Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Hey, listen, turn to somebody right now, give them a high five, tell them God's good.
Give God some glory right now.
Tell them God is good.
Give them a high five, shake their hand, give them a nod.
Whatever you got to do, poke them.
If they're sleeping, poke them.
All right, get them up.
God is good.
It's good to have you here at Life House this morning.
We do want to give a shout out to the East Shore campus.
They are doing a pre-launch.
If you don't know what that is, we're getting ready to launch October 15th, officially launch
that campus every single Sunday morning.
They'll be meeting together right now.
They're meeting on Thursdays doing Bible study and we have some pre-launch services to get
ready.
How many know we don't want to invite the general public in and for the first time do
church, right?
We want to get that all the bugs worked out.
So they're up there right now having service and they're going to be bringing the recording
in and we're excited about what God's doing there.
He's unearthing things and shaking that community and we love it.
It's been a journey of like casting seed.
How many know when you cast seed, you don't see a plant pop up right away, right?
You got to uncover the dirt.
You got to throw in the seed and then you got to cover it back up and you got to wait
a while.
You got to let God do his work and that's what we've been doing.
We've just been planting, watering and God's already beginning to see increase.
So just keep that campus in prayer.
We're excited about what's going to take place on October 15th.
It's an exciting thing.
Amen.
If you want to know more about that, please see us.
Some of you, I believe God's going to move on your heart to go up and be part of the
launch team there for a period of time to help that campus get moving and rolling.
If you want to know what that's all about, again, just see one of the pastors and we'd
love to talk to you about that.
Well how many this morning would like to hear some good news for a change?
Amen.
Yeah, good.
I brought some with me.
A study that was done by the Barna Group and if you've ever heard of Barna, they do a lot
of polling and they do a lot of research and it's very extensive research and they found
this out about across four generations, Generation Z, which is 11 to 26.
Listen, if you're from Generation Z, raise your hand, give a woo woo.
Okay, 11 to 26 year olds.
Come on, raise your hand in here.
If you're between the ages of 11 and 26, we got a couple.
I didn't even hear a woo woo.
Millennials, largest generation on the face of the planet, 27 to 42.
Raise your hand.
Okay, give a woo woo.
Look at them.
They're millennials.
They're everywhere.
Okay.
Generation X, which is a generation I'm from, 43 to 58 year olds.
Okay.
We're the smallest generation.
Woo woo.
I got a mic.
Okay.
All right.
And then the baby boomers who are from 1955 to 1964 and they're 59 to 68 years old.
In fact, you raise your hand.
All right.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
By the way, boomers, you are the second largest generation on the face of the planet currently,
but out of these four generations, they began to ask some questions about spirituality and
spiritual things.
And across the board between 70 and 80% of Americans would like to grow spiritually across
the board in the generations of 70 to 80% believe in the supernatural dimension, 70 to
80% believe in God or a higher power.
There is a spiritual curiosity that is alive and well in the United States of America.
More than 75%, seven to eight people out of 10 are looking for the spiritual, looking
for a higher power, are curious about God.
Americans do believe in this spiritual and how many know that's good news?
That is good news because we have the answer.
We've got Jesus.
We can talk to them.
And in light of this spiritual curiosity, we want to be ready with spiritual answers.
We want to be able to answer the questions that they have.
We want to be able to articulate the truth about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
because God's the answer, Jesus is the answer to what they're looking for.
I should be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within me.
The thing that burns within me and following God, I should be ready to have that answer.
I should be able to not only express but model true spirituality.
I want to give them what they're hungry for.
I want to hand it to them.
So almost 80% of Americans, virtually in every generation category, are seeking spiritual
direction.
That's good news.
It really is.
That should excite us.
That should embolden us just a little bit.
It should encourage us to know and exercise our spiritual stuff.
I'm just going to put it together like that, our spiritual stuff.
And I'm not just talking about head knowledge stuff.
When I'm talking about spiritual stuff, I'm not talking about who can quote the most scriptures.
Back when I was young, you used to have Bible wars or sword wars.
