Amen. Good morning. Good morning. I want to start by just saying what an honor it is to be up here.
I mean, this church has been like an extension of my already very large family. I started in this church in the kingdom, not in the kingdom kids, in the nursery when we were on the square down in Word. And every single part of my life, every stage of my life has been a part of this church. And through kingdom kids and youth group and to now there have been people who have poured into me.
There have been people who have helped me in every stage and have made me help me become the man that I am today. And I'm just truly, truly grateful. Thank you. Thank you.
My time in this church, there's been many people who have really, really pushed me, really helped me. But one person who has stood out and really affected my life, probably the most in this church, was a guy by the name of Jackie Gross. Jackie Gross, if you don't know him, he's the worship leader at GCF New Braunfels. But he was my kingdom kids, the worship leader and my youth worship leader.
But most of the time that I got to spend with him, he was my youth worship leader. And as I was growing, as I was learning how to become a worship leader, he was there helping me. And he would come to me whenever I was obviously nervous or worried or antsy about leading worship or singing a song. And he would look at me in the eye and he would say, hey man, try not to screw up.
He did say that, but he was obviously joking. But what he said that really stood out to me, that really changed my perspective on leading worship and worship in general was this. He would look at me and he would say, hey man, it's not about you. That simple statement, that it's such an easy thing to think about, but it really is life changing.
Worship is not about us. Worship is about God. Worship is our way of praising, loving, admiring and celebrating our God. Our king, our king above all kings.
Amen? So that's what the Lord wants for us. That God wants selfless worship. And that's my title today.
We're going to be looking at how to be more selfless in our worship. So how do we begin to do that? We need to stop looking at our worship as something we just do on Sundays. And we need to change our attitude into a lifestyle of worship, daily worship.
We need to use our time at church to pour out to God. You know, God will bless us with visions, healing, peace during our worship. That shouldn't be our main focus during worship. Our focus should be solely upward and not side to side.
Psalm 100 verse 4 says, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his course with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name. We are to bless his name.
Not worried about our needs. Not worried about what we need because anybody who saves knows, we can trust in the Lord. We can trust in him to take care of our wants and our needs and our desires. Psalm 62 verse 8 says, trust him at all times, you people, pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
We can trust in the Lord. And in doing so, we can pour out even more to him. Because we need to praise him before, during and after the victory. And it's so easy for us to praise him after the dust settles.
But it's a lot harder to praise him during the battle. But that's when we need to give him our faith and our trust. But a lot of times we come into church and we're empty. We come into church and we're needing a fix of God.
We're in reality. We are filled with living water. The gates of heaven are wide open to us throughout our week. So we don't have to be apart from God.
And we should pour out to him every single day. Come on church. Our worship should not be reserved for Sundays alone. Quiet time is a great part of the day and it's emphasized for a reason.
But we should have loud time at home as well. We should be rowdy in our homes. Psalm 149 verse 5 says, let his faithful people rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. That's your home.
That's the most intimate part of your home is your bed. Not just the church. This is the Old Testament. How much truer is it for us to worship God at home now that the veil has been torn?
And God is open to us all the time. We need to pour out to him throughout our week. And Psalm 95 1 through 7 gives us a beautiful picture of what God wants our worship to look like. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord.
Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great king above all gods, in his hands are the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands form the dry land.
Come, let us bow down and worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice. We are to glorify him.
We are to tell him what he's done for us, who he is to us. We are to kneel down before him and realize that we are the people under his flock. He's going to take care of us. So what are we consuming throughout our week?
What are we preparing, what are we filling ourselves throughout the week in order to pour out to God in order to be more selfless? What kind of music are you listening to throughout the week? I love all types of music. There's a, my playlist is full of all different types and genres, but I'll tell you what, 90 to 95 percent of it is praise and worship music.
