 Well, let's get to it. Let's open our Bibles to Matthew 26. And as you do, I wanna say thank you for that warm, warm welcome, standing ovation. I am truly blessed and honored to be here with you this morning and so honored by Pastor Lee and Jane's invitation to speak with you on a subject that is near and very dear to my heart. And so I've got a question for ya. How often have you cried out to God and said something like this? Oh God, would you just tell me what you want from me? Tell me, what am I supposed to do? What do you want? If you tell me I'll do it, just tell me. Tell me, speak to me. I wanna bless your heart. I wanna do your will. I wanna obey. But you tell me what you want. And in scripture, God invites his people. He commands his people to do various things throughout scripture, we see it, right? He commands different things. And I think of the story of Peter and Jesus right before Jesus is resurrected. And he says, Peter, do you love me more than these? Feed my sheep. Second time, Peter, do you love me more than these? Feed my sheep. Peter, three times. Do you love me more than these? Feed my sheep. How many of you know? If you're Peter, you're gonna go feed the sheep. You're gonna find them and you're gonna feed them. And Peter does just that and he starts the church. Sometimes God commands us to do things more than once. And so what if I told you that throughout scripture, there is a biblical command that God has asked us to do and he has asked us to do it over 200 times. And if that's true, would you do it? God has asked something of you over 200 times. Would you do it? So we've been talking about being a worshiping in a praying church. Last week, Pastor Lee gave a powerful message on prayer and being joyful in the house of prayer. Being a worshiping in a praying church, this is who we are, this is our identity. This is what we are going after as a church. It's who God has called the church to be. And how many of you know to be a worshiping in a praying church? Our church must be filled with people, individuals who pray, individuals who worship, families who pray, families who worship. And so Pastor Lee and Jane asked me to speak this morning on the topic of worship. And worship is something that I'm very passionate about. I was doing some math in preparation for this time with you and I figured out that I have had the honor and privilege to lead worship for the body of Christ for just over 25 years now. And as some of you applaud, others of you are doing math. Stop it. Stop. I'm one of the worship pastors here at Radiant and like Caleb said, we are coming up on seven years of serving and leading worship for this church body. This is our church family. And so it's just my honor and privilege to get to stand up here this morning and share with you on the topic of worship. And so we're gonna zoom in. We're gonna zoom in today on worship. And I got another question for you. In a room full of people, God is looking for worshipers. Will he find you? Will he find you? And since we're gonna be talking about worship this morning, I wanna give you a definition that we're gonna use this morning. And to be honest, I struggled to come up with a definition that was really like succinct and catchy. I wanted to use alliteration and make it like super cool. And I struggled. And so what I did is I turned to kind of one of the Godfathers of first worship leaders, Bob Sorgi. He wrote a book called exploring worship years ago and it is fantastic. And so I took his definition. So we're gonna use that this morning. Here we go. He says in his book, the dynamics and dimensions of worship are so many and so varied that not one definition of worship could possibly include all of its ramifications and meanings. And at this point when I read it, I went, oh, feel. Okay, I was, yeah, I was feeling that. I was struggling too, but then he says this. So what is the absolute essence, the common denominator in all of worship? And he says this, in the midst of the most shattering of life circumstances, regardless of the season that you are in, whether it be complete, emotional turmoil, worship is this. I bow my heart and my life before God almighty acknowledging his supreme lordship. That my friends is worship. In John 4, 23 it says, but the hour is coming and is now here where the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is looking for those who will worship in a room full of people, in a sanctuary full of people here in Richland, in a sanctuary full of people in Portage and downtown, the father is looking for people who will worship him. Will he find you? Will he find you? So our text this morning is gonna be out of Matthew 26. Hopefully you had a chance to turn there with me, Matthew 26, we're gonna start in verse six. This is the story of Mary of Bethany and it says verse six. Now, when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment and she poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant saying, why this waste? So here we have this story of Mary, you've maybe heard this before, but she brings to Jesus the best, all that she has and it's kind of this beautiful picture of her whole life is wrapped up in this expensive ointment, this expensive perfume and she brings it before Jesus and Jesus is in a room, maybe it's kind of like a dining room area and there's a table and Jesus, some of his disciples, some other important people are there in a parallel