Made for Worship

well it's so good to see you and big hello to uh all of our campuses we just joined with all of our other locations and every person that is watching online right now how about a big hand cloud come on come on do you love people come on do you love your church family it's awesome we do we love you a lot and we're so glad you're with us either in person or online to worship the lord and i want you to go ahead and get your bibles out and get your notepads out or your phone's out i've got a lot i want to teach you tonight and if you love notes and note-taking you're going to love this uh if you don't you're still going to love this but this is something that uh there's really kind of more on the deep end of the pool in fact i don't know if you know this story or not but the church actually started uh we weren't going to do wednesday nights at all when we first started the church and uh and i'm in this reminiscing mode right now because we're 20 years old but anyway but i i was thinking about our first wednesday night i was just gonna meet with the with the dream team and we didn't even call it the dream team then yet it was just our launch team because every all these new leaders were new and i wanted to put all this uh into these new leaders and so we had this closed meeting on a wednesday night in the home of one of our team members and it was a large enough home to have about 50 to 100 people you know in the house and kids down in the basement of course we were packed in cars all down the street causing all kind of problems in any way and but people who weren't on the team just started coming to these wednesday night services and they just it started packing out next thing we knew we had hundreds of people and now we're trying to find other locations and finally we found a little office complex that sat 230 people and we moved it over there and then it packed out and and these wednesday night services and i was just doing kind of more more verse by verse teaching and we realized something caught on you know and studies were great they were kind of the services you know where we were trying to reach people who were far from god and really making them uh something that people could really connect to but this is really kind of for the for the home folk and so we were doing longer worship like we did tonight and we were i was doing in-depth teaching like i'm gonna do tonight and it just kept growing and growing it got to the place where there were people uh this was before we had technology to do anything more than this we were just running wires into the hallways people sitting on the floor in the hallways of the office complex with little bitty speakers just so they could hear it and they were out in their cars outside i mean it was crazy you know and so for 11 years of our church the first 11 years of the church we had wednesday night every wednesday night and i did a whole lot of teaching and of course now we've got a lot of those teachings directly into our small groups through small group curriculum so they're still in our in our in our world but just in a different different way uh but this year we have decided i'm gonna we're not gonna do every wednesday night but we're gonna every first wednesday i'm gonna i'm gonna get to as many of them as i can so for the past six or seven years we've i've kind of used it as a place to bring in my friends who can speak you know and just uh just let you introduce let you eat something different you know have a little different meal than me you know what i'm saying and and but this year i am going to preach as many as i can i have i want to teach y'all i got some things in my heart and we're going to go kind of into the deep end of the pool all right so we're going to this is teaching this is like if you like it deep you're gonna love this all right so we're gonna go to the deep end of the pool on some of this stuff y'all like that huh all right cause i can go there y'all don't know i can go there but i can go there i mean i ha i had three semesters of original language you know i can i pull the greek in hebrew on you i can confuse y'all into you know i can i can i can do that right so but i'm not going to confuse you i'm going to help make the make hard things simple i feel like that's one of the gifts that's on my life but next first wednesday is actually one day from our anniversary so we had our first service on february 4th 2001 but on february 3rd which will be the next first wednesday service we are going to have a first wednesday celebration and all five of our overseers are coming to that service so we're going to have them all we have a great celebration plan okay so tonight i want to go to the deep end of the pool on the topic of worship it was so interesting because i knew i was going to teach this i've been working on this message for for a long time and um and this is actually something i have taught only one time before to our church i think it was more than seven years ago but i i want to teach you on worship but from a very theological place and it was so interesting because this past sunday when i was talking about we are our church who is passionate that's who we are we are passionately in love with god can i get a good amen everybody i don't have to convince the wednesday night crowd right so you guys are definitely part of that but it was so interesting um because as i was preaching sunday you know i always divide up my points to fit the time that is allotted so i got to that worship one the second one from this past sunday and y'all you know there's just sometimes when you're speaking you can feel the presence of god come on a point and i don't do this because i budget everything i'm i'm strict with my time i like i don't care but y'all i just decided last sunday i just i i was just gonna hang out on this one even though i didn't i wasn't going to get to those next y'all saw me just kind of flying through these and all right because there i'm telling you if you're if you grew up in kind of churches i did i felt the oil of god hit