Walk With Jesus | You Become What You Worship | Darren Rouanzoin

What is GARDEN CHURCH Podcast?

"Here as in Heaven."

For more information visit : garden.church

Intro/Outro: 00:06

Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series called Walk with Jesus. This series is about learning to cultivate a passionate love with God. Joy.

Darren: 00:19

Alright. Grab your Bibles. Just pull them out. In this church, we we go like this. We put our Bibles down here and then we put them up high when we first grab them.

Darren: 00:25

So let me just see all of you who got extra stars and we know you're visiting if you don't have one. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. I'm just trying to shame everyone.

Darren: 00:35

Romans chapter 12, let's go. Romans 12, we're gonna dive in. We're in a series called walk with Jesus. As you scroll through your Bible, Romans chapter 12, verse 1, we're in a series called walk with Jesus. We're looking at what it means to build a life with God.

Darren: 00:49

How do you construct a life with God? This is a very practical series, so we will get practical today, but I wanna read the text and, and then we'll get into what we're gonna talk about. 11 AM, are you good? Yeah. Alright.

Darren: 01:03

First one says this, it's the apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome. He says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good and pleasing and perfect will will.

Darren: 01:38

The word of the Lord. I said, the word of the Lord. Some of you need to learn that. Thanks be to God. The scripture was read.

Darren: 01:48

Let me say that again. The holy scripture was read and for 2000 years, that's why people gathered. To hear the scripture read, to feast on communion elements, to give sacrificially to one another, and to fellowship. What a gift it is that we have a space to do that today. Now, we're in a series about how to build a life with God and can you do you mind before we talk about that putting up that beautiful piece of artwork that we've shown every week.

Darren: 02:15

Yeah, there it is. As we were talking about how do you construct a life with God? I've been teaching over this the last several weeks that you have to have intention as the foundation. So your intentionality to construct a home is at the bottom of your life. So if you wanna a life with God, you need some intentional rhythms.

Darren: 02:32

And in your rhythms, you gotta create time and space for God. The goal is to worship God all the time, to pray with God all the time, to live a life like this where every moment is an opportunity of to be a living sacrifice, but you can't possibly do that without carving into the schedule of your life intentional time for God. We call it quiet time. So this whole series has been about as I called it, making quiet time great again. And so time and space is and we're gonna sell the merch soon because we're just gonna confuse the heck out of everyone.

Darren: 03:06

But you have time and space. You have to create silence and solitude to be alone with God. Now, what you do with that house, that cathedral that you build, you have to recognize that the doorway into the spiritual life is your attention. I and I I can't overemphasize this enough that attention fuels desire. Attention feeds desire and desire shapes your behavior.

Darren: 03:33

I just read this week Tony Robbins, you guys know who he is. He says, where focus goes energy flows. It's the same thing. He's way smarter than me. Your attention will fuel your desire.

Darren: 03:47

And so the longings of your heart are being shaped by what has your attention. So when you enter the doorway of your spiritual life, what do you fill that cathedral? What do you fill your quiet time with? What we've said three things. Scripture, we want you to be formed by scripture.

Darren: 04:03

How many of you know you're being formed by culture right now without having to think? No, I'm not. Yes, you are. You are being shaped by your your your feed. You're being fed by your feed on your phone.

Darren: 04:19

You're being shaped by algorithms and AI technology that that address various, advertisements and information. The podcast you listen to, the the news articles that have a bias. Everything is forming you into its image. You're being shaped by we wanna counter form ourselves to the way of Jesus through scripture. So we read scripture.

Darren: 04:41

We pray, which we've tried 2 weeks on prayer as prayers about relationship with God. It's about coming into the right relationship with God and partnering with him in the work he has here on earth. We wanna see his kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And the primary vehicle for that happening in our life is through prayer. The third is worship.

Darren: 05:00

Today, I wanna talk about worship. You with me? So the question is what has your attention? What has your focus? The resource that is your attention is one of the powerful assets you have in your life.

