Faith(Full) | Carry Your Yes — Jonathan Zeman

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.

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Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.

If you don't know me, my name is Jonathan Zeman.

And if you do know me, uh I can tell you're on the edge of your seat right now.

Y'all are probably like, what is he about to say?

They actually gave him a mic this morning.

Um no I I've been at Multiply for uh four or five years now, and as Pastor said, got to serve on uh staff now for just over uh the last year.

And uh again, my title is Operations and Creative Director, which is just a really fancy way of just saying that I do a lot around here.

Um and so I wish music was the only thing that I did, but uh I'm grateful for the opportunity uh to serve this church, the people of this church, and uh and ultimately uh God through all of this, and um and obviously through the leadership of Pastor Forrest and Emma.

Can we give it up for them really quick?

They deserve a lot more than that.

Can you give your pastors a hand?

That's what I'm talking about.

I don't know if the 9M was as grateful for you guys.

We'll check the 90M next week.

No, we're grateful for you and uh thank you for your leadership.

Um, they have invested a lot into us and my family, and uh you can look around this room and just see the impact that they have made.

Uh, this is a vision a vision that he has had, uh, and we're seeing this come to fruition as we go.

So thank you.

Um this is my family here, uh my wife Haley and my two little girls, Everly and Haven.

Everly is just turned four years old, and Haven is almost uh turning two, and we've got our hands full, especially if you know our kids.

Uh they look crazy.

Um uh my parents are in the room as well this morning.

They drove up from South Carolina uh this weekend to hang out, not because I was preaching, um, but it just worked out where they could have a long weekend, this Labor Day weekend, and uh I literally would not be here if not for them.

So thank y'all.

Um Haley and I we met in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2020 in the COVID days.

Anyone remember that?

Where anybody trying to erase COVID days altogether?

Um I wish I could, but it's a big part of my story.

And uh, we actually dated for seven months and we met on a dating app.

Anybody met anybody on a dating app in the room?

Yeah, you said yeah, it's okay, it's fine.

It works, it works.

Not all the time, but it works.

And so we got married in March of 2021.

We dated for seven months, got engaged, and then we got married March so quick.

And we got married on a Friday night, and the next morning we got in two vehicles, loaded down with stuff, and we drove to Kentucky.

We moved the day after our wedding.

Um, pretty crazy.

Um, we have a value around here called multiply.

We know it's crazy.

Um, and so there's a reason that exists because uh this thing was built on some crazy situations, and uh, so I've been leading worship for probably 15 years, um, since I was about 18 or 19.

And uh, but I grew up all my life playing music and instruments.

Uh my mom sang and dad played the piano, and so I just grew up around it, grew up in church, and I've had some very, very unique opportunities through the years um in different worship environments, different gigs, and got to play for uh some different uh so just some really cool venues I've got to visit and see.

I got to open for some cool artists along the years, and uh it's just been a really fun journey that the Lord has brought me through.

But each opportunity that I've had and each assignment that I've had in different ministries I've served in has taught me and given me a different uh perspective on worship.

And so one thing that the Lord has shown me through the years is that every time I thought I knew what worship was, he showed me a different side of it.

And so, surprise, surprise, today the worship leader is going to talk to you about worship.

Uh, so y'all bear with me today.

This preaching thing, this is not, I want to be behind my keyboard.

I would I would rather preach this sermon behind just sit behind my keyboard.

So y'all be patient with me today, but the Lord does have a word, and so let's pray really quick.

God, thank you, Lord, for this opportunity.

And God, I just ask that right now you let our hearts and minds be open to what you have for us today, and God, that you will speak to the people in the room.

I praise you, I worship you.

Be with me as I speak.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said.

My mouth is the driest it's ever been.

The enemy really don't want me to preach this thing today.

So we're gonna talk about worship.

So, what is worship?

And when you hear that word, what is it that comes to your mind?

I told our first service, you can talk to me.

That's perfectly fine.

I do better with that.

Um, praising God.

What is worship?

What are some things you think of when you think of worship?

