Introduction / Review:
Are You a True Worshipper?
John 4:23
Am I a True Worshipper?
- Am I all-in with all my Emotions ? (2 Sam 6:12-15)
- Does my worship go Vertical and Horizontal? (2 Sam 6:16-19)
Hebrews 13:15-6
- Am I focused Solely on God? (2 Sam 6:20-23)
- It was for the Lord, not you. (2 Sam 6:21)
- I have Personal reasons to worship so hard (2 Sam 6:21)
- It is Impossible to worship too hard. (2 Sam 6:22)
What to Say When You Are Accused of Worshipping Too Hard.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me, please.
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2 Samuel 6 When we were kids, we went to this little Methodist church in our town of Shekorah.
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And when it came to the singing time, I'm trying to think of a nice way to say this.
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We weren't exactly the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.
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Well, one particular Sunday - and my brother knows exactly what I'm going to say, because he remembers this well - we were singing, and I use that term loosely, but it just sort of sounded like this, if you'll indulge me for the sake of the story.
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It sort of sounded like this.
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I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow.
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If ever I loved Thee, Lord Jesus, 'tis now.
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It really wasn't that good.
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But right in the middle of the hymn, the pastor gets up, and he goes, "Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop singing!" And he turned the organist, "Stop playing! Stop! Just stop!" You heard the needle scratch across the record, you know what I mean?
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He goes, "Stop!" It was deadly quiet when he said, "I'm not going to let you ruin another one.
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Sit down." And we sat down.
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And I don't think anybody remembered another word he said that day.
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Pretty shocking, wasn't it?
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"Oh, you should have been there." And you know, I get it now.
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Oh, then? I didn't get it then, but I'll be honest with you, I get it now.
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He was saying, "Can we be content to offer this to God and call it praise?
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Can we call this worship?" And Harvest, I'm saying to you today, can we be content to play church without encountering God in true worship?
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Question today is are you a worshipper?
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Are you a worshipper?
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And somebody right now is like, you know, you know, that's that's not really my thing, you know worship. That's not really my thing Well, i'm here to tell you today. That's a problem That's a big problem because you were created to worship The biggest book in god's word the biggest book. You know, the biggest book is in god's word Psalms, do you know what psalms is?
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the song book about worship Eternal heaven is described as a place of eternal worship.
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And God is actually seeking, according to Jesus, He is seeking worshipers.
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He's seeking worshipers. Look at John 4.23.
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Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, He tells her, "But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
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For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him." God is seeking such people.
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What are such people?
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Not Bible readers.
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"Hey, I'm all for Bible reading." But Jesus didn't say that's what God's looking for.
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He didn't say preachers.
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I think preachers are fantastic.
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But Jesus didn't say that God was seeking true preachers.
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He said the Father is seeking, what? True worshipers!
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He's looking for worshipers.
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So the question that you have to ask yourself today as we continue our series on Bible Basics, the question you have to ask yourself, not just, "Am I a worshiper?" but, "Am I what God's looking for, a true worshiper?" "Am I a true worshiper?" So jot these things down if you have an outline.
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Number one, are you a true worshiper?
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The first question you have to ask yourself.
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You're not answering this for your spouse, or your kids, or your neighbor, whoever's sitting beside you.
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You're not evaluating them right now.
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You're evaluating yourself, okay?
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So the first question is, "Am I all in with my emotions?" "Am I all in with my emotions?" Let's look at verses 12-15 here.
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Before we look there, just to give you a bit of an on-ramp, last week we talked about Saul, the first king, And David replaced him.
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That's a very long story, very short.
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And David just took Jerusalem, called the city of David, 2 Samuel 5, 7.
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David defeated the Philistines, and David wanted to bring the ark of God from the household of a man named Obed-Edom, which is really fun to say.
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It was stored there for three months because the first attempt to bring the ark wasn't successful and you can read that sometime.
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But David really wanted to bring the ark into Jerusalem and that's what brings us to verse 12.