Darren: 05:12

Dallas Willard says, what you do with your mind is the most important choice you have to make. Wherever your mind goes, the rest of your life goes with it. So when you are allowing your mind to be moved in the direction of consumerism, moved into direction of endless entertainment. It's shaping your being. How many of you know this?

Darren: 05:40

Now, I wanna frame that idea, the idea of your attention with the idea of worship. So can we just talk about the this word worship for a moment because we're gonna spend the rest of the talk talking about worship. I wanna make the case that worship is not a spiritual thing. It is a human thing. So when we talk about worship, I want you to pull out of the category that this is what we do in church.

Darren: 06:03

No. This is what every human being does as they live. Everybody worships. NT Wright, the theologian and historian says, you become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object you worship.

Darren: 06:26

Those who worship money become eventually human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness and prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless. He goes on and I'm gonna come back to that quote in a second, But you're like, okay, NT, right? He's a theologian.

Darren: 06:44

Well, let me quote David Foster Wallace, who was not a Christian, is a English professor, wrote several books and he died by suicide. And in his personal torment of depression, he lived a tragic life, but he had an incredibly prophetic speech to Kenyan College. Wherein it, he talks the same message that n t Wright says. He says as a non Christian but at the end he says this, look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful. It's that they're unconscious.

Darren: 07:19

They are the default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without being fully aware that that's what you're doing. He says, worship is our default. Have you had ever had to do a hard reset of your iPhone or Android? I don't know if that's what you do on Android but let's just say iPhone.

Darren: 07:48

Nothing against that, but have you a hard reset, you have to get it back to factory settings. The fact the default setting is to worship, to gaze, to feed, to scroll, to search, to bring our attention to something that gives us value and meaning and purpose and significance, and in so giving our attention and so gazing into it and and giving our time and energy and resource, we receive from those things purpose and meaning and significance. It helps us navigate the chaos of the world around us to find our place in this world through putting value on the things that we've come to learn are valuable to us to be work to worship is to be human. To worship is just a feeling or an expression of adoration towards a deity. Now we live in a secular society, so words like worship and deities are not often used in our context that feels primitive.

Darren: 08:46

Does it not? Like if we go back 2000 years ago to Ephesus, you would see that various tribes and people groups, pagan societies worship the powers that were out there. And those powers help them navigate the chaos of the world that they could not control. They became idols of their worship. So if they wanted the rain to come on their crops, they worship the rain God.

Darren: 09:07

If they wanted their wife to have children, they worship the goddess of fertility, Artemis. And the way you worship was organizing your energy, your time, your money, giving your time, your money, your energy and your sacrifice to the various deities that had power over your circumstances. And so you would bring your your your sacrifice to the festival, to the temple. You'd you would bring, you'd set up a shrine and pray to the deity of the rain to make the rain come. And if you had a good year, you didn't know if the God would it was angry or not, so you'd have to worship more and offer more to that God to make it work because that is where you got meaning.

Darren: 09:45

That's where you got significance. That's where you got purpose. Again, this is pagan. This is primitive. This is an ancient form of worship.

Darren: 09:53

We don't use words like deity and worship for the things that we do, but let's just play with me for a second, would you? Is valuing your health important? K. 12 of you good. Now I'm gonna gain momentum.

Darren: 10:06

Jesus needed 12. That's great. I just read that Paul says present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Now I don't know where you come from, but, even in in Christian circles, we think like when you die, you get a better body, but there's something about stewarding our physical bodies. Now that matters to God.

Darren: 10:29

Do you know this Now so is physical stewardship of your body important? Yes. K. Now eating healthy, working out, conditioning, mobility, taking supplements that could be seen as stewarding your body, could it not? But what happens when that thing becomes the thing you worship?

Darren: 10:50

When the idealized version of your physical body in unattainable ideal that society has pressed on us on us in our culture becomes the thing you're driven by. It becomes your obsession. It becomes the the thing that you have to work for. You bring your time, your energy, your resource, your schedule, all of your devotion goes to making sure you can reach this unattainable goddess of self, the God of self. Your value comes from what you look like.