passage in John, it actually says we know that Lazarus is there and Martha is there and people who love Jesus, people who know who Jesus is and right in the middle of their dinner, Mary breaks open her alabaster jar, and she begins to worship, she begins to bow her life in her heart before God Almighty acknowledging his Lordship and she gives everything that she has at the feet of Jesus. This is a corporate worship service. What Mary is doing, this is a corporate worship service that begins, right? And we have other people that are there and what we find in the text is no one joined in. It was a corporate worship service and we had spectators. So number one, I wanna hit the three kinds of people that are in this room with Jesus during a corporate worship service and number one, spectators. And we see that the spectators never engaged beyond watching a display of worship, right? We know there were maybe half a dozen to possibly 20 people in this room, right? Maybe it was a big room and the disciples, there's 12 disciples, maybe some were absent, maybe they were all there, a couple other important people are in the room, right? This was a corporate moment for worship to arise to Jesus and what's crazy too is everyone in the room really liked Jesus. They loved Jesus, they knew who he was. The timing of this story is actually passion week. So this is just a few days before Jesus goes to the cross and so Jesus has said explicitly who he is at this point to his disciples. They know he's God, they know he's the Messiah and they watched as Mary worshiped. They watched and spectators, they'll listen, they're watching, maybe they're thinking about Jesus, they're looking, oh, wow, this is okay. Maybe they had their hands in their pockets and were concerned about trying to stay comfortable in a moment that felt a little uncomfortable, a little awkward, but here's the thing, spectators, they were there to watch and not to give. In worship, we have the opportunity to give to Jesus. Here at Radiant Church, maybe we find ourselves looking to be comfortable in worship. We're listening, our hands are in our pockets and we're just kind of like crossing our arms, we're just uncomfortable and I wanna encourage us as a family, this is our moment to give to Jesus, to give worship and not to spectate. We are invited not to watch, right? Watch others participate in worship. We're invited to participate ourselves because spectators are merely spectators and okay, in sports, we understand this concept and ladies, I'm sorry, this was our chance to have a sermon illustration about fashion, about shoes or beauty products, but here I am, I'm gonna do a sports illustration, I apologize. Here we go, here we go, here we go. Okay, in sports, we understand the concept of spectating, don't we? We get it, we were in the stands, not on the field, right? Even though maybe we dressed the part and we wear the jersey and we paint our faces, we know we were only spectating. We were watching the game. In sports, being in the arena does not mean you played the game. Likewise, church, in our worship services, being in the room doesn't mean that you worshiped, it doesn't. How about in our Western celebrity culture, we've been trained to actually be spectators, we understand what is expected of us, we've been trained to watch professionals sing, we've been trained to watch professionals play music and have this musical kind of experience for us, right? We've got TV shows that are completely designated and designed to allow us to spectate and ooh, and ah, over beautiful music and beautiful singing voices, this is what we've been trained to do, right? Our culture has trained us to be spectators, but do not be deceived. If you operate like that in here, then we are only spectators of worship and not worshipers. And church, we wanna be a church who worships and not watches. We wanna be a church that participates and does not sit on the sidelines. This is who we are and this is who we were created to be. We are worshipers and not spectators. Amen, amen. The second person that we see in this room with Jesus, we see spectators and then we see critics, the critic. The critic takes it a step further. We see, right, the spectator is maybe indifferent or maybe even just kind of moved positively on the sidelines, but the critic takes it a step further and they judge worship, judge another person's worship. It was too bad or too much, right? Or even too little, that's not enough. Or weird, that's a little weird, got a little weird. Excessive and so forth. The criticism in this scripture, it was why this waste, this is a waste. That was the judgment over Mary's worship. And, you know, here at Radiant, sometimes we have our own kind of critical spirit of worship. They don't play my favorite songs, so I don't like it. It's too fast, too slow. How about this, this is too loud, right? Too loud. But is worship a waste or is he worth it? He is worthy of it all. The too fast, the too loud, the too, he is worthy of it all, all that we have. He is worth it and worship is about him. It's not about me, it's not about you and our personal preferences. What we want, what we'd like to hear on a Sunday morning, no, it's about God, what do you want to hear? What's the sound that you want to go forth from my heart and I want to give it and it's not a waste. Jesus, you are worthy. Jesus, you are worthy. In a room full of people, God is looking for