Maybe you think of raising hands.

I've had some people say singing, um, giving.

I know some people have said serving is a way of worship.

And the problem is, though, sometimes those things are all part of worship, but they can become our only definition of worship, and that's where we have to be careful.

Because you can say, Well, I worship by giving, or I worship by raising my hands, or I don't like that song, but I'm gonna worship when they sing holy forever.

Y'all ever done that before?

And so let me give you a quick fact check, really quick, because you can sing every lyric to every song.

You can raise both your hands, you can serve, you can give, but you could still have a heart that is withholding something from God.

I'm not a preacher, I promise.

I'm I'm not trying to preach to you today.

We're gonna get somewhere with this.

And so, what if worship is not what you think it is?

And the more that I have studied worship for myself, I have realized that all throughout scripture, worship seems to keep costing people something.

And there's this one particular story, there's a lot of approaches we could take from this context of worship, but there's one story I want to zoom in on today, and that's in Genesis 22.

And let's read it together.

Verse 1.

Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith.

Abraham, God called.

Yes, he replied, Here I am.

Take your son, your only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah, go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.

And so, right here we learn that very quickly God is testing Abraham's faith.

And the interesting thing here is Abraham is listening to the Lord call his name, and he immediately says, What?

He says, Yes.

And so before Abraham even knew what the Lord was asking him to do, he had already said yes.

And so God calls his name and he said, Yes, here I am.

Have you ever been asked to do something and immediately thought, let me check my calendar first?

But Abraham said yes before he even knew where the assignment was.

And in verse 2, we see Isaac is now the question of the thing that God is asking him to sacrifice.

And Isaac was the promised son of Abraham and Sarah.

If you know this story, they had waited a long time for Isaac, they had been just waiting for this fulfillment to come, and he finally came.

And now suddenly God is saying, give him back, sacrifice him as a burnt offering.

And to give you a little bit more context here, I got to teach just a little bit.

That's cool.

We're gonna get somewhere this thing, I promise.

It's gonna be great.

Human sacrifice in this time was a practice of some crazy evil pagan nations in the time that scripture is just strictly condemned and it was this awful thing.

And now God, who is condemning these evil things, is telling Isaac to do one of these evil things.

Interesting, right?

And so, what do you do when the God that you trust is asking you to do something you don't understand because you didn't get all the details?

Now, I love food, and if you know me, I love to eat.

I'll throw down on good food.

Not uh, you know, it's gotta be good food.

If you take me to, or if you tell me a restaurant right now, or take me to any restaurant, I can I don't even need to see the menu.

I already know you can name any restaurant in town right now.

I will tell you, bro, Kentucky Burrito, come on.

Bowl, not the burrito.

It's a trick.

I'm you know, I love food.

But my wife, she was where you at?

She's right here.

Haley has to have a menu.

We could go to the same restaurant a hundred times, and every time she gotta see the menu.

Y'all ever been to Canes?

She gotta see the menu at Canes, y'all.

It's just chicken and french fries.

Like, what do you need a menu for?

Well, I might want the slaws, so I don't know.

I gotta see if I want this combo.

I love you, babe.

She needed the details.

Abraham didn't have the details, but what did Abraham do?

He said, What?

He said yes.

Somebody say yes.

All right, y'all with me.

And so sometimes worship looks like raising your hands, and sometimes it can sound like God, I don't understand, but yes.

Maybe it sounds like I don't understand why I need to forgive that person, but yes.

Or I don't know why I need to be the one to apologize.

They need to apologize to me, but yes.

I don't understand why I need to serve.

I gotta get there at 7 a.m.

Do what?

But yes.

God speaks, and you say yes.

And you don't have to understand it all to give God your yes.

Let's keep reading.

Verse 3.

The next morning Abraham got up early, he saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him along with his son Isaac.

Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering, and set out for the place God had told him about.

And on the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

Stay here with the donkey, Abraham told the servants.

The boy and I will travel a little further and we'll worship there, and then we'll come right back.

