We Are Venture: Worship

Roomy Chapter six, Verse four. Hero Israel, the Lord, our God.

The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God, with all your

heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These commandments that

I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your

children, Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along

the road, and when you lie down, and when you get up.

Tie them as symbols on your hands, and bind them on your foreheads,

right them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. I

want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes. Repeat this

prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart,

change my life in Jesus name. Amen. I'm gonna warn you up front,

those watching online listening to this podcast, you better came and put on

your big boy pants and your big girl pants today. You've been warned.

This passage of scripture that I just read. This is referred to as the

Shema. This is considered the most essential declaration of the Jewish faith. It

details exactly how our faith is supposed to be lived out. A couple of

things that are going to be interwoven through this message that I want you to

have understood. The first is this that it is possible to know the truth,

have it in your head, have it in your heart, but still

be deceived and believe the lies of the enemy. So you gotta understand that

one. But then in addition, know that there is a battle that is

constantly waging that you cannot see. That if all of a sudden your eyes

were opened and you could see a battle in the heavenlies, you would recognize

that there is a battle going on, a war waging over your life every

second of every day, and that battle has two parts. The first part

is the battle for your soul. You see justice. There is a God

in heaven who loves you, who wants to spend an eternity in a relationship

with you. There is an enemy of your soul who is hell bent on

keeping you from spending an eternity with Jesus. I have this growth group that

I do on Sunday nights and we don't have any agenda. We get together,

we hang out, chat and it always leads to a spiritual conversation.

And this last week one of the guys said, I'd love to hear everyone's

story. So people started sharing their faith journey it's probably ten twelve guys there,

and not one of our stories was the same, and it was we

had one thing in common. It was all a journey for every single one

of us. I pointed it out to the guys. I was like,

you realize all the radical circumstances and providential situations that had to fall into place

so that we would all be eating dinner here tonight. It's like crazy,

And every single story had this element to it. If I would have made

this decision different, everything would have been different. Why. Because there is

a battle for your soul. But once you make a commitment to Jesus and

make him lord of your life, you've decided that battle. And then the

next battle wages, and that is a battle for your worship, and the

enemy spends the rest of his time trying to get you from completely worshiping Jesus.

He wants you to hold pieces back, elements back, He wants your

worship to be incomplete. To someone of the Jewish faith, this shima sama

they would recite twice a day. They'd recite it right when they get up,

and they would recite it when they went to sleep. It was this

daily affirmation of their love for God, this daily reminder of their love for

God. When they would recite it, they would cover their eyes because they

didn't want to be distracted. As they said, I need to love the

Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all

my strength. They were to have it memorized. It was to be written

on the tablet of their heart. There was to be no distraction. The

Shema is so important that on Yom Kippur, which of all the holy days

and all the festivals that are celebrated in the Jewish culture, Yom Kippur is

the holiest of all the holy days. And at the climax of Yom Kippour,

they cover their eyes and they recite the Shema loved, Lord, your

God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all

your strength. The Shema is so important that Jesus was cornered by the Pharisees

and the Sadducees. They were trying to trip him up. By the time

Jesus walked the earth, we'd gone from ten commandments, believe it or not,

to six hundred and thirteen commandments. Most of you have trouble following two

things. Imagine six hundred and thirteen. So they looked at Jesus, and

they were trying to trip him up, trying to get him to say something

that they could prove that he was a heretic. And so they said,

of all the commandments of all six hundred and thirteen, which one is the

most important. And Jesus, without missing a beat, sums it up by

saying, if you only do one thing right, follower of Jesus, if

you only do one thing right, you cannot get this one wrong. Love

the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and

with all your strength. You see, to a Jewish believer, the Shemah

is God's promise to us people. It's this constant reminder. Now, this

promise is one of those if then promises in scripture. Do you know the

Bible is full of them. It's these promises that if you and I do

this, then God will do this. We live in America. We don't

like if then promises. We don't like anything conditional. The Bible's full of

them. I hate to say it, but it is. We think we

should be able to live however we want and constantly be blessed anyways. That's

the way we roll, but this if them. Promise of the Shema reminds

them that if Israel obeys the Lord, then they'll conquer their enemies. If

Israel obeys the Lord, then they will possess their land. If Israel obeys

the Lord, then God will multiply them in their land, and they will

enjoy a long life in God's place of blessing. What's interesting about love the

Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. There's other

translations that don't use the word soul. They use the word mind, So

the same Hebrew word that it can be translated soul can also be translated mind.