Darren: 11:21

Your value comes from making sure you hit and get your gains. Your value comes for making sure that you follow a strict regime. There's nothing wrong with health, but that thing becomes the obsession and it it takes over. It becomes the idol. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Darren: 11:34

Yes. Is that worshiping the wrong God? Yes. Yes. What about consumerism?

Darren: 11:41

And I don't mean like just buying stuff. I mean, how many of you when you're feeling down start searching online, you you you might not even do this consciously. You just go to Amazon Prime. Like I need more dish soap and socks. And so you, you know, you you scroll on that hunt and the hunt is doing something inside of you.

Darren: 12:11

Do Do you know what I'm talking about? And then you purchase and like there's like this 24 to 48 hours. Sometimes it's the same day and you're like, Oh my gosh, the gods of Amazon. I'll pay a little more to get that hit, that oxytocin in my brain, that chemical release valve that makes me feel good because right now I feel down, but now there's this there's this thing that's that's humming in my life Cause I know as I walk up the steps, the packages will be there. I know it's dish soap underwear and socks, but oh, it feels good.

Darren: 12:45

And then I go back until the next one. Do you see how we're being shaped by the access we have? This unbridled, unrestrained life of consumerism that's given to us in the pot in our pocket. Some of us have been shaped in a similar way through our hypersexualized culture of lust where we feast on the images of other people all day long. Collecting images in our head and hearts to release that energy inside of our bodies.

Darren: 13:18

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord. Oh, consumerism, lust, health, self, physical body. What about politics? I had all the topics like, no, let's stay over there. Money.

Darren: 13:41

Some of you really love I'm gonna come back to politics. Money, you feel so secure when that bank account has that number. And you didn't like you had this point where the number was here and then you got there and it wasn't enough. And so now it's here. It's like way over here and now like this is the new thing.

Darren: 14:03

And before it was like 1 house, now it's the 3. Before it was like just the car paid off, now it's like all the cars paid off. Before it was like this number meant something and now there's something else, and now there's this other thing, this castle of insulation you have around success and finances and wealth and and you start tugging on that that chain of idolatry and you see it's it's now an idol. And you're like, oh, I give a percentage and Jesus like, no, no, no. It's all mine.

Darren: 14:37

What do you do with what's mine? You feel better that you tipped me with 10%. Remember Abraham get had to offer Isaac back to God. Policy for a moment. Let's just go there.

Darren: 14:52

I'm gonna skip to my notes. The first time the word worship is used is with Abraham offering Isaac back to God. Isaac was the promise. Isaac was the reward of obedience. And God takes Isaac and says, give him back to me.

Darren: 15:07

And Moses Oh, sorry. Moses Abraham follows through and goes all the way up to the mountain and gets ready and God says, no, no, no. He's like, you you gave me back the gift I gave you. That's worship. Worship is giving back to God everything he's given you.

Darren: 15:21

It's not like, can I raise my hands? It's like, Lord, you gave me breath. How much do you want me to sing today? We'll get there in a second. Politics.

Darren: 15:30

Just get all of it out of the way. Sexuality, identity, lust, money, consumerism, politics. Brothers and sisters, we live in a contested space where we think we worship a king, but really we worship an idol made in the image of our political party. So anytime we come to a church, we expect that pastor to preach my side of the spectrum of politics. Now, I think you should vote based on your Christian perspective.

Darren: 16:05

We should all vote in this in this nation, our Christian perspective, but brothers and sisters, if our allegiance to aside gets in the way of us breaking communion together and submitting our politics at the foot of the cross, we're worshiping the wrong Jesus. Jesus is at the center. He is the only king and he is the only hope for United States of America. He's the only hope for your life. He's the only hope for our country, and as long as we keep propping up and feasting on the American division of politics, we'll never really see Jesus clearly.