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It says, "It was told King David, "the Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom "and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God." So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David, that's Jerusalem, with rejoicing.
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You have to get this scene, they're bringing the ark, that's like a worship service parade happening.
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Look at this, verse 13.
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"And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal.
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And David danced before the Lord with all his might.
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and David was wearing a linen ephod.
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So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord was shouting and with the sound of the horn." Stop there.
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Verse 14 says, "David danced before the Lord with all his might." What do you think that looked like?
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With all his might.
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You know, I did a lot of studying this week, specifically in this phrase.
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What does this mean, "He danced with all his might"?
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Because I have this picture in my head of what I think that looked like.
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But were there any clues in the text?
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You know, one scholar defined it as a, I kind of laughed at this.
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He says that this literally means a violent effort of leaping.
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That was the name of David's dance, a violent effort of leaping.
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Like he was like,
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(grunts)
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And I don't think it looked like that.
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Actually, somebody else I read this week said that this was actually a very technical and specific thing, that this dance was, quote, "Springing round in half circles to music." Springing round in half circles to music.
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Who would like to see me demonstrate that?
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That is not gonna happen.
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I'm not sure exactly what it looked like, Here's what I do know for sure.
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Whether it looked more like the Macarena or the Sprinkler or whatever, this dance that David performed, the Bible says, was with all his might.
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This was raw emotion.
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Raw emotion just coming out of him.
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And church, have you ever been so overjoyed about something?
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Have you ever been so overjoyed that you can't help but dance?
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Has that ever happened to you?
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Yes, it has!
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Don't you dare sit there and lie to me.
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No, I've never done that.
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Yes, you have.
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In school, when you took that test and you thought you were going to get a horrible grade and you got it back and it was much better than you thought, and it just involuntarily comes out of you like, "Yes, yes!" What is it that makes you do that?
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It's raw emotion coming out physically.
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Or you get that new job.
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You applied for this job.
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Oh, there's no way I'm gonna get this job.
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I'm not gonna get this job.
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There's no way I'm gonna get this job.
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And then you get a phone call and they're like, we're gonna give you the job and we're gonna pay you more than you originally offered.
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What do you do, right?
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Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
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You can't help it.
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It just comes out, right?
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You know what I'm talking about, right?
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Otherwise this is very awkward.
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Or like the penguins, the penguins, remember not last year, because we're not gonna count last year, But the previous two years, who was dancing when they won the Stanley Cup?
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Not us!
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We were dancing at every goal along the way, every time they scored, "Yeah!" Yeah, it just comes out.
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Or when you take your kid to his first soccer game, remember?
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And he scores his first goal.
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What do you do, parents?
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I'm pleased with his performance.
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No, you don't do that!
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"That was my kid! That was my kid!" You cheat on your high-fiving strangers!
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But my point is this, when you are so overjoyed, you're so overjoyed, it just comes from your heart, from your gut, and you can't control yourself.
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It's almost involuntary, and it's so uninhibited.
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You don't rehearse it, and you can't contain it.
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Right now somebody's sitting here going, "Oh, this sounds like this is getting a little too charismatic for my tastes." I'd like to remind you of something Jesus said.
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Jesus said true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
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Yes, worship must be done according to the truth.
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Yes, I'm not saying that anything goes when it comes to worship.
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I am not saying that.
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But Jesus said we worship in spirit and truth.
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And in our culture, in this church, I think we're pretty secure on the truth part.
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I don't have to stand up here and give this church a sales pitch on the truth part.
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We need the spirit part. Church, we need the spirit part.
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The first concert I ever went to, I was just a kid, a teenage kid.
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The first concert I ever went to was Van Halen.
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The Sammy Hagar years. Van Halen fans, Eddie Van Halen, man, just...
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(mimics Eddie Van Halen)
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Oh man, I love me some Eddie Van Halen.
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It was my first concert, and if you've never been to a concert, or if you can think to the first one you've gone to, for me, it was just taking all this in.
