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Years ago, when we were meeting in the high school, we were playing like, if you're a

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musician in the room, raise your hand.

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So if you're a musician, you have some insecurities about different parts of your musical abilities.

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You know what I'm saying?

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And we were rehearsing, playing through songs before the service, and it was me and Tony

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and a guy named Daniel that moved down to normal, and Jen, and Jen is a voice teacher,

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and I was just, we were just playing and I said, you know, I sometimes just wish that

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I had a better falsetto.

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And she was like, listen, everyone has their version of falsetto, you just have to embrace

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it.

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And in a moment, I just started singing.

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That freedom fall in this place.

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That freedom fall in this place.

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That's a song that was written in this congregation for what God wants to do in this congregation.

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Amen?

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And we sing songs that are written by other people, we sing some songs that are written

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for us, but there are songs that you hear, and I hear as a songwriter that I go, man,

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I wish I wrote that song.

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But there's something special about the ones that we've written because they feel so much

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speaking to a moment and to a culture that God wants to create here.

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That there will be freedom here.

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Every chain, every stain, everything that holds us down would be washed away.

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That we would feel the sense that His love is all around, and so our knees hit the ground,

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but our hearts are in the clouds.

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You felt that before about something.

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My hope is that you feel it about God.

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That you feel that His love is so tangible to you that you can do nothing but just your

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body just wants to give out under the weight of the goodness of the glory of God, and yet

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somehow your heart has never felt lighter and higher than it has ever felt.

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Because His freedom is in His place, so we must not turn away.

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Instead we want to see His face.

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Today we start a series called Worship With Everything.

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That was not in my notes.

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But it fits, because worship is such a huge part of what it means to follow God, and I

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hope that you see that as we go through this series.

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Worship is one of those things that if you've been a Christian for any moment of time, you've

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probably been told you're supposed to worship.

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Yeah?

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You're told you're supposed to read the Bible.

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There's all these things you hear, but it's one of those things that doesn't often get

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explained.

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We example it a lot.

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We try to example it.

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We try to exemplify it.

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We try to model it.

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We try to give an example for people to see and then respond to and participate with.

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But like a lot of things in Christianity and following God, it's something that gets said

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a lot but doesn't always come with a lot of explanation.

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And so what often happens is that worship songs end up being the default definition

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of worship.

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Because they become the only avenue that people see the word worship getting put on all the

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time.

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So they go, oh, well that must be worship.

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That portion of the service was worship.

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That is by default what happened.

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And I'm not talking about just here.

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I'm talking about across the Christendom.

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It is the default that happens.

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One of the problems with how we think about things like this, it's a problem of semantics.

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It's a problem of language.

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It's a problem of what happens over time.

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Like this building, this building isn't the church.

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But people ask me, hey, where's your church?

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And I don't say, well, the Britons, Hodges, and Campbells, they live on 10th.

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And Jen, she lives on 33rd.

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And I live up on 24th.

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And I don't go through the list of where the church is.

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I know what they mean.

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And so I say, oh, we meet at a building down next to the Expo Center, near the Botanical

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Center if you know where that is.

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And I know that this is kind of a rant.

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I just think that it matters, because we're talking about a living thing when we're talking

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about the church, but we keep on pointing at inanimate objects.

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And when we're talking about worship, we're talking about something that we live in and

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through.

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It's something that becomes a part of the wholeness of who we are.

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And then we point at inanimate objects and say that that is worship.

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The songs aren't worship unless they are directed towards God with all of our attention and

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all of our affection.

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And even then, the songs aren't the worship.

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They are the songs of our worship.

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The building is a tool.

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The songs are just tools.

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And tools can be anointed and set apart for holy use.

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But because God is looking at the heart, the tools are not the things.

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They're the thing.

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Yeah?

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All right.

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Semantic rant complete.

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I want to start today with a broad concept of worship so that for the rest of this series,

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we can pinpoint different tools that we can use as a part of worshiping God.

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So let's open up our Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy.

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Deuteronomy chapter six, it goes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

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It is the fifth book of what's called the Pentateuch.

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And it's at the very beginning of the First Testament or what's called the Old Testament.

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And while you look up Deuteronomy chapter six, I'm going to read another passage.

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Because during the ministry of Jesus in the book of Mark chapter 12, the Pharisees, the

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Chroteans, the Sadducees, the religious leaders, teachers, they are challenging Jesus about

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ideas.

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And this is what it says there.

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One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating, noticing that Jesus had given

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them a good answer.

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He asked him, of all the commandments, which is the most important?

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The most important one answered Jesus is this, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is

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one.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with

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all your strength.

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The main is this, love your neighbor as yourself.

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There is no commandment greater than these.

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And Jesus, when he said that, he was quoting the First Testament, one of the most famous,

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well-known passages.

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And that's what we're going to read.

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Deuteronomy six, verses four through nine.

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We have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention.

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Whatever makes the most sense in how you do that.

