When We Pray: Prayers We Sing | Part 5

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Today, guys, I have the privilege of helping us continue on in our teaching series through prayer.

And when we started off, Ryan did a great job of just giving some core foundations of prayer and then talked to us about uh contemplative prayer.

But then Ashley came in and did a great teaching on intercessory prayer.

And then last week, Ryan talked about uh how we respond when our prayers go unanswered.

And today, what we're gonna be talking about is are the prayers that we sing out to God.

Hence why I have our worship pastor Robbie next to me to help us out.

Yes.

All right, man.

Because as you guys know, and I hope you maybe you don't know this, but every time we come here and give God our worship and sing those songs, we're actually praying out loud to God.

And we're singing to him, our devotion to him, our gratitude to him.

And it's a really powerful thing that we get to do every Sunday as his people.

And so, Robbie, when you and I were first getting to know each other talking via Zoom and uh over the over the phone, one of the things I was asking you about is just a little bit of your philosophy of worship and your role as a worship leader.

And you told you you you talked to me about a passage that you really use as a filter uh to give us perspective as far as your role and the teen's role in leading us in worship.

So do you mind unpacking that with this group right here?

Yeah.

So uh when I first started leading worship like 13 years ago, I thought it we do a good job if it's like something in the Old Testament where you start singing in the temple and the glory of God comes down and there's smoke, and everybody like lays on the floor and cries for uh you know hours or days at a time, and then that didn't happen ever.

So I was like, maybe you should fix that.

Uh no, but I made a friend uh a few years ago and he was teaching through a passages in Mark chapter two, and in the passage, Jesus is traveling, doing in his ministry, and he's on his way through Capernaum, and um he's gonna teach the gospel in this house.

He's gonna teach or guess not the gospel, not yet, right?

Maybe anyway, he's gonna teach good news in this house.

And um it's really packed.

And these guys come carrying uh the friend of theirs who's affected by disability, he's a paralytic, and they're carrying him on this mat.

I mean they get there and there's no room inside, they can't get him into the front door, they can't get him in through the window, so they rip a hole in this person's ceiling and they lower him down.

And Jesus, upon seeing that, he goes, Oh, because of their faith, you're healed.

And so I like to think of any time we get up to lead worship as less about falling on the floor and crying, and way more about doing whatever we can to get people to Jesus and so they can meet him.

I love that.

And I love that because of their faith.

And you you and the team really do model that well as far as modeling worship, modeling faith for us.

Um, and as you know, just because we're pastors doesn't mean our faith isn't fragile at times, and there's times where I'm frustrated and I'm angry towards God, I'm doubting my faith towards God.

And uh, even this past weekend, we had another contract fall through on the selling of our house in Florida, and I'm starting to question God again about his provision, about his direction.

And it's during times like this, guys, I need to be gathered within the church, within a church community who actually believes for me when I'm struggling to believe on my own.

And so, uh, Robbie and team, uh, those of you that serve on the worship team, thank you for how you serve us.

And I think you serve us in in bigger ways than you may know.

And guys, that's why it's so important for us to follow the commands found in Hebrews 10 25 where it says, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.

You see, as God has ordained the tides on the Santa Cruz shoreline to rhythmically come in and out, he has also given the church a similar pattern.

We're to have daily rhythms of purposeful gathering and then also purposeful scattering as a local church.

And within both of these settings, we are to be people of prayer.

And one of those modes of prayer is singing out our prayers to God.

And so when we are out scattered all throughout San Jose, you need to know there's some people that actually just sing their prayers to God.

Others put worship music in their car and they sing those prayers out to God.

Uh, there's others that take songs from pop culture and they repurpose them and sing them out to God.

I know for me, there's been seasons in my life where I've had songs from the band Tool or Raids Against the Machine.

They've acted as fantastic prayers of lament towards my creator.

Don't judge.

Don't judge.

And so then when we are gathered, guys, as a church, we move from scattering to gathering.

