Summer Vibes 1 | The Anthem

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Man, oh man, it's good to see.

Turn to your neighbor and say it's good to see you today.

It's good to be here in church today with you.

We've got a handful of our students uh that are out at uh at camp.

About 60 kids are out there this weekend, and they're just getting rocked.

It's awesome.

It's great.

So, and to be honest, the the the weather channel said it was gonna be lightning and rain, and they've had sunny days all weekend.

So you can you can thank thank the youth camp and the prayers that went for the youth camp for your sunny weekend this weekend.

Hey, I'm so glad that I'm not a part of a stuffy church, that I'm not a part of a church that's just like all all regal and noble and you know before God, like all those things are good attributes, I assume, but I love it when the church just gets out and authentic and real before God.

I love it when the church just begins to celebrate because we've got something worth celebrating.

We've got like I love the fact that God has come to set people free and people can discover freedom.

Who in this place has discovered freedom in their lives?

Have discovered that place, experienced what it's like to have the chains come off.

That moment the chains came off.

I don't care if you've been grew up in the church, were born in the church, or you you you know what it's like to have been locked down and kept from moving forward.

And when God came in and he rescued and he set you free and he released you into a new opportunity and to a new purpose, it's God.

It's God that releases us, it's God who sets us free.

And I'm just so glad to be able to celebrate him, to be a part of a community that joins in the celebration of him.

Because it's it's one thing for me to do it alone in the car, it's pretty cool.

But the thing is, when I'm with a group of people who feel the same way, it's a community, a calm and unity that we have.

It's just like a celebration just erupts in the spirit.

It's awesome.

So we're talking this week about a summer vibe.

Uh, this is an atmosphere, a culture, and man, if this is the launch of this of it, I'm so excited.

We're gonna be entering into the summer with this new series.

We're taking a few of the songs that you may be hearing on the radio as you're traveling and as you're on holidays, and they're kind of standalone messages, but I believe God's gonna speak to us through them.

Um this song that you heard, Waving Flag, is written by Kanan.

Canon, oh man, I had it right the whole time, too.

He was he's a Canadian, a Somali Canadian, who originally wrote this song um for us uh as uh an anthem in Somalia, but uh um to talk about the freedom that uh he wanted, the desire he wanted for his people to be free.

And the original single was a hit in Canada.

How many of you remember it was the anthem of the of FIFA 2010?

Coca-Cola used it as their song.

They also used this song as um as a fundraiser as a number of young artists from Canada got together and sang the song as well to raise money for Haiti after the earthquake.

And um, what I like to talk to you about is the anthem, the anthem that we sing and we speak over our own lives.

We all have an anthem, we all have a message that we sing.

I may be dating myself here, but how many of you remember starting school with the Oh Canada anthem?

You'd stand up and you'd sing oh Canada, and and that was uh a song that we sung every morning.

It was like a habit.

We came, we stood up, hand on the heart, and we sang Oh Canada.

We talked about the true North, strong and free, and we became a song of patriotism.

It was something that everyone in the class celebrated together, the fact that we are Canadian.

Amen.

Hey, hey, we're Canadian, eh?

We are Canadian, and and it was a prayer: God keep our land glorious and free.

It was a song that was sung, or a song that was sung to keep us on point, to keep us from experiencing what what uh in the business circles people call mission drift, where we drift away from our purpose, we drift away from our call.

And so this song reviewed back into our hearts this anthem of who we are and what we're called to do.

And in our culture today, there's a drift from anthems.

We don't want to sing anthems.

In fact, since 1980, there have been 12 bills that have been proposed to the government to change our anthem.

Because no one believes today, in today's culture, not no one, but the census is that we don't have a universal truth.

And we have to change, we can't call something an anthem if it doesn't apply to every individual person.

So even last year, if you can recall, there was a change to our anthem that was made and it was passed, and and yet I don't hear it in any of the sports games or any of the anthems that people sing.

That's the song, even though it's changed politically, it hasn't changed in our hearts that God keep our land.

It's a PC awareness, a political correctness that says that we need to only say the things that are going to apply to everyone.

But I want I'm here to tell you today an anthem is the biblical precedent.