It's also interesting that some translations don't use the word strength. They use

the word might, So the same Hebrew word that can be translated as might

is also translated as strength regardless. Jesus emphaside, if you only do one

thing right, if you do everything else wrong, get this one thing right.

Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your

strength, with all your soul. Two battles, one for your soul,

one for your worship. Jesus was basically saying, and the Shema is basically

describing worship. That's what it's describing you see there, when you decide that

Jesus is Lord of my life, that battle has been decided. But from

that moment forward there is a battle for your worship, and most of us

we don't realize that we have been worshiping Jesus incompletely. You see, the

Shema describes the three elements of worship. I would argue that if you are

absent one of those, your worship is incomplete. That the enemy is trying

to get you to inadequately worship Jesus. If you're lacking one of these elements

of worship, your worship fails. It is incomplete and absent. Any part

of what the Shema and Jesus describe as worship is incomplete. In other words,

you're not doing it correctly, and it is the one thing that you

and I need to do right. Remember, you can know it in your

head, and you can know it in your heart, and the enemy can

still lie to you and you can believe his lies. So remember that.

Let's break it down. Love the Lord your God with all your heart.

What does that mean? Well, in the original Hebrew, it's tied to

your emotions. When you love God, you should love him with all your

happiness and all your gratitude. You should sing, you should dance, You

should shout, David said in Psalms, he said, shout for joy to

the Lord. All the earth. Listen to this burst into jubilant song with

music of all of our hour and ten minute worship services that take place during

a week. There's only seventeen minutes of it that is actually for Jesus.

The rest of it's for you. The rest of it is so you can

grow. The rest of it is so you can learn. The rest of

it is so you can be informed of different things that are taking place.

But there's that seventeen minutes during the service where we worship that our eyes are

supposed to be off of ourselves and onto the one that saved us. But

some of us we don't get what it means to worship God with all our

heart because we say things like, well, I'm just reserved, my arms

are folding, and I'm not singing, but I'm bursting in my heart.

Pastor Brandon, we live in western Washington. I'm an engineer. Church is

full of engineer, software engineers, software developers, accountants, lawyers, all

the we're professionals. We're not expressive, we're not demonstrative. Feel like I'd

be faking it if I did that. Oh I know? Is the Bible

describes bursting with joyous song? What does it mean? It means when we

sing songs like pop up the words to the song shout Jesus in the mountains,

Jesus in the streets. You know the song that we ended worship with.

It literally says his stripes, my healing, his cross, my freedom.

How can you say words like that, understand them in your head and

in your heart and be chill about it? You should be bursting. You

should all be woo girls. I'm dead serious. If you believe the words,

how can you be quiet? How can you not explode? Because my

family is healed, My kids are healed, my marriage is healed, my

finances are healed, not because of anything that I did, but because he

went to the cross bursting. But Brandon, I'm gonna I'm anna countant,

I'm conservati, I'm laid back, I'm an introvert, I'm not demonstrative.

It's a great story. And second, Samuel, I'm not gonna have you

turn there. The verses can pop up, but I'll just tell you the

story. Israel had just had this huge victory against the Philistines. Honestly,

they should have lost. They were outnumbered, they were outmanned. The Philistines

had a more intense army. They should have lost. But God gave them

a victory. And as would always happen. And you've seen movies where you've

watched these victory parades in the olden days. You know, the king walks

out of his palace and he stands there with his queen and his kids,

and with all the pomp and circumstances, he very professionally, very proudly nods

at the people as they do this parade, singing professional coming in celebrating what

God has done or what victory they've just experienced. Well, this is what

happened that day. The Israelites had won this massive victory. And it describes

that David was wearing a linen epot and he was danced before the Lord with

all of his might. Like David was going crazy with excitement, and his

wife peered out the window of their palace and saw him. And the Bible

says that his wife despised him in her heart. You know what she was

thinking. She was thinking this is not appropriate. This is not kingly,

this is not engineerly, this is not accountant lee, this is not professional.

That is inappropriate for a king. Eventually leads to a confrontation that David

has with her, and he says, when it comes to celebrating and it

comes to praising and it comes to honoring God, I'll be even more undignified

than this. And then later David writes those words where he said, sometimes

you're bursting with joyous praise. Worship with all your heart means that seventeen minutes,

when this team is up here trying to pull you into worship, you

should just let go. You shouldn't worry about who's sitting around. You shouldn't

worry about, Oh, there's that person there that I'm trying to close this

deal with. Oh that person there is a client of mine, that person

there I work with, that person there is my buddy, that guy over

there, I just got in a fight with him. You shouldn't worry about

any of that, because you have the rest of your weak to worry about

all that. But you have seventeen minutes to burst, just to say,

go to the song again. You got seventeen minutes to shout Jesus in the

mountains, Jesus in the streets. I'm gonna read this. Your name is

power, your name is helick. How can you be mellow when you sing

this stuff? Your name is life? Break every stronghold, shine through the

shadows, burn like a fire. I just want to speak the name of

Jesus over fear and all anxiety, to every soul held captive by depression.

