The Book of Amos - What is Worship?
Here, we take a look at the book of Amos and what it is to truly worship the Lord. While it's true that we are saved by grace, it is also true that our works are our worship.
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good morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i heard a story you've been here before about a church kind of like ours small to medium-sized church seemed like they got the mission they got the vision they got the idea they knew what church was supposed to be the church is supposed to be a body of believers that build one another up and then radiates out into the community spreading the gospel message and feeding people in word and deed sounds simple right well it seemed that there were a growing number of people in that church that well that just wasn't good enough for them they wanted to be a big church they wanted to be a mega church and the pastor would always say guys aren't you reading the news don't you see what's going on we just create problems when we try to do that but they would insist and he would bring up all these arguing points against it well you know what you know me right like we hang out you can get a meeting anytime you want well if we're a mega church you might not even know me anymore that's what happens and then what does that do to you and what does that do to me but they persisted and they had all these different ideas and the pastor kind of shoot them all down finally they came up with an idea that sounded good he said let's get a celebrity worship leader here and well heavenly then everyone from everywhere will come and the pastor is like okay slow down couple problems with that well a celebrity worship leader is kind of an oxymoron when you really think about it just saying but here's the thing the only people who know about this worship leader are christians and if they're christians they're probably already at another church so what are we saying that we want to get people from other churches to come here aren't we supposed to reach the lost like new people so why do we keep doing that stealing other people's sheep but they kept persisting and we really need this to happen guys you got to stop we're going to have them here one sunday and then we can't afford to keep them here so then the people aren't going to come back when he's not here they persisted so he finally relented for now you go ahead advertise this thing do what you're going to do so they do they advertise it sure enough the day came pastor's in his office as a church like ours and if we're being honest like you know 10 o'clock service people come at 105 10 15. not you guys though you guys are pretty awesome so you know it's like that but it's 9 30 the pastor's in his office he looks out his window and here's how you know i'm not talking about me i don't have a window in my office so i don't jump out anyway he looks out the window of his office and the parking lot is completely full people are parking on the grass ruining the irrigation you know that's a southwest florida problem it's just packed so he goes checks out the auditorium tons of people it's usually half full like it is right now or is that yeah that was a positive way to look at it he goes in the auditorium it's totally full standing room only unbelievable you got to admit or he had to admit he's kind of disappointed why isn't it like this every sunday for the lord so he goes back in the back room where the worship team some people would call this a green room there's nothing wrong with that worship team should pray gather their thoughts and give you a little nerve wracking especially if you're new so you know they're back there praying celebrity pastors back there and he's encouraging them giving them some tips and advice and so the pastor goes up to the regular worship leader and he says you're going to lead the songs today celebrity pastor says wait a minute am i still going to get paid pastor says yeah you're going to get paid they do the service regular worship team okay some people are like what's going on here i thought this guy was supposed to be here second song people start leaving wow thought we were here to worship the lord third song more people leave pastor gets up preaches his regular message finishes his message and says well now that everyone who came to worship the celebrity worship leader now that they've left to those of you who came here to worship the lord let me introduce to you our guest singer who'll be leading us in our last song yeah so today we find ourselves in the rest of the story we saw how jonah was the perfect easter story you can go and watch these messages online kind of interesting we see that prophets weave their way through the accounts of the kings and so today we're going to arrive at amos and i'm stuttering because because amos is difficult you've been in church for a long time very hard and challenging book to do right to do the right way so to a lot of you if you have stayed here as we are on this journey to try to become a true bible believing church not a program church but a people church a lot of you don't really need to hear this so for a lot of you this should stand as affirmation from god's word so that's what i want it to be for you if you get this and you know you're like pastor stop it we know affirmation we're here and the word of god talks about it so we're gonna talk about it right so sometimes you think i don't need that right you're in your bible i got it i got it affirmation there may be some of you who need to hear this today it's going to be a tough pill to swallow so get ready maybe online as well so here we are second kings 14 yep we're here again because there's a lot of different people here so we arrive at a place where there's jeroboam the second so the first one's the first wicked king of israel