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If you'd like to stand with me, you're welcome to do that.

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Deuteronomy six, starting verse four.

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Here, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

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These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

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Impress them on your children.

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Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down

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and when you get up.

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Tie them as symbols on your hands.

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Bind them on your foreheads.

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Tuck them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

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Let us pray.

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God of every tribe, of every tongue, of every color, every nation, we thank you for the

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scriptures, how they have persisted through the millennia.

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And I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that that would stick.

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That would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would become

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stronger as we become more like your son.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Thanks, so I can have a seat.

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Alright, so before I break that down a bit, let me clarify one more thing.

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And if you're keeping track, you can label this rant number two.

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Worship is not for us.

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Worship is not for us, at least not initially.

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Worship is first and foremost for God.

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It is for God, to God, about God, for who God is, for what God has done.

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We have long said, and I've already alluded to it, that worship is the direction of our

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hearts towards God, giving Him all of our attention and all of our affection.

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The Hebrew words, the Greek word, the primary words that get used for worship mean and agree,

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bowing low.

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Paying homage and honor to God.

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Worship is intentionally choosing to direct all we have toward all of who God is, for

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God.

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Because a worship that is for us first, it's too small.

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Amen.

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A worship that is for us first is too small.

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That's not to say that there is no personal benefit from a life of worship.

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Because there surely is.

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But our thinking of worship needs to be ordered correctly with God at the center, the highest,

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the first.

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Because a form of worship that makes us the point, what I get out of it, what I like,

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what style I prefer, what I want, how it makes me feel, that's too small.

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That's too small.

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When any of us in the process of following God have been a part of a church or been between

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being parts of communities, and we've gone somewhere and we have left and said, well,

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I didn't really get anything out of the worship.

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That's too small.

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That's not the right way to think about what it is to worship God.

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I grew up in a church environment where all we sang was hymns on Sunday mornings.

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Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation.

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Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

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From the fount of every blessing.

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I learned those songs as a child.

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And yet because there was an environment of turning ourselves towards God, it mattered

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not what form the songs were in.

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Amen?

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Because when we look at the form first and get hung up on the form, that is too small.

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That's too small of a way to think about what it means to worship God.

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Because what can happen is instead of worshiping God, we start worshiping the form of our worship

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or the results of our worship.

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And that, as the Bible describes it, is a form of idolatry.

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To worship the form of God or something that God does to worship it or something we can

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do is idolatry.

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So it has to be bigger than that.

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It has to be bigger than songs, bigger than how we feel, bigger than personal preference.

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And that's why we start with Deuteronomy 6.

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That's why we start with this prayer.

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This prayer in the Jewish faith is called the Shema.

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It is the prayer that the Israelites were meant to pray twice a day.

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In the morning and in the evening.

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It was a reminder that they were to worship a singular God.

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They were, as we are now, surrounded by pantheistic concepts that everything is a God.

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And in this scripture, God is trying to get them to be singular in their vision towards

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a single God.

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Towards one God.

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So he told them, worship with your whole self.

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With your whole heart.

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Your whole soul.

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With your whole strength.

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Don't give little parts of it to these other things that are around you.

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The Hebrew word for heart means the inner person.

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The seat of your thoughts and emotions, your consciousness.

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Your courage, your mind, your understanding.

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Your soul is referring to your living being, your desires, your passions.

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Your strength is your muchness.

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Is how it's defined, your muchness.

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When was the last time you heard the word muchness?

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Oh no, Dad, I just don't think I had enough muchness to get it done.

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Muchness, your abundance.

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It's not just talking about your muscles, y'all.

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That word in the scriptures, strength, is not talking about how strong you are.

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To worship a singular God is to love God with every part.

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To pull every part of yourself into a singular, directed worship.

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Because we can be very fractured as human beings, yeah?

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God is saying, pull all that together into one.

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Worship me.

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With your inner person, with your living being, with your abundance and muchness, all of you.

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In case we were wondering when we are supposed to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength,

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the author says when you get up, when you lie down, when you sit at home, when you travel

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on the road, in other words, with your whole self everywhere all the time.

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Worship isn't just a time and place, amen?

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Worship is not an hour on Sunday, amen?

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Worship is your life.

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Worship goes with you, everywhere you go.

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Okay, now the semantic people like me in the room are starting to think, not only did the

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author of that passage not use the word worship, Greg, isn't he actually saying to love God

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this way?

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Love the Lord your God.

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I don't hear the word worship there.

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Isn't this about keeping commands?

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Let the law be on your lips.

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So is he saying worship God always or is it saying obey God always?

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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The answer to both questions is yes and this is an important lesson because a primary way

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to worship God, if not the primary way, is to follow God closely.

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Every minute of the day we have choices to follow God in his way or in another way.

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And when we follow God, it is an act of worship because to follow God is to lower ourself

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and to choose his way instead of ours.

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To follow God we have to turn away from what we would do and toward what he would do.

