Foundations | Week 4 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

we're gonna talk about one that's really important, and it's really, it's like a biblical truth that we've got to get our hearts wrapped around. Again, these values aren't just things that we think we're gonna build the church on, but these are values we should build our lives on. And so today, we're gonna talk about this idea that worship is our lifestyle. See, often when we think about worship, we just think about these couple songs that the band just led, and it's it's a powerful time. But you'll notice whenever we talk about singing in church, we call it musical worship because it's a style of worship, but it isn't worship in its entirety. So today, we're gonna talk about what it means to have worship be the life that we live in every single part of who we are. So if you have a Bible, this is a good time to grab them. I'll pray for us, and then we will we'll jump in. So,

god, it is with hearts that are already stirring with affection towards you that we approach the scripture today. And, father, we just take a moment to pause and remember

that when we open up the scriptures, the holy spirit will speak to us. And so, Jesus, we ask today that you would speak individually and specifically to every single person in this room. In Jesus' mighty and holy name, all God's people said, amen and amen. I don't know if you had an experience like I did, but in, like, third or fourth grade, I went over to my buddy's house, and he was like, Daniel, I gotta show you something. And he goes and he grabs one of these things. You know? And if you've had this experience, you know exactly where I'm going with the story. Right? He took me outside, and he was like, man, watch this. And there was a pile of leaves, and he went like this. And he took the sunlight, and he reflected it through this little magnifying glass, and you could see it. Right? A little dot on the pile of leaves, and he's like, just I'm like, what are we doing? He's like, just watch. And slowly, the leaves, they started to smoke, and then and they just caught on fire. And there's something about little boys in fire that's just like peanut butter and jelly. Like, it is meant to go together. You know? So we spent the rest of the day just burning everything that we could. Any ant that was in our, like, site, we were lighting it on fire. We've had to apologize and repent for all the ants that we've burned. You know? But, like, it's amazing what you can do with a magnifying glass in an afternoon. And what's what's amazing is a magnifying glass doesn't really have any power in and of itself, but what it does is it takes the power of the sun and it harnesses it and it concentrates it and it creates it literally will create fire. And the reason that that I start there is this idea of worship. One of the words that the scriptures use to talk about worship is is to magnify. And that our our job, our life is to to magnify and to worship God, to bring an intensity to who God is on the earth today.

But it requires us before we can kinda stop and figure out, okay, what does it mean for worship to be our lifestyle? We've gotta we've gotta start with a more fundamental, a bit of a philosophical question. And I know it's it's 12:00, but it's a it's a big question. Why do you and I exist? Like, why are we here?

What's the point of all of this? Where are we going? Where does this all end? Because if we believe that we're just here randomly, we're heading towards nothing,

then it will determine how you behave while you're on this earth. I'm telling you the most important question you will ever answer in your life is is is what's the point of all of this and who God is? And we believe that the reason that we exist is because there's a creator in heaven who sits outside of time and space who created us,

which then means that you and I, as created beings, we have to go back to the creator and ask the question, why why did you make me? Why did God create us? And sometimes you will hear people say things that are really well intended. They're just they're just flat out wrong. And people will say things like, well, well, God created people because there was one day after a long day's work, he just he was bored. And so he took some clay and he rubbed it together, and he was like, oh, it's a person. Look at how cute. He's like, oh, the human race. Like, God just accidentally created the human race. Or sometimes we'll make the Hallmark movie version of that. Right? And we'll say things like, well, God had this this void inside of his heart that was the exact size of you, and he created you to fill the void in his heart. Again, all all well intended, just flat out wrong and unbiblical. Right? You gotta understand this idea when it comes to God, and it's a bit of a weighty term. I know we're five minutes into a message, we're like, bro, we're getting deep real quickly.

But but I promise you, there's a point to it. There's a theological idea of when it comes to the nature of God. Again, theology is just means a belief of God. But there's a theological term that's called the acidity of God.

Now when you go to lunch and you ask somebody what the acidity of God is, you'll be able to tell them you know what it is, and you can dunk on your friends. Okay? It's not the acidity of God. There's no pH level to who God is, but there's this theological term called the of God. And its basic definition, what it means is that God in his very nature, in his cell in his self, he is self existence and self reliance.