It's Robbie and the worship team that actually assist us in displaying our unity and declaring our worship through the singing of prayers which we just experienced a few moments ago.

And so today, I'd like us to focus on the prayers we sing to God when we're gathered.

And specifically, I would like us to focus on a corporate prayer from the book of Psalms, Psalm 116, that was actually sung in a similar setting like this.

And it's in the Psalm that we're only not only going to see the heart of God, but we're also gonna see three kinds of prayers that we as Christ followers can sing to God prayers of suffering, prayers of salvation, and also prayers of surrender.

And so, what I would like you to do right now is listen to Psalm 116 in its entirety.

However, similar to how this prayer was first presented thousands of years ago, we are going to hear it sung over us.

Okay.

So listen.

Oh my soul, the Lord has been good to you, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling that I may walk before the in the land of the living.

I believe therefore I said I'm greatly affected, and in my dismay I said all men alives.

How can I prepare the Lord for all his goodness to me?

I will lift the cup of salvation and con the name of the Lord, I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people, precious in the sight of the Lord, it's the death of his saints.

Oh Lord, truly I am in your servant, I am in your servant, the son of innate serving, and you have freed me from my change.

I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people in the courts of the house of the Lord in your midst of juice.

I could have easily read that out.

But there's something real powerful that captures us with music, isn't there?

In many ways, music and partnership with poetry are the ladles that stir our hearts and our emotions.

And I know for me, some of the most spiritually uplifting and prayerful experiences I have had have been accompanied with the arts, particularly with music, whether it's a song that's sung here on a Sunday morning for worship, or whether it's with radiohead in an open ampiphy theater.

I mean, we just know that there is great emotive power that comes with music.

And guys, that is why for over 3,000 years, God's people have found this sacred poetry, these musical prayers and psalms to speak to the whole person.

These singing prayers, they not only inform our intellect, but they actually awaken our emotions, they inspire our imagination, and over time they begin to direct our will.

So as we embark on a journey of suffering and salvation and surrender through Psalm 116, I do feel it's important for us to know and understand how this psalm was used throughout biblical history.

First, it's important for you to know that this psalm was actually sung by Jesus and his disciples at that Last Supper, just hours before his trial and death.

And I think you'll see why this was such a fitting psalm for that defining moment.

Second, it's also essential for you to know that this psalm was sung annually at Israel's yearly festival called Passover, which ultimately celebrated God's deliverance of his people from Egyptian slavery.

But for us to get the full grasp of this psalm, we have to start at the beginning.

When this psalm was first sung.

Because there at Israel's inaugural Passover festival, the composer of Psalm 116, he enters into the temple courts with a stringed instrument.

Look different than that, but it was a stringed instrument.

And he sings these first four verses.

Listen to them again.

But it isn't long before we actually find out the source of his cry for mercy when he says in verse three and four, the cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me, I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.

Then I called on the name of the Lord, oh Lord, save me.

You see, for our psalmists, his story starts in a world of intense suffering.

His agony has reached the point where this enemy, whether through persecution or physical illness, whatever it may be, was starting to circle in and it was starting to close in and attack.

Now, like many of you, I have experienced horrible suffering.

I've had my Wi-Fi go out.

I've stood in a long line at Trader Joe's.

I've had regret after going to Taco Bell.

Yes.

But guys, I've never suffered to the point of having a near-death experience where I was just a few steps away from the grave.

Now, to be honest, I have attempted to fake such occasions.

Let me explain.

There was I was actually in two vehicle accidents when I was in high school, and for some reason, in the moment, both times I decided to fake unconsciousness.

Yes, there is something wrong with me.

All right?

Now, the first time I occurred, I was with my two friends, my two buddies.

We were driving home late at night on a four-wheeler through the woods on a trail.

My friend John was driving, chip, my other friend was holding on to him, I was holding on to chip.

It was a very cozy experience.

Think dumb and dumber in the big mini bike, okay?

Now, as we're driving, it turns out my friend was mesmerized by the lights going against all the trees.