those who will worship him. Will he find you? Will he find you? Are you a spectator, a critic or like Mary? Are you a worshiper? Will you bow your heart and your life before God Almighty and break open the alabaster jar of worship? Will you break open your own life and say all for Jesus? Jesus, you are worth it. Jesus, you are worth it. He's worth it. He's worth it. I want to go back to that biblical command that I began with, right? God commands us over 200 times throughout scripture to do something and that biblical command is to sing. It's to sing and there's actually a reason. God cares so much about you and I singing. It matters to his heart. Here's just a few things that singing does. Singing, it aligns our heart with truth. When we sing, we receive clear perspective from heaven. When we sing, we're actually personally uplifted and we're brought into places of joy and peace and hope. How many of you in times of worship all of a sudden you're ushered in to hope when you hadn't felt hope before. You were ushered into this place of just receiving the peace of God as you began to sing and worship or joy, right? Even when it doesn't make sense, you began to sing your weak song to the Lord and you began to receive joy on the inside of you. Let me tell you, church, singing and worship, it brings corporate unity. Singing and worship, it is not cute. It is powerful. It is a weapon and there is power when we lift our voices and sing to God. Our worship, it displaces darkness, church. Come on, it displaces principalities. When we lift our weak little voices, our weak little songs, heaven moves. The earth shakes and demons flee. Amen, guys, our praises shift the spiritual atmosphere. When we lift up corporate songs to the Lord, our city is affected. Our own song and our corporate sound is greatly desired by God. He loves it. He loves the sound of radiant church singing and he loves the sound of your voice singing and making melody to him. So if he loves it and if he's asked us to do it, why don't we do it, right? Sometimes we find ourselves becoming spectators, just kind of caught up in what's happening in the beautiful music or critics instead of worshipers. So why don't we do it? I wanna break it down and give a couple of maybe reasons and try to dismantle them for you this morning. Why we don't sing. This is not exhaustive list, by the way. Number one, why we don't sing. We lack skill and confidence, but we think it matters, right? We kind of decided, we came up with our own grid. We go, ah, to like sing and worship and kind of lift up my own song. I need to like be at a level here and I'm kind of at a level here, right? I'm just a sing in the shower kind of person, right? And we've actually deceived ourselves in thinking, oh, because I don't have like a great sound or I think it's here, then I'm excused from this and God doesn't really want it. But let me tell you, Psalm 100, it says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. That's what God wants. He wants that joyful noise. He wants that screeching sound that comes out of your mouth when you try to sing. That's what he desires. And so can we make that joyful noise unto the Lord this morning? Amen. This verse doesn't say, okay, those of you who have beautiful voices, those of you who are classically trained, those of you who sang in high school or did choir or even like can kind of pluck a note on the guitar, those of you who can do that, would you please make a beautiful sound to Jesus? Mm-mm, mm-mm, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all of the earth. How about Psalm 150? Everything that has breath, praise the Lord. I woke up with breath in my lungs this morning to do. We did, it's time to praise the Lord. Everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Our skill just kind of, whatever. We just, we're supposed to praise. That sound, that screech, make it. He loves it. He loves the sound of your voice. And we do not want to withhold that sound. Maybe just to sit here for a second, maybe you were told as a kid or in high school or you had that moment where you kind of felt that measuring rod show up and you realized maybe you were lower and someone judged or criticized like your singing voice or even your worship and they, oh, that's a little bit, whatever. Let me tell you something. The enemy wants to use those moments in your life. He wants to use those to silence your voice. He wants to silence your sound and he wants to silence your worship. I wanna tell you a story. So I was, I think I was in fourth grade and I was attending, so I'm like nine-year-old Rachel and I am attending pioneer clubs. And for those of you who don't know what pioneer clubs are, it was kind of like Christian Girl Scouts, okay? And so we're showing up every couple of weeks and we're earning badges for doing stuff. And so this one particular event, we're showing up and we're gonna make candles. It's gonna be great. And they've got it all planned out for us. And so nine-year-old Rachel, I walk in and I'm like, this is gonna be great. We're at the leader's house. There's 10 other fourth and fifth grade girls and we're gonna make candles and get a badge. And so we make candles in 10 minutes because it really doesn't take that long. And so we make the candles, wow, this is great. We get our badges and our leaders are kind of looking around, oh my goodness, we still have one more hour. What do we do with all of