Because there are universal truths, and we were singing them today.

There are statements that are true and that we can acknowledge together and we can celebrate together.

Instead of removing the anthem, let's join around the unifying fact that God is good and his love never fails.

That God is good and his love endures forever.

This is the anthem of our heart.

So we sang these anthems today, and I was so so excited to be able to respond in my spirit with everyone singing together the anthem toward God.

In the Bible, there were occasions referred to as solemn assemblies.

Now, a solemn assembly was uh a festival that that the uh nation of Israel would gather together and they would feast, they would make it a holy occasion, and there was a command at this occasion, and the command was there was to be no work.

Amen.

Yes, no work.

People would gather together, they'd walk up to Jerusalem or to certain points of uh of uh and certain locations, and they would have this assembly when they would gather together, and their point the point was you should not work, you were to pay attention and focus and be intentional about celebrating something in particular.

Now there were a number of different festivals, a number of different feasts, and uh on certain on one of the occasions when they were uh opening the temple for seven days they had a party, and on the eighth day they had a solemn assembly, and on that solemn assembly there there were moments where they would sing out anthems to God, they would declare anthems before God together over the city, over their nations, over their families.

They would declare these messages.

Psalms 135.3 says this.

They would shout together, hallelujah! Can you all say that?

Hallelujah, hallelujah, because God is so good.

Amen.

God's so good.

Hallelujah.

They would just sing hallelujah.

Now that we don't know what that means, particularly in our culture, it's not a common term, but it means just to like elevate and magnify, and the idea is like it's like a polish on a car.

It makes brilliant.

We are just saying, Hallelujah to God.

Wow, God, you're you're amazing.

You're you're so good, you're so brilliant in your goodness.

And we would they would just sing it all over the city, saying how good God is, how brilliant he is in his goodness.

And they would sing an anthem to his beautiful name.

I love that song today.

We're singing about Jesus.

Singing about the name of Jesus.

The name of Jesus has power.

Another portion in Scripture, 2 Chronicles, is a lot more familiar to us.

You can actually put yourself into the picture.

Where it says this, the trumpeters, maybe not as trumpeters, the electric guitar, the bass players, the musicians, joined in unison to give praise and thanks to God, to the Lord, accompanied by trumpets, by cymbals, cymbals are biblical, and other instruments.

The singers raised their voice and praised the Lord, and they began to sing.

He is good, his love endures forever.

Would you say that?

He is good, his love endures forever.

I'm having you say it together because this is the anthem.

He is good, his love endures forever.

And when they began to sing this, began to declare it, began to rally together this anthem, it says that the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud representing his presence.

And his presence came into the temple, into the gathering place where they were gathered, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud.

They became weak.

They became disoriented.

They were like, God is in this place.

They bowed down, they they laid themselves out before God.

The glory of the Lord filled the temple.

This is our anthem.

An anthem is biblical.

An anthem is there to invoke the presence of God.

The fact, though, that we have this anthem that unifies, that's that was repetitious, that was passionate, the anthem that is more about just me, it's about us together.

It's where we gather together in church.

Don't forsake the assembling together, because together we say an anthem that will have impact, not just for me, but for my neighbor.

And we fight for each other, and we contend for each other, and we support each other, and we sing, we turn around, we say, for the Lord is good, and his love endures forever, and we look each other in the eyes and we remind each other the Lord is good and his love endures forever.

And we begin to generate that truth and that reality, and we make it manifest where God's goodness actually, his glory, which is the goodness of God, actually comes.

And you experience his goodness.

You experience his goodness.

We know that this anthem makes a difference in the heart of people.

We know it made a difference in the heart of God.

God's presence makes a difference, it sets people free.

Amen.

It makes a live, dry bone.

It breathes life into a little coal that you might just have, an ember in your heart.

Where am I?

Where are you?

Where and the breath of God, a life-giving breath, just breathes on the coal and brings it and resurrects it and brings it to life.

Do you have an anthem?

Is this anthem in your heart?

Is it in your life today?

This wave and flag that we talk about is two-sided, but the Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

And we wave it.

