Worship Matters - An Undignified Response - 2 Samuel 6:12-23

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Heat.

Heat.

Well, good morning. Can you believe a week ago half of you didn't show up because it was snowing and this week the other half didn't show up because you're sweating. So I don't understand Colorado weather at all. But we are so glad you're here today. If you're a guest with us here today, we are especially glad you're here. And when you came in, you probably received a handout and it's got a card in here like this. Listen, here's what I always invite our guests to do. If you'll take a few minutes and the chance to fill that information out, you sign up and you register for a million-doll giveaway every single Sunday. So, just make sure you put all your information. Kidding about the million dollars, but it gives us a chance to know who you are. And um I love actually personally texting our guests when they come every week. So, just take a few minutes. You can drop in one of the offering boxes back there, or you can hand it to just anybody you see and say, "Can you help me get it to where it's supposed to go?" But we are glad that you're here today. Listen, this past week, um, a yearly trek, a yearly tradition began, um, in our country, the United States of America, and it's called March Madness. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Yeah. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to come outside every once in a while because March Madness is taking place. I was doing some little reading this past week. Do you realize this? March Madness, that's the the the the big basketball tournament for the NCAA men's basketball. And the game started this week. The first round of games, they said this. An estimated nine million people will watch every game in the first round. Was anybody one of those nine million people? Did you catch one of those games? Gosh, y'all are just some non- basketball loving people in here. Like to give you an idea what that means. 9 million people. That basically means this that the city of New York, the population, the size of New York, everybody stopped and watched the games. Here's what I also found out that a hundred million brackets were filled out. Now, let's little confess. Any bracket filler outers here? Raise them high. Raise them proud. Anybody's bracket is still pure and still good. Yeah. Not not too many going on there. Now, here's one that really blows my mind. They say this. They estimate $3.3 billion will be bet on the games during this March Madness. $3.3 billion dollars. Now, you were like, Keith, why are you bringing that up? We're supposed to be here at church. Um, if you've come for the last few weeks, we're in this series about worship. And so, you ask the question, why are you talking about March Madness when we're supposed to be talking about worship? Well, here's why I say I'm not sure I can think of a better example of worship than March Madness in the United States of America. You see, here's what worship is. I know worship is and we're going to get to what it means from the Bible standpoint and what it means when we worship God. But worship is not contained to just our theology. Here's what we know that worship is anything that you give your attention, your energy, your emotion, and your money to. And while there's probably very few people in America right now that says, "Oh, I'm worshiping March Madness." Because they're giving their time, their energy, their emotion, and even their money to. There's a lot of worshiping going on right now when it comes to basketball in America, but we don't want to focus there because we believe this as followers of Jesus, there's a much better thing or better God, better person, a better just looking at what we can worship and that is God himself. And we came up with a definition. If you're just now joining us, here's the definition that we say what worship is. If you're filling blanks in your handout here, you can write it in there. And it says this, "Worship is our wholehearted response to who God is and what he has done." Worship is our wholehearted response to who God is and what he has done. There's a larger description we've been using and here's what it says. Worship is the way our hearts and our lives respond to God because of his gracious forgiveness. We express worship outwardly through music and praise and singing, but also through prayer, through gratitude, obedience, through our generosity, and the daily choices that put God first. True worship, from a biblical standpoint, true worship isn't confined to a moment in a service. It's a whole life oriented around God's worth. Did you catch that one line in there that described the different ways that we can worship? It said worship is outwardly expressed through music and singing, but also through prayer, through gratitude, through our obedience, through our generosity, and the daily choices that we put before God. So, there are different expressions of worship when it comes to our worship of God. And today, here's what I'd like to do. I want us to to focus in kind of laser direction on a very specific form of worship. And that is I want us to talk about today and look and see what the Bible says when it comes to worship with our music and our singing. Now let me see if I can kind of paint the picture here. Music and singing, that type of worship can take place anytime, anywhere. I know for me in my personal life when I get in the morning and I'm reading the Bible, I love to worship while I'm reading the Bible. And so I've got my computer there and I always either turn on Spotify or YouTube and I've got worship music. So, so it's going on when I'm just by myself. But we also need to understand that when we come to services like we're in right now, the music and the singing, that's a big form of worship in this service. It's not the only form of worship, but it is an important part of worship. And today I want to take the next 20 minutes, 25 minutes and let's dig into the deep into scripture and see what scripture says about singing music as a form of worship. Especially when we gather together like this and music and singing, here's what I mean by that. Music and singing, the outward, the audible, and the visible expression of worship through our voices and through our bodies. So that's what we'll be looking at today. And the way we're going to do it, we've been looking at different narratives, different different individuals throughout scripture during this worship series. So, we're going to be looking today by to a guy by the name of David. If you know much about the Old Testament, David was one of the major kings of the Old Testament. And so, we'll be looking at a moment in his life that illustrates to us what this worship, singing, and music can look like as an expression to God. And so, if you have your Bibles or we'll have the the passage up here on the screen or it's it's in your handout you have there. We'll be looking at 2 Samuel chapter 6. 