he sets up doubling down aaron's sin with the gold casual this is jeroboam ii gets confusing because a lot of bible versions don't say that they just say jeroboam and you're like what happened did he like rise from the dead or something no jeroboam ii we saw that amaziah is assassinated and now uzziah becomes king so we'll talk about him next week i'm inserting amos right here why doesn't say anything if you're reading along second kings 14 about amos but if we go to amos one 1 this message was given to amos a shepherd from the town of toccoa and judah he received this message message in visions two years before the earthquake when uzziah was king of judah and jeroboam ii the son of jehoash was king of israel there he belongs and so that's how you know he goes there now i'm not going to read all nine chapters to you or should i we can make some changes some of you up for it i'll summarize it for you it's interesting amos is very interesting the problem here he's from judah god sends them to israel right says you're proclaiming these judgments these warnings and this is what the prophets do and they often get treated horribly but amos is very very interesting because it's kind of like the reverse of what we see in other prophets so there's a pattern to the prophets usually what happens is they're commissioned somehow all right so they're commissioned like isaiah for example he has his commissioning we see that in isaiah 6. it happens to all of them ezekiel it seems in several very strange ways they get commissioned they're told what to do sometimes they protest but they end up going to judah and or israel so tell them look you've been worshipping idols if you don't stop i'm gonna rain the judgment down on you and sometimes like isaiah it's like a courtroom case it goes back and forth and back and forth a lot of complaining and it sounds kind of repetitive most of the time it's idol worship injustice a little more so in amos then the prophet will turn to the other nations a lot of people don't understand this god uses other nations other peoples to punish israel and judah that's what happens so he sends them to attack them well the lord will then turn to them and say yeah but you're evil too you're bad too obadiah don't gloat right so the [ __ ] so he'll do that sometimes then you'll see that there's like a time of restoration it kind of ends on a happy note most of the time yes i'm going to punish you corporately seems like for a long time but then i'm going to restore you and build you up well in amos it's a little bit different he ends up pronouncing judgment against other nations first it's kind of interesting so the whole first chapter to damascus so aaron remember ben haydad and hazel hazel they're both mentioned here the guy that suffocated ben hayden and then he does a weird thing names his kid after the guy he killed that's weird right so you the philistines to tyre to edom these different nations you have ammon and then second chapter moab then finally he gets to judah and israel mentions of the idol worship but the shift is really to the main problem here in israel he calls them fat cows they're they're kind of comfortable in their wealth and they're doing things like taking bribes heavy taxation and so these rich people are ignoring the poor and the oppressed but they continue oppressing them it's not a good thing this seems to be kind of the main issue here in amos you get to chapter seven and you might get confused because there's a guy named amaziah who comes into the account and you might be thinking wait isn't amaziah dead assassinated diff it's possible like we do here too today two different people can have the same name so amaziah it's kind of like not quite joe smith right so he comes into the account a different guy that's a priest and he's saying stop and it's kind of interesting just to stop here and think about what happens the exchange so first of all he tells on jeroboam the second what he's doing comes back to amos and he's like look go back to the professional prophets the celebrity worship leaders in judah but amos makes the point no i'm not a professional as we saw i'm a shepherd i also take care of sycamore fig trees interesting thing anyway he tells him no i'm not a professional at this i'm here to pronounce judgment and then continues to pronounce judgment chapter eight we'll go back to this in a little bit a famine of the word of the lord really interesting nine back to pronouncing the judgment and then it ends with this really beautiful poetry you're not even gonna be able to keep up with the heart at harvest when i restore you wine will be flowing everywhere and it kind of just ends like that nine chapters we can dig deeper at bible study at the center of this book some important key verses that you may have heard of in church before maybe not he talks about the day of the lord the day of the lord can mean a couple of different things the day of the lord can mean this more immediate judgment that's going to happen or it can mean like what we read in revelation like the end of the earth itself and the new heavens and the new earth seems a little more immediate here oh you're asking for the day of the lord right so they're holy and righteous oh yeah you're holy you want the day of the lord to come soon the day of the lord you don't know what you're asking for a lot of christians today need to think about that be careful with maranatha that's a scary thing and so that's what amos is saying you better be right the day of the lord ain't gonna be light like you think it is it's gonna be dark and he means for you if you're acting like this amos 5 21. now remember this is god speaking through amos not pastor gene i hate all your show and pretense the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies that should be in quotes i will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings