Uncommon – Uncommon Worship

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today we are in part three of a four-part series that we're calling uncommon.

In the book of Philippians, chapter two, Paul says this.

He says, May you shine among them like stars in the sky.

I don't know if you've ever seen a really dark sky where there's no city lights around, but the stars just pop off and they just stand out.

And Paul says that as Christians, we should be the kind of people who live such a bright life that people take notice of it.

So week one, I said, what does it look like for us to live with uncommon generosity?

Last week, my beautiful wife preached this amazing message on what does it look like to live with uncommon love?

Today, I want to wrestle with the question before we get to the point.

The question is, what do I do with my worry?

What do I do with the things that keep me up at night?

What do I do when I'm stressed out about my finances or stressed out about my relationship or my job or the economy or the election or whatever you're stressed out about?

What do I do with my worry?

And I was gonna jump ahead and say this: you only have two choices when it comes to your worry.

You can either lean in to your worry, which literally leads to devastation, or you can make this decision that I'm going to be something different.

I'm gonna be a person who practices uncommon worship.

Well, what does it mean?

It means that we have this tendency with worry to affix our eyes to something.

We tend to look at it and make our problems bigger.

Worship takes my eyes off of my challenges and my circumstances, and it affixes it to the only one bigger than the thing that I'm facing.

To get us started today, there's this beautiful story that I love so much.

It's found in the book of 2 Chronicles, and here is what's happening.

The Bible says at this time that there was a nation called the nation of Judah.

They had been led by different kings, and every king had pros and cons.

Some were wonderful and spiritual, and some were completely opposed to the things of God.

And we meet a new king, his name is King Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat was a good king.

He loved God, but there's this moment.

One day, as we get to 2 Chronicles chapter 20, Jehoshaphat is doing his thing.

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

He's just kinging it up, and all of a sudden he gets this really bad piece of news.

2 Chronicles 20, verse 1.

2 Chronicles 20:1

After that, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and some Meunites, so three different armies, they went to war against Jehoshaphat.

Quick side note, can you imagine having that name in middle school, everybody?

That would be rough.

So he's like doing his thing, and all of a sudden he gets word that there's these three armies that are coming and attacking from the north, the east, and from the south.

And they went to war against Jehoshaphat.

Some of the people came to him and they told him, A huge army is coming from Edom to fight against you.

They have come across the Dead Sea.

They are already in the Hazi and Tamar.

Hazian Tamar is also called Engedi.

And it says Jehoshaphat was alarmed.

Let's just pause here for a moment.

And why wouldn't he be?

Like, and why wouldn't his heart be flooded with worry?

Like you and I tend to worry about stuff and it's real stuff.

I'm not diminishing it, I'm not saying it's not real, but we tend to worry about finances and we worry about job security and we worry about the economy and we worry about our kids and we worry about physical safety and we worry about diagnoses and we worry about stuff, but the truth is most of the stuff we worry about is temporal.

It's here for a moment and then it's really gone.

Mark Twain famously said, I've lived through many worst-case scenarios, and most of them were in my mind.

Like we lived through worst-case scenarios.

He's facing a moment where three armies bigger than his are coming at the same time to attack him.

He was alarmed.

Look what he did.

So he decided to ask the Lord for advice.

That's some good wisdom right there.

He told all the people of Judah to go without eating.

I want you to fast.

And it says, the people came together to ask the Lord for help.

In fact, they came from every town in Judah to pray to him, to God.

And then the next few verses are Jehoshaphat's prayer.

They're literally like seven or eight verses of his prayer.

And here's the end of his prayer.

He said, We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.

We do not know what to do.

But he says, But our eyes are on you.

This is a beautiful prayer.

This is a beautiful way to pray.

In fact, this is what worship really is.

It's when your circumstances seem overwhelming.

You have to ask the question, to what or to whom are my eyes attuned?

To what or to whom I made that up on the spot and it rhymed, everybody.

To what or to whom are my eyes attuned?

Where am I fixing my sight and my vision?

Then if we skip down to verse 15, two slides for me later, it says this, one more slide down.

It says, Jehaziel, who was like the priest of the time, said, King Jehosaphat, listen.

All of you who live in Judah and Jerusalem, listen.

The Lord says to you, do not be afraid, do not lose hope because of this huge army.

And this is a message for some of you today.

The battle is not yours, it is God's.