2 Samuel's chapter 6. And we'll be starting in verse 12. And so here's what the scripture says as it's recorded. This incident, this moment of worship in the life of David. So David, again, the king David went there and he brought the ark of God from the house of Oed Edom to the city of David with a great celebration. Now, if this is the first time you've ever read that verse or know anything about this, you're going, "What in the world is going on there?" Let me kind of give you some context here. When it talks about he brought the ark of the covenant, the ark of the covenant was basically in a very simplistic way to describe it was a big box. And this big box in the days of the Old Testament, it didn't contain God's presence, but it did more than symbolize God's presence. It actually what they believed back in the Old Testament days, the box, the ark of the covenant, it manifested God's presence. So God is God, but God was manifested. Wherever this box went, it manifested his presence. And by scripture determination, the box, the ark of the covenant was supposed to stay in the temple where the people went to worship. But Israel, the Jewish nation, went through this period where the ark was taken away and placed someplace else. And so on this particular account, David, King David, is bringing the ark of the covenant, which again manifests the spirit of God. So he's like bringing God into the city of Jerusalem. And so there's a big celebration going on. I mean, I think the best visual way we can think about it is they're bringing this arc in. It's like a big ticker tape parade. Think about a few years ago when the Denver Nuggets won the NBA championship and all the city of Denver went crazy and had a big parade for them. That's a lot like what was going on during this moment during this season when the ark of the covenant was coming in that David was bringing into the city. And then it goes on to say in verse 13, "And after the men who were carrying the ark of the Lord had gone six steps." Okay, count them out. 1 2 3 four five six. After they took six steps, here's what happened. After they had gone six steps, David sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. And David danced before the Lord with all of his might. And he was wearing a priestly garment. And so David and all the people of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of ram's horns. It was such an important deal that they were in the presence of God. Because remember there's the ark of the covenant. It manifests the presence of God. They are ushering, entering the presence of God into the city. So every time they took six steps, the Bible says here, they would stop and they would sacrifice two animals. Now, sacrificing animals in the Old Testament was a very normal form of worship. It would be really weird if at the Denver Nuggets parade, they would have stopped and sacrificed an animal every six steps. We'd like, whoa, that's just not right. But back in those days, that was a very normal form of worship. But I want you to imagine the scene as David's carrying in. They're they're they're sacrificing the animals. People are cheering. People are shouting. They've got these big horns they're blowing. They are just moving around. And the Bible says this, "And David was dancing." Now, I I illustrated the six steps. Okay? I can illustrate and show you what maybe the sacrificing the animals, but if your pastor tried to illustrate David's dancing, the spirit of God would leave this place really quick. I promise you that. Okay? So, you're just going to have to imagine David was in the in the streets and he was just celebrating. He was dancing. He was just stomping up a storm right there. And the Bible says this, he wasn't just dancing a pre-calculated choreographed dance. The Bible says he was dancing with all of his might. In other words, he was just letting it go. He was letting it rip. He was having the time of his life. Not because he was having the time of his life, because the God of his life was coming into the city. And it says this, he was praising God with both his voice and his body. They were shouting, they were yelling, they were cheering, but they were also celebrating God with the movements of their body. And then in verse 16, but as the ark of the Lord entered the city of David, Michael, the daughter of Saul, now let me stop there and give her another title, the daughter of Saul, who was the king before David. it was his daughter and the wife of David. So the scripture does designate it there. But there's other passage that we can read that we know this that the woman looking down Michael was not just the king, former king's daughter, but she's also the current king's wife. And so Michael, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. So she wasn't in the celebration. She wasn't dancing with her husband. She wasn't rejoicing with everybody else. She was looking down from her window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him. Imagine that for a second. If the ark of the covenant represents the presence of God, it manifests the presence of God. And this presence of God is being brought into the city so God would bless the entire city of Jerusalem. But this woman, Michael, who's married to the king, who's dancing probably bigger and better than anyone, she's looking down going,