i won't even notice all your choice peace offerings away with your noisy hymns of praise i will not listen to the music of your harps instead i want to see a mighty flood of justice an endless river of righteous living now there's a context and a concept too often in church people go like that right so we take some verses out of the prophets that benefit us i don't know like jeremiah and and we we attached them out of context right so there's a concept but it doesn't belong so what i want to do is i parse that out for you context i gave that to you what's going on here you have these bad israelites idol worship and then also just cheating people being very dishonest with money they're very comfortable so this is kind of like in a modern context right put it over here kind of like naples florida yep we think we're living righteously so we're going to go somewhere feed a bunch of people make sure we get the selfie that's very important and then go back to our luxurious homes wow right heart that's the concept that's the concept and so if we're doing all this religious stuff right it doesn't happen because we're always like oh the temple worship or oh the traditional church right so we can always like deflect well that's why we don't have an altar and we don't do incense or we don't do that yeah but right we go out and like pretend to love poor people same thing same thing so religiosity but if we're doing all this stuff right but we're not really genuine about it we're not really loving people it's lip service and lord doesn't want to hear it it's not real worship now here's the thing i've heard people do but pastor you gotta i'll teach you about context as if i don't know it's in the old testament right you just said we're not under the law that's an old testament thing oh thank you very much god thought of this one already and so did his apostles because they remember to regurgitate certain things to you when it's really important first peter he's talking about christian behavior which is really important honoring authorities even if they're like nero who's burning you alive honor him wow right so slaves let's put that in modern day context employees honor your employers even if they're being hard on you turn the page chapter three wives honor your husbands ah don't forget husbands to honor your wives then to all christians first peter 3 8 finally all of you should be of one mind sympathize with each other love each other as brothers and sisters be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude don't repay evil for evil don't retaliate with insults when people insult you even on the facebook my words not god's but i think the intention is correct instead pay them back with a blessing that is what god has called you to do and he will grant you his blessing for the scriptures say if you want to enjoy life and see many happy days keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies turn away from evil and do good search for peace and work to maintain it the eyes of the lord watch over those who do right and his ears are open to their prayers but the lord turns his face against those who do evil peter is quoting and reaffirming god's word from a psalm a worship song this is what he's quoting psalm 34 12. does anyone want to live a life that is long and prosperous then keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies turn away from evil and do good search for peace and work to maintain it the eyes of the lord watch over those who do right his ears are open to their cries for help but the lord turns his face against those who do evil peter was being nice because he left this out he will erase their memory from the earth so what this means is that the new testament the best commentary we have on the old testament is reaffirming a concept and saying this is important pay attention this is important now here's the sad part it's really important it's from a psalm like we have better worship songs here anyway it won't probably make its way into a modern worship song anytime soon because it's not popular so you're not going to hear it at the popular church i mentioned last week and i wanted to talk about i think i said that i would talk about it maybe a two-part thing got to hear it once in a while it's out there it's been difficult about the mega church if you're still here it's not our objective to be a mega church and so if you're here you know that that is not our objective people have come in and sometimes they have a meeting with me in the office they're like are you associated with the other c3 i'm like no we're not because there are a lot of them we're not associated with anybody like that it's not our objective we just want to be a family church so we get that now most of the time we apply this to the celebrity pastor right and now all bunch of people come to mind right the guy's like the nice smile you know so you you think of a celebrity pastor immediately and then when you're thinking of scandals you think of the pastor we apply that to the pastor he falls from grace blah blah blah blah that's the mega church we're amos today so we're going to be talking about the worship a lot of people don't think about this and they see the worship leaders in like a different character in other words it's the celebrity pastor that's it like nobody else was an accessory to this or an accessory to this nobody else was involved right so the worship man what do they do they leave the church they start their own thing we're good no problems here really let me tell you something i've been a part of worship team so that's how i started my wife and i my family we came here business people not this building different buildings same church came here as business people the lord drugged me into ministry like one of the prophets not as bad though please don't set me