They call it all kinds of crazy names.
Who could give the most scripture?
And I'm not just talking about Bible theology and things that come out of our head or who
can rip off the Roman road of salvation, all the scriptures for the Roman road of salvation.
People want living, breathing truth, proof of spiritual existence.
And the neat thing is that the good news is that Jesus came and He is the proof, but He
is the proof in us.
People want to experience spirituality.
And how they're going to experience something spiritual is in us, the followers of Jesus
Christ.
People are chasing paranoia.
I can't even say it.
Paranormal.
Man, I don't know where that came from.
They're chasing it.
They really are.
You ever see the videos on TV or the TV shows and the videos online, right?
They always got these little flashlights and they're walking into a haunted house and looking
for orbs of light that are flying around.
They're looking for something that goes bump in the night.
It has spiritual things.
They're after the spiritual things.
But poke your neighbor right now and say, listen, you're the paranormal they're looking
for.
You're the paranormal.
Come on, if you know Jesus, you're the paranormal they're looking for.
You're the orb of light that they're wanting to see.
Right.
They're the I don't know if you're the thing that goes bump in the night.
But but you know, it is light.
It is life.
Jesus followers are God called us to be the carriers of light.
He called us to be the spiritual legs and hands in the world around us.
This is good news that people are searching and they want to experience the spiritual.
They don't want to just hear about it.
They don't want to just hear another sermon or another lecture or another word from somebody.
They want to experience it.
I mean, no, experiencing is an awesome thing, right?
It's a very different thing to read about flying in a plane and then to actually fly
in the plane itself.
Right.
Those are two very different things.
If you ask any 15 year olds or any 15 year olds in the house right now for 15, raise
your hand.
I mean, no, anybody's 15.
It's a very different thing to read about driving a car and then actually drive in the
car.
All right.
It's a one thing to smell the steak.
It's another thing to eat the steak.
It's one thing to talk and care about God's presence, his power and experience something
that's powerful from God and is a whole nother thing to experience.
It's one thing to read.
It's another thing to experience.
And eight out of 10 of Americans are looking for spiritual proof.
They're looking for a higher power.
They're looking for somebody that's going to show them really the truth of what is beyond
us.
And I think it would be interesting.
I just think it would be interesting if we were the spiritual proof that they bumped
into.
I think it would be awesome if they noticed a bit of the supernatural of Jesus within
us.
I think it would be tremendous, right?
If people experience not just intellectual, but actually sensing the presence of God in
us.
And I'm not talking about being spacey, freaky or weird.
How many ever met spacey, weird, freaky people, right?
That's not what I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about authentic spiritual move of God in our lives.
So how do we make sure that others are bumping into something spiritual as they bump into
us as the carriers of the gospel, as the representation, as the ambassadors of Jesus Christ?
How do we make sure that they're experiencing that?
How do we make sure that there's spiritual curiosity, you know, peaks and they want to
follow us around?
And you could ask that question and some of you are thinking, well, you got to take a
46, you know, 46 part series, you know, a class to learn all that.
But I think the answer is simple.
I think in God's word is simple and clear how we get to the place in our own lives where
people are sensing their they sense the spiritual going on in our lives.
And I think it's simple enough that if you engage in this, it kind of automatically happens.
How many like automatic, right?
We got stuff all over our house that's programmed to turn on and turn off.
I love automatic.
I don't even got to hit the button.
If you engage in the right thing spiritually, I think it happens automatically.
And it's this one thing, it's worship, say worship, worship, turn somebody, tell him
worship, preach at him this morning.
OK, worship, worship.
It's all about worshiping God, true, authentic worship of God, treasuring God above all things,
looking to God as Lord and as God and as holy and as Savior, worshiping the one who should
be exalted.
Jesus said this in John chapter 12, verse 32.
He said he said something that was simple but profound in John 12, 32.
He said, and I and he was talking about himself.
If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.
When he spoke those words, there was a twofold meaning in what he was saying.
And the first part of that is this was before he went to the cross.
This is before he would die and he was speaking of his death.