I want you to pause here for a moment.

The battle is not yours, it's God.

So the next day they get up and they go to this valley where the fight should be happening.

And the king comes up with this brilliant idea.

Instead of leading with his soldiers and his warriors, he leads with his worship team.

You've got guitar players in skinny jeans, you've got drummers, you got a worship leader rocking a cool jean jacket.

And they go walking in, leading with worship, and when they get there, a miracle's happened.

Before they get there to fight, thinking they will surely die, all three armies had converged at the same time and turned on each other.

That the people of Judah didn't even have to fight the battle because the battle belonged to the Lord.

So I could say it to you like this: when you turn your worry into worship, God will turn your battles into blessings.

And that's just the opener for today.

Let's get to work, all right?

Nine years ago, I had one of the coolest moments of my life.

For Father's Day that year, I surprised my dad and I got him tickets for him and me to go see God's favorite football team, the Dallas Cowboys, everybody.

This is a picture of me and my dad.

That's me on my right, and my dad is taken.

Ladies, I apologize.

It is what it is.

And so here's what happened: it was the season opening game.

I bought us tickets.

I preached my three services that morning, and I got in my car and I got to the airport a little faster than is legally allowed, but I made it safely.

Got to the airport, got to Dallas, went to Whataburger, God's favorite fast food hamburger place.

And then we went to the game, and the game was amazing.

It was so fun.

We had such a great time together, and the best part of all of it was at the end of the game, something crazy happened.

It was the Dallas Cowboys playing the New York Giants.

It was everything that is good in the world versus everything that is wrong in the world.

It is light and darkness, the power of God versus the forces of evil.

It was this terrible, terrible experience for the Giants because at the end of the game, the Cowboys were losing, but not the God I serve.

At the last second, with eight seconds left, the Cowboys threw a touchdown pass to my man number 82, Jason Witten, and the Cowboys won the game with eight seconds left.

Calm down, everybody.

It was amazing.

One of the best moments of my life.

And all of a sudden, I lost my ever-loving mind.

I'm high-fibing people I don't know.

I'm screaming at the top of my lungs.

I'm dancing, I'm shouting, I'm hugging people that I've never met before.

I'm pretty sure I left with a contact high that night, if you know what I'm saying.

It was so fun.

So fun.

And then later I'm laying in bed, no voice, completely hoarse from screaming.

And I have this thought.

What an interesting day.

In the morning, I'm standing in church, worshiping the creator of the universe, the living God.

And I golf clapped.

And I lift my hands kind of passively.

And I go later that evening to a football game, which in the grand scheme of history has no real relevance.

It doesn't really matter for all of eternity.

And I lost my ever-loving mind.

I screamed so loud, I lost my voice.

Why is this?

Here's the principle it's that we all worship something.

Let me give you an interesting definition of worship.

Worship is worship.

Go back one.

It's worth ship.

It's adding worth or value to the thing that matters to us.

Let me let some of you off the hook.

All of us worship something.

Some people are like, if you only all you can ever do is worship God, and that's that sounds like good advice, but we all love stuff.

And here's the thing: I don't even think that God cares.

I think God's for it.

God wants you to love your spouse and your kids.

God wants you to love your job.

God wants you to love great meals and sunsets, and God wants you to take great vacations and go to zoos and see weird animals, and God wants you to enjoy life.

But there is only one throne to your heart.

And all God is saying is that I have to be first.

Above it all, preeminent above everything.

Worship.

We all worship something.

Here's what I want you to get.

Worship is our response to what we value the most.

So here's what I want to do.

We talk about what does it look like to live a life where worry doesn't get the final word.

I want to talk to you for the next few minutes about what it looks like to live a life of worship and how worship puts worry in its place.

Now to get us started today, I want to be really honest for a moment.

The message is gonna start a little weird.

Okay, it's gonna get weird, and then it's gonna get theological, then we'll get really practical, and then we're gonna end by putting into practice what we've talked about and we're gonna worship together today.

Here's the weird part.

Let's just go weird, let's rip the band-aid off, let's get a little weird, okay?

When you think about the devil, Satan, what picture comes to your mind?

Like I want you to think for a moment.

When you think of Satan, what picture comes to your mind?

For some of us, it's like the cartoon image we've seen with the red guy with the the horns and the pitchfork.

For others of us, it's that little devil that sits on your shoulder and whispers negative evil things in your ear.

