Everybody Worships Something

Welcome to the Ministry Focused Worship Essentials podcast, where we explore the heart of worship, leadership, and the journey of faith, as well as talking about issues involving worship in today's church.

I'm your host, Brian Foster.

Let's talk some worship.

And again, welcome to a new edition of the Ministry Focused Worship Essentials podcast.

Glad to have you along on the podcast today.

I pray and uh trust that the Lord has been good to you, uh, that he has blessed you exceeding and abundantly above all that you could ask or think, and uh that you're ready for uh this teaching uh that uh I've got prepared.

And again, I want to thank um my my brother and my mentor, Kenny Lamb, for uh giving me the green light to do this uh on the podcast.

And we're going to start uh this week and we're gonna continue on for the next few weeks.

Now, there may be some times I have something special that'll uh come up and we may take a break from the series, uh, but we're going to begin a time of uh learning uh with this new book that uh Kenny has put out as a teaching aid, uh, not only for worship leaders, but it's more focused on worshipers.

You as the layman uh of the church and your everyday worship, uh, and it's called healthy worship.

And I'll talk more about that in just a few moments.

But before we move any further, let's begin in a time of prayer uh over the podcast today.

If you would join me.

Father God, I thank you and I praise you, Lord, for this opportunity to teach your word.

Uh Father, I'm nothing without you.

And I just yield my tongue to you that you may speak through me uh what you would have known and what you won't taught.

Father, I pray and I thank you, Lord, for Brother Kenny, uh, for his teaching, for his writings, Lord, that uh you have placed upon his heart, that we may glean from it uh together as the body of Christ and learn how to adequately worship you in in your in the way that you have instructed us through your word.

And Father, I pray for those who tune in to listen.

I pray, Father, that you would bless them with an open heart and an open ear, that they may receive the word and hide it in their hearts and apply it to their everyday walk with you.

And in all things, Lord, I give you the praise, the honor, the glory for the way you're gonna work and for the way you're gonna bless through this podcast and in the days ahead.

And we ask this in the precious and holy name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Now, like I mentioned earlier, so we're gonna begin this series.

And when uh if you've heard the uh the interview that I did with Brother Kenny uh before the summer break, um, this is gonna be a teaching series that he has put out for everyday worshipers, not just for the worship leaders, uh, but to give you a better insight of what worship really is and and how we need to approach worship uh in a better frame of mind and and look more towards a biblical standard of worship.

And it's going to be uh 10 chapters uh with a little follow-up.

So about 10, 11 weeks.

And of course, you know, we do this podcast every other week.

Uh, so this will carry us into the first of the year for for sure.

Uh, but if you would like to follow along with me, I would encourage you uh to go to the website renewingworshipnc.org.

That's renewingworshipnc.org.

And on that website, you'll find a section uh with uh that Kenny uh that uh brother Kenny has uh placed on the website where you can order your copy of the book, Healthy Worship.

Now, he does have it in hardback, and you can do a digital download uh of the book.

Uh, just follow the prompts once you get on the website, and you can get your copy of Healthy Worship, and you can kind of follow along with me uh uh throughout the series and do your own private time of studying.

Uh, I'm gonna try to help you and kind of piece things together.

Uh, I'm not gonna read everything uh verbatim uh uh that uh Kenny has written.

I I've kind of uh put my own wording on it, but it follows the same topics and it follows along the same general ideas that Kenny has put out.

Uh I didn't want to be an audio version of the book.

Uh I wanted to kind of uh help explain some of the topics that that Kenny will cover uh with each week.

So with that, I want to start with this topic, everyone worships something.

And this is in chapter one uh of the book, Healthy Worship.

Now, have you ever watched a crowd at a big football game?

Thousands of voices roar together, people leap from their seats, they paint their faces, they wear ridiculous hats all for their team.

Or think about a secular concert where fans scream lyrics they've memorized word for word, tears streaming down their faces.

These aren't just events, they're moments of raw passion.

People are worshiping, and honestly, you don't even need a stadium to see it.