The reason that this is important is it means that the God that sits outside of time and space, he doesn't actually need anything. He didn't create us out of some desperate need to fulfill himself, that God in his very nature is self existent and self reliant. He needs nothing. K. Acts chapter 17 verse 24

tells us that he is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he's the Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man made temples, and human hands can't serve his needs. Here it is. For he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every single

need. The scriptures are clear. God needs nothing.

Still leaves us with the question, well, then why the heck did he create us? Why did God create you and I? Well, the scriptures go on to tell us that God, though he didn't need to create you k. You gotta remember it starts with God didn't need to create us. There's not something in him that he was trying to fulfill in us. God did not create us, but he chose to create you. There was intention. It was a decision that God made, and here's why. He did it for his own enjoyment.

And again, this is something we could spend two hours trying to get our heads wrapped around, but the reason that you and I exist, the reason that we are here, the reason that God created us was for his own enjoyment and for us to bring his name glory.

Again, for us to magnify the name of God on the earth today. We exist we exist to magnify God's name. This is a principle we see all throughout the scriptures, but most clearly in Isaiah chapter 43, speaking to the prophet Isaiah, these are God's words to you and I, his creation.

He says, but now, o Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. K? He's speaking to you and I. He says, o Israel, the one who formed you says, do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are

mine. The God of the universe reminds every single one of us here, you're not here randomly. You are here because there's a God in heaven who created you. You have a purpose. You you have you have you have purpose built into your very DNA.

God has chosen you, and he calls you his. You are his son. You are his daughter. In you, he is proud. If you skip down to verse seven, you'll start to begin to see the purpose through which God created us. He says, bring all who claim me as their God for I have made them for my glory.

It was I who created them. God himself reminds us, here's why you and I are here. Here's why God created us, because we're here to magnify, to glorify, to worship the name of Jesus. For God to get glory through our lives. What it means is that inside of our very fabric is the notion to want to worship something.

And it begins to explain a lot of our world and begin to realize, k, we were built for worship.

But why do you think people get so fired up on sports teams? And I I know it's Sunday and people are in here probably wearing jerseys and I'm not trying to, you know, heap judgment on you. I have jerseys for the best team in football, the San Diego Superchargers. I refuse to acknowledge that they moved to LA. It's a side point, but it's true.

I have jerseys. I'm not knocking it. But if you stop for a second and think about it. K. Think about it. We put on a jersey of a team that we've never played for that has the name of another dude on our back, and we walk around proudly claiming things and saying things like, man, I just can't wait to see what our team does today. I'm excited about the decisions that our team's been making. And I'm like, did they call you? You know, like, they you you got a phone call about the general manager decisions that they were making? It's like at best you watch half the games, but there's something in us that wants to be connected to something that's bigger than us.

And I would venture to I would venture to show us this morning that the reason that's there is because God built us to worship him, to glorify him, and when we forget that, we begin to worship all the wrong things. See, the question this morning is not do we worship? The question is simply what do we worship?

And is what we're worshiping strong enough and and and deep enough to sustain the weight of our worship? You gotta realize that everything that we do, it's it's disguised differently in America,

but idol worship is all over the place. And I know when we think about worshiping other gods besides God and we think about idol worships, we think about little temples with golden statues where people, you know, they light incense and they bow down to them. It just looks different in America, but I'm telling you, idol worship is all around us.

It takes different forms. There's a reason that we love celebrities and we have influencers today. It's because inside of us, in our very DNA, God created us to bring him glory, and when that worship gets when it gets misappropriated,

we begin to put it on things that can't sustain us. Again, the biblical definition of worship is simply to it's the act of giving glory to something or someone. All of us are worshiping. Again, the question this morning is not do you worship?

The question is just what are you what are you worshiping? Why why should this matter to us? Why this morning should we care about where our worship goes is because whatever gets your glory eventually is the thing that will become your god.

And if you're not careful, whether you know it or not, you are right now. You are building altars to the gods that you are you're worshiping. And a lot of us, my fear is, again, being a pastor in America today, is that a lot of us are building altars to things that are really terrible gods.