Darren: 16:38

And so what do I mean? You're consumed with your ideology being 1 when it needs to be consumed and obsessed with the one who has already been victorious. And we live in a place where if you vote that side and I vote this side, we have to separate communities because you're a heretic. No, no, no. Jesus is a living God at the center and we come to him and he's what unites us.

Darren: 17:05

So please stop dividing. We're going into a crazy season. You have to stop dividing. You can say you're my brother and sister and we disagree on everything except Jesus. And we can still love each other.

Darren: 17:16

We can hold onto each other. You can call them heretics all you want, but in Christ Jesus, we're one family. Does that make sense? I know it's gonna get spliced online and then sent and they're gonna call me names. All I care about is our local church.

Darren: 17:32

We have to embody the character of Christ to each other. And I know you get some of you are obsessed with health. Some of you are obsessed with money. Some of you are obsessed with consumers. Some of you obsessed with your relationships.

Darren: 17:45

Some of you obsessed with politics and all those things have to die to the one king worthy of worship. Now, if you worship any of those things, you take on the character of those things. And n t Wright poses this idea. What happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has been accomplished by the lamb who was slain. Because you were made in God's image, worship makes you more truly human.

Darren: 18:17

When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive. In other words, you were created to worship Jesus. And when you choose to bring your energy, your focus, your attention, your life's resources, your bodies, your songs, your mindset to Jesus, you become more fully yourself. Think about that in our self differentiated culture where it's all about you being the best version of you.

Darren: 18:52

Jesus makes you the best version of you, And anything else is a substitute imitation until you surrender to Jesus, you won't be aligned with reality. It's a paraphrase Dallas Willard. When you worship Jesus, you align your mind, body, spirit, emotions, and soul with reality itself. You align your existence with reality excels itself. What what do I mean?

Darren: 19:21

We have this physical world. I can see you, you can see me. Now there's a veil in the spiritual world, the heavens that is right here with us. You know this? It's not some place else.

Darren: 19:31

It's right here. And if God opened our eyes, we could see the spiritual realm. Angels and demons and and all sorts of spiritual realities around us. Now, when John in his revelation work sees heaven, the unveiling of heaven, the apocalypse, he sees a throne at the center of the universe. At the center of the cosmos is a throne that the lamb of God sits on.

Darren: 19:55

Around the throne are angels who sing for 24 hours, holy, holy, holy. Around the angels are the elders with crowns sitting on their many thrones and every time the angels sing, they get up and they lay down flat like this and put the crown at Jesus's feet. And brothers and sisters, the image of scripture that we get for the word worship is that image of me laying down. That is the only image of worship we get other than Abraham sacrificing his son or willingly sat, putting his son on the altar, is laying down prostrate in honor and glory and showing respect. That is what it means to worship.

Darren: 20:35

When it says worship in scripture, that's the image. So at the center of reality is a throne and there is this epic worship service happening and that is the ultimate truth. Isn't that interesting? That where your attention goes, your worship goes, you become like what you worship and you spend all your time being fed by Netflix, being consumed by social media. And don't tell me it doesn't do something to your soul.

Darren: 21:07

Yesterday, I helped Alex cook dinner and I don't do that very often. I clean the dishes. She's like, hey, can you cut some onions? I'm like, Yeah, yeah. I can cut, like, how how big do you want the onions cut?

Darren: 21:20

You know, and I was immediately googling, but here's the thing. I was so pumped to be in the kitchen. Why? Because I had this thought in my head that I could crush this right now. Why?

Darren: 21:30

Because I've been watching the bear. So Alex is, you know, going fast, feasting on the bear. And so at night, we get a couple of episodes of this Hulu series about this chef, and they make everything look so good. Now it is chaos in this show. It's it's like absolute chaos, but then they get to the food and it's like time stops.

Darren: 21:53

It's like it it's really it's fascinating show, but there I am with an onion thinking I'm a chef. What gave me that idea? Entertainment that I've been feasting on every night for about an hour. If that's what a a Hulu series does to my soul, what else is shaping my way of living? Do you see the value of your worship?