He was speaking that one day he would be put on a cross.
He would be nailed to a tree and that he would be crucified and that he would die and they
would put him into the ground.
They would bury him.
He would resurrect from the grave.
He would go to the right hand of the father.
He would send the Holy Spirit.
He said, if I am lifted up, and he was talking about physically on that cross, if I am lifted
up, I will draw people into me.
But there was a secondary meaning in that scripture.
If I am lifted up, if we lift up the name of Christ, if we worship God, if we lift him
up, do you know what happens in the spiritual realm?
People start to draw to him and that's us lifting him up.
It's us exalting the name of Christ.
It's us.
Why do you think enemy works so hard to keep you from worshiping God?
Why do you think the enemy works so hard to distract you from engaging in any kind of
worship full time with the Lord?
Why do you think he engages in getting your mind off in circumstances and things that
are going on around you?
You know, getting you all wrapped up emotionally or reacting some way in emotion.
Why do you think he does that?
Because it pulls you away from worship.
It pulls you away from lifting up God.
And as soon as you begin to lift up God and as soon as you engage in worship in your own
life, the word of God says that all people begin to draw to Christ, not to me, right?
Like, hey, listen, it is not my magnetic personality that brings people to the life house.
It really is.
And I know a shocking, right?
It's not my, it's not my charisma, right?
It's not my intellectual prowess that everybody comes in the door, you know, and they want
to come to life.
I listen, even if you're good at all those things, you're going to, you're going to,
you might inspire people for just a little while.
Then they're going to go out the door.
They're going to go to Brewster's and get an ice cream, right?
And it's going to be over.
But if God is being glorified in our lives, if we are lifting him up, he begins to draw.
His presence begins to move and it is in that worship.
And I know it sounds too simple, right?
But what happens is, is you begin to worship.
God kind of leaks out of you.
I don't know how else to put it, right?
I don't know if you ever seen come to these little sprayers are around right now.
We got one of those ones that you hook up and the pressure builds up and it just spritzes
out, right?
And you know what happens when you start worshiping God, when you start worshiping God on a regular
basis in your own personal life, people get near you and they're like, what's going on?
Right?
Something's spraying on me, right?
It's just God's squirting out of you and it's God's presence.
And that's what it's really like.
And Jesus said, if you lift me up, don't worry about having to draw them in.
You're not going to have to have all the scripture memorized just perfectly.
He said, I will draw them unto me.
Right?
It's worship.
It's worship that moves me closer to God.
It's worship that brings me into the spiritual realm.
It's worship that brings others into the spiritual realm that draws them.
And I know it sounds simple.
I know it sounds like it's something that should have 46 different steps to it and you
should attend at least 14 different classes.
I know it sounds like it, but it's not.
It is worshiping God that slides me from the natural to the supernatural.
It moves me from this realm to the next realm.
I don't know if you know this, but heaven and earth kind of intersect.
There's different realms that intersect.
And when you begin to worship, they overlap one another.
It's not like God's way out there somewhere and we're just here.
They overlap.
But when you engage in worship, you start to step from this realm into the next.
You start to step from this realm, the natural realm into God's realm.
Understand this.
God wants to be near us and we got to engage in worship and engage in spiritual worshipful
activity.
And the reason we have to do that is because God is spirit.
He's spirit.
John 4 24 says this.
God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in what?
Spirit and truth.
God is spirit and those who you can't get to them from the natural.
God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
There's nothing spiritual happening in me unless I'm worshiping God in spirit and in
truth.
If all I'm getting engaged in is in the natural that's going on around me.
How many of we got plenty of natural every day?
Right.
You wake up to the natural.
You're looking at the natural.
You're staring at the natural.
You get up and you naturally think I really need to clean my house this morning.
Right.
I need to go to work this morning.
I got all these guys.
I've got children who eat.
They want to be fed this morning.
Right.
Some of you are like, oh, that happens every day all day long.
Right.
You know, there's lots of natural going on around us.
But if I don't engage in worship in the middle, all the natural, I just get stuck in the natural.
I just get drunk.