I speak Jesus, somebody, how can you not burst? Love the Lord

your God with all your heart? But did you know that's not enough?

If all you do is go crazy during worship, you still have incomplete worship

if you're missing the other two every single day, twice a day, they

would recite the Shema, and they would say, love the Lord your God

with all your heart, and love the Lord your God with all your soul,

with all your mind. So what does it mean to love the Lord

your God with all your soul? What does it mean to love him with

all your mind? If you look up that word, it actually refers to

your trust. He's asking for your trust, he's asking for your sincerity.

Remember, it is possible to know the truth up here and know it in

here and still be influenced by the lies of the enemy. You see worshiping

God with all your mind and with all your soul. Is you saying I'm

not going to rely on my own understanding. I am not gonna do what

just makes sense to me. When we live in this thing where I can't

do anything unless I understand it, I can't do anything unless make sense to

me, we let the eye lies of the enemy run rampant in your life.

I would argue that this is referring to giving. By the way,

here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna disagree with me, You're gonna leave,

You're gonna start googling it, and then you are going to discover pastor

Brandon actually did his research. This is referring to your giving. I don't

think there is another point in our entire walk with Jesus where we demonstrate our

trust for Him more than when we release our giving. Because it doesn't make

sense, we do not understand it. So when we give, it is

us saying Lord, I trust you with my finances, I trust you with

my life, I trust you with my security. I lay it at your

feet. I think, just as that singing shouting dancing is super important in

the service. I also think God is overwhelmed with our giving and worship.

Last week, spontaneously, we take an offering. I told you guys,

I'll tell you the amount if you don't follow me on social media. Here's

the official announcement. I say, we're gonna take an offering for these wildfires

in Maui, and I ahead of time thought, middle of the summer,

it'll be a miracle if we raised ten grand that was my goal, ten

thousand dollars, and we'd have celebrated it and gone crazy. Two days later,

I get a phone call from our bookkeeper and she's like, Pastor Brandon,

it's a miracle. With everything that's been promised and everything that's come in,

we're gonna give close to twenty five thousand dollars. When you did that,

here's what you said to Jesus. You said, Lord, I feel

helpless. I don't know what to do, but I just trust that you've

got it figured out. Here's here's how I show you that I trust you.

I just give, I give generously, and that is God your opportunity

to say, Lord, I release that. And that is so much worship

to Jesus. It honors him. The giving is the one thing that when

the preacher talks about giving, you can know it in your head and know

it in your heart. But the enemy's voice is really loud. Now I

hear it all the time. I hear people say things like this one.

Well, I don't give because I don't know where the money goes. First

off, ask pastor Alex, ask Heather, and they'll tell you fine,

if you really care. But I'd argue, why do you care? I

thought you gave it. I haven't had I just announced so much was given.

I didn't get any phone calls this week people saying I want proof that

all that money went to MAUI now one person did it. We just celebrated

the fact that it was given because there's trust. You see. Here's the

thing. People that you donate money too should be responsible with that money,

absolutely, but it is not minding your responsibility what they do with the resources

we release. Our responsibility is to give and give generously. That is our

act of worship. We have to wrestle through the fact that it doesn't make

sense financially. We don't completely understand, but it's us saying Jesus everything I

have, you gave to me, and give this to you willingly, and

I will step back, and I just trust. And here's the deal.

If those resources that you have given generously are being used inappropriately, you don't

think God is gonna deal with those people. I mean, that is supposed

to be an act of worship to him. And when somebody abuses an act

of worship to him, God will deal with it. But the enemy is

gonna lie to you. He's gonna say, don't give them because you don't

trust them. Well, you were never giving to begin with. You were

never giving as an act of worship. You were giving with an element of

control. Here's another one that people love to tell me. They love to

say this one. Well, Passer Brandon, I give, but I give

to a nonprofit. I don't have any problem with you giving to a nonprofit.

Go for it. I just know the Bible is really clear that your

tithe goes to the storehouse. I tell everybody there's two things that we do

not argue about at Venture. We do not argue about women in leadership,

and we do not argue about tithing. Like if the only people that argue

with me about those two things are people that have a church background that came

from another religious expression, and they just want to fight. I'm not going

to give in, so we just don't argue about them to begin with.