And so here yesterday Abraham said yes, and now today he wakes up early because now he's got to take that yes somewhere.

He's got to carry that yes to the mountain.

And maybe you've said yes, and now you've got to carry your yes.

But we can't miss verse five, because verse five, Abraham told the servants, the boy and I will travel a little further and we will worship there.

And this is where my perspective started to change.

Because Abraham calls what he's about to do worship, knowing that what waits for him is a sacrifice of his son.

Verse 6.

So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders.

While he himself called, carried the fire and the knife.

As the two of them walked on together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, We have the fire in the wood, the boy said, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?

God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son, Abraham answered.

And they both walked on together.

When they arrived at the place where God had told them to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it.

And then he tied his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

So Abraham gave God a yes.

Abraham carried the yes up the mountain.

He built the altar, arranged the wood, he tied Isaac up, and he laid him on the altar.

The one thing that he loved the most that God has asked him to surrender, he laid on the altar.

And maybe there's some things that you've been carrying around and you need to lay it down.

Maybe you've given God your yes, and maybe you have carried it up the mountain.

But what is it that you've carried and you still struggle to put on the altar?

Well, I go to church now, I got saved.

I filled out that connect card that y'all asked us to fill out every single week.

I I put some money in the in the giving station.

I joined a small group.

We just launched groups.

Maybe you joined a group.

I've been once.

I've been trying, I'm taking the steps.

And sometimes the hardest thing to surrender is not a bad thing.

Sometimes it is a blessing.

If you know Isaac, Isaac was a blessing to Abraham and Sarah.

He was a fulfillment of a promise.

And now God is saying, lay it down.

And we can stop the story right there.

Lay it down, bring it to God, bring it to the altar.

And that's important because the altar does matter because it identifies what Abraham was bringing, but the sacrifice had not yet been complete.

And sacrifice is the intention, is more than the intention to give something up.

And if I can be real for just a second, your good intentions are not a sacrifice.

And up to this moment, Abraham said yes.

He traveled to Moriah, he put Isaac on the altar, and his intention is to sacrifice Isaac, but the intention is not to sacrifice.

And you can be doing all of the right things except for the one thing God has asked you to do.

But we got to keep reading because watch what happens right here.

Verse 10.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

The knife is where Abraham's intention became a yes.

And it turned into an action.

So his yes is now being fulfilled through the action that he is taking by reaching for the knife.

But it still doesn't end there.

Verse 11 At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, Abraham, Abraham.

Yes, he replied, Here I am.

He's saying yes again.

Don't lay a hand on the boy, the angel said.

Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God.

And you have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.

The angel did not stop Abraham when he first gave his yes.

He didn't stop him when he was traveling to Moriah, when he got to the mountain.

He didn't even stop him when he built the altar and put his son Isaac, laid him there.

Still didn't stop him.

The angel stopped Abraham when he reached for the knife.

Say, reach for the knife.

Alright, y'all still with me.

Everything before the knife was the preparation.

And the knife was a representation of the commitment.

Because there is a difference between preparing to sacrifice and committing to the sacrifice.

And at some point, your intention has got to become an action.

Your intention to lay that thing down has got to become an action.

The altar identifies what you're giving to God, and the knife reveals whether you are actually willing to release it.

Because you can lay something down on the altar and still try to control what God does with it.

Abraham could have laid Isaac right there and walked away and said, My job is done.

But that wasn't the sacrifice.

And so maybe you can say, God, I give you my future, but only if it looks like what I planned.

It's got to be on my terms, or I give you that relationship I've been struggling in, but I don't I feel like I love them too much.

I don't want to wanna let them go.

Or I give you my finances, the money's all yours, but really I treat every dollar as mine.

Or I'll serve, but it's gotta be a role that I don't have to be there at 7 a.m.

How long are you going to prepare to surrender without actually surrendering?

And you have to reach for the knife.

And maybe reaching for the knife means deleting that phone number.

Maybe you're in the room and it means you've got an addiction, and reaching for the knife means you need to lay down that substance that you're addicted to.