"Not the script I would have wrote. Not the way I think he should be acting." And the Bible says she is looking down and she is filled with contempt.

I remember one time in my marriage, there was that moment that the kids were like one and a half and three years old. They were both in diapers and Denise was a stay-at-home mom and she was busy all day long and I would come home in the evening and to me for several weeks it looked like the house was just a tornado had hit it. Like I would come home thinking is dinner not ready? Is the house not clean? And life wasn't working out the way I thought it should. Now Denise and I weren't fighting but we had enough conversations about it that we weren't on the same page on what was taking place during the day. And I remember this one day I came home and I was going to surprise the kids and her and I knocked on the door thinking she'll open the door and it's me and she'll be all excited. She opened the door. She had one kid in this arm, one kid in this arm and I could look behind me and the tornado had occurred. And I didn't say anything, but she looked at me. She said, "What do you think I've done all day?" And my wise husbandry response was, "Undoubtly nothing. You know how well that went over, right? I think I know the look of scorn that Michael was possessing because I got it that day. Okay, that's all that was said. She didn't say much at that moment, but there was enough wisdom and sensitivity in me thought, I've messed up, buddy. Okay, I'm about to walk into not a dirty house, but a hornets's nest of a wife that's upset at her husband. That's the environment that's taking place between David and Michael. They were feeling the tension. She was looking down with scorn. Nothing had been said yet because look at the next verse. David retorted. I'm sorry. Next verse. Look at the next one. Says this. When David returned home to bless his family. So she had looked down. She had seen the scorn. She was embarrassed by his actions. And when David returned home to bless his family, Michael, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and she said, look what the Bible says now as it describes it. She said in disgust. So she has moved from scorn in her thinkings to now she's saying what she's feeling. How distinguished the king of Israel looked today. Do you sense a little sarcasm? She's not lifting her husband up. She's embarrassed. She is ducking her head. She said, "How distinguished the king of Israel looked today, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls like any vulgar person might do." Can you feel the tension? Can you sense that they're on different pages right now? One is worshiping and one is embarrassed about his worship. One is just letting it all out for God because he's so happy and thanking God. The other one is like ducking the head going, ducking the head going, "I can't even believe you did this." Michael was embarrassed by David's freedom to praise God because she valued her image over worship. Let that one sink in for a second. The tension that's going on here, she was embarrassed because she valued her image over the actual worship that David was giving up to God. And then in verse 21, David retorted to Michael, I was dancing before the Lord who chose me above your father and all of his family. He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord. That's why so I celebrate before the Lord. He said, "Yes, I am willing to look even more foolish than this than to be humiliated, even to be humiliated in my own eyes." You know what he could have said? He could have used the same verbiage and said the same thing that we said worship is. He could have said I chose a wholehearted response to say who God is and what he's done for me. He goes that's why I did what I did. And then he went even to say this. But those servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I'm distinguished. So here's Michael and she's like oh my gosh the whole world saw you and and these servant girls like oh they're going to really think you're some king over there. and he looked at his wife and said, "Even the servant girls will think I'm distinguished because they will recognize it was worship and not some humiliating act I was involved in."