I didn't realize this at the time, but he pulled off the trail, we went head on into a huge tree, we all went flying.

Now I went tumbling, but so did the ATV, and it landed on top of me.

But it was the seat was on me, I was totally fine.

And so at that moment, I thought, this feels like a good time to fake like I'm knocked out.

Why?

I do not know.

So as my friends got up, they were trying to figure out where I was, it was dark, they saw that I'm under the ATV, they go ahead and uh pulled it off, and uh they started shaking me, shaking me, and I'm trying to keep this as long as I could, and then all of a sudden I just broke down and started laughing.

My laughter turned to cries for help uh because they started to pumble me.

Now, I did not learn my lesson because literally a year later, I was in another vehicle accident, this time in a car.

I was uh heading to our high school senior prom.

I was just a sophomore, but this girl asked me and she went to my church, and so my mom forced me to go with her.

So my friend was driving, he was with his date, it was his dad's Buick.

I was in the backseat next to my date, and as we were driving towards the venue, it was a dark, rainy night.

He pulled out on a four-lane highway, a Jeep came barreling down, slammed into my door, which drove the car or spun the car about 90 degrees.

I flew on top of my, I was thrown on top of my date's lap, covered in glass.

At that moment, I thought, this feels like a good time to fake unconsciousness.

I have no idea why.

And so, as all of a sudden everyone's gathering themselves, I'm just like, just play, I would never play dead, but play fake unconsciousness.

And so I'm just like play pretending and they're shaking me, they're shaking me.

Dave, Dave, Dave.

And then finally I just sprung up and I started laughing and just said I was I was joking.

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where nobody really appreciates the brilliance of your comedic timing.

But let me just say that that car turned on me pretty quick.

Their care turned to disgust and anger.

Now, all that to say, you should be asking the question: should we be worried we hired this person?

Absolutely.

Absolutely, okay?

Now, all right, where what does that even mean?

It's a cheesy way to tell you a little bit about myself, but here we go.

Guys, for our psalmist, I want you to hear this a few things.

First of all, he's far from faking it.

He is desperate.

But here's the thing there are some of you here today, you're also really desperate.

And you may not be faking your death or unconsciousness, but I do feel like sometimes we feel the need that we have to fake a happy, confident persona and hide our true feelings of fear, of pain, and of doubt.

And like this Thomas, you may be suffering right now mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, whatever it may be, and you're internally just crying out, oh Lord, save me.

It may be the pain of a marriage or parent relationship that's in turmoil right now.

It may be the anxiety of just not knowing what's next after high school or college.

It could be the heartbreaking test results from that specialist, the guilt of an addiction that you just can't seem to kick, or the fact that you're just losing your faith in your creator.

And so for the atheist who looks at suffering as this is just an outcome of a hopeless and meaningless universe.

Or for the Buddhist who looks at suffering as something that's karma and it demands detachment.

For us as Christ fathers, we are called to take a countercultural step.

And we are to trust in our God even when he feels untrustworthy.

And we are to sing out that prayer, oh Lord, save me.

Guys, you need to know that's one of our hopes here at Awakening as we seek to reach the next generation.

We want to create a space that has authentic worship.

This is one of the things that attracted my wife and I when we came here.

This local community of faith where we could actually bring our true selves to God and that we can sing prayers of both joy and also heartache.

That's what we've done here today.

We've gathered in this space to sing out prayers of our dependence on our creator and to cry out for his mercy.

Robbie, as you lead us as our as our worship pastor, I'd love to hear your heart, and I think they would too.

Just how do you balance uh the those moments of like we want that the that celebratory joy that we get to sing to our creator, but at the same time, we also want those moments to express our pain and our brokenness.

How do you balance that?

I feel like um we need both on purpose, and just for the sake of being honest, you know, I think it'll be really easy.

I didn't really go up in church in time, but the ones we went to, uh, you would go and someone asked how you're doing, and you'd be like, Oh, blessed and highly favored.

And like that was the end of it.

