122. Freedom In The Church - Worship

Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Well, welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. Thank you for being with us today. We're back in our series, Freedom in the Church. But before that, we just want to welcome you back. James, what's going on in your world today? Well, we're back in the hot seat, Brett, back in the studio, back in our offices recording. And man, it's been a busy week. It's been a good weekend. We had our marriage conference this past weekend and ordained a deacon this past Sunday. It's a great time of fellowship and just being able to be around God's people. It's been a blessing. I'm loving going through this series of In the Church. And where we're at and loving talking through some of these topics that we have sort of been taboo topics or topics that we've been preached or heard one way. But it's been great to be able to talk through these things. And some of the interviews that we've got lined up are just phenomenal. But, yeah, things are going great. And still, I'm in that phase, Brett, where I'm still in that honeymoon phase at the church. You know, we're sort of testing and seeing how things are going and throwing things against the wall and seeing if they stick. And if they don't, we pull them back off the wall and we go with it. So that's sort of where I'm at in that first couple of months of ministry. And it's been exciting. It's been good. But at the same time, it's a little nerve wracking. It's nervous. You know, am I going to make a bad choice or a bad decision? And a lot of prayer, a lot of coveting and following the Lord in that prayer. And it's been good. So how are things on your end? You're in a possible building project here coming up? Yes, we have we decided to enlarge our fellowship hall. And we had one plan and the deacons had a plan. And then we had our committee meeting. We formed a committee because we're a good Baptist church. Amen. And we formed a committee to do the building project. And then, you know, we threw that plan out, got a new plan. But no, just kidding. We're ready to go. And we're excited about what the future holds for us. You said that you're still in your honeymoon phase. Well, this is, you know, entering into, you know, two years for me, two full years here. So honeymoon is over. And, you know, we're trying some different things. And, you know, I've got a little bit of change in my pocket. And we're seeing how much we can buy with it. And I'm just like you. I'm excited for ministry. I can't believe I get to do what I get to do with my life. I'm so blessed to get to serve God full time. So much in my ministry. I never thought that I would have the privilege of being in full time ministry, full time pastor. I'm so blessed to get to be able to do this with my life. And I'm excited about the church that we're at. And I'm ready to I'm ready to go. And so that's about it. I love it. And, you know, me and my wife, we we try to make it a habit of us. And I teach us our church as well, that the length of amount of time that you pray for something should be the equivalent of amount of length of time that you praise the Lord for that answered prayer. So if you pray for something for five years, you should praise the Lord for five years, not five seconds that it happened. And so that's so we yeah, we've I learned that in college from a professor of mine. It was just eye opening for me because oftentimes we'll pray and pray and pray and God will answer that prayer. And then we're just like, OK, thank you, Lord. And we forget about it. And so we we've been praying for the last three years for us to be a senior pastor, be a lead pastor of a church. So it's been good these last six months just to be able to pray and have that we pray at night together and just thank the Lord that we're in that position. We're in that role where where God wants us to be. And, you know, it took three years to get there, but it was those time of growing, that time of healing, the time of preparing us for where we're at. And so it's been good and exciting to see God work in mighty ways. It's literally nothing that I could ever do. It's all God's work. And I'm just thankful just to be able to be part of that back in the in the back of the bus and just watching God move and God work and me just get to be a part of the ride, you know. Amen. Amen. It's nothing like it. Praise the Lord. It is. So, well, that's sort of the backseat of our ministry life there. You probably may have fast forwarded the last couple of minutes just to get to the episode. But before we get to that, we've got a couple of things coming up. We've got our meetup in Katusa in November. Hopefully you'll be planning to do that the first weekend in November. It's going to be a great time of fellowship down there, hanging out with the family, hanging out with those of like minded faith. We'll be going to Indianapolis for the convention. and if you're going to be there or in that area let us know me and brett have booked our house we're going to be staying in a house there and we'll be at the convention every day there i'll be there saturday through thursday i believe it is and hopefully you'll be able to come and hang out with us i think brett's going to take me on a tour of the holy lands which is the uh hows anderson uh fairgrounds uh where all the parties happen they're the great statue and we're going to pay homage to jack howls and and pray at his feet and make the trip to mecca uh to see the holy lands and so hopefully uh you'll be there in the area and you can come hang out with us but speaking of the real holy lands brett won't you tell us about our trip coming up almost one year from now yes we are going to israel me and james are taking our churches and our friends some close friends we're going back to israel we have it on good authority uh that by the time next march rolls around tourism will be open we've got people uh on the ground in israel who were contacts for us that are letting us know the situation and uh we want you to go if you're a listener of the podcast and you have never been to israel uh you will never regret it you'll never regret spending the money you'll never regret going you'll never regret using the vacation days to go i'm telling you um this is planned around spring break so we planned it to where most schools are on spring break during the month of march and uh we are going back to israel and it's going to be a week on the ground uh starting at the the northern part in cesarea philippi in israel and working our way all the way down once we come back from our summer break we've got a series planned on israel and uh that's what i'm looking forward to because i love talking about it uh there's a pastor a pastor brother stephen evans in the um he's the pastor of first baptist church here in the county when we get in our pastor's meeting he's been to israel several times and when me and him get to talking about israel back and forth we can take over the the the preacher's