these girls? And so they set us up in a room with, they found a karaoke microphone. And they're like, girl, don't just sing for an hour. It'll be great. And so they leave us alone and we have a microphone and it was so fun. We're all taking turns singing on the microphone and it's super fun. And then it's my turn to sing. So I get the microphone and I'm a little shy and I sing a little song and as I'm ending it, the most beautiful, popular, blue eyes, blonde hair girl, she comes over and she just looks at me. She snatches the microphone and she says, you better give me that microphone before you hurt our ears. I know. Thank you. It hurt, right? That was painful. That was a really painful moment. But something happened on the inside of me and I actually, I made it in her vow in that moment and I said, I'm not gonna sing in public anymore. Clearly she knows what she's talking but she's a whole grade older than me. She's so popular. She absolutely knows the truth and I, gosh, I don't wanna be embarrassed again. I don't wanna feel that shame that I felt in that moment. And the enemy wanted to use that small moment in that one evening in pioneer clubs when I was supposed to be making candles and all of a sudden the enemy had an assignment to silence my voice, to silence my song and ultimately my worship. So some of us really might have some stories like that in our past where we've had moments where we felt like we needed to shrink back in singing and in worship. We do not want the enemy to silence our voice. It is time for the church to sing. It is time to not be silent anymore but to lift up that singing voice that he loves to hear. We do not wanna withhold our sound from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Amen. Number two, we don't feel like it. How many of you have come into church and we just, I'm so tired. I made it but I don't feel like singing. I don't feel like worship, right? I'm angry. Maybe I got in the car and everyone's yelling at each other. That doesn't happen in your car, right? Just mine. Everyone's yelling at you. Oh my gosh, I don't wanna be here. We're angry and we're angry and we show up to church and we're like, I just kinda wanna stay angry a little bit and just stew in my anger and I don't wanna sing and I don't wanna worship, right? I'm not in the mood. I'm not in the mood. We all become like hormonal teenagers and we decide we're a little moody and we don't know we're not in the mood to worship, right? In a motherly tone, hear me this morning. We need to get out of our feelings a little bit. Better yet, we need to bring our feelings to the feet of Jesus in worship and say, God, I'm a little angry. I'm a little mad. I'm a little tired but here's my weak worship. Here's my emotions. Here is my mind, will and emotions. God, won't you take it and I'm gonna praise you, right? Psalm 43.5 says, why so downcast? Oh, my soul, put your hope in God for I will yet praise him. Often in worship here on a Sunday morning, you'll hear that first song have a call to worship. Awake, my soul, and sing. Sing your praise aloud. We're commanding our soul, hey, mind, will, emotions. Submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and we're gonna worship. This is what we're gonna do. We have the ability to tell our soul, hey, it's time to worship. Come into alignment and sing, right? Why so downcast? I acknowledge the feelings are real. What I'm going through is real. I'm gonna worship through it. Amen, amen, why so downcast? Put your hope in God. Number three, sometimes we don't believe God really wants or likes our offering of worship, right? Our worship is too weak. Singing feels kind of weak, right? Our worship isn't valuable or maybe this, maybe you've said something like this. My recent mistakes disqualify my worship. I, gosh, I messed up again this week. I just, I'm not gonna sing. He doesn't wanna hear, he doesn't wanna hear this, right? We disqualify ourselves from worship. But let me remind you, John 4.23, it says, the Father is looking for those who will worship. He wants your worship. Number four, we don't believe maybe God is worthy of our worship. Maybe we've become indifferent to God. We consider ourselves more of our own God than Him. Or personal disappointment has caused us to question His worthiness. I'm really going through something and I just, I'm having a hard time believing that He's worthy. Why is this happening, right? We question His worthiness and all of a sudden we find ourselves hesitating to lift up our song to Jesus. Let me read for you Revelation 4.1 about the worthiness of Jesus. It says, you are worthy, oh Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things and by your will they exist and were created. What about Revelation 5.12? It's talking about Jesus. It says, worthy is the Lamb who was slain, worthy is Jesus to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing. Church, He is worthy of our worship. The worthiness of Christ, the worthiness of Jesus. That's why we sing so many songs just saying, you are worthy. He is worthy. Isn't He worthy? He is worthy of our offering and our sacrifice of praise. Amen. So singing, He's worthy of our song. Singing is one of seven words in the Hebrew language that mean praise. I wanna quickly go through seven expressions of praise. How we can praise the Lord. So number one is singing, right? And this Hebrew word, it's to heal it. It means to sing praise to