You're never really honest about it.

And there was a superficialness, you know, to our worship and to our fellowship, uh, because we were still masking.

But I think in the opportunity we have to respond and to participate in corporate worship with other people in the same way that we're singing to a God that already already knows everything that's going on, the good stuff and the bad stuff, we can be pretty vulnerable with the people that are next to us and I think have a more full experience, have a more godly experience, a more honest experience, a more transformative experience.

Yeah.

I like how you're saying that.

And in many ways, it's a more human experience, right?

We're and we have both the peaks and the valleys.

And so thank you for just the way in which you continue to help ensure that there's that balance where we can again have that authentic worship.

And uh, we always want that to be a place where you can come who as who you are, uh, because that's how God received you, receives you, and that's how he wants to receive you.

And so, guys, not only for this psalmist, if we jump back into this passage, was he in a place of just trouble and sorrow?

But remember, the nation of Israel, they're listening to these words at the Passover festival.

So as they're receiving this, their thoughts immediately go back to their anguish in Egyptian slavery, where it says, in example.

Exodus 2.23, the Israelites groaned in slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.

You see, they too, remember, they were entangled by death.

But hundreds of years later, when Christ is singing these words at the final Passover meal, which he then reframes to our practice of communion, guys, we can't help but think that his mind is focused not on the individual of the psalmist, not focused on Israel, but his mind is focused on the entire human race, a story of corruption and death that we all share in.

As Jesus is singing this song with his disciples, I believe maybe his mind started to recall Jeremiah 17, 9, where it says, The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it?

And as there are some in this room that are suffering like the psalmist, maybe relationally, physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever that may be, the truth, the hard truth of this passage here in Jeremiah is that we all enter into this world spiritually suffering.

And just like the psalmist, we must all grasp our own spiritual brokenness and anguish.

We have to see that we too are entangled by spiritual death, and we must humble ourselves to a point where we cry out to our Lord, save me.

Now, for this psalmist, he's not just going to allow this song to be the blues.

He doesn't want this corporate prayer all to be about his trial, but he actually wants it to testify to what God has done for him.

You see, he views his troubles as an opportunity to enhance the greatness of God.

And so as he cries out for help, our God responds.

Listen again to verses five through eleven.

So we see here is with our psalmist, and what Robbie just sung over us that as he was in the midst of darkness, he is then rescued from the clutches of death, and then he can't help himself but sing about one of God's greatest attributes, his goodness.

Says here in verse five, it says, The Lord is gracious and righteous, our God is full of compassion.

The Lord protects the simple hearted.

When I was in great need, he saved me.

Guys, have you ever tasted the feeling of rescue, of freedom?

My family and I were serving at a church in Chicagoland for 11 years.

There was a family friend of ours who struggled on and off with drug addiction and violence.

And one of the times going to the jail to bail him out, I decided to take my uh twins' boys with me at the time.

They were eight at the time.

Um I didn't realize it would turn into a scared straight program because it freaked one of them out.

And later on that day, he handed me$10 bills and admitted that he had taken it from my wife's purse that morning.

He's not here today, so your belongings are fine.

All right.

Next week, maybe.

All right, no.

But the one thing that stuck out to my boys and I is when we picked my friend up.

And just that facial expression of being free.

It was captivating.

And then when we had him in the car and was driving him home for 90 minutes, he just kept talking about how thankful he was for God's undeserved goodness.

He even kept repeating, I am free.

I am out, I am free.

And guys, in a similar way, this is what the psalmist is doing right here in this song.

He's reminding himself of God's goodness.

And that's why he says here, he's still feeling the emotion of the salvation.

He's almost saying to his soul, it's okay, soul, it's okay.

God's got you.

That's what he means in verse 7.

He says, Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.

Robbie, the we know that our God is so good and something that we declare as his people on a regular basis here.

Um can you tell us why do you feel it is so important that when we gather, that we do as a community of faith, just declare the goodness of God?