It's the name of the name of God, one of his names is Jehovah Nisi, which means the Lord is our banner.

And we set, we should, we, we throw it.

And one of the places in scripture where it's written is he says, His banner over us is, he brought us to his banqueting table, and his banner over us is love.

There used to be a song, oh man, we used to sing it.

He brought me to his banqueting table.

And he said, Oh no, his banner over you, his banner over me, his banner over us is love, love, love.

And we would we would sing this song, and I think back at it now.

I'm I would never do this to Craig or to any of the worship teams.

I'm like, I want that song this Sunday.

But the reality is it's his anthem.

We raise the banner.

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

And it's the anthem of our heart.

And sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

That's why I love the song where it says, You have been so, so good.

That's why that song has power, because it's a truth.

You have been so good, not just good, you've not even so good, you've been so, so good to us.

Psalm 23, many of you may know it, it's a very popular portion of scripture, but it tells the story of the psalmist is saying that he's like a sheep.

And he's led by the shepherd.

And the shepherd takes him to still waters at one point, moves him to green pastures.

And uh, but then he goes through valleys as well and dark places, and and sometimes we look around and we're like, you know, we've been at the high tops, the mountaintops, and we've been in the good times.

But sometimes God takes you through some really dark valleys.

But the psalmist in Psalm 23 is saying, it doesn't matter where you are, if you're at the highs or if you're at the lows, the reminder in that psalm, and the the value of that song, psalm, is that there is a rod and there is a staff, and in the presence of enemies, God prepares a table before you, and he's still good.

Surely, goodness and mercy follow me and chase me down on the mountaintops and through the valleys all the days of my life, whether I'm succeeding and prospering, and everyone knows who I am, or I'm in a place where I'm unemployed and I'm looking and I'm questioning, I'm like, where am I?

Where are you?

And God just open your eyes to see the goodness of God in the land of the living.

He's there.

The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

I the scripture, it's true, it's real, and I can preach it with confidence, I can speak it with confidence because it's it resonates in the heart of the believer because it is who he is.

This is a snapshot of what God's goodness is like.

You're still on the path of God's goodness, whether highs or lows.

We often don't see, however, what's right in front of us.

And sometimes we need to look a little clearer, more clearly.

And what we don't see doesn't mean it's not there.

It just means that our eyes are not trained to look for it.

Our eyes are not trained to see.

Josh Bell, he's uh was in Washington, D.C.

How many of you know Joshua Bell?

Good.

That makes the story a lot better.

Joshua Bell, he's from Washington, D.C.

And uh he pulled up at at a uh at a street corner and he laid down his tip hat and he pulled out his violin and he just began to play.

And as he began to play, people were coming and going and walking back and forth past him, and some people listened to what he said was playing and dropped a few dollars in his cap.

And at the end of a few hours, he had made$32.

What they didn't know was that 48 hours earlier he was playing in the Boston Theater before some of the world's most uh wealthy people, raising millions of dollars for charity.

His violin alone was worth three and a half million dollars.

It was a VIP event, and the people were walking by him, not realizing who he was, not realizing what they were able to hear, not realizing that they had they were listening to a skilled musician working on a one one piece in it like one piece, a very rare piece.

Oftentimes there are things God's goodness is right in front of us, and sometimes we find it difficult to declare that the Lord is good because we don't see it, because we're not looking for it, and we need to start to wake up, and our anthem has to be in our heart.

The Lord is good today, God is good today, and his love endures forever.

He loves me, not just today, but forever.

God's good, and his love endures forever.

And so, this heartbeat, when we get up and that becomes our perspective, and those become our lenses, we begin walking and watching and looking for God's goodness in our lives.

And because of his goodness, it begins to resonate.

One time I was with my dad, who I think he's not here today, I think he's on a cruise.

I'm not sure where he is.

I think he's cruising, but I was sure, wasn't sure.

If he was here, I wasn't quite sure if I'd share this story, but he's not here today.

But one time we were out uh out in the outdoors and we were scanning this mountainside with our binoculars.

We were out hunting, get to a clearing, and I'm I'm out of the truck, and my dad, you know, if I carry my gun, he just doesn't bring his because I'm that good of a shot.