meeting because we just we love talking about it so much um but it's something you'll never regret doing and so we want to invite everybody that can and want to start saving now let us know that you're interested uh send us a message and because we want everybody to go that wants to go absolutely i can't wait to go back man i can't wait to be there be with you again and uh hopefully be able to take our brides as well and uh hang out uh in a wonderful time there so brett we're in the in the church series and we're starting a new topic today we've discussed abuse the last couple of weeks but today we get to jump into the next topic which is worship our view of worship sometimes can be skewed by the way we are raised or by what we've been taught in the past and so we're wanting to realign our thoughts with scripture realign our thoughts of what worship is and why it's so important in our life to uh worship and when we say the word worship immediately what we think of is music and music is important it's a it's a vital part of our society it's a vital part of our personal life god created music for us to use to specifically worship him in the very beginning we see instruments we see choirs we see people playing those instruments singing and using their talents to worship and to glorify god but we also can see that it's used as an idol worship can be an idol and it can be taking us away from god and so as we begin this thought of worship and we're going to go through some specifics of helps that we can have but then also ways that we can worship god uh brett what is worship in our mind how do we define this and how do we work through this in our uh thought of scripture and in our life i think the first thing we have to understand worship is not limited to just church but at the same time when we come to church we have to understand that we're not coming to church just to sit we're not we need to get out of this consumerism attitude that we're here to sit we're here to take in um we i preached about this uh sunday and that's why it's on my heart is because you know we are priests in the church we belong to a holy priesthood a royal priesthood and when we come to church we have a job to do one of those jobs it described in the bible is a sacrifice of praise and hebrews 13 tells us that the sacrifice of praise is the fruit of our lips you know it's it's crazy to come to church and see people not sing uh we are there to worship god i'll tell you music is a big part of my ministry because i was a music director for the first decade and a half of my ministry and when when i left the ifb music was my biggest hurdle it was my biggest thing that i had an issue with because even though i had left the ifb i left legalism him only 1950s style piano only music i left that there was still it was still ingrained in me my whole life that certain types of music are wrong certain beats certain instruments and so at this new church that i was now pastoring they had screen music so they had the computer set up you might lead a hymn or two but then you would play a couple songs on the screen and i would get on the powerpoint and i would pick the songs and i went through and every worship song i had on that computer that had any type of drum beat i took it and put it in its own separate folder because i was afraid that you know that anybody from my old church might come in and hear this music and think oh what's brett doing he's he's went liberal because he's playing this this hard music so it was two years of some of the most boring music you've ever heard in your life but it took me a while to kind of warm up to different styles of music and hymn worship is is not the only way to do it there are several uh different types of music and we need to embrace more than just the piano you know we need to embrace more than that listen to all these different instruments that are used in the bible and in the bible we use bells harps and it's not the harps like we think today a lyric like the guitar of the day flutes cymbals psaltery trumpets pipes dulcimer chauffeurs drums and that's just to name a few there are many other different types of of of music in the bible and and james i don't know if you know this or not i think it's a well-kept secret but did you know that when david worshiped he danced amen man that's crazy lord oh man brett you were sharing a story there about uh you're you're in ministry there so in college this is a true story i shared with our church just a couple of months ago in college my wife went to a casting crowns concert and at the time we were dating and if i'm lying i'm dying right now brett i told her that i don't know if our relationship would last because she was going to a casting crowns concert i told her that we may have to break up because i was a southern gospel hymns only like contemporary music and casting crowns was was satan and it was it wasn't like you're going liberal it was satan like they were worshiping demons up there on stage they had flashing lights brett i mean we we can't have that in the church and so i told her i said i don't know if we're if if our if our relationship will last through you going to the casting crowns she went and of course we got married and uh this i mean we we go to winter jam we go to extreme winter we take our kids to i think seventh day slumber is going to be there this year skillet things like that like it's crazy the other side of that but we look back on it we laugh because that was such a we we considered that like they're not even worshiping god but yet we have some other instances in scripture where yes music is used not to worship god we see a specific example of the children of israel they were receiving the 10 commandments they were receiving worship from god they were receiving what they should and shouldn't do and yet they were tired of waiting and while they were tired of waiting they began to worship and the bible says they played foreign music and the bible even goes on to say it sounded like war music because they were taking on the music of the enemies and of the pagan gods and in exodus chapter 32 we get this illustration where it talks about this thought of idols and and music being played and so i'm going to read it exodus 32 verse 17 and 18 once i get there it said and when joshua heard the noise of the people as they were shouting he said to moses there is a sound of war in the camp but he said it is not the sound of those who shout for victory nor is it the sound of those who cry because of being overcome but i hear the sound of singing and as they came near the camp they saw a calf and dancing and music and moses anger burned so he threw the tables from his hands and shattered them at the bottom of the mountain he took the calf which they had made and he burned it into the fire ground in the powder and scattered in the water and made the children of israel to drink it so we see here that yes music can be used as a tool of good but it can also be used as a tool of bad and music and worship is