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There's all these people, and they were just rocking it on stage, and I'm like, taking all of this in.
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And I just remember standing there, we were on the lawn, so they were all like this big, and I was just like, "This is...
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wow! Wow! Wow!" And I'm just like standing there, taking it in, when suddenly this drunk man behind me reaches over and he grabs the sleeve of my shirt.
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He leans over and grabs my shirt and he goes, "You better start dancing!" Like I said, I'm just a kid, I have no idea what's going on.
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So I'm like...
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And I keep looking over my shoulder at this guy, because he's watching me.
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I'm not sure how to dance to "Eruption".
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But my point of sharing that story is, My dance was just going through the motions.
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I was just doing the job.
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I was just doing enough that it looked like I was doing it.
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But it certainly wasn't from the heart.
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And I think, church, we can acknowledge that making worship all about emotions is a problem.
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But can we acknowledge this morning that it is an equal danger, And I would suggest to you that one that we are far more guilty of is being emotionally detached in worship.
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True or false?
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There should be times when we are singing that you think of God's love for you and your heart just is like exploding in your chest with joy.
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That should be happening.
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There should be times when we are singing that you think of Jesus Christ's death for you, and your eyes fill with tears, and you almost are choking some of the words up because you think of this awesome love that He demonstrated by dying for you, and you just start weeping.
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That should be happening.
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There should be times that we're worshiping that your mind tries to wrap itself around the awesomeness of God, and your head just bows down in reverence.
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There should be times in worship that you just dance because it is in you, and you can't stop it from getting out any more than you could when your kid scored that goal.
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For that to happen, you have to be just as serious about allowing your heart to be all into worship as you are about making sure that the words we sing are biblical, and by heart I mean all in." So am I a true worshiper?
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Am I all in with my emotions?
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Secondly, does my worship go vertical and horizontal?
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Does my worship go vertical and horizontal?
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Look at verses 16-19 with me.
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It says, "As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David" - still Jerusalem - daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.
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And she despised him in her heart." We're gonna talk about her in a couple minutes here, all right?
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"And they brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it." The tabernacle, it was in another city at this point.
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So David had just a tent set up for the ark.
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It says, "And David," look at this, And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
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Now watch this.
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"And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings," that's vertical, "he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts," that's horizontal, "and distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, yummy, a portion of meat, yummy, and a cake of raisins.
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Who doesn't enjoy a good raisin cake?
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"To each one, then all the people departed, each to his house." Stop there.
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I want you to see in this passage that David worshipped the Lord, and then blessed and gave to the people.
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He worshipped the Lord first, then blessed and gave to the people.
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And here's what I want you to see about this church.
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Those were not really considered two separate things.
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Both of those went into the same bucket, and that bucket is called worship.
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You see this symbol here, we get asked a lot about this.
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What's this symbol mean?
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And this symbol actually means a lot of different things.
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But the main thing that that symbol is, is an arrow.
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That's the main thing.
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It's an arrow, and it's an arrow pointing in a vertical direction.
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And that arrow is to remind us that we are here to direct our affections and our attention in a vertical direction.
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That's primary, that's priority, that's number one.
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That's what vertical church is all about.
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But even a vertical as the priority worship always spills over to the horizontal.
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I'm going to have a verse put up here in a second.
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This isn't just anecdotal, this is New Testament, very clear teaching.
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But look at Hebrews 13, vertical and horizontal.
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Look at this, "Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name." So that's vertical worship, right?
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Are you with me on that? That's vertical worship.
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Now I want you to look at this next line.
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"Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have." That's this way, right? That's horizontal.
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You're not sharing with God, right?
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So he's obviously talking about horizontal serving people.
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Look at how this verse ends.
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"For such sacrifices are pleasing to God." You see how worship goes from vertical to horizontal, but it's all worship.
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So we talk about worship, understand, yes, we worship in music.
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But some people want to restrict worship to just that.
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And that's not true.