Money is an incredible tool, but I'm telling you, a terrible god. And for so many of us, we will sacrifice everything to to build the career, to climb the ladder, to have the family, to build the business, just to get to the end of it and realize that in the process, you you lost your soul. And you know you you know those people. You've been there with people that and they built the thing, they achieved the thing, they bought the house, they made the move, they did the thing. It just came at the sacrifice of their

their marriage, the relationship with their children. And what what happens when you and I forget who we were meant to worship and that all of life is supposed to be a response to who God is, we will take that thing that is built into us and we'll begin to apply it to things that just

they can't sustain the weight of our worship. And so often what happens is when life falls apart, we begin to realize that we've been worshiping gods that can't sustain us. My gentle conviction or my gentle correction to us this morning is to try to refocus

the attention of our worship back to the one who's actually worthy of our worship. The only one that can actually sustain us. So the question is is who? Who are we supposed to worship? Well, first Chronicles chapter 16 verse 29 says, to give to the Lord the glory he deserves. Bring your offering and come into his presence. Worship the Lord in all his holy splendor.

Here's my submission to us this morning, is that the only one that is worthy of your worship, that can sustain the weight of your worship, is the one who died to receive your worship.

And anything else in this life that you give your worship and your glory and your magnification to, I promise you at some point will let you down.

But when you begin to remember who you are and that all of life is a response to who God is, you begin to realize that true worship isn't just a part of your life. It actually it is your life.

That all of life is worship. It's all supposed to be a response to who God is. And when you begin to realize that worship isn't just some songs that we sing, but it's a life that we live, It begins to change how we see everything. Paul says in first Corinthians chapter 10 verse 31, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Paul says that worship, it's whatever. It's whatever you do. If you're eating, if you're drinking, whatever you're doing, how you're working, all of it is a response to who you are in Christ when you remember

where your worship and your magnification and your glory is supposed to go. So here's my goal this morning. Wanna show us four practical ways that we need to make a decision to worship God. How do we make worship our lifestyle? Here's a couple ways I think that we do that. The first one is we make a decision that we're gonna worship God with our time.

Again, the only resource in this room that is completely universally the same is time. We all have different amounts of money in the bank account, but we all have the same amount of hours in a day, the same days in a week. All of us are given the same opportunity to invest that time into something.

The question is is what is getting your time? There's an amazing book by a guy named Gary Chapman. He wrote this book called the five love languages. I I take most couples in premarital counseling through it so that they can begin to understand the way that god has wired them to receive love. Carrie Chapman essentially proposes that there's five different ways that we receive love, and most of us have a primary love language. And then we usually have a secondary one. Again, I'll just I'll cut to the chase and tell you every dude in here. K? Every time in premarital counseling, like, you don't have to go and discover it. Gentlemen, your primary love language is physical touch. K? Followed secondly by physical touch. Right? Like, that's we're pretty simple creatures. It's like that and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we're doing pretty good. Right? Like, that's when then you got women that, fill the whole gamut. Right? And my my wife's love language is time spent. And I'm not saying that it's a it's a competition, but it's definitely the most difficult one to fulfill, but it's a sermon for another day. Right? I've got friends whose wife's love languages are is gifts.

I'm And like, what? Like, you just buy her something and then you go play golf and she's happy? Like, that's that's incredible. Like, somebody should have told me that was an option. Like, I didn't know. You know? Right? And here's why I bring it up.

Is it it's an interesting conversation to stop and think, well, what is God's love language? Does God have a love language?

And what's interesting is you would probably be tempted to answer what God's love language is based on what your love language is. See, this is Gary Chapman's basic hypothesis that your natural tendency is to show love the way that you receive love, but it usually isn't helpful in a marriage. Because most oftentimes,

your spouse doesn't receive love the way that you naturally show it. So the question is is what is God's what is God's love language? Again, I think if you're an acts of service person, you'll be tempted to believe that it's working for God that God wants from you. For those of you who've been given the gift of generosity, which it's a gift, you would think that it's it's gifts that God wants. And all those things are are awesome. I think God uses them.