And uh but he he we get out to we cross, we get on top of the knoll, we were about a hundred yards from our truck, and we're scanning way out the mountaintops and the range, and we're looking and looking, and we're just standing there, and I finally I put my glasses down and I look, and 60 yards in front of me is a big grizzly bear.

A massive grizzly bear, like bellies are dragging on the ground, and it's walk, it's looking over its shoulder right at us, 60 yards, and they can run faster than a horse, like they're fast.

So I just need to be faster than my dad, right?

That's all I need to know.

But I I said his glasses were up like this, and I just I like time is of the essence.

I just jabbed him in the in the shoulder and I said, Dad, grizzly bear, and I took and he raised his glasses to look at it, even though it was like 60 yards in front of him.

And I he by time he put his glasses down, I was already at the truck.

He comes bolting back to the truck, he's like, You're the only one with the gun.

Like, you're the only one.

You're the only one.

Why did you leave me out there?

I'm like, well, what are you doing standing there looking at it?

Like, you don't have a gun.

And the fact is, he was looking, we were looking, we were scanning, and we didn't know what was right in front of us.

Standing right there, there was the grizzly bear.

People just don't see what they don't see.

And sometimes we need someone, some people in our lives to help us remind us that God is good.

We need to wake up to that anthem, a wave and flag.

God is good, his mercy, his love endures forever.

God is good, his love endures forever.

He is so, so good.

And we declare this message by singing this anthem, you're good.

There will be a view.

A new vibrancy to your perspective and your outlook in life that will be established in your own heart.

James said this: He said, Every, every good and perfect gift comes from above.

Everything good comes from God.

The fact that we see God, sometimes we see God as not as uh it's not a part of his identity.

We think that God is something like God gives out goodness.

But I'm telling you today, the Bible says God is goodness.

It is.

When you experience God, you experience goodness.

When you experience him, you experience the fruit of life.

The fruits of life.

Peace, joy, fellowship, community, identity.

You're supported by God.

It's the goodness of God that leads men to repent.

It's his mercies that are new every morning.

He's faithful to us.

All these are good things.

And we sometimes forget that we serve such a good, good God.

He's a good God.

God is the source of all goodness.

Every good thing that you have comes from him.

He is the source.

Jeremiah 32, 40 said this.

And I've just been sitting on this.

He says, I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

His people.

And you get introduced to this covenant when you accept Christ.

I'll make an everlasting covenant with you.

I will never stop doing good to them.

Amen.

He will never stop doing good.

Never stop doing good.

From God's perspective, it's an established, everlasting covenant towards you.

This covenant towards you never stops.

God is going to do good.

Tell your neighbor, God is going to do good for you.

God is going to do good to you.

God is going to do good through you.

God is going to be good in you.

This is plain and simple.

Too often, I believe, we think that God's goodness is based on our performance.

It's performance-based, but in fact, God's goodness is promise-based.

It's his promise to us that he'll be good to us.

So that's what he does.

He does good.

And he never stops doing good.

Some people say, well, Brody, Pastor Brody, I'm just not that good at being good.

And I know people that are like that.

I'm not good at seeing good.

I'm just naturally pessimistic.

And I'm going to tell you today that Jesus says, if your eyes are good, your whole body will be good.

If you start looking for good, you'll find it.

If you start surrounding yourself with the words and attract that message of goodness, it'll start to resonate in your spirit.

The Bible says, surely goodness, surely mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

Our kids have been asking for a dog.

And don't anyone in here get any funny ideas of like going to my kids later and be like, hey, I heard.

You may be looking for something because I just I'm trying to quiet it down.

Every good father gives good gifts to his kids, right?

But there's something about a dog.

When you open that door and you're greeted by this animal that loves you, and you it's chasing you down, and it wants to tackle you, and it's gonna lick your face and smother you and jump around you and pee on your leg.

It's all about goodness.

And there's this idea in my heart that I get from about God, that God's goodness chases us down, it pursues us, it rallies towards us, and the Bible says it's surely goodness and mercy will follow me, will chase me down all the days of my life.

Goodness is coming after me.