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When I'm in the car and I'm particularly perturbed by the way someone is driving, which is most

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days, if I curse to myself and ridicule them in private, even when I'm alone in my car,

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even if no one sees me, I am worshiping something or someone other than God.

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I have elevated my own opinion, my own self.

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Do they not know I am the king of the car kingdom?

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How dare they?

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They are my vessel.

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Even when we're in private, when no one else hears what we've said or done, it's an opportunity

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for us to either worship and follow God or to follow and worship ourselves.

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If I turn to God in my frustration, if I open my heart toward God in those moments, I will

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worship God instead of myself.

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So worship is everywhere.

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It's all the time.

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It is with your whole self.

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When we rise and we are at home, when we are on the road, when we lay our head down to

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rest is when we worship.

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And in that passage in particular it says, teach these things to your children in all

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these places.

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In other words, your children of anyone sees everything that you do.

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My children know this.

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Sometimes on Sunday afternoon I'm cranky because I exert a lot of energy on a Sunday morning.

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And I've apologized before, guys, listen, I'm sorry.

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I do not want you to think that being a part of a church causes someone to be cranky.

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I'm sorry.

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I just exert a lot of energy.

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Forgive me for being cranky.

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And then they go, it's okay.

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And then sometimes I go, but it's not okay.

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Now the next logical conclusion is that our worship after it is everywhere with everything

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or everywhere with every, yeah, with, okay, our worship is with everything is the next

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point.

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Because he says, put these commands on your hands, on your forehead, on your house, on

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your gates.

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Why?

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Because then his words would be visible wherever they looked.

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Yeah.

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But I think it's also to remind that these hands, that this mind, that this house, that

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this property that God gave us, these are all tools of his goodness.

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They are the instruments of how we follow.

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They become implements of how we worship.

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God wants us to grasp that everything we have can be an instrument of worship.

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Tony plays the bass.

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I play the guitar.

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Other people have a voice.

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They have implements of worship, but those aren't the only implements I have.

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They are not the only tools that we have.

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Everything around us can become an implement of this worship.

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Things like prayer.

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Scott next week can be preaching about worshiping God through praying the scriptures.

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Things like writing new songs or singing along, that is important.

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Things like our instruments, things like the arts.

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The plan right now, and I asked her to do this before she was diagnosed with cancer,

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but the plan right now is that for about a month from now for Marissa to preach on worshiping

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God through your trials.

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She said yes to preaching on that subject before she was diagnosed with cancer.

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And if it goes as planned, she will preach on worshiping God through your trials while

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she's going through chemotherapy.

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Things like community.

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Andy is going to be giving us a sermon about preaching, about worshiping God through the

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connectedness of our community.

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Things like dance.

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Robin is going to be giving us a sermon about using our bodies to whatever ability that

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we have.

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I don't know if you know Kathy Webb.

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She runs Lyric sometimes.

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She's a professor at Augustana.

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Her expertise is disability theology.

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And so she and Robin are going to be talking about how Robin can speak about these things

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that is an inclusive idea that how do you worship God with your bodies even as some

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of our bodies work differently than others.

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Things like our finances, things like the things that God has given us.

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All of these things become implements and tools of our worship.

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And then at the end of this series, I think that there should be a question that we ask

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ourselves.

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How do we know that we're doing this?

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How do we know that we are worshiping God effectively?

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The answer is you'll be singing louder.

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No, right?

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Come on, you know better, right?

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Come on.

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That's a joke.

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The actual answer is you'll be dancing around the room.

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No, right?

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No, it's not any one thing.

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Well, maybe it is one thing.

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Maybe it's the one thing that Jesus said in Mark 12 when he said, the greatest commandment

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is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all

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of your strength.

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And the second commandment is like it is this, to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

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See, I said worship isn't for us.

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It's not initially, but worship has consistent side effects.

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In worshiping God, you will experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.

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And you will feel an overwhelming sense of God's love or joy or compassion in everything

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we receive in worshiping God is immediately transferable to those around you.

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Plainly, if worshiping God does not influence how we love our neighbors, it is a sure sign

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that we are not worshiping God.

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That's hard.

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Or if you want the sharp edges of that rounded off, if worshiping God does not influence

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how we love our neighbors, it is a sure sign that we're just beginning to worship God.

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There's plenty of room to grow.

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There's plenty of room to be shaped.

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There's plenty of room for worshiping God with everything to find its way into loving

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our neighbors.

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As Jesus said, they will know you are my disciples by what?

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How you love one another.

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So guys, let's worship God.

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And I hope that after 20 minutes or 20, whatever, however long I've been talking, I hope that

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you can hear when I say, let's worship God, you don't hear me saying, let's sing another

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song.

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I hope you hear me saying, let's turn our whole selves to God with everything that we

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have, everything that he's offered us.

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Let's turn that back toward God and follow him closely in a way that in loving him with

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everything, all the time, everywhere that ends up resulting in not only how we experience

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God, but in how we love the people around us.

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Amen?

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eno