For me, it is Will Farrell's Saturday Night Live character where he rocks the fender.

I don't know what you think of when you think of the devil, but the truth is most likely what you think of when you think of Satan is not what Scripture teaches about Satan.

Scripture teaches that Satan was an angel.

In fact, his name was Lucifer.

Lucifer is one of three named angels in the Bible.

There's lots of angels in the Bible, but Lucifer is one of three that have a name attached to them.

Lucifer was the first worship leader.

Scripture says about him that he was beautiful.

He was adorned in gems.

Anamorphically, he was even different than us, but he was a worship leader.

And here's what Scripture teaches the first sin in the Bible was not Adam and Eve sinning.

That's what we think it is.

The first sin in the Bible actually happened, what most scholars believe happened between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1, verse 2.

Genesis 1:2

It says that Satan sins by turning the hearts of others away from God and seeking the worship that is due to God for himself.

In fact, quick side note: this is what Satan's whole intention is.

And a lot of us, we grew up in homes where it's like we were told that Satan's behind every bush, or if you're walking through the house and you stub your toe, it must be Satan trying to attack you.

It could just be that you're clumsy, you're uncoordinated.

Satan's intention is to steal the worship from God and to turn it to himself, and that's what he does.

The book of Isaiah tells us this, what's happening between Genesis 1.1 and 1.2.

It says that God literally casts Satan out of heaven.

There's a song we used to sing that the opening line was, I saw Satan fall like lightning.

That's a reference to what happens here.

And God kicks him out of heaven.

Now I want you to see that there's the three named angels.

Each one of them has a unique purpose.

That Lucifer was known for worship.

He was the first worship leader.

Michael was connected to prayer, and the angel Gabriel, maybe you've heard his name connected to the Christmas story.

He's about the word.

Now I think it's fascinating that these three things, these three named angels, are also directly connected to what we do every time we gather for church.

We worship, we pray, and we dig into the word of God.

Now I want you to see this.

Lucifer was the first worship leader.

Anamorphically, scripture says, and this is kind of weird, I get this, but that built into who he was was literally all the parts of music.

In him we would find percussion and strings and wind.

What's interesting is that if you think about you and me, our bodies literally are these things.

We have percussion built in, we have strings, our vocal cords, and we have wind, which is our breath, which we use to worship God.

I want you to understand this.

Literally, down into the physiology of who you are is this idea that we were literally made to worship.

You were created to use your voice, you were created to use your hands, you were created to use your breath, you were created to use all of you to bring worship to God.

So if Satan was the first worship leader and he was kicked out of heaven, it begs the question: who replaced him?

You and me.

Like God literally created you and me to be the worship leaders to bring worship to him.

This might sound funny to you because if I was like, have you met my wife, Liz?

She's the best, but she just wants everyone to worship her, you would say, What's wrong with her?

But God created us to be worshipers and to bring worship to him.

Let me show it to you like this, but this is in the New Testament.

Jesus is coming into the city of Jerusalem on what we, you know, 2,000 years later call Palm Sunday.

Back then they just called it Sunday, but here's what's happening: the book of Luke, Luke chapter 19, says, when he, Jesus, came near the place where the road goes down into the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples begin to joyfully praise God in, I want you to hear this, loud voices for all the miracles that they had seen.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Pause here for just a moment.

And if you hear this and you're like, well, maybe that's why they praise God because they saw all the miracles.

You're like, I don't see miracles.

Do you have a mirror?

Do you have a phone with selfie mode?

Like, put it on, because your very life is a miracle.

If nothing else changed for you, if Jesus has saved you, changed you, made you in right standing with God, you are in the embodiment of a walking miracle.

They they praised Jesus for the miracles they had seen.

They said this, they said, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And then there's these Pharisees that are in the crowd.

These are the religious leaders, and they're standing with their arms folded, and they said to Jesus, Alright, teacher, rebuke your disciples.

They're being too loud, they're being too boisterous.

And Jesus said, I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.

Essentially, what Jesus says is the whole earth was created to bring worship, glory, adoration, and praise to God.

And if people silence their voice, then the rocks around us will literally cry out.

Today I want to talk to you about praise and worship and what it means, because what it's not is it's not 15 minutes to fill the service until you get to the sermon.

Praise and worship isn't 15 minutes of mass karaoke, it's not just a few minutes where we feel good and we love the music and we just kind of vibe to it.