so powerful in our life it affects us in a mighty way colossians 3 16 talks about what we put in our body what we put in our life is affecting every area of our life and that everything that we should do and say and work and and have a part of should be to glorify god in everything we do and oftentimes we get to the point where we we are putting things in our body that aren't glorifying god that aren't uh taking our mind toward god but taking our mind away from god let me read that ephesia colossians 3 16 let the word of christ dwell in you richly and in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms singing with grace in your hearts to the lord ultimately brett worship is an act of acknowledging the greatness of god acknowledging who he is and what he's done and how we can glorify him in everything we do this is our words our thoughts our actions our emotions everything is turning glory back to god amen amen absolutely um psalms and hymns and spiritual songs so you know there's a couple different areas areas there of different types of uh music we use to praise god but like we said it worship is more is more than just music um i have uh some notes here let's see here uh romans 12 1 therefore i urge you brethren by the mercies of god to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to god which is your spiritual service of worship so once again worship is not relegated to just music although music is a big part of it um but we're gonna we're gonna dive into this subject uh here today so uh james why don't you start us off in our outline here um and uh tell us what we've got coming up first well i think we've got a few helps here yeah so oftentimes we get the question to ask okay what can and can i do what uh we've got freedom we've got we we talk about that often galatians 5 1 for freedom christ has set us free not to be under the yoke of bondage but to be under the yoke of christ and and to be able to live in that freedom and what it looks like and so we're not here to tell you a bunch of what you can and can't do we just want to give you some guidelines some helps of ways that we can worship god uh in a mighty way and then the the we'll close with psalms 100 and we're going to break it down uh expository and we're going to give you four different ways that you are able to worship god the first one is this we must be discerning of what we listen to uh this is understanding that everything that goes in our ears affects the way we think and act all right so i label it like this this is music and or content music and or content and what i mean by content is podcasts such as the probably the greatest podcast ever uh released the for freedom podcast these are these are things that you listen to these are areas of your life that you are letting come into your life that are going to affect you and influence you and and part of that is music but other this can be talk radio this can be tv shows this can anything that we are allowing to be in front of us this is discerning and allowing ourselves to to put off some of these things to put on godliness the bible says to put on those things uh ephesians 5 18 and 19 says it like this um once i just flip a page over my bed ephesians 5 18 and 19 pray in the spirit always with all kinds of prayer and supplication that to the end be alert with all perseverance and supplications for the saints pray for me that the power may speak may be given to me that i may open my mouth boldly and make known the mysteries of god he says to be alert there to watch out for the things that are around us i was telling brett when we were preparing for this i said i listen to a couple of political podcasts every single day of my life almost i like to stay aware of what's going on in the context of the world and different political views and know what's culturally around me not that it affects what i do but oftentimes i will find myself because i love politics i love listening to it it affecting the way i think or though even the way i treat people by listening to some of these um things that i'm putting in my ears and i said the other day i said brett i said i sort of had to take a quick little sabbatical from listening to them and just when i was because i drive more now it's 20 minutes drive to the church and so i've got plenty of time where i'm driving i'm listening and i've got uh things that are playing in my car and i said for a couple of days i didn't listen to a podcast i just turned on worship music and i hit play every time i was in the vehicle because i could sense in my spirit that i was being um transformed as you said in romans 12 by the things that i was listening to and i wasn't allowing god's word and god's worship to transform me so so it's been discerning to what we're listening to and allowing the music and the things that we listen to making sure they're lifting us up and not tearing us down exactly and when we talk about music uh we're talking about music as a whole as in the the song the words the lyrics the message of the song which by the way i would like to just say talk about this just for a second because i've had a lot of pushback from local pastors of course you know you're going to have pushback from ifb guys and and different things like that and i want to talk a little bit about uh music is in just like the rhythm the beat without the words just music so i am i would be classified as what you would call a musical relativist and and what that means is that music in my view is is amoral so what matters is the words i mean worship in itself is a matter of the heart uh but i still believe that a christian composer has the freedom to use any style and any materials okay no style should be considered off limits in expressing the gospel so music without words is amoral uh it's neutral uh it's neutral and and when i say that what i mean by that is sound itself cannot express truth communicate belief or proposition truth i believe that style is neutral ethically and morally any chord any rhythm any instrument should be theoretically acceptable for worship like like the sound of a saxophone is not more or less immoral than the sound of a clarinet or violin i mean james there was there was years years ago you couldn't play a saxophone in church because it was associated with with sensuality but but that that that's not the case anymore you know a reggae beat is no more evil than a waltz or a march and and people that argue that music and rhythm and beat by themselves without the lyrics can't either be wrong or immoral or immoral man they've got a lot of good thought out arguments that sound logical and and all the research that i've done they've got no bible to back it up and any bible they bring into it is is taken out of context um however i will say that depending on the crowd a certain type of music may not be appropriate okay you mentioned earlier seventh day slumber okay um i was just recently introduced to them and you know now now i listen to all the time and what they do is they take contemporary