that one point you know what i'm saying and it's so interesting because i believe with all my heart this is an emphasis for our church in fact this was the first thing i would i built at highlands so when i first moved to birmingham didn't know a soul in town 20 years ago the very first thing i did is i put together a worship team uh i knew that we needed to be worshippers now we had the praying going on and that was big and we were in 21 days of prayer but i was going to be the first worship leader and i led from the keyboard it's so funny because everybody was a visitor and i'd leave from the keys and they thought that was the music director and then i'd get out from there and get my bible and like all right let's go and uh and i did that for four years until thank the lord john larson came on the scene and um y'all don't have to clap that much it kind of hurts my feelings but anyway but but but obviously it's way better than i could have ever taken it but it was very important for me to set the pace of it in fact our church was so new to worship even for the first uh even beyond that they wouldn't do it they they wouldn't i was teaching it i was saying it and like there everyone was just standing around they were they loved being there but there was no clapping and nobody would lift their hands and i was like it's in the bible it's all over the bible yeah i praise the lord and they just keep on so we were playing our pre-roll back in those days we were showing vibrant worship services we just showed people just to train people and and of course here we are today and i think it's one of the things that we are known for it's one of the things i want us to be known for is that we are a church that is passionately in love with god and you see it in what i call traditional worship and that is looking like the book looking like the book of psalms looking like look clapping your hands and shouting to god and worshiping god and praising god and hands lifted and kneeling and standing and crying and laughing and all these expressions of god and tonight you're going to see why from a theological reason why that's so important so if you're a notetaker let's go first thing you need to know is we all worship something so even if that's not your gig you still are worshiping something everybody does everybody is showing their affections to something in their time energy money it's going somewhere your love expression whatever it might be is going towards something worship defined is our response to what we value the most so you can always tell what somebody actually worships or values by the amount of time energy loyalty money effort that goes into that thing it could be shopping golf your football team it could be god god does not mind you having other things that you worship the only thing he does not like is you worshiping something more than him in fact it's the first commandment i want you to have you can have you could have other little g gods and they're not religious when i say that there's just things that you love but have no other gods before me i want to be first in your life and that's why we have that's why we have church on the first day of the week that's why a lot of things are first so i'm not going to teach that but one of the problems with this statement is most of us myself included can exchange that worship if we can exchange that worship from god to something else i'm not going to read it tonight for the sake of time but in romans chapter 1 paul describes a reprobate generation i encourage you to go read it he describes how reprobate how warped their thinking got but one of the interesting phrases in chapter one is is that they exchanged the creation from the creator they started worshiping the things that had been created instead of the one who created them and they just forgot and they've got and it says their minds became darkened and their actions became futile and and perverted in a lot of kind of ways so the pro the point that i'm trying to say is is that what that's what a lot of us do to teach that and to show you where it happened first i want to show you about the first worshiper the first worship leader the first who was the first worship in scripture i was trained this in in bible school and seminary i was trained that any time you're doing a word study or a study of teaching that you always go back to what's called the law of first mention the purest of anything you go back to the original so i'm going to take you back to the original and i want to talk to you about the first worshiper and of course if you've been in church long or you know what i'm talking about you know this is one of god's angels named lucifer there are actually three named angels in the bible and just hang with me because i'm gonna do a lot of kind of teaching stuff and then it's all gonna come together probably right toward the last part of this of this message you'll see how it all ties together but just learn and you'll go oh my goodness i see how this fits there are three named angels in the bible so there are a lot of angels but there's only three of them that are given names that are recorded in scripture one of them is named michael and michael is always involved in prayer so you see michael showing up in daniel chapter 10 whenever daniel was actually by the way fasting doing a 21-day fast by the way and and on the 21st day michael shows up and talks to daniel what's interesting by the way about that conversation side note here is that michael said to daniel on the first day that you started praying i heard you and i was coming to respond but another demonic principality withstood me he called it the prince of persia withstood me and i've been up here fighting on your behalf all this time and now i'm here in response to your prayers so that's why you never stop praying everybody okay as soon as you start praying stuff you just unleashed you're kind of like you're like the glad didn't gladiator i don't watch very many movies but then but then like in the first scene like unleash hell like that's what you do right