It's none of those things.

Worship is something so beautiful.

And if I were to ask the question in this room, what is your favorite kind of worship?

I'd get a hundred different answers.

If I were to ask today, what does worship really mean to you?

I'd get hundreds of different answers.

And here's an observation.

My guess is that for many of us, it would be that our favorite style of worship is the kind of worship that we experienced when we first came into relationship and right standing with God.

We tend to affix our heart to it.

So if you were saved 40, 50, 60 years ago, you might say, hymns, I feel so connected to God when we sing old hymns.

That's beautiful.

But it's not the right style, it's just a style of worship.

Some of us we have this problem because we'll come to church and we'll get in the car and we'll say, What did you think about today?

I just mean I did not like that second song.

Quick news flash.

We weren't singing to you or about you, so get you a ladder and get up over your own opinion and get over yourself because it's never been about you.

So here's the question: ready?

What is God's style of worship?

What blesses God?

What does God want?

What does God care about?

Here's what I want to do.

If you have your Bible open right to the middle to the book of Psalms, Psalms literally translates to mean songs.

And I want you to see in the book of Psalms seven different Hebrew words that we would translate to praise or worship.

And here's what I want you to understand.

Hebrew is a very different language than English.

In English, we have roughly a million words.

In Hebrew, there's around 33,000 words.

So what that means is the words in Hebrew are more coarse and they're more pictorial.

So what I mean by that is a word can kind of paint a whole picture.

A word can tell the whole story.

So I want you to see that there's seven words that were used, and they were just translated to our English word praise, but they have meaning and pictures to each of them.

And here's what I want to challenge you with.

I want to challenge you to not resist these.

I want you to see these as the way that God longs to be praised.

Here they are.

Number one, if you're a note-taker, write this down.

It's the word halel.

Some translations they spell it with two L's, some it's one.

But halel means to rave, boast, and celebrate.

Another translation of this word literally means to be clamorously foolish.

If this word looks familiar to you, it's because it is the root of the word that we say, hallelujah.

Halel, the first part means to rave, boast, or celebrate.

The Yah is the first part of Yahweh or God.

It is to rave, boast, or to celebrate God.

Okay, let me say this to you.

I think church should be full of celebration.

I think our time of worship should not be passive standing and watching.

I think we should be engaged, dancing, shouting, singing.

It should be a party.

One of my favorite complaints we've ever gotten about our church was this man left a few years ago and on his way out, he said, Ah, it's too much of a pep rally in there.

And I was like, Yeah, that's the point.

We're in the presence of the living God.

Of course, we are going to celebrate.

I want you to see it in the book of Psalms.

Here's David's words.

He says, I will thank you in front of the great assembly.

I will hallel you before all the people.

Some of us are like, Well, I don't really do that.

Like, I'm not really, I'm pretty reserved.

I'm pretty reserved.

And then this week I was thinking about finding that picture of me and my dad at the Cowboys game.

Do you know what my next picture after that picture was?

It was after the Cowboys scored the game-winning touchdown.

I put my phone in selfie mode and I did a full 360-degree spin of me screaming and losing my mind over something which, in the course of history, has no eternal significance.

But I come into the presence of the living God.

And a muster of golf clap at best.

He wants to be haleled, celebrated, raved over, worshipped exuberantly.

The second Hebrew word is this word yada, which is fun, which means to acknowledge in public.

One of the types of videos that I love so much on social media is when a person in the military who's been serving for a long time comes home.

You ever seen the ones at the airport where there's a kid and they're holding a sign?

And the moment they see their mom or dad, they throw the sign and they take off running and they throw their hands up.

They're not worried about what anyone thinks about them.

They don't care about the opinions of others.

They literally just want to be held, caressed, hugged by the person that they love so much.

I wonder how many of us we've somewhere along the way said, I just don't want to lift my hands because I'm afraid of how it will look.

And we succumb to the pressure of the opinion of others instead of doing for God that which He longs for.

This is so important.

This word yedah, you can find it in the book of Psalm 138.

David says, I will yada you, O Lord, with all my heart.

I will lift my hands in a way that magnifies you.

The third word is the word barak, which is a fun word, which means to bless by kneeling or bowing.

Now it's funny because those first two seem celebratory.

This one seems a little different.

Some of you grew up in traditions where it felt like worship was only worshipful if it was reverent.