And so, here's this account in scripture of David worshiping both with his voice and with his actions. Yet when he engaged in this type of worship, he has this individual over here that just happened to be his wife and she is condoning him. Not condoning, she's condemning him. She is judging him and she's even embarrassed by him. This this this this scornful attitude she had. And so here's the question I've always asked when I've read this passage. Why was she so put out by David? Why was she, as the Bible said, why was she so disgusted by his actions? I mean, here he was all before the Lord. He's bringing the God's presence into the city. He the the manifested presence of God through the ark of the covenant. And he is dancing. He's singing. He's leading the whole country to do that. Why, Michael, why were you so disgusted? Now, here's what I'm going to do the remaining of our time. Scripture doesn't give us exact answer. I think we can dig a little bit deeper and maybe find some of the reasons and suppose why she might have responded this way. And here's why this is important for us. Because as you and I examine worship in our lives, especially today, specifically when it's musical worship and singing worship, I wonder sometimes, do we see ourselves more as David who's uninhibited or Michael who sits over here reserved and maybe a little judgmental of others? And so let me just just suppose with you here's some four reasons why she might have been so disgusted at how David was worshiping. If you're taking notes, you can write the first one down. She was simply concerned about what others might think. I mean, she's watching from up on the window and she's looking at him going, "Well, I wonder what my best friend's thinking. What about the ladies I do afternoon tea with? What about the people in the court?" And she's so worried about what others might think that she's missing the very moment of worship that David was engaged in. You see, back in those days in the near east, near east, kings had a certain reputation to keep up. And here's how they kept their reputation up. They first of all had limited access to the common people. That the king should have kept up here and the common people down here. Another way they would keep up this appearance, this reputation of the king is that he had certain clothing that he was supposed to wear. He had a certain robe, a kingly robe that he put on. He had a certain crown that he put on. He didn't just go to the nearest Walmart and get his clothes. He had certain clothes. And those clothes set him apart from everybody else. The other thing in those days in the near east, kings always had composed and controlled behavior. There was a certain way they were supposed to act. There was a certain way they were supposed to walk around when they stopped and they paused. There was a certain posture that they were supposed to have. And all of this this physical actions put them aside or set them aside as somebody who was really set apart from everybody else. So you see now why Michael was embarrassed. Here was her husband, the king, and he was down on the ground with the he was dancing in the streets with just the common peeon people. As we read, the scripture said he didn't have on his royal robe. He just had on a linen ephod ephod which was just like a linen robe that he would have wore something anybody else might have wore in the street and he was not controlling his emotions on this particular day. He was not prim and proper. He was not kingly. He was like everybody else. You see, Michael wasn't seeing a man worshiping God. She was seeing a man who had in her mind lost control of how others perceived him. Now, what does that have to do with worship? Watch this. When image matters most, expressive worship will always feel uncomfortable. Let me say that again. When your image matters most, any form of expressive worship will feel uncomfortable. In other words, when I am worried on a Sunday morning, we're singing and I'm worried what might others think about me and I raise my hand in worship, it's going to feel uncomfortable because I might wonder what is she thinking about me over there raising my hand. When I am singing loud and expressing in worship on a Sunday morning and I know my voice would never be recruited to be in the local choir,

but I'm worried what the person next to me might think about my singing voice. Then expressive worship will always be uncomfortable.

And so in the case of Michael, maybe the reason that she felt so just disgusted is she was more concerned about what others might think about her or think about her because of him worshiping that way. Here's another thought for you, another reason why why she might have been so disgusted. Maybe Michael preferred familiar forms of worship. Like what her husband was doing on the street was the type of worship she's going, "Never seen that before and hope I never have to see it again." She looked down on the street and him dancing and just shouting and twirling around and and this linen ephod. She's going, "That's not what I how I worshiped growing up." See, let me give you a little more background. So her father was Saul. Saul was the first king of all of Israel. David was the second king of Israel. If you look throughout scripture and read about their lives, here's what you'll discover. Many people say Saul gave God none of his heart and David gave God all of his heart. You see, Saul took the throne and he sat in it. David took the throne of Israel and made sure God sat in it.