I think it makes a di I think just doing it and declaring it makes a real difference.

And I've been married for like five months, so I know everything.

I'm sure those of you who are married remember you learned everything in the first five months.

Uh but my wife does this thing that gets on my nerves sometimes.

She's like, I already know this is going on, but I want you to tell me anyway.

Like, I just want to hear you say it.

Um, and for whatever reason, it brings us closer.

Uh so that's number one.

I think number two, um, one of my favorite passages of scripture is Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Paul and Silas are in prison and it's the midnight hour.

Um, and while they're all changed up in this dungeon, um, they start singing praises to God.

And as they're singing in this prison, their chains fall off and the cell doors fly open, not just on them, but on all the prisoners.

And I just feel like um in the same kind of way, I think when we sing in the presence of other people and declare the goodness of God, I think things change on behalf of others.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, and that's why I I really do have a strong conviction that as we come here to worship, we should we should have a red-hot invitational culture, appropriately inviting friends that are not yet connected to Jesus or a church, because in many ways, our hope is that those searching for meaning, they will experience this mystery of our faith during all of us singing out prayers to God.

And I believe there can be a genuine curiosity from the world when we gather to sincerely sing, especially prayers about God's goodness, especially when we don't see any good in the world.

For us to be an honest people, realizing that just because we sing prayers of God's goodness, hear me on this, it doesn't inoculate us from thinking God isn't good.

But that's what faith is: having a confident trust in who God is, despite what we may be feeling or experiencing.

And so awakening, when we sang those prayers to God just a few minutes ago, know that you were being a witness to the world.

Many of you know that the setup and teardown of this process can be tedious and tiring.

But there is something special when we gather for worship at a local San Jose High School.

In many ways, it makes it more public, it makes it more of an accessible witness to the world.

And so, really, a thank you.

And when you see them, always thank them, Christina and Nick and Glenn and all the volunteers that hear earlier and afterwards, that they're doing a powerful thing so that we can create a powerful manifestation of God's people and allowing it to be a huge witness to the world.

And so, as we jump back in time to when our psalm was being sung at Israel's Passover festival, I believe that Old Testament Israel, when they were hearing this prayer of God's goodness, that chills just began running up their spines.

Because there they stood, remembering God's similar salvation for them, recalling God's past words in Exodus 12.

And when your children ask you, what does this ceremony mean to you, then tell them it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.

And so for our psalmist, overwhelmed with God's undeserved goodness to them, to himself, he then continues in verse 8 and he says, This for you, O Lord, you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

And so when the Israelites are hearing this, they're backing up and they're looking around and they're further reminded of their story of rescue.

They can see that their people are no longer stumbling over their change.

They can reach down, they can touch the soil, grateful for the land of the living, that promised land that God was directing them towards.

However, for us as Christians, we have the ability to extend redemptive history to its pinnacle.

We're able to look beyond the psalmist, we're able to look beyond Israel.

We can not only see the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, but we can see our own exodus out of the kingdom of darkness.

And so there it was hundreds of years later, as Jesus was then singing this song, the gracious, the righteous, the compassionate Christ, and he looked around that table of simple-hearted followers.

And he sees that they were in great need, and he knows how his story will be written, because his imminent redemptive death awaits to fulfill not only Passover, but all of the sacrificial rites.

And as our holy God hates the sin that entangles us, where justice must be met, hear me on this.

Our God is madly in love with you and I.

And so, with a sin nature awaiting its sin penalty, Christ dies a substitute, sacrificial death on our behalf.

And guys, hear me on this.

This kind of salvation, the psalmist never wants to forget.

So he writes a song of prayer to God.

This kind of salvation, Israel never wants to forget.

And so they have a yearly festival called Passover so they would remember.

And the finality of this kind of salvation that we get to experience, we never want to forget.

So we have a discipline of coming here on a weekly basis to sing out our prayers to God of his salvation, of the victory that he gives us all as one body and in one voice.

Awakening when we gather as a church family and give God our prayers through singing, it disciplines us to regularly come to that truth of our own spiritual state.