But what the scriptures are unapologetically clear about is that God's love language is time spent. And what God wants primarily from you and I is he wants time with us. And I'm here this morning to remind every single one of us, you know what God wants ultimately from you? He wants to be a priority on your calendar.

God wants to be the most important appointment that you make every day. The one appointment that you make and that you actually keep, that you show up. God wants to know your heart. He wants you to know his. But our knee jerk tendency, part of why we get this so wrong as westernized Americans,

is because we've been raised in a culture that says, if you want anything in this life, you've gotta you've gotta earn it. You've gotta work for it. And so what we start to do is we just settle into working for God. And there's so many stories. Jesus tried to illustrate this over and over and over again. John 15, he says that your branches, but I'm the vine,

that I'm the source of this whole thing. And what do branches do? You remain. You abide. You stay connected, but the vine does all the work. Your job is to just remain and stay connected to God by giving him the one act, the one resource that is equal across the board,

time. There's a story in Luke chapter 10 where Jesus is kind of walking through the countryside. He comes to a house of these two sisters and we see this principle played out. We see two sisters that have they they have differing value systems. One thinks because God's showing up, it's time to start getting busy and working. But we see that God makes that not the priority, and he says something else as the priority. Luke chapter 10 verse 40 says, but Martha was distracted by the big dinner that she was preparing.

She came to Jesus and said, Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me. And I read this and I'm like, this sounds like a conversation in my house with my children, right? Like one sibling's mad at the other sibling for not doing what that sibling's doing. It's like talk to your sibling bro, don't talk to me about it, you know. Jesus is in the middle of this conversation and Martha thinks the value in the kingdom of God is working for God.

She's made a nice dinner, she's running around staying busy, she's staying active and it's like that shirt says, right? Jesus is coming soon, so act busy like Martha knows what to do. Like, get busy. Notice what Jesus does. He reprioritizes

the kingdom values. In verse 41, he says, but Jesus, the Lord said to her, my dear Martha, you're worried and upset over all these details,

but there's only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her. And if you read the story, Mary is just sitting at the feet of Jesus. She's just spending time with him.

And Jesus is reminding all of us sitting here today in the busiest season that we will find ourselves in all year in the midst of a culture that says hustle until you're until you're at the you know very end of yourself. Have a full time job and have a side hustle on top of it. Jesus sits here and reminds us that you you can't work

to gain the approval of God. That Christianity, it's not about working for God. Christianity is about learning to just be with God. It's about being with God. And this is one of those things where we're like, no no no, but like tell me what to do. God's like, just abide and be with me. Yeah. But then what?

What do we do? Give me the rules. Give me the chore chart. Give me the things to do. And he's like, abide. Spend time with me. Remain in me. The number one thing that God wants from you is he wants your time. He wants the one resource and one asset that every single one of us has the exact same amount of.

Every time you make a decision to spend time with God, what you're doing is you're making a decision to worship God.

Practically, you're making worship your lifestyle by realizing that I'm gonna worship God with my time. Here's the second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna worship God with our with our treasure. And this is something again we've been talking about a lot these last couple months. It's something you can't disconnect in our relationship with Jesus.

If I were to just go, hey, I'm gonna put a million dollars into a bank account for you. When you walk out of this room, you get to make a decision of what you're gonna do with it. I would argue what you choose to do first with it begins to show you your priorities. You're like, bro, I'm just pulling the money out of a bank account and telling nobody it ever existed. Right? Like, that might be the wisest thing to do, but potentially what you're tempted to spend the money on first begins to show your priorities.

Remember Jesus, again, is a principle all throughout the scriptures, but Jesus says in Matthew chapter six verse 21 that wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. What is he saying? He's reminding us to guys all of this life is is a response to who Jesus is.

And you begin to realize that you've been you've been ransomed and you've been saved. You've been bought with a price. And that because God loved he he first gave. He gave his first and he gave his best. He gave his son

so that you and I could have a life beyond our wildest dreams, that we begin to realize that how we spend our money potentially is one of the greatest indicators of the condition and the nature of our our soul. And maybe how you spend your treasure is one of the greater indicators of what it is that you worship.