Saul was all about pretense and people's expectations and how they perceived him. David was more about his heart and just letting his heart fully engage with God. Saul was more about religion of God and David was more about relationship with God. And so Michael grew up her whole life until she married David. She grew up under the household of her father Saul. So you can kind of guess what his rel his his worship might have looked like. Formal, cold, performanceoriented, not really connecting with God. It's more just about just going through the ritual of it. More stoic, more quiet, more regal. Are you with me? So she grew up with this and then on this particular time she steps into another world and the worship didn't look that way. And so rather than leaning in and trying to understand that worship, she simply stayed way up in the second story, third story, and looked out the window and judged that worship.

Now listen to me real close. There was nothing wrong with her own past experience as far as it was to her with worship. That's what she grew up with. And so for anybody look going, "Well, Michael, like your worship growing up was bad." No, no. That's what she grew up with. She grew up one way, a little bit more formal, a little bit more reserved in the type of worship. David grew up in a little bit more expressive type of worship. Now watch. Is one style better than another? No. It's what they grew up in. It's what they were comfortable in. Where we make this mistake. Let's take it from those days and bring it to these days that we have our own way that we worship and rather having the freedom to worship my way and you have the freedom to worship your way. I over step over here going, "Well, my way is better, and if you were better, more spiritual, you would worship like I do." We have a unique situation here at South Sub Church. We have two different expressions of worship. We have a 9:00 and we have 11:00. If you're new to our church, our 9:00 is what you saw up here. If you come at 11:00, we'll have a choir, we'll have an organ. It is going to be a more formal type of worship. Here's what I know. after being here three years. Both of those styles of worship and the people in the rooms are as heartgiving expressing as the next room over. One is not better. More one is not more spiritual. It's just their preference of how they let it out. But we make the mistake that we look at this service or this service looks as this service or you look at that church over there. You look at that church over there. You look at that church over there and you're going, "Oh, we got it. We know how to do it. Listen, if you could be a fly on the wall on churches around America today, you would have churches with loud banging bands and lights and production and smoke and haze and they would be worshiping. You would see other churches that don't even bring instruments into their services and they're worshiping. You would be some go into some services that you need earplugs because it's so loud and you'd go to other services you're going, "Can y'all be a little bit louder because I can't hear you." You'd have pianos and drums and organs, name a hundred different instruments. You would go to some services and people sit there quiet and you go to other services of churches and they've got white flags and they're waving as part of their worship. Here's what we need to remember. There is freedom for each of us to worship expressively the way that we want to. And while we have freedom to worship the way we want to, we don't need to impose our style of worship on somebody else because it comes out of the heart. But I think in this case, maybe Michael was sitting up there and she knew the way she grew up and she wanted her husband to do the same way and the freedom wasn't given. Make sense? Let me give you a third thought, another reason why maybe she was disgusted. She misunderstood that worship is designed to be outwardly expressive. She misunderstood to and she didn't understand that worship is designed by God to be outwardly expressive. Now, here's what I know. You may say, "Well, Keith, you may say that. Maybe you like to raise your hand. Maybe you like to sing out. Maybe you like to do your hands like this or or whatever form you do, but you're just not really that type. You don't really worship that way. You're not an outwardly expressive person. Can I just push back and say we're all outwardly expressive? If you went home today and I knock on your door and you came to the front door and I handed you a million dollar check, do you think you would be outwardly expressive? If you went to the doctor yesterday and this cancer that you've been dealing with and he came in the room and sat down and said, "I don't know how to tell you this. The cancer's gone." Would you be outwardly expressive? If Bo Nicks hadn't broken his ankle and we made it to the Super Bowl and we won the Super Bowl, do you think you would be outwardly expressive? If your wayward were child that you've been praying for for years and years and years, not only came back to your physical home, but they came back to Jesus, do you think you would be outwardly expressive?