It's an important discipline.

Similar to the psalmist realization in verse 10, when he says, I am greatly afflicted.

These regular and necessary reminders as a church, it erases our pride, it confesses our brokenness, and reaffirms that nothing in this world can save us except for God.

This is what the psalmist meant when he says in verse 11, and in my dismay, I said, All men are liars.

And our only choice is to trust, to follow in the footsteps of the psalmist, to call on the name of the Lord and to cry out, save me.

Now, for the psalmist, he's not only gonna sing a prayer of suffering and a prayer really declaring God's salvation, but he's also gonna pray up a yielding prayer of surrender in response to God's goodness.

And so I want you to listen to the final section of the psalm one more time, verses 12 through 19.

How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?

I will lift the cup of salvation and call the name of the Lord.

I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people, precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints.

The son of your main sudden you freed me from my chance, I will sacrifice the thanks offering to call on the name of the Lord, I will fulfill my vouch to the Lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the Lord in your mess of Jerusalem.

And so after coming face to face with his desperate need and God's provision, what we find here is the psalmist, he responds.

And he says in verse 12, he says, How can I repay the Lord for all of his goodness to me?

This is a natural response when you've been given something so undeserved.

When my wife and I were first married, we served at a church for 16 years in Akron, Ohio, uh, the home of the goat, LeBron James, right?

Okay.

Haters in the room?

All right.

Also, the black keys.

We can at least agree on that.

Okay, all right.

When we were there, uh my wife and I had two kids, and we had another one coming.

We had a small budget and an even smaller car.

We didn't know where we were gonna put these three kids with their car seats.

And uh I'll never forget the act of undeserved goodness that we received.

I received a phone call from a car dealer, and he just said, Hey, there's an anonymous donor, and he wants to give you a minivan.

I was just blown away.

And I took that minivan, I just drove it straight home into the driveway.

And my wife and I just hugged each other and cried, so thankful for the generosity of this person, so undeserved.

Now, a week later, the interior of that minivan was destroyed.

If you know anything about kids, there was French fries that had turned into styrofoam, melted candy, and happy meal toys everywhere.

But the bottom line is our hearts were overwhelmed with gratitude.

And we just wanted to know who this person was so that we could thank them, so that we could just give back and even try to repay them in some way.

And it's really the heart of what this psalmist is trying to get at right here.

And again, in verse 12, how can I repay the Lord for all of his goodness to me?

Guys, here's the deal: God's debt is unpayable.

That's why the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament, he says, Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?

For from him and through him and to him are all things, and therefore, not fueled out of seeking to repay God or earn something that has already been given, the psalmist presents an offering out of just sheer gratitude and joy for God's goodness.

And so during this worship gathering in the temple courts, the psalmist, he not only brings an offering of a song of prayer, but he also pours out a cup of wine onto the ground as a traditional custom, because God's people knew that worship was more than just songs that we sung up to God.

It had to be followed by action.

And this was to be expected.

It's not like the Israelites were saying, not the cabernet, we got lamb over here being sacrificed and the pairing.

You know, they weren't doing that.

That's why the psalmist sings here in verse 13.

I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

I will sacrifice a thank offering to you, I will call upon the name of the Lord.

And awakening and following the example of this psalmist, as well as God's teaching throughout scripture, we have the opportunity to ensure that our songs of prayer and worship are always followed by action and sacrifice.

We do that in a variety of different ways, but one of those ways is really key is consistently presenting a portion of our income, either at our giving boxes or website, as an act of worship and as a way that we get to support the hands and feet of Jesus of today through his local church.

I think it's important you should know this.

There are some in this community of faith that give 10% of their earnings, other give above or below that benchmark.

But scripture is clear, it's not about the amount we give, but that we give like this psalmist gives, with a joyful heart in response to God's salvation, giving regularly, whatever amount he has guided us to give.

Does it feel awkward in here now that I'm talking about giving?

It does, doesn't it?

