him. See

the scripture again says, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. All these things

lead us to what worship truly is, presenting your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. It

basically says I'm so moved by your love, so moved by your presence, so moved by how

amazing you are, how awesome you are and you still love me. I'm so moved by all that. If

you love me, I'll give myself to you. I'll give myself to you. You see you don't bring

a sacrifice to a worship service. You are the sacrifice in a worship service. You don't

just bring something that you think God deserves. God is asking you for you. You say, Lord,

here I am. I give you my heart. I give you my life. I give you everything I have. I am

going to give you a personal surrender of myself. And it's not the surrender of obligation.

It's not the surrender of fear. It's not the surrender of wondering what will happen if

you don't surrender yourself. It's the surrender of gratitude that says you have left me. I

am yours. More than 45 years ago, I stood at a wedding altar. My father, who's a pastor,

was doing the wedding service and I stood there waiting for my wife, her name is Kim,

to walk down the aisle. And man, I about lost it when she walked down the aisle. She was

absolutely beautiful. Is absolutely beautiful. But you know what was going on in my heart

is that same kind of thought that you love me enough to marry me. Commit yourself to

me. You love me. I'm going to surrender myself to you. I'm going to love you. Hopefully you've

experienced that in a good way on this planet. But God intends for you to experience that

in an eternal way with Him. You love me. You have me. The true end of worship is walking

away different because you've surrendered yourself to the one who loves you, God.

Well, there's a third piece of this that I need to get to. And that is to be changed

by His presence. I talked about change. We talked about practices that would change everything

in your life. And that's where this change comes from. In verse two it says,

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.

We often talk about wanting to do the will of God. I just want to do what God wants me to do.

People say. They say I'm praying about the will of God. I want to do the will of God.

And you ought to want to do the will of God, but sometimes we forget we have to be transformed

before we're really willing to do the will of God. In fact, God doesn't often reveal His will

to people that are not willing to do it first. He's not often going to give us the secret

of the next step until we're willing to say, you know, whatever that secret is, I'm going to do it.

Whatever you lead me to do, that's what I'm going to do it. Because I have surrendered myself to you,

so surrender comes first and then change and transformation take place.

So how does that work? What does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind?

What does that mean? Well, first, it means it's the ultimate end of worship.

It also means that you're going to want Him to do the transforming, the changing,

you're going to want Him to make a bigger impression on you than anything and anyone else on the planet.

You're going to want Him to shape you into His image. I've written this down several ways.

Don't be conformed by making yourself impressionable to the world, Paul is saying,

but be impressionable to God. Or don't let the world shape you into its image.

Let God mold you into His. This is such a big issue. I don't even think we realize how big of an issue this is.

We look around us and we see the image of the world everywhere we look with our eyes open.

You know, the average individual today looks at eight hours and 56 minutes of media in some form today.

Maybe it's on a computer screen at work where they're doing work on a computer,

but also through television, through social media, through your ever-present phone.

Most of us have between six and ten thousand images a day flashed across our vision. Six and ten thousand.

It's real easy to be conformed to the image of this world today.

And everything associated with all the images that we will see, advertisements, enticements,

everything you can think of, you look at. Do you know what they do to us?

They make us feel in a certain way. That's the design of them.

You'll have a desire to order that on Amazon. You'll have a lust to fulfill that as you see another image.

You'll feel pain. You'll feel panic. You will be discouraged or disheartened.

You'll be moved this way or that way politically and you have no idea why you're being moved around.

But what's happening is the world is shaping you into its mold.

I would say the people of Paul's day probably had a lot less that they had to deal with when it came to

don't be conformed to the world. But if ever there was a command that was important to the people of this day,

it's this day. Don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Somehow we're going to have to think about and look at Jesus a whole lot more than we normally do.

A whole lot more than what we allow the world to let us see from their perspective.

You see, when you focus on him, you're going to be focusing on the one that you want to be like.