We are outwardly expressive people. We just choose what we choose to be outwardly expressive about. And here's what I say. I think we have a misunderstanding. Not what service we're in. We have a misunderstanding. And and we need to realize this that God designed our worship to be outwardly expressive.

In fact, if you look in scripture, here's what the Bible says about worship. There's singing, there's shouting, there's lifting of hands, there's bowing, there's dancing, there's kneeling, there's also just just exclaiming. You see the freedom in how we express our worship, not if we express our worship. Let me say that again. When it comes to worship, the singing, the music, the very specific part, there is freedom in how we express our worship, but there is not a freedom if we express our worship. Let me read to you Psalms 101-2. The Bible says, "Shout for joy to the Lord. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs." It doesn't sound like we have an option there, does it? He's not being prescriptive on if you will choose to worship or not worship, but he's being very prescriptive on that you should worship. Psalms 134, lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. Psalms 47:1, "Clap your hands all you nations." Psalms 96:5, "Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker." And so scripture is very directive in leading us that we should be a worshshiping people. One of my favorite passages in all of scripture is Revelations chapter 4. Go home and read today. It is like this amazing story. But just in a nutshell, the Apostle John, the disciple John is taken up to heaven in a dream and he's up there and he sees all these just these angelic beings and they're worshiping. They're praising God and it's going on everywhere. And all of a sudden he looks forward and he sees a book in the revelation chapter 4. He sees a book and he realizes the lamb's book of life. In other words, the lamb's book of life is where all the names of people have given their faith and trust in Jesus. Their name is written in the lamb's book of life. But in this particular scene, that lamb's book of life that he knows and he wants his name to be in is shut and it's sealed. And the Bible says in Revelations chapter 4, he walks up and he can't get the book open. And all of the he sudden he starts weeping and crying. And why? Because if you can't get the book open, you don't know whose name's in it. And if you don't know whose name's in it, those folks can't ever make it to glory in heaven. And so here's John and the book is sealed. And the Bible says he starts weeping going, "How do we get the book open? We've got to get the book open." There's this moment going, we need to worship. But if you can't worship, if you don't know who's in the book, and the Bible says this, all of a sudden, he looks and coming down the aisle of heaven is a slain lamb represent Jesus Christ, the lamb of God that was slain on the cross for mine and your sins. And the Bible describes that the slain lamb in heaven just walking down the aisle and everybody turns and looks and everybody turns and stares. And the slain lamb walks up, comes up to the book of life and says this, I can open the lamb's book of life because of his death and his burial and his resurrection, because of his sacrifice for our sins. And the Bible says this that all of heaven just kind of busted out. Like I think all of heaven danced better and bigger than David ever thought about on that day. And there's this amazing moment and it says multitudes upon multitudes upon multitudes of every generation. Praise God. Here's what I know in heaven. If you don't think you're a worshipper now, you will be a worshippper in heaven. You don't get to opt out in heaven. If your name's on that lamb's book of life and you're there because the sacrificial life and death of Jesus, we will have no other response but to saying glory, glory, glory to God. So listen to me church. If it makes sense that we worship then, shouldn't we be practicing now? Shouldn't our same heart that has that relationship with Jesus, if we get it now, we ought to start expressing it right now. Now listen to me church. I'm not up here saying, "Hey, can we all start raising our hands?" No, that's your freedom. I'm not up here saying, "Hey, can you start just kind of clapping and jumping a little bit when we worship?" That's the freedom that you get to do. But here's what I believe. When it comes to music and the celebration and the singing of worship, we should be engaged to sit there quietly going, "I'm just not a worshipper." Well, you will be. So, you might as well start practicing now. Can you imagine what a testimony to the world we would be if we all came here going, we're coming ready. We're more ready to worship a holy God up there than we are to fellowship with the people sitting around us here. But somehow we get those out of place. Now, fellowship is right and good for church, but the worship of holy God is what we're designed for when we come together in singing and music. And so maybe she just didn't understand that she was good to express her worship. Here's the last one I wrap up with. Maybe maybe the reason she didn't worship and dance and sing like David, she didn't know the God he was worshiping to. The Bible says that she was up in the window looking down. David was in the middle of it with the presence of God in the ark. Here's what I've learned over the years. That sometimes what keeps a person from expressing the joy of the Jesus in their life is that Jesus is not in their life. You're up on the second store window looking in going, "I know the stories. I've heard the verses. I come most Sunday mornings."