And let me tell you something, as you approach scripture, and if you're not feeling awkward at times or uncomfortable or even angry, then you're probably not reading it honestly.

This is one of those things where I had to just remain true to what I believe scripture was was saying here and the principle that we needed to guide us through uh when it comes to our action here.

And personally, I think it's one of the hardest things to talk about a church, and it's I think one of the hardest things to do is to give with a proper motive.

Because anytime I give, I feel like, is God loving me more?

Am I earning more of his favor?

Am I paying someone back?

Because we live in a transactional society, but this spiritual discipline is so important, it's the slow grind that God wants to reorient us a new kingdom economy.

Can I stop talking about it now?

All right, okay, all right.

I want to jump back into the psalm here, but I want to make sure there's a good handle with that one.

Now, for this psalmist, guys, he knows though, here's the thing you think this is bad, get ready.

Because he knows that his response has to be even greater than offering his treasure.

He also has to offer his time and his talent.

And so he now sings a prayer that offers up and it relinquishes one of the greatest gifts that we could ever give.

He gives himself.

The ultimate vow of gratitude and surrender is seen here in verse 16, where he says, Oh Lord, truly I am your servant, I am your servant, the son of your maidservant, you have freed me from my chains.

Awakening, this can be one of the most powerful prayers that we ever sing to God.

To say, I am your servant, that I will give you my time, my talent, my treasure, that I will give it all to you.

And so, in following the example of the psalmist, we too want to sing out a similar prayer, a vow, a vow of service, a vow of surrender, to give it all to him.

And so I asked Robbie to choose a song that would help us uh to really take us to that point.

And can you tell us a little bit about the song and what the song personally means to you too?

Yeah, I um we're gonna sing uh Nothing I Hold On To by Will Reagan and United Pursuit.

And uh I heard it the first time I was 19, it was 2011, and um I had just like given my life back to Jesus.

I got become a Christian a few years earlier and then started making really stupid decisions um with substances and people and all sorts of dumb stuff.

I had ruined my relationship with my parents, uh and I was just messed up so bad.

It's like one of those things you do, all this bad stuff, and then you're paying the consequences, and you're like, oh yeah, God loves me, but I still have these consequences.

Um but I remember I had gotten sick and in my sickness, I got an infection, and so I couldn't go to work, and my car broke down, so I couldn't even go to work if I wanted to, and so I lost my job, I didn't have any money.

I was like living in this like condemned house.

Me and these guys were essentially squatting like in this rank place that had the copper ripped out of the walls, it was cross.

Um, and I remember my friend John Brady picked me up, and um John was listening to this song over and over again.

I love this album, and it kind of just spoke to me in that moment.

Like, okay, God, I will give it all to you and trust that you make something beautiful.

And so I've kind of been singing and leading this song in worship since then.

It's been 11 years.

And then um last year when I applied for this job, we were singing this song, and this was one of my uh like this one of the ones we led for like my audition kind of thing, so they could see uh me lead.

Yeah, and so it's kind of just carried me through, trusting God.

It's awesome.

It's got some legs on it.

Yeah, it's amazing again, again, the power of music, the power of a prayerful song and how it can change the trajectory of your life.

Um, and our hope too is this would carry you in some way.

That this song is now a response of the undeserved goodness that God has given us in rescuing us from our spiritual suffering.

And so, if you're a person that's trusted in Jesus as your leader and rescuer, just allow this song to be another recommitment, another reaffirmation of your commitment to Him, of your vow to say, it is all yours.

A discipline like this is very, very important on a regular basis.

If you're a person here that's never made that decision, similar to the psalmist, where you've cried out to God and said, Save me.

Maybe allow the song to be that vehicle that helps you cross that line of faith, trusting in Jesus as your leader and rescuer, and then allowing him to use you for his beautiful purposes.

And so our hope right now is that we just sing this song as an offering, as a vow to him.

And so let's pray this out as uh Robbie leaves us.

So would you stand?

Thank you.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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