Watch how people line up overnight for the newest phone.

Watch the way a logo on a shirt can start an argument.

Watch somebody refresh their bank app or their follower, uh their follower count uh like the number on the screen is going to tell them who they are.

We are made to bow to something, and if we don't bow to God, we'll bow to whatever's closest.

Now here's the truth.

Every single one of us is a worshiper.

Not just on Sundays in church, but every day.

Worship isn't special activity reserved for religious people or talented musicians.

It's what we do with our deepest loves, our strongest loyalties, and our most precious time and energy.

Worship is giving ultimate worth to something or someone.

Let me repeat that.

Worship is giving ultimate worth to something or someone.

So the question isn't do you worship?

The better question is what do you worship?

And I want to warn you, this episode might get a little personal.

Not because I'm pointing fingers.

I'm in this with you.

Every one of us has a throne, and every one of us has let something unworthy sit on it.

So let's be honest together.

Over the next few minutes, we're going to walk through three big ideas together.

First, the trail that reveals reveals your heart.

Second, how good things become ultimate things, and third, what it looks like to be a worshiper of the true God.

So, first, let's start with the trail that reveals your heart.

That's point number one.

You don't need a theology degree to figure out what you worship.

You just need to follow the trail of your life because worship always leaves footprints.

Let me give you four places to look.

First, where does your time go?

Pull up your screen time report on your phone, iPad, or laptop.

Your phone keeps receipts.

If you spend hours scrolling social media but squeeze God into five minutes before bed, that reveals something.

Not to shame you, just to be honest.

Time is the one currency you can't get back.

And wherever you spend the most of it is getting your worship, whether you meant it to give it or not.

Think about it this way.

If someone audited your calendar the way the IRS audits taxes, what would they conclude you believe in?

We say God is our priority, but our calendars testify under oath.

The trail doesn't care about your intentions, only your investments.

Secondly, where does your money flow?

You probably know your bank apps log in by muscle memory.

Be honest, do you open that app more often than you open your Bible?

Money is a trail too.

Every dollar is a little vote of what you believe will make you safe, happy, or significant.

Follow the money, and you'll find the altar.

Nobody's asking you to feel guilty about buying groceries.

The question is proportionate uh proportion and priority.

When there's always money for the upgrade, the hobby, the gateway, but given to God is whatever's left over, if anything's left over, the trail is talking.

Listen to it.

Thirdly, what occupies your thoughts?

Think about the shower, the commute, the checkout line.

That's where your mind goes off script.

No one's watching, no performance, just you and your own head.

Where does it land?

On God's goodness, or on worries, grudges, or the next bin watch.

Your unguarded mind is the most honest version of you.

It always drifts toward what it treasures.

That's why the Apostle Paul talks about taking thoughts captive and setting our minds on things above.

He knew what we know.

The mind is a homing pigeon.

It always flies home to whatever it loves the most.

Fourth and finally, what stirs your strongest emotions?

What makes you light up?

What makes you tear up?

What would you defend passionately at the dinner table, even when you know it's going to start an argument?

Emotion is a spotlight.

It shows you what has a grip on your heart.

Pay attention to your last big emotional spike.

The thing that made your blood pressure rise or your eyes water this week.

Now ask, was God anywhere near the center of that feeling?

Or was the throne occupied by something else entirely?

Now, here's what all four of those trails have in common.

They don't lie and they don't flatter.

They lead somewhere.

Follow them far enough, and they lead straight to a throne room in your heart.

And something is sitting on that throne.

Something always is, and whatever occupies that throne shapes you.

It shapes your decisions, your moods, your relationships, and your future.

That's why two people can sit through the same sermon and walk out in completely different places.

The one whose throne is occupied by God hears an invitation.

The one whose throne is occupied by something else hears an interruption.

Same words, different thrones, different outcomes.

Jesus put it simply in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 21, he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Your treasure isn't just your money, it's your time, your attention, your affection, everything we just traced.