songs contemporary christian songs that you might hear at passion and they put them to a rock beat now these are christian songs concerted uh converted to a kind of heavy metal rock beat and listen i'm gonna say that there's there's nothing wrong with that but you know at the same time am i gonna allow that for worship on sunday morning at the church where i pastor no not because i think it's wrong because i know there's going to be people in the service that feel that that style of worship is not appropriate for church now my goal is just like paul is to teach everyone to be strong that's what paul was trying to do he was trying to teach everybody to be strong and and to accept meat offered to idols i think this goes into the meat offered to idols uh scripture uh when when paul's talking about this he says look the earth is the lord's and this meat it it comes from the earth paul said look there's nothing wrong with eating the meat that's been offered to idols i mean we know there's only one god so when you offer the meat to these you know these fake gods but then he warned us not to be a stumbling block to the weak because if somebody that has a weak conscience sees me eating meat that's been offered to idols well then that's going to be a stumbling block to them even though there's nothing wrong with it so i'm not going to eat that meat in front of them even if there's nothing wrong with it because i i don't want to be a stumbling block so say you have a church and i say this from a pastor's perspective because i'm a pastor say you have a church that for years only played him music well i you know i know as i know that there's nothing wrong with the contemporary style of worship music so i'm going to begin to slowly introduce the newer music to the church and try to bring them out of that that thinking and as they get stronger i'll introduce a a little more and and and you know you've got to get to know the crowd and use discretion you want to bring people out of this mindset that the only way that it can be done is how my grandparents used to do it in the 50s to a modern day way of thinking where you can be all things to all men that by all means you may reach some you know set yes we're to be separate from the world but we're to be separate from the sin of the world you know so that's the only reason why i wouldn't play something like seventh day slumber on a sunday morning in my church because weaker christians wouldn't be able to handle it but other than that i think that any music style should be redeemable if somebody does something bad with a style well then the christian should be allowed to come in with wisdom and associate it with something good i like that one of the things i'll give a personal illustration here uh my my brother-in-law he's a black man my sister made a black guy and i was playing something the other day for him a worship song something that i listen to often i can't remember exactly what it was he told me he said james if i listen to this on a regular basis i would go to sleep he said it's the most boring thing i've ever listened to and so i'm thinking okay well how's this boring like i'm worried like this is this is uh this is my soul like this is awesome but then i i got to thinking and you know he he was raised a different way than i was his his whole way of life i mean he was on the drum line he he played drums in the in the marching band so i mean after games they would have a drum circle and they were going crazy and it was awesome and so i found some worship music by guys that had that style that i wouldn't listen to and i sent it to him and he was like dude that's some great stuff like i couldn't even understand the words they were saying because they were talking so fast and he was like dude those are some of the most powerful words i've ever heard and i'm literally responding like i don't understand the words they're saying but because he was raised in that culture he understood it and it was appropriate for him and i think that's what we're getting across here is discern what we listen to and understand what is appropriate for us number two here on some few helps for us is guard your heart above all else we have two gates to our heart we have our eyes and we have our ears what we watch and what we look at and what we listen to affects our heart we are to be protectors of our heart we must remember that we control what we have access to in our heart proverbs 4 32 sorry i'm sorry proverbs 4 23 says keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life one one reformer says that our heart is an idol factory and what we put into our heart what we put into our eyes will eventually produce idols for us to worship and so we must make sure that what we're putting in will eventually put out the right idols for us to worship which are going to be glorifying god and allowing us to grow closer to him and so if we're putting things in our heart through our mind and through our ears through our eyes and through our ears we eventually will put out the wrong things in our actions as well and so we must understand that what we're doing must be guarding our heart because eventually it's going to come out one way or another i agree you know the heart is the source of our thoughts attitudes beliefs and actions and it can lead us down a path of righteousness or it can lead us down a path of destruction you know because we are born with a sinful nature and our hearts are predisposed to sin so we have to be so careful what we allow in our heart because that will come out of us it will control our actions uh one of the things that i've done for years is i've got this app on my phone and it's called pandora and i know it's no new thing there's a lot of people out there that know pandora radio um but what what i like about it is you know you can thumbs up a song hear it more often and hear more songs like it or if you thumbs down a song you know then you'll never hear that song again now listen you know we we do listen to secular music now we we at the same time we listen to k-love we listen to christian music we listen to gospel music we listen to contemporary christian music one of my favorite stations on my pandora is the casting crowns um radio so i guess i guess i relate we can't have a relationship anymore because i listen to casting crowns radio that's right um but listen we listen to other stuff too we listen to country which listen 90s country is the best country out there there is no better decade for country music the 90s country should have been a cowboy i know so uh but you know we listen to rock too but you know the important thing i think is whatever you listen to listen to the words i'm very careful about whether you know even no christian music can have the wrong message and when we listen to secular music it can be sinful so you know if there's cussing in the song i'm gonna thumbs down immorality in the song i'm gonna thumbs down i'm not gonna listen to it anymore you know songs about cheating and getting drunk we're