How many of the natural will suck the life out of you?
Amen.
Them children are sucking the life out of you.
Just go ahead and say amen.
It's true.
They need everything because that's what kids do.
That's what they need.
And what happens is if we don't engage in worship, we begin to drink and all we get
caught in is the natural.
If your only spiritual act of worship is coming to here on Sunday mornings, it's not enough.
You're not going to get enough.
You're not going to get enough of God to even spritz.
Right.
You're barely you get out the door and the spritz will be gone.
That's it.
You'll be dried up for the rest of the week.
You got to worship.
You got to engage and it might be in the middle of the natural, whatever you're doing.
It might be in the middle of what's going on.
And if you gauge in, listen, it's not about the environment.
And I know we set environment.
This is odd coming for me because I'm all about our environment being right.
But we set an environment.
It's not the environment that makes you worship.
When you come into this house, just because the music's good, that doesn't necessarily
mean you worship.
Right.
We get the lights just right.
Right.
We get them to the right level or the right color of lights up on the stage or the right
taste of coffee.
Right.
That doesn't make you worship.
It might point you towards God.
And that's what we do.
When you come, we put things on the wall like love God, love people every day, which we
believe in.
We put those things up so that you point you towards God, but it will not cause you to
worship no matter how good the music is, no matter how soft the seat is, no matter how
good the lighting is, none of that's going to make you worship.
You get it right.
It's not the environment.
It comes from within.
Here's the thing.
You can walk in and my environment, my natural stuff may help me focus on God.
But if I'm worshiping, if I got a heart of worship, my environment doesn't even matter.
I get in the middle of a total mess and nothing's right.
And you'll still worship God.
Right.
You got to worship.
You got to move towards this present.
God is spirit.
And when we come to a spiritual God, we cannot come in the natural.
We got to come in the spirit.
When God brought Moses out, when he called him out of the backside of the desert and
he said to go to deliver a people, a group of people who were enslaved right from Egypt,
he had to bring Israel out of Egypt.
They were enslaved.
And he does that.
He does it in obedience and does it in a spectacular way.
It's actually was God.
God performs 10 miracles and the Egyptians finally let these group of slaves, which is
a million plus people loose and they go into the wilderness and Moses is leading them.
And God tells Moses, you need to go up on the mountain.
I'm going to give you some instruction.
And when he goes up onto the mountain, he gives them 10 commandments.
And you know what the first two commandments are?
I'm going to read about it.
Exodus 20 and one, right.
The 10 commandments.
Most of us have heard about that.
And God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord God who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me.
Do you know what that means?
Your focus, your worship is first on God.
You will have nothing else in front of me.
And number two, you shall not make for yourselves a carved image of any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under
the earth.
You shall not bow down to them nor serve them for I am the Lord your God.
I am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third
and fourth generations to those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who
love me and keep my commandments.
His first two commandments were you don't worship anything else.
If you're going to worship, you worship me.
If you're going to get close to God, he's got to be first place.
He will not share space with your worship.
Whatever your first place thing is in your life is probably what you're worshiping.
He will not.
He won't.
He won't share space with it.
He's not okay with us bowing to everything else or anything else.
He won't.
He said first two things.
He told him you're going to keep me before you.
You got to worship me.
I am the Lord your God.
That's what he said.
Right?
If I'm going to get to a spiritual God, if I'm going to minister and have a spiritual
generation who's looking for the spiritual, I got to live a life of worship.
I got reminded of this this week.
Man, I preached this all over me first before I got to you.
So just know that.
All right.
So how do I stay?
How do I stay in a constant state of worship?
Right?
How do I get there?
Well, I believe it says you got to have an accurate understanding of God's true nature
and his worth.
You've got to have an accurate appraisal of God.
Now, I don't know if you've ever gotten an appraisal done, but if you're going to sell
a house or actually if you're going to buy a house, you'll have to get an appraisal done
of the house.
And what they'll do is they'll send somebody out.
No, they'll compare it to other places right in the neighborhood and they'll walk through
it and they'll see what kind of finishes are in the house and what kind of work was done
in the house and the structure of the house.