on fire or stone me to death but anyway put me in a ministry i started in the worship ministry and i worked my way through that got discipled became a pastor cried a lot through that process former mega church pastor that's who's laughing so i'm going to get a lot of affirmation from him today it's also in the worship ministry i've seen it i've played at big churches seeing what goes on it's kind of interesting maybe you've noticed something if you watch any of these big churches online i bet you never see anyone on the worship team mess up never you know why they're paying them that's why they're professionals you're not looking at a church family or what we do here like you you're singing you know that's it that's how carolee is like you're singing she's like that's it i don't know who can sing good get on the stage let's go lead the people in worship no no no no no no you're paid to be perfect you cannot mess up it's in the worship team too and it's labeled as ministry uh-huh it's a lot of money in salaries you know what else is expensive and it's also labeled as ministry wardrobe try this go to a celebrity pastor's page right and then scroll when you scroll mine like you're not going to go too far you'll see this shirt again it's going to happen which i buy with my money by the way right so that's it it'll keep rotating right so same shirt same shirt same shirt so i i think i got it to six months now i'm doing pretty good spent too much money anyway same shirt right you're gonna see that try it with a celebrity pastor see if you can catch them wearing the same clothes same shoes same shoes different sneakers different sneakers two thousand dollars a pair now look at that's not a joke look at the worship team oh oh same thing happening the instruments you know what a gretch white falcon is you ever see a pretty white guitar that most of them all have to play look that up it ain't cheap but i bet you could do the job with a guitar like a fraction of the price uh uh-huh but no you have to have all the best shiny stuff that's in the worship budget millions of dollars to create those productions crazy money so here's where the leaders are wrong they shouldn't be letting that happen and that's true but well it's a parental role right a lot of people heard this from me no can we no right so all parents here you got to say no and then if you made the mistake of not saying that yeah you paid the price for that remember the golden calf i mentioned jeroboams aaron exodus 32 you might know the story right so moses up on mount sinai he's getting the ten commandments right the initiation of the law comes down well he doesn't come down yet god tells him yo your boy aaron's going crazy down there with the people i'm gonna kill them all right what does aaron do the people come to him and aaron doesn't go no they say where's moses he doesn't say be patient shut up just sit there whatever nope moses is gone you need to make gods for us so we can worship them like that so what does he do he doesn't hesitate he's a yes parent so he grabs all up the gold jewelry puts in the furnace makes the idol makes it carves it out they worship it and that's where god comes in yo they're going crazy comes down the mountain moses drops the tablet no joshua it's not cries of battle they are engaging in pagan revelry they're going crazy worshiping this thing he approaches his brother aaron moses is like what is up doubles down you know how these people are i just melted their jewelry and out popped this calf what you know you're a stop on that one it's weird and like 3 000 people get killed what oh so here's the other side of it here we go you ready okay i'm going anyway here's where the members are wrong remember this you asked for it you asked for it think about it now just just a little side note and i'm not i'm not making excuses for aaron so don't don't hear that or any celebrity but don't hear that but understand what i'm saying here i'm just gonna just i'm bringing you in on the inside of what happens with that ask because there's a lesson that can be learned for leaders about to ask but it's important for you guys to understand it what sometimes you do got to think about it right thousands of people aaron's under a lot of pressure think about it like let's just sympathize with him for a second it's under a lot of pressure what happens when pastors try to be politicians and make everybody happy but the ask does something to the leadership so there's both sides of this coin and i can tell you as a worship leader there's a lot of pressure there a lot right so some big well actually all of them there's like a dress code at the big churches remember that there's a dress code there's a way you gotta dress you gotta look a certain way because you know the mega church there are people they you know you gotta wear the u-neck and then that creates another problem so you need a scarf because you're wearing a u-neck skinny jeans that's important sorry tony you don't look good in skinny jeans but if you wore them you know what i mean so that's what happens he's here now by the way he corrected all of that right so and thank you for your service again by the way deputy johnson you know what thank you thank you i tease a lot but there's the other side of the coin i love him and he does a great service for our community worth stopping and appreciating i can remember practicing and you know look as a professional musician that's what you got to do you got to practice a lot but but when you have a three song set on a sunday morning no no you don't but i did because i can't mess up and so i found myself practicing my guitar more than i was in the word that's a problem if i'm standing here on this platform that's a big problem spending all of my time playing but not praying that's a big problem and it was a big problem and you know what