So the question this morning has to be asked, where are you spending your treasure?

Where are you spending your time? The reason that we do things like what we announced last week, which is this end of year legacy offering, is not because I'm just looking for new ways to get people frustrated with me to send new emails to me on Monday. Right? Though that's what some people think. They're like, oh, it's just another thing that the church wants. Now the reason we do this is because we genuinely believe that we're called to make a difference, that the local church is God's plan a to reach this world. And so the legacy offering is an end of year offering that we do. It sits outside of our normal operating expenses.

Every dollar that we bring in, nothing goes to our general fund. It all goes to reaching outside things. We've So spent the last few weeks and months praying and asking God. God, what do want us to go after? We feel like God's given us three initiatives that we're gonna run after with this end of year offering. The first one we talked about last week is we're gonna subsidize the cost of summer camp for students to go to summer camp this summer. The reason that I think summer camp is so important is because if in high school ministry, we have a 100 students say yes to Jesus, 85 of them will do it at summer camp. And I would submit that maybe one of the worst things that happens to us as adults is we stop having one week out of our our year that is set aside to spend intense isolated time with God that reminds us of who we are. And so summer camp's a big deal. We're going to invest in it because it's difficult for families to get their students there. But secondly, we'll talk about it next week. We wanna make a difference in what God is doing in the foster care system here in Arizona. Again, it's one of those things in the journey that we've been in. Our eyes have been open to a problem that we didn't really know existed to the extent that it exists. But right here in our backyard, the foster care system in the state of Arizona is absolutely

overwhelmed,

and we believe we can make a difference. We'll talk about that next week. But the third initiative that we're going after that I do wanna spend a second talking about is we're going to also invest in church planting. Now we we select a certain percentage of our budget every year to give towards church planting, But with this offering, we want us to be able to make a significant difference in one church plant in in particular.

I'm in a church planting cohort with a bunch of guys from around the country,

and there's a guy in my cohort that was talking about how they've been they planted a church in El Paso about four years ago. They've been given an opportunity to get into a permanent facility, but they've they've exhausted every effort to raise money. And they literally have a building that's sitting there. They're about $40,000

away from being able to move in because of some electrical permits and some electrical finishing work that needs to be done. And so I called him last week, and I I recorded the call to tell him what we're going to do for their church that I'm excited to get to to share with you this morning. So watch this video real quick.

Have you guys set your grand opening date? The city just has been annoying, man. The occupancy before was a warehouse, so, obviously, it's just changing everything.

That's what what's even been hard to set a a final date, you know, of grand opening. But this one was the only building that a a landlord was willing to have a church in. Our challenge was that no one wanted a church in their buildings. You know? We would talk money. Oh, yes. This. How much? Square footage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What business are you having here? Church. They're like, no. You know? That was the same story

39 times, and this one was the one that the landlord was willing. And his willingness was like, you guys will have to do everything. We won't give you any money for the tenant improvement or nothing. How's all the fundraising stuff been going? Man, it's a pain in the butt. A lot of our city, they work in government. So,

obviously, all of the government shutdown really impacted us. Our gap now is $43,000, so we're almost there, man. And, again, for our church, man, this year has been crazy. I mean, we've raised, like, $310,000

so far. So Well, bro, I I kinda lied on why I wanted to hop on this call with you. You know, we really feel like we're supposed to be part of the story with you guys. We actually wanna step in and pay off the rest of what you guys owe to get into the building. So we're Yeah. We're all in, man. So if you guys need 43, we'll write you a check for 43 so you guys can get into the building.

Oh, Daniel, dude. I'm a crybaby, dude. You don't want me to see that, dude.