And I hear you on that, but I want you to understand there's a place for celebration and reverence.

There's a place where we celebrate the goodness and the love of our God.

And there's another part of worship where there are times when by praising we literally bow our knee and we figuratively bow our heart to God because he's king, because he's worthy of it.

Look at this in the book of Psalm, Psalm chapter 103.

Psalms 103 · chapter mention

Barak the Lord, oh my soul, and all my inmost being.

Barak His holy name.

We celebrate, we clap, we lift our hands, and we bow in his presence.

Number four is the word Zaymar, which means making music to God with strings.

Now, this is a fun one because some of us grew up, like I said, in church where church was very reverent.

There are whole denominations of church where there's literally no music at all, just singing a cappella.

And so maybe for you, you see this and you're like, all right, we should make music to God with strings, but it should be soft.

It should be like quiet plucking.

It should feel like the waiting room of a spa, relaxing music, sounds of waves crashing, the sound of a whale going by.

I don't know.

This is not what this means.

Remember, Hebrew is pictorial.

The picture in Hebrew.

Is not lightly plucking.

The Hebrew picture is literally strumming the guitar as hard as you can, like this one goes to eleven.

That's the picture of praise in this word.

The verse says it like this in Psalm chapter 92.

Psalms 92 · chapter mention

It is good to Zamar the Lord and make music to your name, oh most high.

Number five is a beautiful one.

It's the word Shabbak, which is fun to say.

It literally means to address in a loud tone to shout.

Again, I'm not much of a shouter, but then I see myself on Sunday night football games, shouting my lungs out when God desires this.

And I love this word because it also uses the word loud.

Some people they come to our church and like, it's just too loud, it's just too celebratory, it's just too much for me.

I've got a news flash for you.

Revelation chapter 14 says that heaven will be so loud, the worship in heaven so loud, that it'll be louder than standing next to the loudest waterfall on earth.

Revelation 14 · chapter mention

Why?

Because he's worthy of everything we've got.

The book of Psalms, again, David says this, Psalm 63, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will shabbach you as long as I live.

And in your name I will lift up my hands, which perfectly sets up number six, which is the word tawdah.

Tawdah, which literally means to lift my hands in adoration.

Notice two of the words involve our hands.

I think the reason is we use our hands to show what's happening in our hearts.

We use our hands.

The first one was like a soldier coming back from war, and you're so excited to see them.

This one is more of adoration.

Think of a little toddler when they first start learning to walk and they're getting their balance and they come up to their mom or dad and they put their hands up.

What are they saying?

I love you, I need you, I depend on you.

Some people are like, well, I don't raise my hands in church because I wasn't raised Pentecostal.

I wasn't raised charismatic.

I got a news flash for you.

Raising your hands in worship of God isn't a Pentecostal thing, it's a biblical thing.

Here's what David says in the book of Psalm, Psalm chapter 50.

Psalms 50 · chapter mention

He says, He who offers Tao Dah glorifies me.

And to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.

So of course we lift our hands to God.

This should be natural for us.

Number seven is one of my favorite.

It's the word tahila.

This means exuberant singing.

Another translation is it's a song of praise.

Years ago I did a whole series on this word because it's such a powerful word.

And I want you to see this.

God invites us to sing, he invites us to use our words to lift up his name.

Here's David in Psalm.

I love this one so much.

Psalm 34, I will extol, which means extol means to praise to the highest level.

The Lord at all times, his Tehilah will always be on my lips.

This is how God longs to be worshipped.

Now I want you to see this.

When you start to understand these words, and you start to read the Bible and you see what the words mean, I want you to pay attention to this.

Look, look at this in the book of Psalm, chapter 108.

Psalms 108 · chapter mention

David says, Oh God, my heart is fixed, and I give Zamar.

Even with my glory, I will yadah thee, O Lord, among the people, and I will sing Tehila unto thee among the nations.

Why does this matter?

Because it's how God longs to be worshipped.

Let me explain it to you like this.

My wife and I got married over 19 years ago.

Stood at a little church in Orlando in front of a couple hundred family and friends.

We gave our lives to each other.

And what if in my vows I said, I Jason, take you, Liz, for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health, till death do us part.

But I want you to know that I love you, and this is gonna be the last time I show it.

Like, you know my heart.

I bought you lots of cards and lots of gifts.

I want you to know that I love you, but it's all in here.