the pastor and the meetings and the meetings and the meetings i'm just going to let them off the hook for yelling at us sometimes because you know what now i know what it's like to have that many carnal meetings with people just asking you for stuff and why wasn't the worship team we got to hire somebody you know and then they snap you've been there you guys pastors yelled at the worship team right on the stage you know what those meetings are like it's horrible though how is this worship the modern church has made modern rituals it's just like amos or aaron so it's the same pattern the people ask the leaders we want the golden calf and the modern church has given it to them they're all wrong we have people worshiping the worship that's it you're worshiping the worship well not you and if you get it you get what i'm saying did you know jesus didn't have a worship team think about it now don't give me the whole revelation 4 thing shut up that's in heaven the future calm down i'm talking about when he came in the physical body he didn't have a worship team but let's think about it like let's say jesus just like was behaving like a normal pastor can you imagine that jesus goes up on the hill to preach right now instead of that blessed are those stuff like he can't do it he's like how can i do this cold man like worship team do your job philip go to the town and get some worship leaders i can't do they're cold man you gotta worm warm up their hearts so they can receive my message they gotta you gotta charge up the batteries man come on worship team warm up the crowd for me you got to stimulate them and get them ready for worship right they got to get their hearts right the only way they can do that is if they sing songs or they hear really good music said jesus never he didn't need it the word of god is enough but the modern church has created a culture where they worship the worship we are willing to pay untold sums of money or turn a blind eye for the worship that we don't need but we don't like to send all that money to people who are in need it's amazing and it breaks my heart so here's where i want to affirm some direction and kind of let you guys in on just just a few things if you came in here maybe you before you came in here you saw some videos online that kind of thing the online ministry is really important it really kind of is actually becoming missions here at c3 church or people in india i'm not joking everybody speaks english apparently watching our videos it amazes me it amazes me all over the world and it's great so like this is a live studio audience here right so but it's really funny because i was talking about this kind of thing right and the media team's awesome they make these like little one-minute clips that's the instagram reel thing you know you do the one minute clips and it's fast that's why i do have to like be presentable if you see me after service i'm going to get right out of these clothes i don't like dressing like this but i do it because i know kids that's all they do right so i got like point five less seconds my daughter does this so fast i'm like i don't how can you think how can you process are you processing this information like i don't understand but they do right so if you know you look sloppy or not respectable they're not going to stop on you that's just reality right so you got to do what you got to do but this one guy was talking about celebrity pastors in churches spending all this money complaining you know about different things and somebody posted a comment like like pastor you should really like preach to yourself like look at you i was like what i'm so detached from that because i can see the room i'm thinking there's like a hundred people at best here you know but then i looked at the video and i'm like oh like i can see how you might think that this is a really big church and that it's fancy hey beth is like yeah and some people come in and what did she say she probably said something i thought it would be bigger right if you thought something else that's on you anyway i thought it would be bigger yeah he really just said that you know but it was funny because the backdrop the backdrop there were like the panels remember the panels yeah you do the panels were there and like the guy they looked cool right they'd shine the lights on them and it looked like really fancy but it was styrofoam insulation that's what it was and because they were so cheap they kept like falling down it looked like we were having earthquakes every sunday it was terrible right so finally i'm like take them down like i'm done dealing with this chasing this problem so this guy is looking at it but he doesn't know there's like like half the rooms like 100 people maybe at best i'm lying is less so there's like nobody here it's a really small room or a community church but if they just see that and they hear that they don't know they don't get it like it's literally styrofoam insulation budget you know basically we try to do things and like i'm like i don't know ask heather and that's always the thing and they're like and she says no no like can you make it like you know that's what we tried to do it didn't work it doesn't work all the time but here's the thing here's where it does work here's where it does work and now you and you don't be mad at me i'm gonna take a swipe at max think really not going to be a swipe it's going to be a slap like that now so here's the thing if you want to have an iphone and you want to waste your money spend your money on it that's your business i like nice things i have nice things and i waste a lot of money on those things right so that's fine when it's mine right so my money okay cool but not when it's the church's money that's not right that's wrong and so here's the thing so a lot of you guys don't know that a lot of this product