You come to Venture, you understand diebals is gonna preach Sometimes. You come

to Venture, there is a pillar on a wall that says generosity. You

just accept it. So I give to a nonprofit. In my humble opinion,

you are giving with a sense of control. That is not worship.

That is not saying I trust you with my finances. You are literally giving

your money, and it is not seen as an act of worship. And

I want my giving in the eyes of Jesus to be worshiped, just as

I want my singing and my dancing and my shouting to be worshiped. I

don't sing, dance, and shout because it makes me feel good. I

don't give because it makes me feel good. I give because since the dawn

of time, the only thing that mattered was loving the Lord with all your

heart. And if I do that through expressive emotions and that's the way he

receives it, I'm gonna do it. Because you love the Lord, your

God with all your soul. And if I have to demonstrate that I trust

him. Then I'll do it as an act of obedience. By the way,

you can be a big giver, you can be a woo girl.

But if you don't do the third thing, you're still absent complete worship.

And absent any of these elements of worship is inadequate worship. So it says,

love the Lord your God with all your heart, love the Lord your

God with all your soul. And then it says, love the Lord your

God with all your strength. What does it mean to love the Lord your

God with all your strength and with all your might. It means our obedience

is an act of worship. Our faithfulness is an act of worship. The

way we live, in the way we act, is a way of worship.

We hate the word faithful because it's hard. But when you and I

are faithful, we're worshiping. And I would bring this all the way down.

Just as I think loving the Lord your God with all your heart is

expressive worship, Loving the Lord your God with all your soul is in our

giving. I think loving the Lord with all of your might and all of

your strength is in your serving. When you serve, it is an act

of worship. Every single Sunday, our staff and all of our volunteers we

meet out there at seven thirty and we pray together for the day, and

whoever is hosting that day reminds everyone that everything we're doing today is an act

of worship unto Jesus. If we greet active worship, holding a baby in

the nursery an active worship. For playing the piano, it is an act

of worship. If we're ushering, it is an act of worship. Whatever

we do is our willing, humble act of worship unto Jesus, and we

do it with obedience. We do it because He wants us to serve.

We serve because we were served. We serve as an act of selflessness.

We serve honestly because we'd rather be doing something else. If you work in

our kids ministry, I know what happens every Saturday. Something miserable. Your

kids aren't feeling well, they don't go to bed when they're supposed to,

and every single Saturday, come on, get real. You grab your phone

and you think, should I text Kyleye and tell her I can't come tomorrow

Every Saturday night that happens? Be real? Because serving is hard because we'd

rather be doing something else. But then you come and it is your act

of worship unto Jesus. If you're a youth leader. I was a youth

pastor for twelve years, catch this. If you're a youth leader in this

church, every youth leader that has ever existed in the history of time has

experienced this. Wednesday, the day of your youth service, is your worst

day of the week. Your boss is a jerk, your girlfriend is a

jerk, your friends are jerks. You don't feel well, your parents are

mean. Everything goes wrong on Wednesday, and you grab your phone. I

gotta tell Johnny, I can't make it tonight. There is a battle for

your worship. If all the enemy needs to do to get you to not

hold a baby in the nursery, if all the enemy needs to do to

get you to not standouts side and greet on a Sunday is give you a

bad day the day before. You have a limited perspective of what is really

going on. Because just as there was a battle for your soul, there

is a battle for your worship, and the enemy is relentless, tenacious.