Maybe it means forgiving the person who hurt you.

Maybe you gotta write that check.

And you're like, God, that's just too big of a too big of an ass.

My bank account won't even allow that.

Maybe you just gotta take the step God is telling you to take.

And so at some point, your yes has to become an action.

And if you cannot fully commit to the sacrifice, then you will struggle to worship.

And if you are struggling to worship and understanding worship, you're still not gonna fully understand it until you've laid something down that has cost you something.

And it is time to show God that your yes is not just an empty promise.

You can do more than climb the mountain, you can do more than say yes, you can do more than prepare the altar or the offering and build the altar, and you can do more than lay it down.

Do you trust God this morning?

Does anybody trust God this morning?

Come on, do I have a room full of people who trust the Lord?

Not just to climb the mountain, not just to lay it down, but to fully trust him with the sacrifice.

You have to reach for the knife.

Verse 13.

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket.

And so he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

And Abraham named the place Yahweh Yarah, which means the Lord will provide.

And to this day, people still use that name as a proverb.

On the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided.

And the test was centered on Isaac, but God ultimately provided the ram for the sacrifice.

And Abraham couldn't see the ram at first when he said yes, but he had to trust God and that process because God is the provider.

And his provision will come in his way, in his timing.

It may not make sense at first, but it'll come.

I told you earlier we moved from Charleston to Frankfurt.

And I had been in Charleston for four years, helping with a church plant there.

And like I said, I met Haley along the way, and we met on the dating app, which by the way, she swiped first, just so y'all know if you know how that works.

Amen.

That's right.

And we dated during this pandemic.

Very interesting times.

But I really felt like she was the one.

And so I'm trusting God in this process.

Because now they're putting all these laws out, and we're like, how are we gonna do this and that?

We can't even go out on a date because everything's shut down.

What are we gonna do?

And so we got married, and she was on staff at a church.

I'm on staff at another church.

Well, we got engaged and we're trying to figure out what this marriage is gonna look like.

And at the same time, Forrest had just announced that he was moving to Frankfurt to plant multiply church.

So again, we're engaged.

We're trying to figure out what our marriage is gonna look like when we do get married.

Am I gonna go to her church?

Is she gonna come to mine?

Do we go to a different church altogether?

One thing we were not considering was moving to Kentucky.

Because I had never been to Frankfurt.

I had I don't I didn't know anything about Kentucky before I got here.

Literally, the only thing I knew or understood about Kentucky was Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I told you I love food.

Um I had knew nothing about Kentucky, but we had to trust the Lord in the process.

And we got here, we didn't know anybody but uh Pastor Forrest and Emily and Lib at the time.

And for the first two years of our marriage, year and a half of our marriage, uh, we spent the first year really driving to two different locations every single day.

Haley was a nurse, she worked night shift at UK, so she's going to Lexington every day, or at least three or four days a week.

And then I'm going to Louisville every single day.

And so we're going opposite directions.

That's how we started our marriage.

So the first week, I think we had a little break.

We had a little bit of preparation before uh jobs started.

And so we started our marriage out.

We didn't even see each other that much, and we had to trust the process.

And we had Everly down the down the road, praise God for her.

And then we got the news we were expecting our second child.

And we received the news of a miscarriage.

And it was the hardest, one of the hardest things that I'd ever been through.

Everly was one, we had her with us, and we left the doctor's office, and we got in the car, and we just sat in silence.

And I had Everly with me in this room, and I'm keeping her busy, and the news was shared.

I didn't fully even hear or understand.

I'm ignorant to all the medical stuff.

That's why I rely on my very smart nurse wife to tell me all the things, and we're getting this update.

And I didn't even fully understand what had happened until we had just got out of the room, or after the nurse had left.

And I'm processing, and we sit in the car just in complete silence.

And the Spirit spoke to me in that moment.

He said, You need to pray.

And I said, I don't want to pray.

That is not what I want to do right now.

But I did.

And the first thing I said was in that prayer, I said, God, I love you.