Darren: 22:23

And Paul is saying, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy. Now stay here for a second. In view of God, what is he saying? Therefore, therefore, in view of chapter 1 through 11 in the book of Romans, have you read Romans in a while? So in view of God's mercy, in view of everything Jesus has done for you on the cross, in view of all the grace he's extended to you, the only proper response for everything he's already done for you is to take your everyday ordinary life and live in such a way that it is worship before the Lord.

Darren: 23:06

Not what pleases you, but what pleases God. Is your life pleasing to God? Are you living in view of who Jesus is? Now pause real quick because some of you, you don't really know who Jesus is. So, you're like, yeah, okay.

Darren: 23:23

I get it. I do become like what I gaze upon. I I agree with David Foster Wallace. I don't agree with NT Wright, but I agree. Yeah, this might be our fault.

Darren: 23:31

But can I tell you something? The only being that will empower you to fully exist aligned with reality is Jesus of Nazareth. And for whatever reason the church has made you believe that he's some spiritual guru, he's not. He's not a philosopher. He's not just a teacher that you can podcast.

Darren: 23:52

He's not a religious leader who came to start a religion. He's not an accessory to add on to your life when it fits in comfortably. He's not an addition. He's not some spiritual product you consume to make your life better. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Darren: 24:08

He is the lion of Judah. He is the root of David. He is the alpha and the omega. He is the beginning and he will be the end. He is the author of life.

Darren: 24:17

He is the suffering servant, the son of God. He is the good shepherd, the light of the world, the resurrection in the life. He is the gate through which you enter. He is the vine through which you will live. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father except through him.

Darren: 24:32

That's the Jesus that you must come to worship. Yeah. So if you have any other version that's made made your life comfortable, it's an idol. If you had any other version that thinks politics is the answer, it's the wrong Jesus. If you have any other version that says you can have this type of sin and still be holy and pleasing to God, it's the wrong Jesus.

Darren: 25:01

The only response is to lay everything on the altar as a living sacrifice. You don't have to die on the altar. You have to live on the altar. A dead sacrifice you just leave it there. It doesn't crawl off.

Darren: 25:19

See every moment you crawled off, you have to crawl back on because you have to every single moment represent your life back to God as a living sacrifice. What God's doing right now is convicting some of you. You're like I've been off the altar for too long, and there's no shame There because he's already said in Romans 8, there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. There's no condemnation. If you said yes to Jesus, he doesn't see your sins.

Darren: 25:48

He's wooing you to be alive. He didn't say, get your act together. He's like, I already got your act together on the cross paid in full. Now live in response to what you've inherited. And that you know, I'm just gonna stay there for a second because I don't think we get how how significant this is.

Darren: 26:10

Like small, a small moment. I remember in my life I was worshiping. I was remember, I always like God brings memories of his provision. Do you have that? Like, I get I get I get, like, movies in my head.

Darren: 26:22

I love I love movies. So that's just since I was a kid, I had this movie playing in my head about my life. And it was when I I got to take, someone allowed paid for my wife and I right before Ezra was born to go to Maui. How many of you know Maui is like holy ground? Yeah.

Darren: 26:42

And very expensive. And we, you know, my wife is the financial planner and budgeter, so we, you know, had dollar amounts every day, and in that particular trip, she gave me extra for pokey. So bless the Lord, and and coffee. But anyways, that's beyond the point. We we had one night that we are gonna go and spend more money on dinner because we're church planners.

Darren: 27:06

We're, you know, this is 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and and we went to mama's fish house. Yes. Those that have ears to hear. Taste to taste. Taste and see that the Lord is good at moments.

Darren: 27:24

So we ordered we're like, we're gonna go all out. You ever have that? Like you live on a budget and then there's like these one these moments where like, this is gonna be hard. You know, like you're there and you're like, I know, but I want the filet, but it's more reasonable to just get, you know, the burger because we I get it, but this is like we're gonna do it as a discipline of celebration. You ever do that?