not gonna listen to any of that um so you know i you know i have a radio station on my phone that plays all creed all the time i mean i mean higher i mean come on that's that's i think that's uh uh you know christian music creed how could you say it's not but but like i said it's where i'm coming from it's about the message of the song it's about the lyrics of the song yes you can listen to worship music but you know you you can with discernment listen to secular music too you don't always have to listen you know and that's what we were we were brought up thinking if you didn't have a house anderson quartet cd in your cd player on repeat and that was the only thing you listen to all the time then you know you're you're sinning and you're wrong i can't tell you how many times i've had to burn cds uh after coming home from camps when you know you just use a little bit of discretion uh there's nothing wrong with secular music as long as there's nothing nothing sinful in it brett you said creed know how to look them up because it's been so long since i've listened to creed creed is doing a concert series with three doors down oh i don't know if you can get a better lineup than creed and three doors down in a group to sing so so many millennials are going to be at that concert it's just going to be all millennials they're going to hold for it i'm just going to spend some brett they're doing a lineup here they're going to be in little rock arkansas they're going to be in texas they're not going to be in north carolina unfortunately oh this is this is incredible this is this is man you just brought me back to my my high school middle school years this is this is fantastic man i love it i'm gonna all right i'm gonna not i'm gonna be merciful to our audience and not do my creed impression for them so i'm listening oh hey i'll save that for the patreon that's there we go as soon as we get done with this i'm listening to a creed and three doors down song all right uh brett give us number three what so we're discerning what we listen to we're guarding our heart what what's the next thing next thing is remember that music can help or hinder your spirit because listen music has power and you know think about in the bible think back to first samuel 16 where you had david you know saul had an evil spirit on him and david came in and played uh his heart which like i said earlier was was not like a heart like we think it was more like a lyre almost like a guitar of the day and and david david would play that and it soothed saw it soothes that evil spirit and brought a good spirit on him music has an effect on you there's nothing like listen there's nothing like being in a service and man that worship music just getting a hold of you and moving you and you just forget about everything else in your life and you forget about your bills you forget about your job uh you forget about the doctor's appointment you got and all you're thinking about in that moment the only thing in your brain is worshiping god is worshiping god and it feels like you're worshiping alone like yes there are other people in that room but in that moment you're so in tune with worshiping god that it feels like there's nobody but you and god in that room there's there's nothing like that and what can nothing can bring you in to the presence of god faster than than music it has that much power yeah and you're so true on that brett because there's been times where uh you know i'll just be in a funk or in a you know in a style that's just you know it's not right and i'll throw on i've got on i don't listen to pandora i have apple music and so they have your station that is just a combination of the songs you have downloaded the stuff that's in your apple music uh all these different things and so for me it's a it's a mix between southern gospel contemporary country love songs and i'll just hit that that my station and a song will come on you know maybe a getty song that that i just hadn't heard in a while and all of a sudden my firm foundation is on the lord and and it just begins to minister to me and changes my spirit uh in a way that is so powerful because music has that effect worship has that effect our lifestyle has that effect you you've been on a mission trip before where or in your community serving and you go and you help someone you you serve them by worshiping and loving with them and you walk away blessed more than that person that you just served because your actions affect the way your attitude is and and we've got to remember that when we begin to have worship when we begin to fellowship with god it changes every part of our body not just our emotions but it changes our actions it changes who we are and what we are designed to do and which leads us to our next part number four uh for this one worship is more than music worship is more than music it i'll label it like this it's our whole life romans 12 1 and 2 uh i'm gonna flip to it real quick uh most of you probably could say it by heart and i probably could too but i don't want to butcher i want to i want to read this and maybe read a little slower than what we would maybe read it before because this is a summation of what our life should be says therefore brothers i beseech you by the mercies of god that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to god which is your reasonable service don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove which is your good and acceptable and perfect will of god because this is this is our life it's our whole life to be worshiping the lord it is a sacrifice of who we are and where it's a sacrifice of saying god if it's my time you can have it if it's my body you can have it if it's if it's my actions you can have it if it's i'm driving to to a store and i see someone and i want to help it's everything that we do is part of our worship it's more than just music but music is a huge part of it music is powerful and it's a mighty thing in our life but it's more than that and when we understand that it's more than that we understand that it is our bodies that we are sacrificing that we are giving god everything that we have you know mcdonald's sells more than just hamburgers right amazon sells more than just books and so that means that worship is more than just the music portion of your service on sunday morning music is is so much in fact the key elements of worship encompass so much more the music now music certainly is a significant part of it but doing some research there's about nine different key elements of worship and they are public prayers vocal and instrumental music public testimonies financial contributions public scripture reading exposit expositional preaching observing the ordinances speaking words of spiritual encouragement encouragement and confessing false listen when you gather as a church to worship god you should engage in all of these activities and you should do it with an attitude of awe a heart of submission an expectation to serve and you know and and not every worship