God. Quickly next one is Shabbak. And it means to shout. I love in our worship services, sometimes at the end of songs that they, let's lift a shout of praise, right? And we all hopefully shout. Sometimes that makes us a little uncomfortable, doesn't it though? We don't wanna shout. Amen. Sometimes though, we have an opportunity and this is actually that command to praise is to shout sometimes. We don't shout at the end of songs. Oh, it's kind of a cool thing to do. No, shout to the Lord. This is a way to praise. Sometimes we shout, right? How about this one? Barak, it means in the Hebrew, it means to bow, to get low, to bow before the Lord. This is a way to express worship and praise, to actually bow our knee before the Lord. I'm not gonna do it because I might not be able to get back up. Bow. The next one is Zamar to play instruments. Our musicians here are not background musicians. They are leading us into a place of praise. Did you know when you play your instrument at home before the Lord, it is worship, it is praise. The next one, yadah. It's to extend the hand in praise, right? Sometimes we worship with our voices. Sometimes we worship with our hands. Lifting up our hands is a way to praise the Lord. It is a sign of surrender, of worship, a sacrifice of praise. So we lift up our hands in worship. This next one is very similar, but I want you to catch the difference. This one is called todah. And this is also to lift the hands in worship. However, this one gets very specific on us. It is to lift the hands in worship, even when you're not getting what you want. God, it's really tough out here. I need breakthrough, but the breakthrough hasn't come. But you know what? I am going to worship through the storm. I am going to worship through the adversity. I'm going to lift up my hands and give you praise in thanksgiving before the breakthrough comes. That is worship and that is the Hebrew word todah. And then the last one I want to hit is halal. And this means to celebrate, to dance, to exuberantly celebrate and praise, to halal. Sometimes we worship with our feet. We actually get to worship with our feet dancing. The Lord wants us to dance. And sometimes that makes us a little uncomfortable. He's worthy and He wants it. Okay, I'll dance, right? So this is praise. Praise is expressive. It's declarative. It's who God is and what He has done and responding by worshiping. This is who you are, God, so I worship. This is what you've done, so I'll give you praise. I'll dance, I'll bow, I'll sing, I'll clap my hands. This is worship. This is praise. It's an expressive way to honor God for all that He is and all that He has done. So this is praise. And I want to come back to that definition of worship that I gave you at the beginning. In the midst of the most life-shattering of circumstances, regardless of negative circumstances or complete emotional turmoil, despite the season of our soul, I bow my heart and my life before God Almighty, acknowledging His supreme Lordship. And quickly, I want to just be vulnerable and share about four years ago. Caleb has shared this before on a Sunday morning, but our family received a diagnosis. And it was super tough. Our two-year-old was diagnosed with autism and it shook our family. A couple months later, I got a diagnosis, depression. I couldn't get out of that pit of hopelessness and fear of the future, fear of the future for my family. It was that moment of complete emotional turmoil for me. I remember very vividly one Sunday morning, walking into this building here in Richland. I wasn't scheduled to lead worship, so I made my way to, I always like to sit over here, I go sit in the front row and worship. Music began to play, people began to sing. And I had a choice in that moment. Can I be like Mary? Can I, in the midst of the hardest season of my life, bow my heart and my life before the feet of Jesus, the Lordship of Jesus and acknowledge, you are Lord and you are worthy of my worship. You're worthy of my praise. It's that toe doll lifting the hands in worship before breakthrough, lifting the hands in worship when I'm not getting what I want, worshiping and lifting my hands and saying I don't fully get where I'm at or what you're doing, but my worship is not a waste. You are worthy. This moment in time is not a waste. I'm going to offer my sacrifice of praise. I'm going to offer my worship and then all of a sudden we begin to sing and we declare who he is and our life becomes a love song to Jesus. In a moment here, we're gonna stand and I wanna give us an opportunity this morning just to respond to the word by worshiping Jesus. Maybe you find yourself this morning in a season not on the mountaintop, but in the valley. I wanna give you a moment to break open your alabaster jar like Mary did at the feet of Jesus despite circumstances not being perfect. Maybe worship has made you feel uncomfortable and the thought of lifting hands or singing or bowing has made you uncomfortable. I wanna give you opportunity this morning to respond to who he is and what he has done because he is worthy of our worship church. He is worthy of our adoration and our affection every ounce that we have he is worthy of. And so I wanna give us a moment right now to respond. So would you stand with me this morning as we go back into a time of worship and declare the goodness of God, the greatness of our God. He is worthy of our worship. Amen, let's worship together.