It's been an uphill battle, bro. Like Yeah. I know. I can I can feel it for you? God has been nudging my heart and pushing me, and we just believe in the miracle of what God is doing through Somos Church, and we wanna be part of the story, bro. So we will we will send you a check tomorrow

for the $43 you guys need to get into the building. Bro, you have no clue what this means, Daniel, man. Thank you so much, bro. Thank you. God sees you guys, and, yeah, we wanna we wanna be a part of the story. Come on. That's exciting. And,

again, in fairness to me, when I felt like this is what God was asking us to do, I was like, God, you realize that we are a portable church that has no permanent location, that is trying to figure out what our permanent location is gonna be, and you want us to take $43,000

that we have that could go towards that, and you want us to just give it to another church? And God said, yes. Because here's the principle. Right? That God is not after our finances. This is the irony of this whole thing. That what God is after is he's after our first. And we as an organization are committed to just going, God, you have our first. You have our best. And we are going to we're gonna be obedient where you're asking us to be obedient. We're willing to step in and fill the gap where we can, and we just believe that God is true and that you can't actually out give God. And that as we posture ourselves with open handed, if we are willing to bless other people, then we are positioned,

then we believe for God to bless and give more provision to us as a church. So we're making a decision. We've already sent them the check. So if we don't raise $40,000 down, there's no goldfish for kids ministry happening next year. Okay? So now now the burden is on you.

Here's why I think we should posture ourselves this way. Again, Proverbs chapter three verse nine. It says that if you and I honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything that you produce, then God will fill your barns with grain and your vats will overflow with good wine.

The promise of heaven to every one of us, why should we worship God with our treasure? The promise heaven is that if you will give God your best and your first, and you will trust him, and you will make him Lord over everything, and you will trust him and lean into him even when it's uncomfortable,

and he will become your provision, he will become your provider, Then the promise of heaven is that you will never be without, and your barns will never be empty and without grain, and you will always have more than enough. And so trusting God with our resources is just an opportunity

to take him at his word. So we're gonna trust God. We're gonna worship him with our time. We're gonna worship him with our treasure. Thirdly, if you're noticing, these all do have t's. I did that this week. Alliteration's a big deal. Small flex.

We're gonna worship God with our talent. K? We're gonna worship God with the way that he's wired us. And I'm here to remind some of you that God made you weird on purpose. Okay? You are built exactly how God needs you. And sometimes what we believe in the church world is this false notion that the only way to honor God with our our talent and our vocation is to to do what I do. And I'm thankful that God called me into full time ministry, but I'm thankful that God called you to be a stay at home mom, to be a a a sales manager, to be an electrician, to be a firefighter, to be a nurse. Like, all of these vocations are holy

when viewed with the proper lens that God has made you for a reason. You're there for a purpose. You're not just you're not just randomly there. You are doing what Paul says in Ephesians chapter two verse 10. You're stepping into being God's masterpiece. He's created us anew in Christ Jesus

so that we can do the good things that he planned for us long ago. This is the good news if you will begin to reorient yourself around this idea that, wait, how I work potentially is more than just it's just me getting a paycheck.

Maybe the greatest worship that I do Monday through Friday is showing up to work but just showing up differently. It's managing people differently. It's reporting to my boss differently.

It's showing up and going, God, I don't really like my boss, but I understand that that's not ultimately who I work for. And that all of this is is actually representing who I serve in the kingdom that I come from. And I'm an ambassador from a a different kingdom. I'm just passing through here. The scripture say I'm like a I'm like an alien in this world. This isn't this isn't my forever home. This is just a temporary dwelling place. But I know that one day I will be with my king forever,

and all of this will make sense. But until that day, I choose to not work for man, but to work for God. Again, there's so many practical ways that we can do this. But again, like Brie said, we've obviously got Christmas services coming up, and this is a really simple way for us to step into

worshiping God with the way that we've been gifted to serve. Everybody has different gifts, and we we need those gifts. And collectively, when we all step in and meet the need, we'll be able to watch. I I'm genuinely believing that we're gonna watch hundreds of people cross the line of faith this Christmas,

but it can't happen without your obedience and without you stepping in. We we need you to serve. We need you to come and help us pull off these seven services.

If every single person committed to serving at one and attending one, we would have more volunteers than we know what to do with. So again, if you're not serving anywhere yet, just text the word serve to 31707. Here's the point that I'm trying to get us to see this morning.

When you make a decision to worship God with your your talent, what you're saying is that my work is my worship.