And they'll come up with an appraisal and they'll give a value and net worth of the
house.
That's what it's worth.
They do the same thing with a car when you're going to trade your car in.
How many of them when you trade your car in, it's not worth 10 cents, right?
When you go to buy it, it's worth a million dollars.
That's how it works.
But they will.
They'll come in and do an appraisal when you go into the car dealership and they're going
to say, well, that car is worth X amount of dollars.
And if you're going to worship God, you got to get a right appraisal of who God is.
You got to get a right appraisal of what he's worth in your life.
You got to understand his net worth because if you don't got a hold of that, you won't
worship very long.
When the environment ends, you'll stop worshiping God.
You got to understand his value.
We don't worship what we don't understand.
We don't worship what we don't believe is greater than us.
We won't worship what we don't love.
We won't worship what doesn't hold first place in our life.
We won't worship what we don't revere.
We won't worship what we don't trust.
We won't worship what we believe is powerless.
We won't worship someone or something that we don't think has our best interest at heart.
We we just won't worship something that doesn't have any value
We worship we won't worship God if we don't have an accurate appraisal of who he is
If our appraisal gets all jacked up, right if our God numbers are off when we're looking at God
You won't worship him. You'll you'll just go on to something else in the natural
We'll just kick on over into something else
John Piper said it this way true worship is based on a right understanding of God's nature and it is a right
valuing of God's
worth
If you're not worshiping God, it's a good chance that your appraisals messed up
That you don't really understand God's worth, right?
How many know what do you do with something that you don't think is valuable? What do you do with it now?
There's been yard sales going here. I just seen just throw it away. All right, it's all about you. Just throw it away
All right, that's what you do with something. It's not valuable, right? You throw it right in the trash can
There's yard sales going on all over the place. I don't people yard sale right here like it's their job
There's always yard sales everywhere, right and you go to yard sale
What happens at the end of the yard sale right goes on for two or three days and when your sales done you just drive by
The house and what's good? What's going on?
Everything's out at the curb rights free. Yeah, it's just a free
How many why do they put something that they paid $200 for like three years ago?
Right for free at the end of the driveway because they don't see value in it anymore
There's no value and what's they're putting out at the road and and sometimes as a pastor
I scratch my head. I'm like I cannot understand for the life me why people who don't know Jesus
Can't see the value of Jesus. He's everything. He is life
He's a and I'm like why I don't get it like he's Savior. He'll keep you
He'll give you an inheritance eternity. He's your light in life now, and I'm scratching my head like why don't they see that?
Do you know why?
They can't they don't understand his value
To them it's not valuable
You you you have to have a right appraisal of God before you'll start to worship God
I used to watch Dixie and I used to watch a TV show once and while it was it was the antique Roadshow
I've ever watched that right?
Yeah
And you get sucked into that because you want to see what the next thing's gonna be right?
They know how it works is there's an appraiser right that comes out but somebody brings in something they got a little vase
So they got a picture they got something that's been in their attic for 45 years, right?