that's what happens you like create all this right that's what happens okay so michael is always in prayer you'll see it throughout the bible in involved in prayer the second name angel you'll see this in the christmas story um is is gabriel gabriel's already always delivering a message gabriel was the one that caught came and told mary hey you're going to get pregnant but not by a man it's going to be the holy spirit and the baby's name and all that right so he's always delivering a message so there's prayer there's always the word but lucifer lucifer was the angel in heaven that's always involved in worship and i'm going to show you where it's taught in two places in the old testament and several in the new testament as well about the role that lucifer played by the way another time out here just to teach you a side little message these are the three main parts of christianity so this is what we always try to include in every every service that we have there's going to be worship prayer in the word every every service the best way for you to have a relationship with god is just to include these three things so you want to spend if you're new to it just give f five minutes of prayer five minutes in the bible five minutes in worship just 15 minutes but but divide it up that way now my personal belief and i don't know this to be true so this is just my personal belief and always tell you when the bible's not clear on something but i can deduce enough from scriptures to make it something that i think this is one of those i think actually all of the angels that exist are divided into thirds i think there's the same amount of prayer angels word angels and worship angels because we know revelation actually records in revelation 12 that um a third a third when satan fell from heaven and we're going to show you that in a second when he fell from heaven that a third of the angels went with him and now those are the demons which by the way means there's two thirds on the other side everybody just thought i'd throw that out there to you right but what's interesting is there's two places in the old testament that described this event that took place where satan fell from heaven as he he was in god's he was a vice president these are the three vice presidents right of heaven and and and they were there kind of organizing heaven and over over seeing these areas and lucifer fell and i want to show it to you two places it's in isaiah 14 and then ezekiel 28 is where we're going to go but it says this and by the way don't get distracted um this is one of those deep end of the pool things here say don't get distracted if you read your bible and you read this and you read in a paper bible and at the top of it it gives a heading to the king of babylon so what you're going to think well then chris you're talking you're saying this is lucifer but the bible says this is to the king of babylon when isaiah was prophesying he was prophesying to the spirit in the king of babylon it was the same thing as when jesus looked at peter and said get thee behind me satan i got to be careful who i'll point to when i say that i'll do mayo okay all right so sorry all right so but he just looked at him and said get thee behind me satan well his name he wasn't satan he was peter but jesus was addressing the spirit that was operating in peter and that's what that's what he's doing right here so he and you'll see very well in fact you'll see in the first line how you have fallen from heaven so we know that can't be the king of babylon it was the spirit of the king of babylon which is lucifer so this is talking about lucifer how you have fallen from heaven morning star son of the dawn you have been cast down to the earth you who once laid low the nations by the way most scholars believe that event takes place between genesis 1 1 and genesis 1 2. so most scholars believe in fact there's an interesting punctuation mark at the end of genesis 1 1 that only exists that one time a period that doesn't mean like a period go to the next sentence it denotes a space of a massive space of time um for those you guys want to go dig into it um and again this is these are theories that could be true i happen to believe it it's called the gap theory where in the it's because genesis 1 1 says in the beginning god created the heavens of the earth big long gap period here long time verse 2 the earth became wasn't it didn't when created that way it became formless and void verse 3 god says let there be light and that's what we call the creation story it's probably a recreation story it's where where where god created it satan perverted it he fell from heaven and perverted it and turned it into darkness and gloom and and and had void and then god says okay i gotta go fix this thing let there be light are y'all following what i'm saying everybody just just an interesting thought for you there okay but how you have fallen he says and you who once laid low the nations you said in your heart and this is why satan fell or why god kicked him out of the out of the staff he says you said and there's five i wills i will ascend notice all the high things i will ascend i will raise my throne above the stars of god this is what satan was saying or lucifer was saying i want to be enthroned on the mount of the assembly on the utmost heights of the mount of zaphon i will ascend above the tops of the clouds i will make myself and by the way this is what satan calls god the most high and that's the thing that irritates satan he doesn't like he didn't like god being the most high god but how many all know he is the most high god he there is none above him okay which is again why god takes it personal when we put other things above him that's why we have to be careful what we worship that's what we have to be careful of what we really love more than god because what you're doing now is you're actually doing the exact same thing satan did and that's kind of dangerous okay and in verse 11 it gives another detail are y'all enjoying this so far by the way all right good okay good all right so in