She will be like, I will kill you right now.

Because love is only love when it's demonstrated.

When it's expressed.

Worship is love.

Express.

And I don't think we think this what our actions say that sometimes we say to God, you know I love you.

You've been so good to me.

But nothing in our expression shows that we need it.

So here's my challenge to you.

My challenge is today I want you to turn the dial.

Today I want you to take a step.

How do you get past your worry?

Become a worshiper.

How do you become an effective worshiper?

By worshiping the way God longs to be worshipped.

Some years ago a book came out that was really popular.

It's called The Five Love Languages.

And the author says that every person has a way in which they tend to feel and receive love the most.

Can I tell you the number one problem in all my years of pastoring, of all the couples I've counseled?

The number one problem I see is that we don't know how to express love in a way that the other person needs to receive it and feel loved.

So, like if I love my wife, one of the things my wife loves, I know is she loves like gifts, but she doesn't care about the gifts, she cares about the thoughtfulness.

So it's important for me to always try to be thoughtful for her because that's how she receives love.

Well, one of the other ways that we tend to give love is quality time or acts of service.

And imagine if that's how I receive love, so that's how I forced it on her.

You gotta love it, I'm doing stuff for you.

She's like, I don't really care that much.

It's not really love.

I think for a lot of us, we have a way that we want to worship God, but at the end of the day, love is only love when it's expressed.

Love is only love when it's given in a way the other person can receive it.

So my challenge to you is to learn to worship God, not based on your preference, not based on your, like, well, I'm I'm an extrovert or I'm an introvert, not that.

Not based on the way if you were raised Baptist or Presbyterian or Anglican or whatever you were raised.

Forget all that.

None of that matters.

What matters is that we worship God the way that He longs to be worshipped, with our hands lifted, with our heart, and maybe even our posture bowed before him, clapping, singing, dancing, losing our mind.

Listen to me.

It's not a Pentecostal expression, it's a biblical expression of love to God.

Let me end with this.

Back to the New Testament, Jesus is teaching one day, and someone comes to him and says, Jesus, what is the most important commandment?

Out of the over 600 in the Old Testament, which one's the most important?

And here's what Jesus says It says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind and all of your strength.

This is what it looks like to love God.

It's all, it's everything.

It's literally chips to the middle of the table.

I'm literally stepping in, I'm all in.

Let me show you what it looks like in worship.

Jesus says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

That means I'm expressing my affection to God.

Notice it doesn't say feeling, I'm expressing because it's love when it's expressed.

Number two, all of your mind means I'm focusing my attention on God.

How many times have you and I come to a worship service and we're singing the songs, but then we're like, oh man, when I get home, I gotta fix this problem.

Ah, I didn't send this email yesterday at work.

Ah, I just I just gotta deal with this issue for my kids' school.

And we get distracted.

Worship says, God, you are the most important thing.

You have all my focus.

Number three, all my strength.

Says, God, use my abilities for you.

This is serving, this is giving, but this is also using your physical ability.

If you can lift your hands, lift your hands.

If you need to kneel, then kneel.

If you can dance, then dance.

But give God your best.

Here's how I want to end today.

I don't just want to talk about it.

I don't just want to be people like the book of James says, who are hearers of the word but not doers.

I want to be people who take God's word and they put it into practice and they put it into action.

So all across this room, will you stand up with me?

And here's how we're gonna end.

In a moment, I'm gonna pray.

And after I pray, we're gonna worship and then we're gonna praise.

And I challenge you to not settle for this.

Don't settle for this.

But I challenge you to worship God the way He longs to be worshiped.

Worship team, if you'll come out, let's pray.

Come on.

All across this room is a sign of love to God.

Can we do what Scripture said and can we lift our hands?

So, God, in this place, we're making this decision and this declaration.

We choose to worship you, to pour out our praise, our love, our worship, our hearts, our adoration on you, because you and you alone are worthy of it.

God, for those of us who have stand by passively for years, we've maybe never even worshiped you the way you long to be worshipped.

We ask you to forgive us.

And God, may this church be a house built on worshiping you.

God, if we can lose our minds for football or for sports or for entertainment, we better bring more to you because you are the creator of the universe.

You're the living God who's here and close and with us.

So, God, in this place, we lift our hearts, we lift our voice, we lift our praise to you.

And it's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Come on, somebody say amen.

Amen.