2/28/2021

Come let us sing for Joy To The Lord. What a 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 got the great king. Above All God's in his hand or the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his for he made it and His Hands formed the dry. Land come. Let us Bow Down In Worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker for he is our God. And we are the people of his pasture the flock of his care. The word of God to the people of God. Thanks be to God.

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Lord Is the meditations of our hearts and the words of my lips be pleasing in your sight our Rock and Our Redeemer? amen

this sermon series Is based on a book and a study by Adam Hamilton called The Walk? And if you this is our first Sunday of it when explain a little bit more about it in a minute, but if you would like one of these I think we have one left for purchase and then also you can get a digital copy or you can order one or the church can order one for you. This is the first week. So you're not really coming all that late to the Ballgame. I had got here a little bit late today June. Were you able to share the information great. So there are a group of people that are studying the book. Do you like to study with other people and go with that or reach out to others, but this is a really good study. It's a good study because it's based on the simplest of preferences from from the Bible that the walk. It'll walk is throughout the Bible it it's in the New Testament. Jesus always seem to be going somewhere. Right and in the early church was the way just the way you go and and also it's in the Old Testament. You may remember in in Genesis that Adam and Eve walked with God.

the idea that we are on a walk it's this particular book is about the five essential spiritual practices.

Rooted in Jesus's own walk with God. I would have said it differently if it was on the back.

So Jesus is walk with God shows us how we are to walk with God. Part of me knew exactly what Seth was saying. We we want to have a relationship with God. We want to have a relationship with Jesus in the way that you have a relationship if you look at how the other person lived and how they walked. And then you go on that journey and with our case with Our Risen Savior, we get that opportunity to grow closer to Christ together at the same at the same time. We get to go closer to Christ until these five practices their they're not necessarily exhaustive of all the practices of Jesus's life. But they're a Solid 5. They're the essential 5 and the first one is prayer and worship. Now if I was going to make a sermon series, I would be tempted to have prayer and worship be two separate things. Cuz you don't really always think of them as the same thing many times when we think of worship. We think worship is something we attend right? Where is it is something we go to that's very basic form. It's something we witness. We observe but it's best form. It's something we experience together. Until prayer is the same way. They're rooted in the very basic principles that we instill in our children and God has created in US. and so worship

worship is about

the root word for English for worship is worth ship worth. It's worth ship. It's worthy of honor and praise and God is worthy of our honor and praise. So we gather to worship together.

some of you have made Lenton goals are objectives, or maybe you made New Year's goals or objectives. Popular few years ago was the the couch to 5K some of you may have done the couch to 5K anybody. Nobody you guys are my kind of people that the idea is that you can go from your couch and you can run a 5k after so many weeks of training. We can't just go run a 5k right? I was a very strapping young man. I ran a solid 1350 mile. That's not record in case you're curious. It's not it's not they make you start early if it's a shortened day. But anyway, the idea is that we can't without the necessary muscles get out and do things that we used to do all that. Well, some of you all have had surgeries and and my father-in-law I had a hip surgery and and he was really frustrated with his golf game after that cuz that's I think really what the hips were for. I think they were just for the golf and so he got so frustrated with that cuz they didn't work in the same way as they did before and he had to relearn how to use them. It sometimes after we going to do something for a long time. We have to relearn we have to strengthen again those muscles and it's no different from our physical muscles from the spiritual muscles as well. When we don't use them for a long time. We can kind of forget about him put them on the Wayside just remembering when something startling happens or or when life reminds us a certain way about it. but the basics of these Faith principles Is prayer and worship and in prayer Worship in particular? For those of you who have children or have nephews and nieces or have others that you love there is nothing that you will not do. For your grandchild or child? Or those that you love and care about right you would do anything for them? That's love some of you grew up in houses that said I love you all the time. Some of you grew up in houses that never said I love you. Some of you grew up in houses that said I love you all the time, but sure didn't show it. And some of you grow up in houses that never said I loved you, but showed it all the time.

I love you.