verse 11 it gives another detail that's very very cool and he says and your pump is brought down to shield so because you were so prideful we threw you to the the pit of the earth the shield and the and the sound of your and notice what the bible says the sound of your string instruments in other words most scholars believe and i do too that satan didn't play instruments he was an instrument he actually so if you could have seen him he was he was he had str he would look like a stringed instrument and i don't know exactly what that would look like uh perhaps we'll see on the other side of all this one day okay so that but he was but he he he was stringed instruments and i'll show you how that ties together here in just a second now let's jump to ezekiel 28 and he's by the way he does the same thing i believe he prophesies in this one to the king of tyre same thing though he was addressing the spirit of lucifer in the king of tyre and he says you were the seal of perfection full of wisdom perfect in beauty you were well there you go that's why i couldn't be the king of tyre you were in eden the garden of god so you were there at the beginning remember the snake and the tree and the apple and all okay watch this and every precious stone adorns you now i'm not going to teach this now but i need you to save that in your mind for almost the very end of the message because it's way cool okay but god not only made him stringed instruments a stringed instrument but he also adorned him he adorned he put pearls and gold and and and made him beautiful carnelian crystallite and emerald topaz onyx and jasper lapis lazuli actually looked up that stone today it's quite beautiful um turquoise and barrel he says and your settings and your mountings were made of gold now that's kind of confusing and i'm going to clear it up in a second your settings and your mountings were made of gold on the day you were created they were prepared so the bible's describing what satan looked like when he was created let's go to a different translation in the king james version it actually says it explains what those settings and mountings are the workmanship of your timbrels and your pipes and timbres are symbols and pipes are well you know they're like a flute okay the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created now i don't know if you're noticing this those of you that are musical you already got it that he's already described every kind of instrument there is so he was not only a stringed instrument he was not only made beautiful adorned by god with all these precious metals and jewels but he also he himself he didn't he didn't play it he was it he was a percussion instrument and he also was a wind instrument i don't know if you know that in music again another fun little side note i've done music my whole life most of you know actually was classically trained from seven years old 12 years old i could play anything you put in front of me you know i was that's what i did i had i had 30 piano students at 15 years old making that mo nay all right so all right but uh just beginner students but but that but i've been playing my whole life and and but there are three kinds of instruments stringed instruments have have strings okay and uh and so that's your banjos your guitars your uh even a piano is considered a stringed instrument because it has a harp section and you really just you use it when you hit the note it hit a hammer hits hits that note it actually mixes the next one too because it's also a percussion instrument a a string ditch when something you pluck a percussion instrument is something you hit and a wind instrument is something you blow so if you have a symphony orchestra they actually separate those into these categories there's a string section a wind section so that's your trumpets clarinets oboes french horns stuff you blow right and then you have your percussions the things you hit he was all of those he he was every single one of those and it goes on to say this that not only did he have precious jewels covering him making him beautiful not only was he um was he was he a stringed instrument percussion instrument and a wind instrument but he was also anointed god chose now watch this please don't miss this god chose to put an anointing on music notice i didn't say worship it's on all of music and that's why we go crazy lose our minds over music stars that's why music you can i can tell you an event or ask you to act tell me about an event and you'll tell me the song that you heard during that event you'll you you can tell me like even your your spouse this is our son like music has power are y'all following what i'm saying and god chose to do that and you'll see why at the end of this message but music has a lot of power look in my eyes and you underestimate its power both on the bad side and on the good you underestimate its power i'm telling you you underestimate it's power i'm not putting anything on you you and god talk about this and that is why i don't listen to secular music in my lifetime i've never owned a single secular piece of music it's not on any of my devices i don't do it i never have when i was 15 i heard this message okay when i was 15. i'm gonna back up and i just told a lie i had 145. i did i'll even i'll even tell you what it was it was everybody loves kung fu fighting those cats are fast as lightning okay that's what i had all right but that's the only one i've ever owned in my life right and honestly secular music freaks me out and i don't go near it because it has power if you felt the anointing of god in worship tonight there's an anointing on that stuff too but to pull you away from god and get you to exchange to do that on that unholy exchange of worshippings i'm just saying i'm just saying it's he was anointed as a guardian chair for so i ordained you you're on the holy mount of god you walked among the fiery stones you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created to wickedness was found in you now watch this this is this is bible language but i'll explain to you through