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You see, the reason we worship in music...
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Do you know why we worship in music?
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Because music is an emotional thing.
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Right?
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Music stirs our emotions.
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And if we are to love God with our emotions, how do we do that?
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We do it with music. God designed that.
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We can love Him with our emotions through singing.
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But worship isn't just limited to singing.
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Worship carries over to serving and loving people.
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Because I love God, I love people.
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And when that is true for you, church, when you can honestly and sincerely say that from the heart, "Because I love God, I love people. Because I love God, I love people." When that is true, that means serving people is an act of worship.
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Let me give you an earthly example to sort of illustrate this.
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Okay, so this guy meets this girl, and this girl is just perfect in every way.
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This girl is everything he's been looking for, and he says, "I can see that girl becoming my wife." She's just perfect in every way.
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Everything that he would imagine the perfect woman to be, she has it, she's got it.
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She's just wonderful in every single way.
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He scores her top marks in every single category.
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But she has a cat.
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Mr. Mittens is the cat's name.
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And this guy knows that marrying her is going to include this cat.
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She's had this cat ever since it was a kitten, and this cat has just been part of her life for years.
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He knows marrying her includes the cat.
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And honestly, he doesn't really like the cat.
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Don't get me wrong, he doesn't hate the cat.
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He doesn't wish harm upon the cat.
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But he's got no reason to have any kind of affinity for this cat.
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But what does the guy do?
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I'll tell you exactly what the guy does.
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you know what the guy does. This guy, he buys cat toys and brings them over when he visits this girl. He's playing with Mr. Mittens with the cat toy. He brings over Mr. Mittens' favorite brand of Meow Mix. And he's constantly petting him when he's over visiting. He's petting Mr. Mittens and he's talking to him oh so tenderly. You know, he's even helped her at times take the cat to the vet. Why in the world, if he doesn't have any affinity for the cat, why is he showing the cat so much attention? Because he loves the girl, right? So do you see how the acts of love for the cat would be motivated really by his love for her?
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And of course over time, as he gets to know the cat, he does develop a relationship with the cat, and then he actually starts to like the cat, but it didn't start there it started with I give the cat attention because I love her now church in the same way our love for people is really and primarily motivated by our love for Jesus Christ and that is how worship goes from vertical to horizontal this certainly changes the perspective of loving people doesn't it it certainly changes the motivation of loving people.
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Like you can say, why would I get involved in small group outreach?
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You know, our small group, we go to the Mars Home for Youth like about every month.
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And what would motivate me to do that?
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I don't know those kids.
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Their problems aren't my problems.
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I got enough of my own problem.
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What would motivate me to do that?
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How about you should feel bad for them?
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And you know what I do?
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That's not motivation to go there because feelings change.
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I could feel bad for them, and I meet a kid and hear his story, and it might change my attitude.
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I don't feel bad for him anymore, it's his own fault.
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That's not right motivation.
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Nor is it a right motivation to go to the Mars Home, because one of the elders of the church asked you to go.
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You know, Jay Nauer, one of our elders, he says, "You really should go to the Mars Home." "Oh, okay, I guess I'll go." That's not motivation to go either.
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The motivation to go to the Mars Home for youth and love on those kids is because I love Jesus Christ.
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That has to be your motivation for good works.
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See, just like the cat story, over time, yeah, we developed a relationship with the kids, and we like the kids, don't we, Ross?
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We have fun with the kids.
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We have a blast with them, and we know their names, and little bits of their stories, and we pray with them.
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We have a great time with them.
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But I'm just saying, we didn't get in the door there out of affection or affinity for the kids.
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What got us in the door there is because we love Jesus Christ, and God receives such good works as acts of worship.
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Hebrews says He considers them sacrifices.
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Understanding there's no sacrifice for sin.
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Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, He laid down a once and for all sacrifice for sin.
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But in the Old Testament, there were other types of sacrifices.