all this this stuff not the screen we got a new one but anyway and that was like now right so we finally got a convincer we need a big screen we can show everybody movies anyway but all the cameras and most all the stuff it was already here when we got here we inherited it we didn't pay for it and we're so cheap that we're gonna wait before we improve anything it's old it's like actually we're on 1080p but we have good video people right so it doesn't look like that and i'm gonna wait until 8k gets really popular then we're going to go to 4k so we do it right that's how we do it but the max right where is he going with that well if you go to a big church and you look like at their sound booth you're going to see a bunch of macs am i can you say that again that's right right so anyway don't hear that often anyway lots of macs lots of macs why i don't know because the big church uses them so we got to use them but here's the thing we looked at getting we needed new computers and i was like oh no max that like to run this stuff that's like five thousand dollars no that's what happened what do we do can we make them can't make a mac yeah but whatever we don't need can you make a computer can you build one like you build yeah the people on the media team can do that apparently how much 500 bucks i'm like perfect we got yes yes we literally make some of the computers here we do have some macs they were donated we couldn't give them back but anyway we we we make stuff here we literally made computers 500 that's better it's a good use of your money and some of you need to hear that this morning we're good stewards so you're lucky of a really cheap church administrator so that's good so here's the other thing why do i keep doing that here's the other thing i got to break that habit it's a bad habit you don't mind do you if we go a little over who's going to say yes manipulative anyway you'll live we have food people come in here i think again are we on the affirming part okay we're good right no one's crying yet i can't see anyway the lights are in my eyes but we're on the affirming part right so let's let's affirm as a church family my family some people have come in here and they're new and they come in and they go where's the band the band they freak out like where's the worship team like calm down like no where's moses make us a golden calf so i'm like okay listen there's nothing wrong with a band there's nothing wrong with the band would have been amazing nothing wrong with it it's fine but here's why i let people know we're going to have a band when the lord brings in a band he hasn't and here's the other little thing some of you know this have been in church for a little while it's gonna be two by two like noah's ark why would i want two of every kind let me explain this to you i've been a church for a while you know why so that nobody can hold the pastor hostage that's why i don't care how good you are and how people are worshiping you like a golden calf if you're out there at your other gig because apparently this isn't enough money for you and you're engaging in pagan revelry doing things that you shouldn't be doing get out you're off the stage you don't need to listen to you sing lies anymore that's happened but not on my watch that's why certain people aren't here anymore let's just rip that band-aid off doing crazy things i can't have anyone singing lies here that's just wrong two by two so you got that question yup we can have a ban but when we do it'll be quality you'll know they're not lying and here's the other thing qualified people but also qualified by the right heart that's what matters god hears the heart not always your mouth he's listening to your heart that's the important thing so it's kind of funny one of the two worship leaders here on the stage singers on the stage is my daughter so that tall wookie the blonde wookie and so there you go it's a real thing that's her boyfriend i can't beat him up so it's kind of difficult right anyway okay i'm gonna get serious again let's let's get come on so that's the thing i can go to anybody singing on this stage like they don't even want to sing but anyway she does her vocal lessons during the week she practices right she tries to get it right and that's great that's really honoring but i could go sophie you're not gonna sing today and she'd go fine you know what i mean and just go on to like clean the garbage any of the other 10 tasks that the home worship team does you have singers that come here they sing they get on the camera don't care but i've had people coming to church i god told me to sing you know what god didn't tell me that you know so no you know it's just know that the people you see on the stage they're here because they have the right heart they're in leadership because they have the right heart they're not because they don't right so it's fine not that you don't but you get what i'm saying and here's the other thing the band is for beginners the track is for beginners that's going to take a lot of people off there's nothing wrong with the band again there's nothing wrong with the track and here's the thing we want to meet the culture where it is that's important that's why i'm not up here showing you my hairy legs and the sandals that i'm going to change into after service right so i'm trying to like meet people where they are i know where they're at i'm trying to meet him there and there's this quick funny story like we came in as business people right and so we come from new york where everything's pretty much negative so just that and as we come to southwest florida we're scared she has people following her out to the car with the grocery bags and she's like someone's trying to kill me you know like they just wanna put the groceries in your car but like you know she's like kick some i can get out of here but we're