Darren: 27:48

You know, like she budget. She We can do it, you know. Get get the dessert. We'll get 2 desserts. Like it was like we're going all out.

Darren: 27:55

We you're gonna be a mom like let's go. We get the check. It was paid for. Our friends back home paid for it. You know, like, oh gosh.

Darren: 28:15

Why am I always crying these days? Stop. How many of you know God did that? Through friends. What do you do?

Darren: 28:27

Let me tell you what most of us do. I gotta earn it back. I gotta prove that I was worthy of what happened. I wish of I wish I regret versus thank you. When Paul says in Romans 12, in view of everything, now your only fitting response is worship.

Darren: 28:55

Worship. And the problem is you don't know how to worship. Right? The worshipers the father seeks. You have that up.

Darren: 29:01

He says, yet a time is coming and has now come that the true worshipers will worship the father in the spirit and in truth for they are the kind of worshipers the father seek. Do you know that the father is seeking, looking for true worshipers? God is spirit and his spirit where his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth. There there is something God is seeking in his people that is found in worship. How you worship matters.

Darren: 29:40

What you do with the resources of your heart matters. What you do with your attention matters. It shapes you. It forms you. There's a there's a a a a a byproduct of what you're doing.

Darren: 29:52

So brothers and sisters, use your time wisely and worship Jesus. So here's, here's the practical stuff. I wanna give you practical ways of cultivating a life of worship. Okay? And we'll end with this next 12 minutes.

Darren: 30:07

Does that sound alright? So do you agree your worship matters? Okay. Great. What you do with your worship matters.

Darren: 30:14

So how do you cultivate a life of worship? So if the goal is that we pray all the time, never ending ceasing prayer, the goal is that all of life is worship. Now let me say this, I can say that and then I'll hear from people like, oh, I'm always worshiping, but you still need some practical time devoted to worship God in a unique way. Does that make sense? Like I'm always married but I still do date nights.

Darren: 30:43

Right? Some of you don't spend any time with Jesus, and your life is fruit of that lack of time. Not on my watch at this church. If I have to give if I have to give an account for you, you better do your part because he might say, I never knew you. I'll be like, I they were in our church for a bit, but okay, whatever you say.

Darren: 31:19

It's true. How do you I'm trying to hold together up here. Yeah. I don't even know what I said, but how do you cultivate a life of worship? Number 1, worship in private.

Darren: 31:34

Build a secret place. Shut the door and shut the phone off for the love of all that sacred and holy. Make it sacred and holy. Start If you don't know how to worship, start with gratitude. Get a paper and pen and write down what you're like, you know, my wife has a knee injury right now and she's struggling to do anything.

Darren: 31:57

Like, you know, my wife has a knee injury right now and she's struggling to do anything, which is fine and I can get up and do it. But, I really appreciated it when she didn't have the knee injury. You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, Lord, thank you for a ministry of healing. Heal my wife.

Darren: 32:17

Let's go. I worship you for all the time she wasn't injured, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you that it's just the knee. Thank you that I I am I am walking without inflammation in my body.

Darren: 32:32

Thank you that I don't have that chronic pain I once had. Thank you that right now I'm breathing on my own. Thank you God that you heal me of that condition. Thank you, God, that my child who almost died at CHOC hospital when he was 6 weeks old is living and 10 years old. Thank you, God, for healing my wife's heart.

Darren: 32:47

Thank you God for this church. Thank you for your financial blessing. Thank you God that 25 year old that was so scared was provided for without question by you, Jesus. There's a 1,000 things. You can't stop me from saying thank you God because I've been conditioned in a quiet time.

Darren: 33:02

I've been doing push ups with Jesus towards gratitude. So when I come here on Sunday, I remember 14 months of not having a space to worship as a church during covid. Now I will not leave my best at home. I will bring it every single Sunday. That's my commitment.

Darren: 33:20

I won't stop because it says in scripture that even the rocks will cry out. Don't beat You gotta beat the rocks. Don't wait for them. It's too late. You're like, what's that song?