That's really what worship is what we're saying to God. I love you. I love you. What God Says to us he loves us We were created by God and part of that love is the world around us the forming of the Earth. Right? So we get to experience the love of God through nature. Some of you got more rain last night. Then you really want it so nature sometimes has a downside but part of the creation that we get to experience as we get the joy of living on Earth that was created by God for us. One of the ways that God shares God's love with us. And in our very basic form worship says I love you to God. I love you.

We love God and God loves us and in worship. We tell God that we loved God through prayer and through singing. Ann also through giving right see worship isn't something you just go to attend to to observe we each have a role. Weeds are inviting others to worship. The the band doesn't play. The play the play to lead worship. They're singing isn't to entertain its to lead others and worship. This is what the purpose of worship was. And I know I sound very very much John Wesley early like you got to sing better and you're like Pastor Rob we can't even sing right I get that, but I'm hopeful and fearful that one day soon. We will be able to and when we can that we will return with these voices crying out to God. I love you. Have you ever most basic simple thing that we can say is? Thank you. Thank you. I grew up in a home. That was very insistent on. Thank you. And you know it with our kids with our grandkids if somebody hands them something and they're real young. What do we say now? What do you say write? Thank you. Thank you. Are you spank you every time and I have this Diner that I go to about at least once a week and when I started there I was drinking soda or tea and I can kind of just sip on a tea forever. So it's not a big deal. But I always said Thank you and you can kind of know if you're overly polite people to look at you like just shut up next time write like they like are you trying to start a conversation or is this just politeness, right? So eventually I switched from tea to coffee and they give those coffee cups about a fifth of the amount of Beverage as a teacup, and so therefore every time they came by I kept saying thank you thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you and I was thankful every time. I want to show that appreciation. And so one of the things that we can say to God is thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I talked about it a little bit last week. I'll remind us again. The current challenges to pray 5 times a day book ending your day at the beginning and end with prayer starting with I love you, and thank you. An ending with I love you, and thank you and in the middle. Is the three meals a raise your hand if you have grown up in a house that use the same for air every time? Sometimes okay. Here's the irony of it. I can't remember the first 25 years of prayer that we said every time at the table unless one of my siblings probably reminded me the first line or two, but after that I I said it so many times. I'm sure I could just hop right in there and get with the The rhythm of it because it's part of who I am now. It's part of what we're doing here is we're getting into the Rhythm of Life of our spiritual lives intentionally. So that we might grow closer to Christ. As we grow in Christ as well. and Jesus prayed Jesus said when you pray because the disciples asked know how we ought to pray. He said don't pray like the Hypocrites play Pray don't go out to the street corner. Don't don't go out there and be as loud about it as you can but go into the closet into the secret my father that sees in secret will reward you. Prayer, is that instrument? Thank you God. I love you.

Sometimes we're just thankful for the fact that we get another day. Sometimes we're thankful for all the opportunities were going to have during that day and sometimes at the end of the day, you might just be thankful that it's over you get to go to sleep. But it's still a Heart of Thanksgiving and in genuine worship. It's our Thanksgiving of honoring the one that's worth our honor and Trace. That's what worship is and that's what prayer is as well. When we don't know what to pray we can always pray the Lord's Prayer. You know, sometimes we can begin to to think that we have to be the kind of further that some great orator is right. like like if you're not some kind of DD logically meaning prayer that it's not going to be worthy of God.

sometimes our best prayers or just simply Thank you. And I love you. You don't know what to say. We can always say the Lord's Prayer. but the reality is there's there's many different types of prayer and ways of praying and we're not going to be able to go into those Waters today, but I would really suggest if you wanted to know more about prayer look into them primarily about 5 that You can do but just start with train 5 times a day. Worship is part of who we were created to be where the only being that's created with free will. We can decide to do something or to not do something. We were created for praise.

The worship for prayer, but we get the opportunity to decide whether we live into that or not.

a lot of times we we just have to begin to decide to do it and then keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it. new initially when you really start to

You know sometimes if we get a little bit out of shape.

we could just not quite be is a

limber maybe as we once were right. Anybody in the room go ahead and try to get something out and drop it. And your first thought is crap.

You like thinking about a half hour calisthenics. You're going to have to do to get down there.