My work is not just a job that I go to. It's actually one of the primary ways that I worship God throughout the week. This is what Paul says in Colossians chapter three verse 23, that you and I are to work willingly at whatever you do as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

See, my heart is that when people begin to realize the person that works for them, they're like, oh, they they attend Echo's church.

They start to realize, like, oh, that's that's why they're such a baller at work. Right? That's that's why they show up early and stay late and outwork people because they realize that this is all worship. This is all an opportunity for me to bring glory,

to magnify who my king is on this earth. I'm not I'm not working for Bob, man. I don't even really like Bob. But I show up and I work hard because this is a representation of the the king that I serve. And king Jesus, man, he deserves my worship and he deserves my effort. And I don't say this to, you know, just

erode some of your guys' hope that one day when you die, you'll stop working. But I think oftentimes people forget that when we get to heaven, there's gonna be jobs in heaven. Right? You realize that Adam had a job in the Garden Of Eden before the fall of man ever happened.

We think that work is all this is the byproduct of sin. It's like, no. No. No. Work was meant to be holy. There's a beautiful invitation of work. We're supposed to work. We're just supposed to work differently. And in the fallen and broken world that we live in, how we work is an opportunity

to worship God. So we're gonna choose to worship God with our time. We're gonna choose to worship God with our treasure and our talent. And lastly, we're gonna make a decision that we're gonna worship God with our talk.

And this is one of those things that's so easy to overlook. It's so easy to just let things flow out of our mouth that later we try to take back.

And I'm here this morning to just remind all of us that what we say and how we speak is a representation of the king that we serve. And this is something, again, it's all throughout the bible. But first Peter chapter four verse 11 says that if anybody speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.

If you're gonna choose to speak, realize that you're speaking as one who has the very words of God. And I don't know who it's for, but whoever it was last week that cut somebody off on the freeway on the 202 or you got cut off and you had some words with the person that was passing you by,

the question is is were those words words that were coming from God? You're like, yes. They just were Old Testament words, but they were words from God. Alright? It's just this reminder that guys, all of this is worship.

What we are what we are really good at doing is we're chameleons. Right? Okay. Good. I need to put on the worship hat. So I show up to I show up to church and I become the worship person. But when I walk out of this door, then I get to just become the lunch person. Then I go to see the football game. I'm the football person. I go to work on money, I'm the work person. And a true surrendered heart to Jesus is one that realizes that no. No. No. This is all worship.

That my entire life, how I spend my time, what I do with my money, how I invest my talents, how I choose to speak to my wife, how I speak to my husband, what I speak over my kids, potentially is some of the greatest worship that I will ever do. And the most powerful words that I say aren't songs that I sing on a Sunday, but it's a choice

to not meet frustration with anger in the moment. But instead to speak grace and to choose kindness and to begin to realize this again, this principle that's all over the scriptures. But Paul says in Colossians chapter three, and whatever you do or say,

do it as a representation of the Lord Jesus, as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the father. Whatever you do, whatever you say, realize that it's all worship. It's all representing Jesus to some degree. Again, the question this morning is not, are you worshiping? Do you worship?

The question is just what is your life magnifying? If somebody from the outside just came and looked at your life, they were just an outside observer and had a chance to look at your calendar, to look at your checkbook,

to listen to the way that you speak to coworkers, the way that you speak to your spouse, the way that you speak on the phone, the way that you speak at the football game after church. If somebody was just an observer of your life, what would they say that your life is magnifying?

What are you bringing honor to? What are you bringing weight to? What are you bringing glory to? What is it that your life worships? When you begin to realize the incredibly high call that Jesus has invited us into,

that it's not just some compartments of your life that Jesus wants, that he wants every single part of who you are. You begin to realize like, wait. This is a this is a really big deal. The very words that I say represent the God that I serve. Yes. And it should be. There should be a sobering

weight that comes with it. It's why you see King David record a prayer like this in Psalm 19 verse 14, realizing the weight of this thing. He says, may the words of my mouth, may the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, o lord, my rock and my redeemer. King David's prayer was realizing, god, this this is a big deal.