Darren: 33:33

Oh, the rocks are praising Jesus. Oh, no. Lord Jesus, you're the one. Right? That's what he's saying.

Darren: 33:43

He's waiting. Creation is longing for the children of God to be revealed. Get into a private place, set your heart before the Lord and say thank you. It's the beginning of worship. And then and then you can add Psalms.

Darren: 34:04

If you don't have words, pray the Psalms, sing the Psalm. Oh, let me just add sing out loud in your quiet time. I know. Uh-oh. When we get uncomfortable talking about politics and sexuality, he's saying, sing alone.

Darren: 34:15

Yes. Sing in your quiet time. Sing to the Lord. That is commanded in scripture that we bring our praises. He inhabits our praise.

Darren: 34:28

This is all about what you're doing in your quiet space. Brothers and sisters sing in the spirit. That's tongues. Oh, no. Pastor said tongues.

Darren: 34:38

Crazy charismatic. Yes, I'm a crazy charismatic. That's deeply biblical and the gifts are for everyone and I believe you can be the only gift he gives us for personal edification. The strengthening of our inner being is the gift of unknown language to the Lord. It's for the Lord.

Darren: 34:56

We we don't know what we're saying. We praise the Lord. So I sing in tongues all the time. I met a guy who has this global famous ranch in Wyoming. He's it's Diamond Cross Ranch.

Darren: 35:07

I was like, how did you build this ranch? He said, I prayed in tongues across shape over the land. Wait. You have a globally famous tech giants from and CEOs come to watch you do horse whispering. You've written several books.

Darren: 35:21

How did you do it? I walked across shape in our land and prayed in tongues every day. Sing in tongues. Some of you don't have a prayer language. That's so unfortunate.

Darren: 35:40

Do you want one? You can have it. The thing is it's not like, do I have to have 1? It's like how much more of the Holy Spirit do you want? Just do you want more?

Darren: 35:51

I want more. Man, if he's like, if Philip got was teleported, I would love that gift. Why not? I'm asking for that. I'm asking for a lot.

Darren: 36:02

I just like I have not because I asked not. I wanna teleportation. I don't wanna drive. I don't wanna fly to Australia. I wanna zap over there.

Darren: 36:09

No jet lag. I'm not kidding. No, I'm kidding on that one. Augustine says, he who sings praise twice. This is all about your quiet time.

Darren: 36:21

Okay. So your private life, and then I want you to lay down before the Lord. Lay down before the lord. I want you to kneel if you can. Raise your hands.

Darren: 36:31

Why? Why do we do those things? Is it because it feels right? No. Not because it feels right.

Darren: 36:37

You don't come here. Let me show you how most of you come in. We'll talk about corporate worship in a second. Most of you come here and worship looks like you're standing in line. I surrender all.

Darren: 36:56

I surrender all all to Jesus. Marvelous omnipotent. I know what that is. Glorious straight. Oh, we're doing it again.

Darren: 37:09

Yeah. Are you kidding me? There is so much cash in that bucket. I don't raise my hands because I feel like it. I don't kneel because I feel like it.

Darren: 37:29

Everything in our culture is the props up the self. When we come here, we go, it's not about me, it's about what you. I don't raise my hands because I feel like it. He raised his hands in humiliation so we can raise our hands and honor him. You know, so all of this is about your private life of worship and then that, the other piece on this is number 2 is just make worship a lifestyle.

Darren: 37:54

So you'll hear our family like we get groceries come into our house and we'll put all the groceries away and then we worship. Grabbed the kids sometimes. Sometimes it's just me. I praise the Lord for a full fridge. I know what it's like to not have a full fridge.

Darren: 38:10

I don't think that I did this. I think he did this. I do this sometimes with a meal with friends. We were just had celebrating someone's birthday and we're having this amazing meal and there's just nothing but affirmation and gratitude to the Lord. We do this when we sometimes I do this when I fill up my gas.