John Paul Bevere writing a book called The Awe of God said,

Whose image do you aspire to be conformed to? The celebrities of our day or the one who created the universe?

He said, Choose wisely and take heed to what you hear and give your attention to.

Years ago, some of you will remember this song, but not many of you will.

There's a song that I used to sing when I was a kid and we'd go to church camp and we'd sing this song a lot.

I don't even know the name of it, but the line is, Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look forward in his heavenly face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

I didn't know who wrote that song. I didn't care for the melody of that song.

It was kind of melancholy as a 16-year-old, what kind of discernment did I have? And very little did I have.

But I knew that that was true.

And the reason I knew that was true is because I'd had enough few moments and experiences where I did turn my eyes on Jesus

and all those things of the world became less valuable, less attractive, less tempting to me as a 16-year-old young man.

Eventually I realized I just need to always be turning my eyes upon Jesus.

I just need to always be looking in his glorious, holy face.

I just need to worship more than I do and need to make it a priority in my life.

Do you want to change your life? Do you want to let God change your life?

Worship God. Worship God.

Come to the place where you say, You love me like that? I'm giving you my life.

And more than that, I'm going to let you transform me into your image.

You say, but pastor, before you close this thing, what about the Bible?

What about the Scriptures? Because don't we use the Scriptures when we refer to this verse over and over and the answer would be yes.

The word of God does transform your mind.

But so does worship. The context is worship.

The context is in every way God reveals himself to you.

That of course is affirmed and validated by the word of God.

That's what transforms you day in and day out.

I know people who know everything about the Bible and they'll tell you everything you want to know about the character of God,

but who have not yet been transformed by him.

You can know it, but it's not transforming you if you don't come in awe of God,

if you don't begin to worship him, if you don't surrender to him.

And that's what my call is to you today.

Surrender to him as you worship him.

Follow him.

Make him the most important habit you have in your New Year.

Just a few moments, we'll close the service with a prayer.

Three invitations I would give you.

First of all, we have decision stations that are at the back of each of our worship center areas as you move towards the doors in just a few moments.

If you'd like to talk with someone and we would love to talk to you about what we've talked about today,

we'd love to help you with decisions you may make.

You know, it's really important for you to know this, that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins,

to give us a place in heaven and a relationship with him.

And unless you by faith put your trust and confidence in him, you really won't have the opportunity to do that.

You'll never know the awe of God.

You'll never really be able to know who he is and what he's done in your life until you accept the greatest gift he could give you, and that is his son.

So we want to talk to you about that decision.

Maybe there's something missing in your life.

You've never really had a relationship with him.

You've never really realized if you've ever had your sons forgiven or not, we want to talk to you about that.

Stop at the decision station.

Secondly, I invite you to bring folks back next week as we get into the next practice that will change everything.

And we'll do that each week this month.

It'll be something I think you'll value as we talk about this week after week.

Thirdly, I invite any guest to come back to the guest reception room right outside the center exit door.

There is a glassed-in room, and I'll be in that room in just a few moments.

I'd love to meet you personally.

If you're going to hang around for the food trucks, I have free tickets to the food trucks, which I mean people are attracted to me like, I don't know, like bees on honey, flies on honey.

When they know I have these free food truck tickets, I'd love to meet you though.

I seriously would love to shake your hand.

Thank you for being here today.

It's important to me that you know who we are, what we're about.

Would you stand with me as we have the closing word of prayer?

Father, I want to thank you today.

It's a privilege of being in this room to worship you with your people.

Father, my prayer is that every one of us will seek to experience you, that our theology will collide with our experience and that we will be in awe with you.

And that Father, it will flavor our lives.

It will create a desire to know you more and walk with you closer.

I pray for those making decisions today, decisions to worship, decisions to surrender as Lord and Savior to you.

Surrender our lives, our future, Father.

We ask you today to move in hearts.

Thank you, Father, for all these here today.

I pray you'll give them wisdom as they leave this place today to live life as you called them to live it.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

God bless.