gathering is going to feature every one of these elements but all of these elements should regularly in occur in our worship and gatherings uh to some degree with one another and just like romans 12 1 we present our bodies that is our worship is when you present your body to god when you make a sacrifice to god when you when you worship him in any way and that singing that's prayer that that's studying the bible all this is a part of our worship you're giving and we need to not relegate our worship to just music worship is so much more yeah i'll read one more passage of scripture before we get into the psalms here first corinthians 10 31 uh it says it like this very familiar passage of scripture therefore whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do do it all to the glory of god and i think when we get to that point in our life where we can say everything i'm doing whether it's walking down the street whether it's sitting down and eating a dinner with my family whether it's sitting outside and hanging out and lounging on the back porch whatever i'm doing it's for the glory of god it's i'm going to give god the glory it's it's looking out and seeing the trees and seeing the animals run around the trees and you're saying god you made that god god you made me to be in this spot for a specific reason to see those animals to be a part of this culture to be a part of this world at this specific time so that i can influence this world for this specific time and it's understanding that god has created us for that purpose and we give glory back to god in everything we do and that is what worship is it's every area of our life not just when we're at church for a couple hours singing and preaching and listening to people sing to us it's more than that it's our whole life it's giving worship back to god every area of our life and so psalms 100 uh brend i'm gonna have you read that uh because these are this psalm is a fantastic psalm on how we can worship god ways we can worship god i i i preached this simple four point outline just the other day and i thought it would be helpful for us and so we're not going to preach it today we're just going to give these thoughts to you and help you out a little bit so psalms 100 uh brett read it for us make a joyful noise under the lord all the earth serve the lord with gladness come before his presence with singing know that the lord he is god it is he who has made us not we ourselves ourselves we are his people and the sheep of his pasture enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise be thankful to him and bless his name for the lord is good his mercy endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations that's so good it's such a a powerful song because it begins by starting out this is psalm of david who begins by saying publicly everywhere we go we should be praising the lord we should be making a joyful noise unto all the earth as i was thinking through this and even meditating on this as we were uh preparing for this the thought came to my mind this is doing worshiping jesus making a joyful noise in front of other people this is not just in our private time this is and we're going to get to that he gets to it in verse three but in verse one he starts out by saying this should be public this should be a joyful noise i've never met someone who goes outside and makes a noise and i can't hear them if they're around my house my kids they go outside and they're playing and they're jumping on the trampoline and they're moving dirt around the house and they're making noise and i hear them because they're public they're outside they're doing things they're they're making things happen they're moving things around they're getting on each other's nerves and when we are in public we should be making a noise unto the lord we should be making this thought around what we're doing all about jesus because jesus is worth it jesus is worth it for everything that we do and so we should be making a joyful noise everywhere we go brett you know i remember whenever i was a teenager i was pulling up to a restaurant to pick up my buddy and you know i had my windows down it was the summer and i was playing you know a worship song on the radio and you know i wasn't trying necessarily to make it to where people heard it it was just a normal thing that i do and i remember stopping and i remember a lady stopping me after i got out of my car and said you know you encourage me with that song uh hearing that song come from you you're a teenager you're you know you're you're listening to country music or not worship music i got country music on the brain uh but you're listening to worship music and i think that's such a good thing i just want to let you know it was such an encouragement to me and i don't say that to ring my own bell it's that we should be constantly praising god it says make a joyful noise so you don't have to sing well you just have to sing listen you shouldn't just give a sacrifice of praise on sunday sunday is not the only day you're allowed to be happy see you are we are the church wherever we go so we should praise god outside the walls of the church as well going down the street mowing the lawn in line at the grocery store wherever you're at regularly sing praises to god just like you quoted colossians 3 16 we're to admonish one another with psalms hymns and spiritual songs so i'm so yes i'm singing to god but i'm also singing for your benefit i'm singing to admonish you to encourage you to remind you of the truth that's our ministry to one another so yes we definitely need to sing publicly now the second part and i'll go into this second part here serve the lord with gladness come before his praise with singing uh so first publicly and then we should praise the lord you know we should praise with our family you know we equate that to you know family devotions uh worship and just do something with your family you know we have family devotions um it doesn't have to be the same thing every time uh but you know the kids need to see you pray the kids need to see you worship god the kids need to see you uh read the bible uh james what does your family devotion look like well brett we've done so much variety over the years um when this verse says serve the lord i get this sense of that we should be together serving together um we have uh every night without fail as much as humanly possible uh i pray together with each of my kids individually um and so we we do a uh i have a song that i sing with them uh it's the same song every single night i have a poem that i read to them every single night same thing and then i pray with them uh but on top of that and we've been busy these last couple of uh months and so we have failed to do some of this but in the past we have done the catechisms we have done the little pilgrim's progress we have done the the bible story easter bible story where you begin and you you begin at christmas and you read the birth of jesus and you read through his life and you end at the