not used to that kind of thing it was weird it was a whole conversation like people keep following me around everywhere i go they're trying to be nice most of the time but still be careful keep the gun on you anyway same thing we're like finding radio stations and like we didn't know here's the thing we're listening to christian radio we didn't know that because i don't think they have that in new york it's not a thing so you know maybe they do i don't know but we're listening to chris we don't know it right so having these separate conversations i think it was stupid me who went to her first and said man i found this radio station they're so positive every they're so nice they don't ever say anything mean it's weird right so we started church we came into church and we heard one of those songs i'm like that's the song from the oh christian radio station like i had no idea right so it serves a purpose doesn't it and that's why but here's the thing so we welcome you come as you are but don't stay as you are i'm gonna stay as you are and so as you grow like me i enjoy the music i love it i think it's great it helped them with the sound and stuff i love it but i don't need it i don't need it and that's the thing we saw an example of this mature biblical worship in jonah people skipped that whole part of the story hall paul chapter two it's only four chapters they take 25 of the story away but it's really important it's that whole chapter for a reason what happened he's in the belly of the sea monster the whale the fish whatever don't get hung up on that get hung up on this that dude was in a horrible place getting all burned up by the acid in the sea monster's stomach and what did he do he prayed but not just that it's like a psalm i told you he's worshipping he's worshiping in the fish worshiping not just old testament either new testament acts 16 paul silas philip high they meet lydia first european convert a woman by the way kind of interesting right so then they're there and there's this girl with the spirit of divination maybe your bible says she's like a fortune teller spirit of pythona in greek and that would take too long to explain so i'm not going to do that you're welcome anyway no please do the spirit and she's annoying paul she's saying the truth these are the servants of the most high god but paul gets annoyed for some reason after a few days of this that could be annoying so he cast the evil spirit out of her but her owners are really mad because they can't make money off of her anymore so they drag them to court and have them beaten with rods and they throw them in prison not just prison but like the inner dungeon of the prison horrible place so just imagine like seated in uncomfortable position the stocks and chains and stuff like that you've just been beaten with rods it's probably cold and damp no window it's not good but they're not like can't worship because there's no worship team no they worship around midnight they worship and it brings the house down there's an earthquake they're freed from their chains the doors open up it seems that the most genuine worship comes not in our time of comfort but in our time of crisis we shouldn't need these things to stimulate our emotions in order to worship we have to be really careful with that built a culture where we too as a church are suffering from a famine of the word of the lord amos 8 11 the time is surely coming says the sovereign lord when i will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the lord people will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the lord but they will not find it beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day thirsting for the word of the lord lord's word the modern church has brought that upon itself by inserting too much of the world and not enough of the word so what does this say the word say that worship is romans 12 1 and so dear brothers and sisters i plead with you to give your bodies to god because of all that he has done for you let them be a living and holy sacrifice the kind he will find acceptable this is truly the way to worship him don't copy the behavior and customs of this world but let god transform you into a new person by changing the way you think then you will learn to know god's will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect that's how we worship the rest of it is just an extension it's just an outpouring but did you see that don't don't don't be conformed to the customs of this world be transformed by the power of the holy spirit so that if you find yourself in a prison cell you can worship you're equipped if the tracks go down at c3 you can worship you're equipped transformed not conformed but too many churches have conformed themselves to the world in their worship hebrews 13 15 therefore let us offer through jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to god unceasing not just for 15 minutes on sunday proclaiming our allegiance to his name and don't forget to do good and share with those in need these are the sacrifices that please please god this is our worship we are saved by grace through our faith in jesus christ but our works are our worship again singing ha psalms hymns spiritual songs colossians 3 16 ephesians 5 19 i get it it's all okay i said it's good it's an extension but the key to those verses is making melody in your hearts to god it's all about having our heart right that is true worship lord i thank you for this time for this church everyone's willingness to listen to participate to be a part of what we're doing here at your church according to your will and your word we love you lord continue to keep us humble to embrace your spirit so that as we go out we are true vehicles of your love your peace your mercy your grace your kindness so that more would come to you i ask these things in jesus name amen so you