your widespread trade you exchanged it so the bible's not saying this is where you're where you went wrong you used something i gave you only for the glory of god and you used it for something else and that's why i'm asking you to consider what you listen to what you sing to what you i'm just saying i'm just saying i don't i don't i i'm not doing it and i don't ever put my convictions on anybody else because you have a holy spirit and his name is not chris he's much better at the job than i am but give him room just say you know what should i be listening to should i have this on my playlist should this i'm just saying okay because god drove him in disgrace from the mount of god and expelled him guardian cherub from the from among the fiery stones your heart became proud on the account of your beauty and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor so i threw you to the earth and there's the event by the way jesus describes this event i see humor in scripture y'all have to forgive me but i i cause jesus there was a there was a there was a moment in in luke chapter 10 where um the disciples jesus had given them power to go out and just hey there's only one of me so why don't y'all i'll give you authority once you go pray for people and get them healed and delivered cast out the devil and so they did and the bible says they came back going the demons are submitting to us when we use your name he goes i told you you know and so and and he goes he and jesus says that's nothing i was there the day that it happened the first time so and this is the day and jesus saw it he says i i was there when dad did it and i saw satan fall like lightning now that's funny to me see that's not funny to you i think because because you because most people imagine powerful satan powerful god you know kind of like a star wars movie it takes two hours to and even sometimes the bad guy wins you know what i'm saying it's just that's not how it happened if if if this story was a movie it would have lasted a millisecond because when when god when god decided to be done with satan it's over it's like a lightning lightning come on we serve a cool god everybody i just letting you know that's just awesome to me all right i love that it was just over it was just over and he fell from state he fell from heaven and and and but now there's a problem because they're still gabriel's still there you know help helping us pray probably fighting our battles right now and during 21 days and with the other angels and and gabriel's still there and you know giving us messages from the holy spirit we're hearing things from god i believe i believe i i believe we i believe there are times we are entertaining angels and we're unaware of it hebrews says i believe that but there is an unemployed cherub now there's a vacancy in the role of worship and the question is why didn't god put another angel in the spot in fact let's ask the question who is the new worship leader and you know the answer it's you and me it's so interesting to me that he had and it was an ancient job that he decided not to get an angel replacement for instead god said now remember this is happening before adam was created so satan fell so god's going i know what i'll do um i'm gonna i'm gonna let humans be be that and by the way i'll just go ahead and kind of just give you the the the big reveal and you have all three of those as well all three you yeah there are there are two little strings hanging right here called your vocal cords i actually seen mine i mean they look like a piano string when it's hit if you've ever seen a piano string it vibrates that's what creates the note i actually did a vocal cord check one time i go to a a i do a bi-annual physical a complete physical and one things they do is a vocal cord check because i speak for a living and and but it it it slows the um the the vibration of your vocal cords down a lot into a mega slow motion so they can see what it looks like whenever you speak and so instead of it's going it is the coolest thing and and my vocal chords are in good shape so far i praise the lord for that and uh yeah but you have you have strings and then you have a wind instrument called your lungs that pushes it past those strings and creates song and then you have these bad boys right here in front of you as a percussion instrument you were created to worship the question is are you worshiping are you doing it so let me show you now how god did it and why he did it and this is the this is the grand finale okay so there's a little bit of teaching in the first point but this is where it gets really really fun okay because god had a reason he had a reason why he did it but he had to do it the right way in the first place let me give you how why and then what our response should be so here's the first one this is the how and god did it by making us from him now don't don't try to figure that out yet but god made me from him now to teach you this i've got to let you know that in the creation account there actually are two words that are used created and made god did in genesis chapter one god did two things he to create something just hang with me is to form something out of nothing that's what he did with light he just said it's nowhere around not going to make it from anything let there be light and then bam there was light he he created it okay but to make something is to take is to form something out of something that already exists and he did that for example with the trees i'll show you that one in verse 11 he said let the land the dirt produce vegetation and and seed bearing plants so there were some things in the creation account that were created and there were some things in the creation account that were made now why why why why were some things created out of nothing because they didn't need to have anything connected to it they just i'm just going to make that but why were some things made why did they have to have a relationship why do the trees had to have a relationship with the land watch this it's because god wanted there to be a relationship