And I listen to it throughout my day and it's uplifting to not only me, but more importantly, it's uplifting to God. And the more I pour into myself with that worship, the more I can give on Sundays. Last year I worked in Burnham, and that's about an hour and a half drive. Every morning at 5 a.m.
I would drive to Burnham, and every night after work was done I'd drive another hour and a half home. And let me tell you what, there wasn't a day where my car wasn't loud with praise and worship music. And you know, Michael has always said that when he was in his car and worshiping that he wore out his car with praise, I think my car helped in value a little bit whenever I was done praising. But it didn't stop when I got out of my car.
I'd get in the skid steer and I'd put on some headphones and I'd be jamming out the music for God in the skid steer. And the rest of the guys that work would do that too. We'd just sit and talk about songs we're singing. It was a continuous thing.
And now I work in the office and there's constantly worship music playing in there. You don't have to be listening to it, but just rethinking it in your mind, playing it over it, worshiping in throughout your day, thanking him for what he does. First Corinthians 1031 says this, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Our lifestyle should be glorifying to God.
What we listen to should be glorifying to God. Because when we worship throughout our week, our spirit goes stronger and stronger. And it is easier for us to give more as a congregation. Because how can you give if you're empty?
How can you pour out to the Lord if your vessel is empty? What are you giving to God? Worship should be a sacrifice to the Lord. So what are you sacrificing?
That's my second point is bring a sacrifice. We need to come to church ready to give. We need to come to church with something to sacrifice to the Lord. Because it needs to cost something.
David Livingston says true worship must cost us something. If it costs us nothing, it is worth nothing. If you are offering something to the Lord, it needs to have value. It needs to have substance.
So what are you giving to the Lord? Are you communicating to the Lord? Are you actually having conversations and declaring what you need from him? If you look at Psalms, you'll notice a lot of our worship music comes from Psalms.
But if you really look at it, you'll notice that about 40% of Psalms is lamenting. 40% of Psalms is people crying out to the Lord, declaring what's going on in life, crying out for help in the same way we need to declare and cry out to the Lord. Our worship time during the week should be a time where we're asking God, begging God, for help. All of us need it.
All of us need it. But you'll notice at the end of the laments, there's always praise. There is always uplifting God. Limitations for I mean, 3 19 through 23, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the goal.
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For his compassion's never failed.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Come on church. They remember they declare what's going on, but they end it with hope.
They end it with trust in the Lord to take care of them. They know that great is his faithfulness. Worship can heal your soul. Worship can bring you peace.
Worship can take care of things for you. Because you see, when you place a giant in front of a mountain, that giant looks pretty darn small. But when you place that same giant in front of the greatness and glory of our God, it is non-existent. We need to give him our giants.
We need to give him our worries. We need to sacrifice those things to him, not carry it on our own. Give him your problems so you can get him as your focus again. Because our greatest calling in life is to love the Lord.
We are to love the Lord. About ten years ago, I fell in love with the woman of my dreams. And to say that I was enamored with her would be an understatement. I was head over heels.
I was crazy about her. And in fact, before I even told her how I felt, I knew that I wanted to marry this girl. Now I didn't tell her that because she would have wisely run away. But I was all in.
I wanted to be with her constantly. She was constantly on my mind. She was everything to me. And now we have our sweet Sala Day.
And that love just keeps growing and growing and growing. And I just love every little thing about her. Her little smile, her almost giggled. She's so close.
Her chubby little thighs. And don't get me started on that newborn smell. There's something intoxicating about that newborn smell. And it's something that has just stayed with me.
I think about it. And whenever I first smelled her, I just instantly fell in love. And that scent has stayed with me. How much more should we desire the scent of God in our nostrils?
How much more should we desire God sent on us for others to smell? To be with Him constantly in order to rub off on Him? Our love of the Lord should grow. Our love of the Lord should be ever growing every single day.
And the more time we spend with Him, the more that love grows. The more we're able to love Him, the more we're able to give Him, the more we're able to be selfless for Him. As our greatest commandment in life is to love the Lord. In Matthew 22, 37, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees what the greatest commandment was.