Goodness and mercy is coming after me.

Surely God is good, his mercies endure forever.

You might be going through a chapter in your life right now where you're like, man, I'm going through the valley.

But I'm telling here to tell you today, your chapter isn't your story.

And if you can look in your chapter and find that space where God's goodness is waiting for you, and where God's goodness is there for you, where the table is open and available to you, where he's prepared something for you, where he's given you a rod and a staff in the middle of the presence of your enemies.

He's there to protect and to guard you.

Then life will move forward.

We apply this to our marriages, we apply it to your business, we apply it to your personal life.

Take a moment to say, God, where have you been good?

Let's sit down.

My wife and I had our anniversary this weekend, and we just said, we we sat and we talked about all kinds of things, great things.

And we said, you know, where has God been good to us?

Where's the goodness of this last year?

And we began to like, that's where the richness and the of the fellowship and the togetherness, we began to celebrate all the things that God has done for us.

And I began to see, no, God is still for me.

God isn't against me.

Though there are weapons that are forged against me, none of them will prosper.

Amen.

Amen.

And the Bible even says, as far as you can go, you can't go so far that his hand can't reach out and pull you in.

There's nothing that you can do that can separate you from the love that God has for you.

He is love, his love is for you.

His banner over you is love, love, love.

Amen.

Bible says that Jesus came to declare a year of goodness, a year of favor, a year of jubilee.

He says it's not an on and off again year.

It's now that I'm here, it's gonna be a year of favor towards you.

My goodness is gonna be towards you.

And and this is the time of God's favor.

As I close, the Bible says in Psalms that his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor and his goodness last a lifetime.

And too oftentimes we think that God's anger towards us lasts a lifetime, and his goodness and his favor towards us is only momentary.

But I'm here to tell you today, if you've been questioning and your heart's been questioning God and saying, God, like I all I see is your anger.

We need to put on new lenses.

And I'm telling you today, take off what you've been wearing, take off those glasses, put on something new and begin to see God through the reality of who he is.

Don't be deceived, don't be tricked, don't be manipulated.

His anger lasts a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's give him a hand.

Amen.

I just feel it's important just to take a moment here.

Would you just bow your heads with me?

Father, we thank you this morning that your presence is so real.

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

And Father, in this moment, at this time, with every head bowed and every eye closed, if you're here today and you're saying, you know, this is my life has been full of perspectives and full of the perspective that God is against me and not for me.

And today, this is a new thought.

This is a new awakening in your life.

And I'm just here to tell you today that God is desires of you, He wants you.

His love is chasing you down, He's chasing you down with this message today.

He's after your heart.

And I just want to tell you today that today is the day for salvation.

Today is the opportunity to experience His goodness.

And if you're in this place today and you've never had opportunity to welcome this God of goodness into your heart today.

I'm going to give you that opportunity this morning.

And I'm just going to ask you, as every head's bowed and eyes are closed, just to raise your hand really nice and tall so I can see it.

Is there anyone in this room today for the first time you're saying, I want to know God and his goodness?

I want to know that goodness that you're talking about today, that you're speaking on today.

I'm just going to take another moment.

Amen.

Raise your hand nice and tall.

Amen.

And now for others that are in this place, I'm just going to invite everyone just to stand together.

And I'm just going to ask you just to open up your heart.

And Father, I just want to pray for each one.

Lord, we pray today that the God of goodness, the God of mercy, the God of faithfulness, the God of love that endures forever, Lord, would saturate every heart and soul, would saturate everyone who's in this place, Lord.

Every doubt would be cast out in the name of Jesus.

Every doubt would be washed away, Lord, but that our lives would be filled with the goodness.

We would believe and we would receive every good and perfect gift that comes from you, every spiritual blessing.

We receive it today with open hearts.

We receive everything you have for us.

We welcome you into our spirit today, into our lives today, into our homes today, into our vocabulary today.

Together we say, the Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

Will you say that again?

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

Say it one more time.

The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.

Amen.

Let's give him a round of applause.

Amen.

Amen.

You may be seated as we just welcome Brian out.

Thank you for listening.

For more information on KTC and how to connect, visit us at KCT.net.