But you're missing the relationship that David had with the God he was worshiping. You're missing the personalness. You're watching others dance because they know the one they're dancing to. But you're not dancing because you're just going, "I know of God. I just don't know God." And so, here's my invitation to you today

is God wants you to know him, not as some figurehead God in your life. He wants you to know him in a personal relationship. And here's what it means to know God in a personal relationship. to simply say, "God, I need you." The scripture says this, that our sins separate us from God. That's why we need him because without Jesus, we can't have a relationship with God. And to cry out, God, I need you in my life. Will you forgive my sins because I believe that your son, Jesus, is your son. that died on the cross for my sins, but he rose again three days later. Now, that's a lot of believing. If you growing up in church, it makes it really easy. But if you're hearing for the first time, you're going, "Whoa, he died. He rose again three days later." You're like, "Keith, I don't understand all of it." You don't have to get it all, but just say, "Jesus, I trust you. I believe in you. Will you forgive my sins?" And if you've never done that, today could be the day that you come up from the second story and come down to the street. Just got to pray that prayer. If you do that, the cards I mentioned earlier, I would love not just to text you say, "I'm so glad you came. I would love to celebrate with you in your relationship with Jesus." Fill that out. Me, some of the staff, we will contact you this week. We will begin steps helping you to know who God is more.

But it begins by coming from the second floor and coming and saying, "God, I need you." Now, for the rest of us, why don't we worship? Maybe one of those reasons of Michael's is your reason. But here's what I would invite you to. Let's be worshippers.

We don't have an arc of the covenant that we have to usher in here going, "Okay, the ark is here. God's manifestations here. Bible says this, "Where two or more are gathered, God is in the midst of us. He is in this room." And so, I'm going to invite you right now to stand. And we're going to end with worship. We're going to end the freedom for you to worship however you want to. Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Kneel where you are. Kneel where you are. Shout. Clap. I guess if you want to dance, dance. But we're going to worship the presence of our almighty God.

Come on, church. Let's put our hands together today as we worship the King, the one who is worthy, the one who made a way for us to be with him today. Come on, we sing.

Come on, we get to praise his holy name in this house. Come on.

Oh, praise be weapon and silences the enemy. Let praise be a weapon that coners all anxiety. We let it rise.

praise our eyes. We sing your name in the dark and it changes everything. We sing with we are. We claim your victory. We let you rise.

We praise our eyes.

We'll see you break down every wall. We'll watch the giants fall. Fear cannot surive when we praise you. The God of breakthroughs on our side forever. Lifting high with all creation cry. God we praise you. Wo

we praise you.

Come on. We sing of faith today. Let faith be the song that overcomes the ragency. Let faith be the song that comes and storm inside of me. We let it rise.

Let frise. Oh, we'll see you break down every wall. We'll watch the giants fall. A fear cannot survive when we praise you. The God of breakthroughs on our side forever. Lifting high with all creation crying. God, we praise you.

We praise you.

Come on, boys. We sing. This is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what heaven sounds like. We praise you. We praise you. This is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what he sounds like. We praise you. We praise you. This is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what heaven sounds like. We praise you. We praise you. Oh, this is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what heaven sounds like. We praise you. We praise. We'll see you break down every wall. We'll watch the giants fall. The fear cannot survive when we praise you. The God of breakthroughs on our side forever lift divine with all creation cry. God we praise you. We'll see you break down every wall. We'll watch the giants fall for king. We praise you. The God of breakthroughs on our side forever lifting high with all creation cry. God we praise you. Wo

we praise you. Oh

we praise you.

We praise you. Oh,

we praise you. Come on, give Jesus praise. We praise the one who saves and makes a way. Amen.