And they bring in they're smiling in front of the TV and the appraiser walks in and they're just hoping it's worth something
You know and sometimes the appraiser comes in he's like well, you know, this is this and this is that and it's worth three dollars and sixty
Two cents, you know like oh and they try not to show sadness like yes
This means a lot to me, but they're really here to find out how much is right or they'll say this is worth
$10,000 and they're like, you know ding ding and I've seen stuff go on this for like a half a million bucks
And I've seen stuff that's just ugly
Honestly, it's just ugly and I thought that was in my attic. I throw that in the trash. I throw it away
It's worth a half a million dollars
And I throw it in the garbage
That's what people do with Jesus
It
That's what they do with Christ one of these days are gonna come to the end of their life
And they're gonna step before the King of Kings the Lord and they're gonna see his true worth because they're gonna be there physically
And that's who they're gonna realize they said at the trash
You got to know his worth
You got to understand what he's worth
You got to know that he is the Savior
You got to know that he is love and that he is light that he is the ultimate judge that he is the ruler of the earth
That he is the Redeemer that he is the provider that he is the true and coming King that he is the wheel and the wheel
That he is the bright and morning star that that he has your eternity in his hand
That he has a great inheritance for you when you begin to understand that when you get a hold of that
When you understand that it is his infinite worth of God
In your life you will worship
You don't care about the lights. You don't care about the music. It could be good bad or something in between
Right. We worship
Get ready to close
It's actually you come Jesus said this in two places in Matthew in Matthew 13 44
Super short scriptures. He said this and again the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure
Hidden in a field which a man found and hid and for joy over it
He goes and sells all that he has and he buys that
field
This is a man who will worship
He looks at God and he sees he's got a right appraisal of God
Right Jesus said it again in the next scripture in verse 45 again
The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls who when he has found one pearl of great price
Went and sold all that he had and he bought it
When you got a right appraisal of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords
You will worship and when you begin to worship you're gonna get leaky
You're gonna leak out on other people you can just spray them when they come around you
You're not gonna be able to help it's gonna be automatic
It's gonna happen
I'm gonna ask you to stand this morning
If you're comfortable and you might be new this morning and this might not be comfortable it's perfectly fine
Please just stay where you're at
But if you're comfortable, I want us to come up together and all we're gonna do is I just want to come up around this
Area and we're just gonna worship together. We're just gonna sing. That's all we're gonna do. I'm not gonna ask you to do anything else
I want you to meditate and contemplate on God. That's all that's all you're gonna do this morning
You don't have to say anything if you don't want to you don't have to sing if you don't want to
But what I want you to do I want you to make your way up front
And I want you to ask yourself one question
Just one question only that's it. I'm making it handle one question this morning, right?
I'm a like what a test it's one question
Hey, well, that's good and bad. I guess right it's pass or fail
Scratch that analogy. All right. Let me ask you one question. Go ahead. Just keep moving up. All right act like you like each other
Just ask yourself what's what's my appraisal of God?
What do I really believe God's worth in my life
You'll understand your worship level when you answer that question it will cut away everything else
It'll cut away the the excuses. It'll cut away the the circumstances
It'll it'll just literally tear everything else away. What do I think God is worth in my life?
Right because you got a value on that you have a value on that you do
You either believe he's infinite worth you believe he's somewhere in between right and how I know if we get in between
We worship sometimes and sometimes we don't
Come on, I've done it right. I get looking at natural stuff
And I'm not focused on him
You can be in the in the middle of the natural and if you understand his worth you will praise him
I've watched people do it. I watch his talking to me. All right
You ready ask yourself the one question. You probably already did
What is my value what is my appraisal of God? What is my appraisal of Jesus?
Worship matters
You're never gonna step into the spiritual. You're never gonna leak out on other people
You just won't your intellect's not gonna do it right. Your charisma is not gonna do it. None of it. It'll be very short-lived
We get caught in that all the time. It's short-lived
If you meet somebody who worships God they leak on other people
If you meet somebody who worships God they leak on other people it just happens. I'm asking you to bow your heads
You could be at the East Shore campus you can be listening online you could be in the house this morning here in Carlisle
What's he worth
What's he worth? What's your appraisal?
If you had to put a dollar amount on it
I know it's easy to give the quick answer but answer honestly to yourself father. We come to you today grateful thankful
Holy Spirit, I thank you for bringing the word alive. I thank you that is a living word
I thank you that you spoke and moved on men and they and it was the inspired truth of God
They came forward and Lord we come just asking ourself one question this morning
We ask ourselves Lord what is your value in our eyes?
And we ask it honestly we answer it honestly
Because we want to come and worship you this morning
We want to come with hearts Lord that are realizing
Who you really are that you are the wheel in the wheel?
God that you are the bright and morning star God that you're the one God who will take us from
Glory to glory to glory God that your mercies are new every morning
in you
God help us to see that it is infinite value
That it is infinite value. There's nothing else. It's even close
Nothing
God that we might worship you
God that we might lift you up
Come on
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Life House Church
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message
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