And He simply replied with this, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest commandment. Jesus didn't leave any part out. He went through and showed those words very carefully, because God desires our whole being, every single part of us, from our heart to the physical.
So we're going to break that down. You could do a whole teaching on that verse, but we're going to do it just a little bit today. You all ready? Let's look at the heart.
Our worship starts with our heart. That is the deepest part of us. And if it's not coming from your heart, you're missing out. If it's not coming from the depths of yourself, you are missing out on what God has, where you in God is missing out on all of you.
Lamar Boschman says this, when I worship, I would rather my heart to be without words than my words be without heart. Let's read that again. When I worship, I would rather my heart be without words than my words be without heart. I would rather stand in the presence of God dumbfounded.
I would rather stand speechless before the might and then almighty grace of God. I don't want to have lip service. I don't want to be a mimic. The words are up here, but it's got to come from your heart.
You can't do what other people do just because that's what's going on. It's got to be your own personal worship to him. You've got to know that love. You've got to know where it comes from because our God deserves that.
Our God is worthy of praise that comes from the depths of our being. And if he doesn't, you don't know the Lord. Because you see, the most beautiful voice pales in comparison to the beauty that God sees in a heart that is in pursuit of him. God loves a heart after him.
God desires our heart to be going after him. And when what that happens, you'll experience some of the most beautiful worship and he will feel the love of God right back on you. Our love must come from our heart. The next part is our soul.
And some people will compare heart and soul, but there are two distinct things. And God chose those words for a reason because our soul is shown through our emotion. Our soul is shown through the way that we're feeling and the way that we're declaring God. Whenever you're overcome with joy, when you're overcome with tears, when you're overcome with love, it'll show.
If I sit here and I tell you, hey, I love you, but my face is straight. You're not going to believe that I'm really in love with you. But whenever you see it on their face, you know, whenever you see that, you know, we cannot exclude our emotions. You know, one of the biggest groups of excited people I've ever been a part of was last year when I went to an Aggie football game with Casey Green.
Those guys are crazy about their football team. And they were on their feet the entire game. And I was mostly on my feet the entire game. I didn't really enjoy that part.
But you know what? I was there and I was all about it, but they were screaming. They were excited. They were screaming in unison when the other team had the football to try to get them distracted.
And let me tell you, if there was any bit annoying to them as it was to me, it was working. Well, why can't we have even just a little bit of that excitement for the Lord? Let me make something very clear. Our church does not have a worship problem.
We have some mighty worshipers in the house. Amen? But how can we get to the next level? How can we push our worship even farther to God?
How can we be more selfless for the Lord? And that is part of it. Your soul has to be in your emotions have to show. Isaiah 12, 6 says, cry out and shout, O inhabitants of Zion, for great is the holy one of Israel in your midst.
If you could physically see God standing right in front of you, I guarantee you, you wouldn't be straight-faced. You would be on your knees. You would be crying out to him. You would be begging for forgiveness.
You would be in awe of his glory. But he is there. He is here with you constantly. And we need to envision that in order to get our emotions to act right.
God is here and he is worthy of all praise. And that brings some powerful worship. When we allow God to have that part of us, it brings beautiful praise. Because sometimes the most selfless thing you can do is expressing emotions that you have bottled up or limited.
That's a part of you that God deserves. And excluding it is not giving your whole self to God. The next part is our mind. John 4, 23 says, yet a time is coming and now has come.
When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. Those two words, spirit and in truth, that's the key here. Because we're supposed to be both focused and intelligent with our worship. We cannot just sit here mindlessly repeating what's on the screen.
And that's why you'll hear a bunch of worship leaders tell you, hey, lift up your own voice to the Lord. Lift up your own song. Because that worship that truly comes from your heart is stuff that you think about and you declare as the Lord from your own life, from your own experience. That type of worship is so much more beautiful than just reading on the screen.