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There were sacrifices, free will offerings of thanksgiving, just to say, "God, I love You and I appreciate everything You do." And that's what the Hebrew writer is talking about.
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We can still offer sacrifices to God.
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And we do that when we serve people in the name of Jesus Christ, He's motivated by a love for Jesus Christ.
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And finally, am I a true worshiper?
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Am I a true worshiper?
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Am I all in with my emotions?
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Does my worship go vertical and horizontal?
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Here's the third question.
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Am I focused solely on God?
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Am I focused solely on God?
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Look at verse 20.
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It says, "And David returned to bless his household." By the way, ministry not just for the people, but ministry at home, that's a sermon for another time.
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David returned to bless his household, but Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David.
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I love that there's parts of the Bible I don't have to explain.
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Like husbands, you get home, and your wife comes out to meet you.
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You know something's up, right?
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Like, I did something wrong.
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Something that ain't going to get a living room scolding, it's going to get a driveway scolding.
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She came out to meet him and said, "How the King of Israel honored himself today uncovering himself today before the eyes of his female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself." Obviously she was being sarcastic.
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She's like, "Well, hey, you put on quite a show today, Your Highness.
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Yeah, I saw what you did out there.
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What's the matter with you?
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You know, acting like that?
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Yeah, that's okay for other people.
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That's okay for the common people.
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You're the king of Israel?
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That's how the king of Israel acts? Really?
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Really? David, you're above that, man.
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You're above that.
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By the way, he didn't do anything immodest.
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The Bible makes it crystal clear in verse 14 that he was wearing a linen ephod.
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What that means is he was dressed like all of the priests.
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In other words, David was dressed down like a priest, he wasn't dressed up like a king.
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So he didn't do anything immodest, he didn't do anything sinful.
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Jesus thought his behavior wasn't really dignified.
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Look at verse 21, "And David said to Michal, 'It was before the Lord who chose me above your father and above all his house to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord, Ouch.
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"And I will make Mary before the Lord.
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I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes.
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But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.
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And Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death." See, David says, "Hey, you know the kind of leader I am?
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I'm not a leader who is a tyrant.
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I'm not a leader who is a dignitary the Queen of England with my kingly wave?" He says, "I'm not a leader that's a celebrity." He was a leader who was a worshiper.
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And you're like, "Well, whatever happened to Mikkel, whatever happened to his wife, we know she didn't have any kids, what happened to her?" I'll tell you exactly what happened to her.
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She still goes to church.
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Like, "Oh really, where?" Everywhere.
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She goes to church here.
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She goes to church at Northway across the street.
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She goes to church anywhere.
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In the name of Jesus Christ as passionately being worshipped, you might be Macau.
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What do you mean by that?
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While worship is happening, while the worship team is up here leading worship, are you a spectator?
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Or are you a participant?
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See, that's Macau's story. She was a spectator.
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She's watching the worship from the window, shaking her head, disgusted.
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The Bible says literally she despised her husband in her heart.
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Those are pretty strong words.
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"I can't stand him. Look at him.
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Look at him!
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I can't stand him!" Looking down on people who are passionately worshipping.
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Have you ever done that? You don't have to raise your hands.
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Have you ever done that?
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You come to church and you see people who are passionately worshipping, instead of you engaging with the Lord, you're looking around.
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You're looking around, look at him over there raising his hands.
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Who does he think he is?
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Look at him, "Oh, I'm gonna raise my hands." You're like making fun of him and, "What's...?" Look at him, you're Macau.
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You look over and you see a woman, while she's worshipping, she's weeping.
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And you're looking over at her like, "Oh, boo-hoo." Oh, look at her, "Oh, boo-hoo." Oh, drama queens crying during worship, "Oh, boo-hoo." Figures.
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You know what? When you do that, you know who you are?
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You're Macau!
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But what about when you're worshiping real hard, and people are getting on your case about it?
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Well, as we close here today, I'd like the worship team to come up.
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Please. Three more things I want to share with you.
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This is what to say when you're accused of worshiping too hard.