resurrection on uh easter sunday um and we've done that through the the bible reading time but but i say all that to say we sometimes we'll just be sitting there and we'll throw a worship song on tv and we'll just worship and we'll just sing and that would be our devotion time but everything we're doing we're we're pointing our kids back to jesus you know make a bad grade in school and i pray for them and i say lord be with their mind help them to to focus more help them to everything we do we're trying to bring them back into the the reality that we don't do this alone we are here and we are created to come before his presence and singing when i'm taking that test at school i'm in front of god and i'm i'm i'm in front of his presence and i need to glorify him with gladness in that moment and so it's constantly reminding our kids everything we can do to bring them back into the presence of the lord um and so for us it's it's it's always looking different we don't i told ali years ago my wife i said i don't want to get into the point where um every night it's me preaching my sunday message to them and and using them as a test subject i don't want this to be a sunday school lesson every night before we go to bed because what they're going to do is they're going to begin to resent that they're going to be going to resent church i said i want worship to be fun i want worship to be exciting i want it to be a time where they look forward to it they look forward to me coming in their room and it's just me and jade it's just me and brody and eventually it'll just be me and hudson where i am just spending that last couple of minutes before they go to bed with them and it's some of my most memorable times as a parent amen i agree i think that you know mixing it up there's no formula there's no set way to do it um there's nothing that says you have to do it this way you know bible reading worship time incorporate different things you know it doesn't have to be a cookie cutter thing and i think variety and uh you know family devotion time is a wise thing the kids will remember it and like you said they'll look forward to it definitely yeah next up we see we start publicly we we begin to enter into his presence with singing family but then in verse three it says this no lord begins to be very personal he is god it is he who has made us specifically talking about us and not we ourselves we are his people and the sheep of his pastures and so i title it this way publicly family privately this is the the times where we have our own private devotions where maybe it's a song that we're singing and or maybe it's a scripture that we read that we begin to meditate on the goodness of god the greatness of god who he is and what he's done for us we had jason riddle come and do a marriage conference for us and he mentioned the the the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude meditation prayer tithing giving of ourselves and and he began to think about these things and me and him were this was just me and him talking personally and he said oftentimes the spiritual disciplines we felt we failed to do sorry about that we failed to do because we just weren't taught right how to do them and he said oftentimes when we get into a spiritual discipline of just meditation where we just focus on a passive scripture and we just allow it to turn over and over in our mind we allow it to turn over and over in our hearts it changes the way we act and think because scripture is impacting our life you know we we live in such a busy world that silence is is a taboo topic it's hard for us to sit in silence but that's what jesus would do he would get alone on a mountain he would pray and he would sit in silence because he knew he needed it and it's a lost art that we have and we need to get back to this point where we are able to have private loving devotion with the lord where we're meditating we're praying we're praising we're we're throwing a song on we're just worshiping the lord but it's got to be privately we're gonna have times where it's public we're in our family but we've got to be times where we're working on ourselves as well you know jesus is our ultimate example and how many times do we see in the gospels that he went off by himself alone in the wilderness in nature getting close to god you know i'm reminded of matthew 6 6 here and even though it's part of it's matthew 6 6 is about prayer you know prayer is an act of worship and matthew 6 6 says but you when you pray go into your inner room close your door pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you listen life is busy i mean the phone is ringing the tv is blaring the kids are fighting the dog is yapping how in the world can we find time in this busy world to get alone with god and pray and worship and read the bible privately alone go off by ourselves how can we find time to do that well we have to make time yeah you have to decide to carve out time in your schedule to worship privately to pray privately to get alone with god you know there's an old saying if you fail to plan then you can plan to fail you know you have to plan time you have to schedule that alone time with god and see the thing the thing is is that you know we prioritize things in our lives according to how important they are to us you know if something is important enough to you you will find time to do it we're going to find time to eat that supper you know we're going to find time to watch our favorite show you know so because those things are important to us well alone time with god worshiping privately uh should be more so important to us and we'll find if we make it a priority we'll find time to do it and then we'll go into number four which is corporately so we've got publicly family we've got privately and now uh verse four and five we're going to worship corporately enter into his gates with thanksgiving into his courts with praise be thankful to him and bless his name for the lord is good and his mercy endures forever his faithfulness to all generations so this is us corporately uh getting together and like i said earlier you don't have to sing well you just have to sing but when we get together and we sing corporately together as a church as the body of christ that is our opportunity to give our sacrifice of praise as priests in his service and that sacrifice of praise is the fruit of our lips you know you know james you know this and i know this when you are in a church and everybody that's in that service is singing and i mean everybody and everybody's participating it's just a different vibe i mean it can change the whole feel of the church and when visitors come into a church like that and everybody's singing loud and they automatically think wow man there's there's something special about this church you know there's something special here the people here are invested they're saying man i'm looking around and everybody's singing i've never been a part of a service like this let me let me give a little illustration about this