You don't really want to go through all that work, but you don't really know that you can get around it. Sometimes that's the way our prayer lives and restarted. We have a situation in life that cause us to go. Oh crap. We know we got to get down and get to it. Maybe that's where you're at. Or maybe it's so long since you even been there.

That you're not even sure how to pray. I serve the church once.

I described it in this way. Did they don't really get along but they love each other well. I don't really get along but they love each other well. Sometimes people that love each other know how to care for each other and it's a responsibility. It's something you do. I don't mean that these people love one another with like furrowed brow. I mean, they genuinely loved each other. They just didn't always get along. But they saw the point of the church is working on caring for one another in loving one another.

and so what they did when they when they prayed for one another was they didn't want to just pray for just stop that they kind of thought was more on the shallow end of the pool to really have prayer. You have to have a trust right? There are some things that you just wouldn't trust with anybody there some things that just wouldn't be appropriate for not quite the level of trust that you have with someone. The prayer is about trust in relationship and knowing one another. People that you love that you care for. Part of that's what Christ is calling us to do.

So we have this opportunity. I'm going to use the baptismal font to bend down.

We have this opportunity to decide whether we're going to worship or not.

Just cuz we Gathering worship doesn't mean that you're choosing to engage in worship. I'll wait for the amen. Just cuz we're Gathering and worship doesn't mean we're here to engage and worship. That's the extra thing that Christ is calling us to

and we engage and worship we say thank you. We say I love you. And then we act that out. One of the ways that we act that out is through the giving of our time and talents. It's also through the giving in the collecting of the ties and offerings.

We can't do that right now not in the traditional sense. But when we pass the plate, it's one of the ways that we give back to God, right? and

the ways that we live out our faith and worship isn't just that we worship one day a week. But it said we get the opportunity to worship 7 days a week. We just gather with our church family for 1.

This shouldn't be your first day of worship for the week. When you start your week on Monday. This should be your seventh day of worship in the reason that we gather this day and worship when the Sabbath was on Saturday in the Jewish tradition and still is starts on Friday night goes till Saturday is because Jesus rose on this day. That's why we gather on Sunday. That's why we say I love you. And thank you. That's why we give God all of our honor and praise and it's not just with lip service, but it's through engaging scripture in prayer in the week as we go. So that we might be more attuned with what God is giving to us and showing us and helping us to grow. It's something we have to decide to do it isn't decided for us. We have that Free Will thing right? We have that Free Will component. You ever tried to change the wheel of a four-year-old not wanting to get out of a car on a Friday morning. Even four-year-olds have strong free will. The reality is we all have this decision to make this opportunity. Decide whether we're going to give God all of our honor and praise. Or whether we're going to begin to believe that somehow we are worthy of praise.

Encourage you this week. continue with your five

prayers a day my voice just decide to go Med service. I don't know 5 5 times a day to pray and I'd like you to add this to it. Okay. 5 scripture verses a day read five scripture verses a day you can read five in a row you can read just five one of the great ways you could do this is just to get an app to get like a daily scripture app and they have more than one when they're loaded and you can just hit through four five times and read those five things a scripture and then pray about them. But that's the other part. They're going to talk about next week that other muscle and I don't want us to start working on that muscle until you've had a little bit time to stretch. Okay, so stretch that muscle this week. We'll meet next week and we'll do some calisthenics in Scripture.

I'm excited about what God is doing in the world around us. You know, how how how proud I am and how lucky we are are returned to service percentage is amazing is amazing. And we're doing it well. And I hope that as we continue on we can continue as the health department says we can take some of these things down. I want to invite you to stay afterwards to help change out the chairs Kurtz going to run the show on that.

We're going to start with a Windstar with the chairs out there. So don't worry about those tears in the current start the chairs out there and I'll probably let you make an announcement or something in a minute. But that's one way you can you can serve right now and just stick around if you're able to help him feel healthy and comfortable and all that jazz and then we'll go on into announcements if that's okay.

Lord we don't have to have it all figured out. about your throne We don't have to understand some elaborate geological point. We just have to say Lord here. I am.

Help me Lean Into You. Helping growing you. Come and be purposeful about my prayer about my study. guide me and service I know that you are worthy and honor. and praise amen