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I want you to write this down.
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This is what to say when you're accused of worshiping too hard.
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David shows us.
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We're not going to read it again, I'm going to reference the verses though.
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If you feel like eyes are on you, if you feel like criticism is coming towards you, if you feel like people are shaking their heads or rolling their eyes because you are passionately worshipping, if you've ever felt that, like, "Oh, I want to raise my hands, but what are people going to think?" There's three responses for you.
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Right from the Word of God, letter A, what David said to Michal, he said, "It was for the Lord, not you. It was for the Lord, not you.
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I didn't show up here this morning to put a show on for you." And David is saying to Michal, "That dancing, that wasn't for the people.
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That was for the Lord. And you know what? I care way more about what He thinks than what you think." Look, I love you guys. I do. But here's the reality. When it comes to weighing whose opinion I care about more, people come and go into your life. The Lord is with you for eternity.
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Jesus Christ died for me. He protects me and provides for me. I care way more about what what he thinks and what you think.
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I love you, but understand, I have reason that your opinion isn't even in the same category as the Lord's opinion.
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So David says, "That was for the Lord, not you." That takes us to the second thing David said.
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He said, "I have personal reasons to worship so hard." I have personal reasons to worship so hard.
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David said, "God promoted me, God appointed me, "God has blessed me, I'm celebrating "what God has done for me." And church, I gotta encourage you, You have got to, if you want to put your emotions into your worship, I mean really put your emotions into your worship, you have got to move from general concepts to personal concepts.
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What I mean is this, you need, instead of saying just Jesus died on the cross, yes, yes, he did, awesome.
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But when you say Jesus died on the cross for me, you can say, oh, the Lord has, the Lord is a God who forgives sins.
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Absolutely true, absolutely praiseworthy.
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But it becomes such an emotional experience when I think while I'm worshiping, he's forgiven my sin.
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We sing, oh, the Lord loves people.
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God so loved the world.
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The Lord loves people.
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We get to turn that to, he loves me.
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God provides, God is a provider.
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He's a refuge, he's a fortress, he's a tower, he's a provider, all true.
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But when I worship, do you know what I'm thinking?
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Provides for me.
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I can think of all the times that He has personally taken care of me.
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So like David, you have personal reasons to worship so hard.
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And then finally, what do you say when you're accused of worshiping too hard?
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It's impossible to worship too hard.
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That really settles it, doesn't it?
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It's impossible to worship too hard.
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How much glory do you have to ascribe to God until He says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not that great." How much praise do we lift to the heavens until God says, "I didn't really do anything that awesome." For the Almighty who loves you, who died for you, who provides for you, who is preparing a place for you in glory right now and is going to come and take you there, you aren't ever going to be too passionate.
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You aren't ever going to be too thankful.
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if you aren't ever going to be too glorifying.
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I want you to stand with me, please.
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You know, some sermons you apply later.
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Like when you go home this afternoon, or when you get to work tomorrow, or the next time this situation comes up, you're going to be able to apply this sermon.
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But hey, here's a sermon you can apply right now.
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Are you a true worshiper?
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If you're a true worshiper, I say let's worship all in, Vertical, focused solely on God, and who cares what Macau thinks?
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This is for God.
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So shout to the heavens and let God know how you feel about Him.
Small Group Discussion
WHOLE GROUP
Read 2 Samuel 6:12-23
We are to worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23). Where do you think HBC leans - more on the spirit side or the truth side? Where do you lean personally? How can you/HBC move towards being more balanced in spirit and truth?
Why, do you think, we tend to restrain ourselves emotionally in worship? How can you be “all-in” with your emotions (2 Sam 6:14)?
How does God regard our good works (see Hebrews 13:15-16)? How does that motivate you to serve people?
How can you eliminate distractions and focus solely on God in worship (2 Sam 6:21)?
BREAKOUT
What personal reasons do YOU have to worship the Lord right now! Share - then pray prayers of thanksgiving.