between the thing that was made and the thing that it came from hang with me because he said i know what i'll do on some things i'll make them so i'll make land the earth but i'm gonna let trees come from it so that the trees and the earth will always have to connect and be in relationship so they're made from they're made from the dirt sustained by the dirt and one day that tree will return to dirt so it's made from the dirt sustained by the dirt and then returned to the dirt the same is true when he made adam and eve remember when we made adam he created adam but when he made eve he took a bone out of adam in fact when when adam saw eve first of all he said whoa man no i'm just kidding that's just a fun preacher joke um that's why they call a woman but but he says bone of my bone flesh in my flesh why because he wanted there to be a relationship between the two okay now here's here's here's the kicker when god creates all mankind when he creates all of mankind where did he create it from and and verse 26 tells us then god says hey let's make people but let's make them from us why because he wanted us to be made from him be sustained by him and return to him to which some of y'all who were thinking thinking no no no no no no that's not what the bible says it says we are made from the dust no no no your body was made from the dust and your body was made from the dust it's sustained by the dust be corn and does not sound good is it we stuff right and then we our bodies will return to dust but not your spirit your spirit was made by god it's sustained by god and returns to god okay all right that's the how let's talk about the why and that's point number two and that is that god made us he did it that way so that we'd be connected and be in relationship that we would be with him what a lot of people don't understand they go to church and i think most of you here on a wednesday night do is that god never wanted there to be a religion he never wanted there to be an institution called church he wanted a relationship with you and we know that because he already had angels he already had he said we know god wants our word god wants his life we have this warp view that we're servants of god in this and this we'll never get to know him we're just here you know and no no he already had that in the form of angels y'all he already had angels singing and and all these things taken in fact there's there's two angels isaiah talks about two angels that their only job is just to go holy holy holy holy holy holy hope for it that's all they're doing god's going yeah okay or whatever all right that's not what he wants god wants relationship this is how i got saved and this is the if there is one bedrock message of our church it's my own personal testimony that i was in church my whole life and didn't know god i had no idea that he wanted to be in a relationship with me show you one place in ephesians chapter five the the the the chapter that talks about how to how to get your marriage and write in god's way it says for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh and that sounds so beautiful we read it at weddings but then it says hey by the way i'm not even talking about that this is a profound mystery i was actually i was i was i was a bait and switch i was baiting and switching you i was making you think about the most beautiful love relationship on the earth which is a relationship between a man and a woman and god says i'd sure love to have that i'd sure love to have that you need to understand that god god's greatest desire god created eve because adam was lonely god created mankind because he was lonely he didn't want just paid created angels just to do what they they're supposed to do he created man gave him free will to come back and choose him for the sake of relationship and so many people have this warped view of god that we're gonna get to heaven one day and gonna be a fat and to harp and sit on the cloud and sing in a choir for ten thousand hours y'all that's hell that's not heaven that's that's hell do you know what's going to happen when we go to heaven do you have any idea what's going to happen when we go to heaven the first thing that's going to happen is god's going to put his arm out and grab the entire capital c church and walk us down the aisle and he's gonna we're gonna be wed with jesus and then after the wedding takes place there's gonna there's gonna be a there's gonna be a reception called the the marriage supper of the lamb and y'all there's food and drink and happy it's gonna look just like the best wedding reception you've ever been to times a million and there's just gonna be laughter and jesus is gonna have his relationship in fact revelation talks about one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls for the seven last plagues came to me says come and i will show you the bride the wife of the lady he's so excited let me show you what she looks like and it's going to be the church come on somebody and the bible says he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high and he showed me numbers now he's going to say let me show you the house i've been preparing for you church i've got a i've got i've got a place i've been i've been preparing for the whole time of in heaven and the foundations of the walls were decorated with every type of precious stone and what he had taken he had stripped those from lucifer when he fell and he's been holding them since genesis 1 2. they all come cause tell me ladies y'all don't understand this men every man will know what i'm talking about right now me we men if we have the capacity to do it we love adorning our wives with something that flickers you know just look we want something we want something shining and we love i love that now sometimes i think of it too late but it's nothing like tammy not thinking thinking she's getting pots and pans for christmas and then i go who's your man now you know what i'm saying right i don't know why that's fun for us it just isn't i'm telling that's fun for that's fun for jesus guess what i have