We need to be focused on the Lord. In Kingdom Kids, we had a game that helped us with this. It's called the Distraction Game. And all of the leaders in Kingdom Kids would come around us during worship and their main goal was to make us laugh.
But that simple thing has really helped me to make sure that my praise is always upward. And putting on blinders on me. I'm not worried about what's going on beside me. I'm not worried about what's going on in front of me.
I'm not worried about what's going on in my life. Because I know I can trust in God. And God deserves my full attention during worship. God deserves my focus.
We need to be focused and intelligently praise God. Don't let your personal preferences have an effect on what's going on. Don't let what is around you have any effect on it. Know what you're saying during worship.
Know what you're declaring. And that brings us to my final point in this is our strength, our bodies. Because you see, our bodies were built as an instrument to praise. Our bodies were built for dancing, for clapping, for singing, for shouting.
But I think dancing is something that a lot of us leave out. I'll clap my hands. I'll raise my hands a little bit. I'll shout to the Lord.
But dancing, that's not for me. But God desires that. God loves when we dance. And when I think about dancing for God, I don't really think about anything but the powerful men in this church that I've seen dancing for God.
When I see Daniel Sweeney running and dancing across the front stage. Beautiful, unashamed worship. That was inspiring for me when you do that. Just dancing for him.
I remember a very distinct memory of my brother Mitchell coming out of his seats. And he was doing a dance that I just thought was the most manly dance I've ever seen. He was just stomping and going around and dancing for the Lord. Unashamed?
Not worried about what other people were thinking. He was stomping out the devil. A very distinct one that I love to watch is my carball. My carball is a dancer for the Lord.
My carball will either be dancing with his wife during worship or he has this very distinct dance that I love to watch. And he just claps and he's just getting after it. He loves it. And I love to watch it.
Whenever I was little and we were in the building that we used to be in before this building, we called it the nation's building. It was near the square. There was just graffiti all over the floor. I mean covered in just random stuff.
And for some reason on the right of the stage there was this big old stop sign. No clue why that was there. But that was my go-to spot to stand during worship. Now I did not move during worship at that point.
I would stand there and I would just stare at the worship team. But one Sunday I remember very distinctively looking down and seeing a little pattern going on the edges of that stop sign. And I just felt a pull to just move back and forth just very simply. But that began to break that spirit that was afraid of dancing.
And my body began to move and I just felt his presence flow over me. And if you look at me during worship sometimes I still do that little dance. But it just starts with something so simple. That one little break.
That one little part of you that's like I'm going to unashamedly dance for you Lord. How many of us need to break through? How many of us need to be stretched to bring our worship to the next level? We are called the worship God both in our bodies and with our bodies.
And dancing is not an exception to that. It's a beautiful form of worship. And the Bible gives us some clear distinctive words that show us what this type of worship is like yada to extend your hands or barak to kneel down before your creator. Or shabak a shout of praise and makol to dance in a circle.
These are all forms of worship. These are all beautiful forms of worship that are glorifying to the Lord. And we need to practice them. For some of us it's as simple as moving out of your chair for the first time.
For some of us you've never raised your hands. You've never clapped. You've never shouted. But God desires that and you will be more free if you allow that to happen in your life.
For the last thing we're going to do today, I'd like Stephen and Lindsey to come up. And we're going to practice this a little bit. Alrighty. Come on.
Guys, we are called to worship. Our worship must be an offering of our whole person. Anything less is withholding what belongs to God. If you will stand with me and we're going to worship to a song called Heart of Worship by Matt Redmond.
And if at any point in this teaching you said, I've been holding back on God. I've been selfish with the way that I worship God. I want you to come up to the front and I want you to worship Him. And even if it's that's not you and you say, I'm a great worshipper, come up to the front anyway.
Let's fill this place right here. So right now, come on up. Come on up and let's worship them together. Give up your selfishness and give God selfless worship from your heart.
Come on. Let's worship them. And all is stripped away.