And notice Jesus doesn't say your heart leads and your treasure follows.

It's the other way around.

Invest your treasure somewhere long enough and your heart will pack its bags and move there.

That's both the warning and the invitation.

Aim your treasure at God and watch your heart follow.

Where those things go, your heart will follow.

The trail never lies.

Point number two, good things, ultimate things.

Now, for many of us who love Jesus, our misplaced worship isn't dramatic sin.

It's a wild rebellion of some scandalous double life.

It's quieter than that.

It's often good things that creep into the ultimate spot.

So here's a couple of things to consider as far as your good things and ultimate things are concerned.

First, is family.

Nobody's saying love your family less, but be honest.

Have you ever poured everything into your kids' schedules or your spouse's happiness and God just got the leftovers?

When the travel ball calendar runs the household and prayer time is whatever fills in the cracks, family has quietly moved from a gift to a God.

And here's the irony.

When family becomes ultimate, it actually crushes the family.

Kids buckle under the pressure of being someone's everything.

A spouse can't carry the weight of being someone's savior.

Only God is big enough for the ultimate spot.

Everything else breaks under the weight.

How about worker success?

A promotion feels like the key to security and significance, and it makes sense.

We all want to provide, to matter, to build something, but success is a subscription that never stops billing.

There's always a next rung, a next number, a next title.

And if your worth rises and falls with your performance, work isn't just your job anymore.

It's your worship.

Ask the retiree who built his whole identity on a job title and then watched the title disappear.

Or the executive who has everything the world promised would satisfy, lying awake at 3 a.m.

wondering why it doesn't.

The promotion always promises more than it can deliver, because only God can deliver what your soul is actually asking for.

How about comfort and convenience?

This one's sneaky because we rarely announce it.

We just quietly arrange our lives around ease.

We skip the hard conversation, we dodge the costly obedience, we choose the path of least resistance and call it wisdom.

But when comfort calls the shots, obedience becomes optional and comfort has taken the throne.

And comfort is a terrible god because it never actually satisfies.

It just raises the price of admission.

The more ease you demand, the less you can tolerate until your whole life is arranged around avoiding the slightest discomfort.

Meanwhile, the abundant life Jesus promised is sitting on the other side of the very obedience we're avoiding.

And finally, this one hit me.

Ministry itself.

This one might sting a little, and it did with me, especially if you serve at a church.

You can be on the platform every Sunday running the sound, leading the songs, organizing the programs, and still be starving on the inside.

Serving God is not the same as being with God.

When we get so busy doing church work that we neglect time alone with the Lord, even ministry has become an idol.

Martha was busy serving Jesus Himself, and Jesus said she'd chosen the lesser thing.

If serving Christ can crowd, can crowd out Christ, then nothing in your schedule is automatically safe.

The question isn't, am I busy for God?

It's more of, am I close to God?

Even preferences can preferences can take precedent in your life.

I'll only worship when it's my style of music.

Say it out loud and it sounds silly, but how many of us have thought of it?

When the style matters more than the savior, taste has taken the throne.

Preferences aren't the problem.

We all have them.

The problem is when quote, I like, unquote, becomes quote, I require, unquote.

When your worship has terms and conditions, you're not the worshiper anymore.

You're the customer.

And God doesn't do customer service.

Now hear me clearly.

These aren't bad things in themselves.

Family, meaningful work, rest, ministry, beautiful music, these are all gifts.

The problem isn't the gift.

The problem comes when a good gift claims the place that belongs to God alone.

The Bible has a word for that.

It's called idolatry.

And let's be clear about what that means, because most of us picture alone, or excuse me, they picture stone statues in some ancient temple.

That's not what idolatry looks like today.

Idolatry is anything we love, trust, or obey more than the Creator who made us.

Three verbs.

Love, trust, obey.

An idol doesn't have to be loved.

Some idols are feared.

It doesn't have to be enjoyed.

Some are just obeyed out of anxiety.

But whatever gets your deepest love, your functional trust, or your actual obedience has your worship, whatever you call it on Sunday.