for you and the first foundation and here's all these stones against jasper sapphire aggie emerald onyx ruby crystal light barrel topaz turquoise and all those all those right and and he and he adorns you and me so he made us with strings win percussion and then he adorns us and that's the why he is in love with you in me and he wants a relationship and the only thing that we need to do is now have a response and that is god made me from him to be with him so that i could love him back that's all he wants if you really want to know what god really wants it's just you to love him back in his many expressive and beautiful ways that you possibly can last verse john chapter 4 jesus said there's a time coming and it's now come by the way it couldn't come until jesus came so he could pay for sins and put god and the church back together that was jesus role and when that happens there will be true worshipers who will notice this word i have highlighted worship the father in spirit and truth for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks what's interesting and some of you know this i've taught this before what's interesting about that word in the greek there are some times in the greek my last little teaching there's some times in the greek where there's just not an english word for the greek word and a lot of times what they'll do is they'll just create it they'll just create a word like the word spirit is a created word the word in the greek is pneuma p-n-e-u-m-a like pneumonia numa and the literal translation is wind or breath but holy breath doesn't sound right and so they called it holy spirit in the english but what's the problem is we it gets removed of the meaning of the word that the holy spirit can put wind in your cells because breath in your lungs can move you in ways like only the holy spirit can and i'm going to be teaching you that in a few more weeks but worship is another word because the word in the greek i didn't get i didn't give you the greek just for fun it's prosecute neo prosecute neo and in the greek some of you are not going to like this word you're not going to like what the definition is okay because the definition of prosecuto is to kiss and that's where people go okay that's what guy wants but god wants me to kiss him because you think about the kiss like of lovers and that's not the word that's why they couldn't translate it and that's also why they didn't put it there because because god's looking for people to kiss him that wouldn't sound right in that verse right so he's looking they said god's looking for worshipers but the true meaning of the word you can go look it up in these greek lexicons these greek dictionaries it literally translates to kiss the hand it literally is like someone you honor it's literally it literally same translation as as a dog jumping up on your leg and licking your hand just it's that kind of tammy and i took a long walk yesterday and and there was a beautiful um golden retriever a white golden retriever beautiful dog but being walked by another man and the dog kind of pulled over they saw us put he pulled over and and the dog wanted it and this is a dog that don't even doesn't even know us just just love and honest and that's the world tammy and i we um some of y'all know this we we when we first got married we raised dachshunds well actually i got a dox and a pet store dachshund because i i was trying to put off babies for a while um so she needed yeah so anyway we got a dog we got a little a little miniature short hair dachshund named gretchen i bred gretchen i think six times before she went to be with the lord anyway well and uh we made 400 a puppy that was cha chang anyway so um it it we needed it and um anyway but we kind of fell in love with dachshunds we've had several since then and our last one was named lady we don't have a lady with us anymore but a lady is a long-haired little miniature dog's about seven pounds and lady when i pull into the garage at her house you can hear her while you're still in the car in the house she's she was she had to scream and it's just and then people talk it's he's home he's homies home he doesn't just he's home and when i and when i when i opened the door she didn't jump on me she'd go take a lap just take a lap just just run around the house put a couple two or three times and then she'd jump up and down and lick lick lick lick look that's the word by the way a cat will never do that i just want y'all to know that you don't own cats cats on you that's what hey right dogs dogs have the anointing on their life just teaching you the bible i'm just teaching you the bible in fact i heard this from a comedian this is terrible i heard from a comedian once uh that you cannot you can tell a dog loves you more than your spouse take your dog and your spouse lock them in the trunk of your car come back an hour later and see which one's happy to see you don't do that but that's hilarious anyway you know what god the father is seeking he's home he's always home he's homies he's home he's home it's sunday at sunday and sunday it's sunday i'm gonna get the front row i'm gonna get the front that's what he's looking for and by the way before you got get all weird like oh my god this got a little weird right there before that gets weird you like it too all right go go on a long trip and come back to home from on the airport and no one's there no one's there you have baggage claim all by yourself just everybody else is kissing and you're just standing there waiting for that you know waiting for it to come go go on a long trip come back and there's a horde of people with balloons and they run out and kiss which one do you like best you are no different from god he wants your worship he wants to be kissed he wants to be loved he wants to know you

Channel: Church of the Highlands

Views: 9,463

Rating: 4.96875 out of 5

Keywords: Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands, COTH, Alabama, Religion, Christianity

Id: VdqN4W7lziY

Length: 44min 54sec (2694 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021