That growth group that I lead on Sunday nights five o'clock. We got it

tonight. If you're part of my growth group, don't skip it. Friday

rolls around and I'm tired. I gotta preach three times on Sunday. I

gotta go. I'm standing in the lobby, I'm talking to people. I

also gotta lead one to one today. Now, I got a lot going

on, and it starts Friday. I think I should email the guys and

tell them I can't do it. This week happens every single week. Every

this is like me like showing you my guts. I don't want to do

it. There's so many things I would rather be doing at five o'clock on

a Sunday night. And I always have this battle where I'm just about ready

to type an email that tells them we're postponing or rescheduling. And I have

really good reasons why. And every time, right before I'm gonna hit send,

I think, put on your big boy pants, pals, and I

step back and I don't send it. And in all days Saturday, I

want to re send it again. And then I got here this morning and

I remember, after our prayer meeting, I thought, should I send the

email canceling tonight, they'd understand I got a lot going on because we don't

necessarily want to serve. That's why it's an act of worship. But I'll

tell you this, every time I've not wanted to do it, I show

up and I hang out with the guys. First off, because I struggled

with being there all week long. I can't figure out why any of them

come. So there's the fact that there's dudes there. I'm shocked. And

then we start having this deep conversation about faith and Jesus and none of us

want to leave. And afterwards I think that was the best thing I did

a week. Every single time, there's a reason when you fight through and

end up still being a youth leader, that night is the best youth service

of the year. There's a reason that when you fight through and still hold

that baby in the nursery, you connect with this new family and you just

feel like you would never believe would happen this week. Why the craziest thing

happens when you and I love the Lord, our God with all our heart,

with all our soul, with all our strength, because we don't want

to buy our nature do any of them. We want to be standing there

with our arms folded, just nodding during worship. We want to have some

rational theological argument that gives us an excuse to not give, and we want

everyone else to understand how busy we are. That's why we can't serve.

This is the way we are hardwired. Because there is a war in the

heavenlies over your worship. And when you and I give ourselves completely into worship,

when we shout and we dance and we sing, have you realized what

happens during that worship service? You end up thinking, well, worship was

good today. I just felt the presence of God today. It's like you

got blessed. Crazy Pastor Brandon stands up, he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt,

says, you've paid thousands of dollars to go to vacation in Maui. You

should give, And you're like, dad, fine, twenty five thousand,

and you were like, come on, and it's like we're blessed because we

did it. And then you show up, you host your growth group.

You didn't want to. Out of your ten growth groups, you know at

least five you want to not host, but you do it anyways, and

then afterwards you're just like honey, we need to have more people over at

our house. This was amazing because when we worship, it fills us,

It blesses us, it touches us. It is the craziest part about this.

We are doing it for Jesus. It is our act of worship,

complete worship to Jesus. But in the end when we do it, he

just blesses our hearts, our minds, and our might. Mission community generosity.

Generosity is worship unapologetically. Venture is generous. We want to go crazy

in that seventeen minutes while we sing on Wednesday night once a month where we

have an hour of worship. I want people to see videos and think what

the crud is going on adventure and then I want us to be the church

that has people that give so generously. We didn't post about this, but

we had the extra resources, so we gave five thousand dollars to the Evert

School District to buy backpacks and school supplies. We didn't advertise it, but

we have the resources, so we just did it this year. Because you

fill out a connection card and you get we're gonna give over one hundred thousand

dollars to Convoy of hope this year we get to do that because you're generous.

And did you know that it takes one hundred and seventy volunteers to do

our three services every Sunday, one hundred and seventy, So one hundred and

seventy people. They don't get to come in and participate in the worship service.

Their active worship is watching your children right now, so that you get

to come enjoy this service and not have to worry about your kids till your

number pops up. It's their active worship. And when we do this all

of it, our worship is complete and we live out our value of generosity

that's on that pillar. So here's how we're gonna close. I want everybody

to grab the card that one of our ushers hopefully gave you. Unapologetically,

I'm asking you to make a commitment in your heart to be faithful in giving

this year as an active worship. So how we're going to close the services.

I'm gonna pray, conclude the service, and then I'm gonna invite everyone

to leave your seat and on your way out, drop this card at the

altar. And the ways that you do it is this is you, just

you write it, you make that commitment, grab your phone, take a

picture of it so that way you can be reminded it will at least pop

up in your memory stuff. And then when you drop it, it's just

an act of worship. That's how I want us to close the service.

I want us to close the service by worshiping Jesus through our giving, showing

him that we trust him, we trust him even when it doesn't make sense,

even when we don't understand. And then next week when that service starts

in the first note of that is that a note or a chord or whatever

it gets played, I want to see you burst. I want to see

you burst. So everybody stand up on your feet, hold this in your

hand again. I'm gonna pray. When I say amen, I'll close the

service. You're free to go, but on your way, as an act

of worship, make a commitment to Jesus that you're going to be generous,

that you're going to give. Lord Jesus. Right now, I thank you

for your word that challenges us, And Lord, I thank you that in

the battle for our soul you won. We're here today and now, Lord,

as we constantly are in this battle for our worship Lord. We choose

to worship you. We choose to worship you with our singing and shouting and

dancing, and we choose to worship you through our giving, and we choose

to worship you by the way that we serve. And today I ask that

you would challenge each one of us to live the lives of radical generosity in

the way that we worship Lord. I pray for every family that makes this

commitment to give, and I ask that you would bless them for their faith

on this and giving and your name, I pray, Amen, thank you

for coming to Venture Church. Don't forget. Next week we have a special

guest, then we have the night service. But as you're leaving, join

me and laying your offering at the altar.