As Pastor Tim Keller explains, an idol is, quote, more important to you than God.

Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, or anything you seek to give you what only God can give, unquote.

Let that sink in for a second.

Notice the three phrases.

More important to you than God, that's priority.

Absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, that's preoccupation.

Anything you seek to give you what only God can give, that's misplaced trust.

An idol is a savior substitute, and savior substitutes always disappoint because they were never built to carry the weight of a soul.

Here's the diagnostic question, and I want you to sit with it.

If you lost it, whatever it is for you, would life feel meaningless?

If the answer is yes, then it has taken God's place.

That's not condemnation, that's clarity.

Because you can't dethrone an idol you won't name.

Point number three, worshipers of the true God.

But there's good news, really good news.

God didn't create us to be empty-handed.

He didn't wire us for worship and then leave us with nothing worthy of it.

He made us to know him, to love him, and to find our deepest joy in him.

And when God is on the throne of our lives, not as a harsh taskmaster with a clipboard, but as the loving Father revealed in Jesus, something changes.

We experience freedom.

Our hearts find rest.

Our lives gain purpose.

The frantic striving quiets down because the deepest question of our hearts, am I loved?

Do I matter?

Am I safe?

Finally has an answer that doesn't depend on our performance.

Compare that to life with an idol on the throne.

Idols are exhausting masters.

The idol of success says more.

The idol of comfort says easier.

The idol of approval says perform.

They never say enough.

They never say rest.

But Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And he means it.

A heart that worships God gets to exhale.

I love that picture from the Psalms.

In his presence is fullness of joy, not partial joy, not joy with an asterisk, but fullness.

That's what the throne was made for.

Not a tyrant who drains you, but a father who fills you.

But let's be honest about something else.

Hearts don't change overnight.

Misdirected worship has been twisting humanity since the garden.

These patterns run deep.

You don't undo years of unplaced devotion with one emotional moment or one good Sunday.

That's why we need God's grace to re or uh to reorient us, not once, but day to day.

This is a daily turning, a daily choosing, a daily quiet decision to put Jesus back in first place, even when everything, if you want, uh excuse me, even when everything in you wants to hand the throne back to something smaller.

Think of it like a garden.

You don't weed once and call it done.

Weeds come back.

Idols come back.

Grace isn't a one time reset button, it's the daily strength to keep.

Turning.

And here's the beautiful part.

The turning itself is worship.

So let me ask you a searching question.

Think about your average week.

Now imagine a stranger shadows you, your schedule, your spending, your conversations, your screen time.

At the end of the week, they write a report.

This is what this person treasures most.

What would it say?

Would the report describe a person whose life orbits around Jesus or someone whose life orbits around Jesus adjacent things?

There is a difference.

And the stranger would see it even if we've learned not to.

That's the journey we're on, from misdirected to wholehearted.

And I want you to hear this clearly.

This isn't about guilt.

Guilt tells you you're a failure.

Grace tells you you're invited.

God invites you into worship that actually satisfies your soul and glorifies him at the same time.

That's the deal.

A full heart and a glorified God.

Everybody wins.

Healthy worship starts with honesty, seeing where our loves have wandered, and then turning towards Jesus, the only one worthy of our highest devotion.

Not perfect feelings, not flawless services, just your real heart offered to a real God.

And here's the beautiful part.

When a whole church does that together, young and old, from different backgrounds, laying aside preferences, we become a powerful witness to the world.

A church full of wholehearted worshipers doesn't have to argue anyone into the kingdom.

The world looks at that kind of unity and joy and says, Whatever they have, I want it.

Jesus prayed for exactly this in John chapter 17, that his followers would be one, so that the world may believe.

John 17 · chapter mention

A divided, preference-driven church preaches a small God.

A unified, wholehearted church preaches a worthy one.

Now, before I close for today, I want to give you a few minutes or a few moments after this podcast ends to reflect.

Grab a notebook if you can.

Don't just nod along while you listen.

Nodding doesn't change thrones.