me and you went to israel now there were some things that i knew were going to have an effect on that i didn't know were going to have an effect on me but then there were things that i knew yeah this is going to have a big impact on me one of those was the garden of gethsemane but the other thing that i knew was going to have an effect on me was the garden tomb and we sat there on those bleachers and she said this is calvary over here and she pointed to a cliff it was a bus station down below it was a muslim cemetery up top and you could just make out the skull in the side of the cliff face but we were 30 yards away from where jesus shed his blood now it might not be the place but all evidence points to this being the place where jesus died and then we walked past the wine press in the garden where joseph of arimathea uh it was a commercial garden so they dug down and found the wine press and then we went into the empty tomb you know it was just i never in my life thought that i would be in that empty tomb and i almost did not want to leave i took some pictures i took video they told us not to stay in there a long time but i lingered longer than i should because i did not want to leave that tomb and james you know that after we left that tomb we went into a side room where we would take communion and we we took the lord's supper and we ate the bread that represented his flesh we drank the wine that represented his blood and then we began to sing now this is a group of 30 pastors so when we sing we're all gonna sing we're all gonna sing just all 30 of us and we're gonna sing loud at the top of our lungs and man we sang in christ alone and listen i've been in bigger worship services before but i've never been in a bigger more impactful spirit-filled service than 30 pastors in one room singing at the top of their lungs in christ alone because when we sing when we when we corporately worship god together that invites the presence of god and it was so powerful and it was so moving and as we walked out of that room our tour guide was standing at the door he was he was a lost jewish man named emir and this lost jewish man turned to marcus our leader and said man that was that was powerful wasn't it so even a lost man could recognize the power that's in a service when every christian that's participating when they give it their all they engage they sing man it invites the presence of god there's nothing like it you know once again i know we've read this verse two or three maybe even five times but it applies so much colossians 3 16 but the word of christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom teaching and moshing one another with psalms hymns spiritual songs singing with thankfulness in your hearts to god we're to admonish one another with psalms hymns and spiritual songs encourage encourage each other remind each other of the truth and there's nothing better than corporate worship when everybody's participating absolutely brett man that about just bringing me back emotionally just now thinking about that i've got all that on video i'm going to look it up here in a minute and and listen to that in christ alone because i recorded all the audio while i was in there i want to share two moments with with you just corporately uh so years ago six years ago we went to call together for the gospel i think it was like five or six thousand pastors got together in the yell monitorium there in kentucky and i was up on the balcony third floor i think and just hearing every all those men sing together corporately we're just worshiping the lord was like nothing else as well but i want i want to share this one other time because oftentimes we will the argument will be well why do i need to be in church why do i need to be around people why do i need to worship with other people well i have the opportunity as as lead pastor i know what i'm preaching i know where the lord's leading me and so i'll send some songs that have impacted me as i am preparing for my message to our music leader and i'll say hey these are maybe some songs we could practice our choir could sing or we could sing as a congregational and uh it's happened more than once in the last six months but i'll send the song and then i'll be listening to it preparing my heart preparing my mind for the worship and for the word that i'm going to be preaching but when we get together as a church and we sing that song together it's like the lord uses it in a different way because i'm hearing these other voices not just the professionals on on the soundtrack but these other voices that are singing along with me and we're just worshiping together and i'll find myself oftentimes just sort of broken with tears and not having the the words to say because corporately we're coming together when we're worshiping the lord and it's just something about that because god has command even in psalms 111 1 it says praise the lord i will give thanks to the lord with all my heart not just part of it not just at times when i'm feeling happy but with all my heart in the company of the upright and in the assembly there's just something about coming together worshiping the lord with fellow brothers and sisters who love jesus who love one another who want to see the gospel move forward and ultimately when we begin to think of worship and music in our life it's more than just music i want us to understand that because worship is not just getting together on sunday morning at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock and singing a couple of songs it is every single moment of our day every single moment of our life worshiping the lord in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and it's an active service every single day brett any final words i just think that this is such a great subject to talk about when i came out of legalism i was lost um i had no reference i really didn't know what was right what was wrong i had to kind of fumble through the dark in this subject to kind of find my way do my own research and while that was good it was healthy i just wanted a resource to kind of guide me through it and so i'm glad we're doing this um i think that it's a it's a great subject music is important worship is more than music although music is a big part of it it's a big part of our christian life it's a big part of our church life um our worship life and i'm just glad we have this conversation absolutely and until next time to god not the pastor be the glory i found my new name found that good grace found that healing and the tears fell down my face when i found my beginning has no ending found that second chance found my best friend found my forgiveness found my happiness i've been singing ever since i found my freedom thanks for listening to the for freedom podcast if you enjoyed our content do us a favor by liking subscribing or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast platform you use be sure to join us next time for the for freedom podcast

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