God, would you help me with the words on my mouth, with the meditation of my heart? God, would they be pleasing to you? Father, help me to live this life that I can't do it on my own. And again, this is the beautiful thing is we've never been asked to live this countercultural

lifestyle of worship through our own power and through our own ability.

It it's actually an invitation to surrender. So realize, hey. This this bar of worship being our lifestyle is one that you and I can't fulfill on our own. It's something that only the Holy Spirit can do through us. The invitation of faith is one to surrender. It's not one to work harder and to try harder and to do more. No. No. It's to learn to submit to the Holy Spirit,

to lean into the spirit of God in the places that you don't understand.

And I would venture to guess if you look at this list of four, these four different places that we're supposed to worship God in, these four different areas we're supposed to worship God with, I'm telling you, I bet you there's one on there that you struggle with just like me. There's probably one of them for you that's harder than the other ones. My my my submission to you this morning is just to allow the Holy Spirit to to gently correct you. For us to have the humility this morning to say, god,

man, veered off course. It's so easy in the busyness of just trying to build a life and to take care of our families and to pay the mortgage and to get food on the table and to do all the things. And it's like, oh, yeah. And on top of it, be a perfect person.

So that's what the enemy would try to come into your ear and whisper right now. And you walk out of here with this feeling of like, man, I'm never enough. I can never do enough.

That is not the voice of God. The scriptures say that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, but what we do allow is the Holy Spirit to come in and to remind us the places that we veered off path,

where we've allowed this world to place value on things that the kingdom of God does not place value on. And for us to go, okay, I'm I'm gonna course correct. I'm going to repent. I'm gonna turn around and go a different way.

I couldn't think of a more fitting way for us to end our services this morning than by taking communion together. Again, if you didn't get one of these on your way in, our ushers will make sure you have one. Just throw your hand up, and they'll get you one here. But communion for us is just a it's a moment where we stop

and we remember that the the life of faith that we've been invited into is not one of striving and working and achieving through our own power. It's one to realizing that you could never work to earn the approval of God. But two thousand years ago, Jesus stepped out of heaven. He became

the life that we could never live. He died the death that we deserve, and he became our substitution.

And because of his death, burial, and resurrection, we are invited to a life beyond our wildest dreams. And Jesus, the night before he was betrayed, he gathered his best friends in the upper room, and he took a piece of bread. He held it up, and he said, I want you to do this in remembrance of me. This bread represents my body that must be broken for you

so that you can live fully. So this morning together, we take and we eat the bread remembering Jesus' body broken for us. And then he took a cup.

Just like the bread, he held it up and he told his closest friends, this this cup represents my blood, My blood that will be spilled out for you. And we're not talking about a theoretical crucifixion. We're talking about a real crucifixion that cost Jesus his life.

He says that it's the blood of Jesus that will open up the pathway for you and I to truly live. So I want you to do this in remembrance of me. So together we take and we drink remembering Jesus' blood spilled out for us.

So, father, this morning, god, we sit here with hearts that we know are so fickle to wandering. God, it's so easy for us to naturally gravitate towards self sufficiency, to being selfish with our time, to just getting busy. And God, so often the greatest enemy of intimacy with you is just the busyness of this life.

And so father, I just pray. God, I pray for a resting of your spirit on us. God, for the gentle correcting voice of the holy spirit to come in to whisper to every single person to remind them of who they are. And God, that you don't want something from them, you want something for them. Your invitation to us is to truly

live. And god, so many of us what we're doing is we're just existing. Some of us are just we're just doing it at a really high level.

And father, I just pray the places in our hearts today that we feel conviction that when we walk out of here, you give us the courage and the boldness to actually do something about it, to course correct our lives, to bring our worship back to you. Because Jesus, you're the only thing that can sustain.

You are the only thing that can sustain the weight of our worship. So Jesus, this morning, we choose to worship

you. Would you show us what worshiping our what our lifestyle truly means? It's in Jesus' holy and mighty name. All God's people said, amen and amen. You guys are amazing. Thank you for letting me yell at you for a couple minutes. If you guys need to pray with somebody, our prayer team is always down here in the front. They would love to pray with you. But other than that, have a great rest of your weekend. We'll see you guys next week.