Writing, praying, acting.

That's where the turning happens.

So if you are driving, please nod along, but make some mental notes as you're driving along.

First, the trail check.

Looking at your last week, your actual last seven days, what patterns in your time, your money, or your thoughts reveal what you treasure most?

Don't answer with what you wish were true.

Answer with what's true.

If you're driving, do this mentally.

If you're home, write it out.

Specifics, not generalities.

Two hours of scrolling, ten minutes of prayer tells you more than I should do better.

Second, the throne room audit.

Is there a good thing that quietly becomes an ultimate thing in your life?

Family, work, comfort, ministry, preferences, name it honestly.

Remember, you can't dethrone an idol you won't name.

Third, an honest prayer.

Let me pray it with you right now.

So say this in your heart or out loud if you're somewhere you can.

Lord Jesus, show me where you my worship has wandered.

Help me put you back in first place.

You are alone are worthy.

No one and nothing else compares to you.

Amen.

Fourth, one small step this week, just one.

Set a phone reminder for five minutes of silence with God.

No agenda, no worship playlist, no devotional, just five quiet minutes, and tell him you alone are worthy.

Nothing or no one else compares to you.

Think of the song More Precious Than Silver.

The words, Lord, you are more precious than silver.

And nothing I desire compares to you.

Five minutes, that's it.

Not an hour long quiet time, you'll quit by Thursday.

Five minutes you're actually due.

Small steps taken daily, reorient a heart.

That's how worship gets redirected.

Not in a moment of hype, but in a habit of turning.

Start small, start honest, but start today.

When we start here with our hearts, we're ready to discover what biblical worship looks like, how it happens in daily life and Sunday gatherings, and how God uses it to transform us and our church into a unified, joyful family of worshipers.

The question has never been, do you worship?

It's always, what do you worship?

I trust you will make your answer, Jesus, today.

And with that, that concludes my uh time in everything worships something today.

Again, if you enjoy what you hear, I would encourage you to please email me and let me know.

Uh, you can email me directly at b foster.

That's be ismboyfoster at faithwestend.org.

Or you can email uh the podcast uh email address.

That is impact I-m-p-a-c-t at uh faithwestend.org.

That's all one word, faithwestend.org.

And I would love to hear from you and continue to get in uh to get your uh your your ideas, your uh your your comments about the teaching.

But also I would encourage you that if you need prayer, uh if there's something lacking in your life, uh if this particular teaching has struck a nerve and you want prayer, I would love to pray with you.

Uh again, you can email me uh at those email addresses, bfoster at faithwestn.org, impact at faithwestn.org, and I would be glad to lift you up in prayer and pray along with you uh and uh help you on your journey uh through worship.

And again, let me encourage everyone to please go to the website in uh renewingnc.org, renewingnc.org, and uh get your book as you can follow along and make notes uh in the book.

Uh brother Kenny is supposed to be releasing the the teaching uh portions of this book here in the very near future.

And so he may already have that posted on the website by the time the podcast comes out.

But uh if he does, take advantage of uh everything.

The cost is very menial.

Um I think it's like$10,$15, something like that for the book itself.

Um uh and uh please get it.

Uh it is a great read.

Uh, and I would encourage you to get it as you listen to this podcast so that way you can make your own notes and follow along in the teaching.

Uh the next time we get together in a couple of weeks, the topic is gonna is gonna be what is worship really?

And uh we're gonna dive into the biblical standards of worship again.

I know I've done a uh a podcast on this in in uh previous seasons, uh, but it's always good to kind of go back and to refresh our memories about what worship really is.

Uh so I would encourage you to tune in for the next installment of the Ministry Focused Worship Essentials podcast.

Again, let me just thank you for joining me today.

Uh, if you're if this podcast has blessed you, share it with someone.

Don't keep it to yourself.

And remember, worship isn't just an event, it's a response to who God is.

Until next time, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may your worship ever be pleasing in his sight.

Keep a song in your heart and keep Jesus in the center.

So long for now.