And then the hardest next words that I had to say was, God, I trust you.

And to this day, we don't understand why we went through what we went through.

But it cost us something.

And the hardest thing I've ever had to say in a bad situation was, God, I trust you.

Can you trust God in the hardest moments of your life?

My favorite scripture, probably in the entire Bible, is Matthew chapter 6, verse 26.

Matthew 6:26

It says, look at the birds.

God feeds them.

Aren't you more valuable to him?

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And Jesus is saying here that God will provide.

Can somebody say that in the room?

Can you say God will provide?

Come on, say it with full authority, like you believe it.

Even when you don't see it, he's working.

Even when you don't feel like it, he's right there.

He has not left you.

The Bible says he will never leave us or forsake us.

You just have to trust God and surrender it all to him.

And you don't need all the details to know that the ram in the bush is right there waiting on you.

And I wish I could finish there, but we got to keep reading.

In verse 15, the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven.

This is what the Lord says.

And I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies, and through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, all because you have obeyed me.

And so we learn here that Abraham's blessing was a direct answer to his willingness to sacrifice.

He committed, he reached for the knife for that sacrifice.

And that is true worship.

If you hold back your worship, you could be holding back a future blessing.

And maybe your worship isn't even about right now.

I don't know who needs to hear this in this service, but maybe your worship right now is for what God is going to do in the future.

Your worship can reach further than you can ever see or imagine.

Abraham had no idea how far that blessing would reach.

Because of his willingness to obey, Isaac was blessed.

And for generations to come, the blessing came.

But worship is not about the blessing.

Worship has to be aimed at God and not the blessing.

You're not always going to know what waits, but can you trust him?

And God loves when we worship him.

In Psalm 147 and 11, it says, The Lord delights in those who fear him and who put their hope in his unfailing love.

God loves it when we worship him.

But it has to cost us something.

And while Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, thousands of years later, God did sacrifice his son.

God sent his son Jesus to die for my sins and to die for all of your sins.

He had to die on the cross for us.

He was the ultimate sacrifice.

And so our worship is a response to God's sacrifice.

So I want to challenge you right here and ask you this.

How are you responding to a God who sent his son to die for you?

Is your response really going to be, well, I'm not a raised hands kind of person?

That's what you're going to tell the God who hung on a cross for you that raising your hands isn't how you worship?

Or maybe it's, oh, I don't like that song.

That's really what you're going to tell the Savior of the world who took an unimaginable beating and bled and died for you.

How are you responding to a God who sent his son to die for you?

Your worship is a response to Jesus' sacrifice.

We could never earn the blessing.

Abraham didn't earn the ram.

The ram was a promise as a result of the test of sacrifice.

He brought his best.

Isaac was the one thing that he loved the most, scripture tells us.

And there are people in this room right now who are not bringing their best sacrifice to the Lord.

Jesus gave his best for you.

And so the least that we can do is bring our best to him.

And you don't have to be perfect.

You don't have to fix yourself.

Jesus does that part.

But he invites an imperfect people to just follow and trust him.

And everything that we give him is a response to what he has already given us.

And so what is he asking you to do today?

What's he asking you to give up?

Can you reach for the knife?

Can you commit to the sacrifice of standing in this room?

And maybe you're thinking, I've heard you talk about all these things, but I don't really understand still what worship truly is.

I don't understand what it means to hear even the voice of God.

I don't even have a relationship with Jesus.

And that's a great starting point.

So with head bows and eyes closed in this room, if that's you and you don't have the relationship with Jesus, now's your chance to become a believer in Him.

So I want you to pray this prayer, and I want you to pray in full faith and in full belief.

That Jesus, I believe that you died for me.

I believe that you hung on a cross, that you were bruised, and you were beaten, and you died for my sins.

You went to the grave, but you rose again victorious.

I believe, and I need forgiveness.

And Jesus, I surrender my life to you.

And today, I choose to follow you.

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.

At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.

If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.

Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.

We love you and we'll see you again soon.