Darren: 38:23

I'm like, I know what it's like to have to ask for money to fill up my gas tank. I praise the Lord. I I make a lifestyle. I train our kids. We're having to make this big decision.

Darren: 38:36

Yesterday, last night, we brought little kids together in the room. We're like, alright. We're gonna pray, and then we're gonna worship the Lord for all he's done before we say yes or no to this thing. So he's put on a song, we sing. My kids not really singing, but I'm modeling to them in a terrible voice cracking and changing octaves.

Darren: 38:55

I didn't know I could do that. Alex is letting me know. You can't start here and go here. You gotta stay. I'm like, I don't know these things.

Darren: 39:05

Make it a lifestyle. And then number 3 is let your private life let your private worship catalyze our corporate worship together. You're the choir church. This is not for you. These aren't These people aren't here to entertain you.

Darren: 39:21

They're here to lead you as the choir. How did you prepare for today? How how long did you prepare for this event? That the saints, the holy saints, the family of God, the Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died and rose from the dead and currently reigns in the and sits on a throne and will one day come back who's preparing earth to be his final creation, healed and restored once and for all through the work of the church empowered and animated by the Holy Spirit. How did you as that prepare for this moment?

Darren: 39:55

Probably fought with your spouse if you're married or nagged your kids to hurry up. I know that's How many of you fight more on your way to church than any other time? Anyone wanna say, especially if you're a pastor of the church that's often Sunday mornings or Saturday nights. That's when that Satan knows exactly what's happening tomorrow. This is where we prepare.

Darren: 40:17

We practice at home to be together for this moment because have you ever been in this worship environment where like the it's something else is happening? Like some of you don't even know what I'm talking about. You're like, oh, it feels like a base hit every Sunday. Sometimes we'll be here and we'll do what we do every week. And yes, sometimes it's a base hit.

Darren: 40:37

Sometimes the worship has wings and worship turns into something else and all of a sudden there's a sense of glory in the room and God begins to minister and heal because his presence is here and it's not always that way. We show up in and out of season to give our very best, but then there's times where he just takes it away. And what we have to train as a church for, and this is what I'm working on for the entire year, by the way, for you to learn how to minister to the Lord. That's what today will be about. That what in just a few minutes, we're gonna sing.

Darren: 41:08

We're gonna worship, and I guarantee you it will feel different than the first set. You will do something you haven't done and it will feel like we went to an 11, and it will start that way. I know I know it's coming. I know it's in your heart. I know what the word of God does.

Darren: 41:26

This isn't like moving the masses. This is the Holy Spirit leading, wooing his bride back to him. And it's gonna start at an 11 and I wanna say how we end today is how we start next week. You don't come in late. You miss that plane if you show up late, right?

Darren: 41:49

You missed the previews if you're on time at the movie theaters. Like like, Alex, like, it starts in 15 minutes. I'm like, it doesn't start in 15 minutes. It starts actually on time. I wanna be there for the previews.

Darren: 42:02

How do you not know this? You're wrong. There's 2 types of people in the world by the way. Those that know previews and those that think it starts late and you know who you are. You're probably married to the opposite.

Darren: 42:15

That's God's grace to form you into Christ likeness. You can forgive. Sometimes God gives you friends when the premier of episode 7 is happening on the 1st night of The Force Awakens and he is still eating his burger. And it's been there forever, and they already offered him a box, and it's about to start. And you're like, I don't care.

Darren: 42:35

I'm leaving. I'm out. See you later. That's not that's a very specific moment. Prepare for for this moment.

Darren: 42:45

Move your body. Get uncomfortable. I love what Martin Luther says. He's at home in my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church, when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through. The last thing I'll say you guys can come out now.

Darren: 43:03

I have a couple more things, but you stay. Last thing I'll say, because we're running out of time, and this is probably one of the most important things that you can learn. And many of you have learned this the hard way. Worship through suffering. That everything can turn into worship, but how many of you know that suffering is the is the crossfit of Christ likeness?

Darren: 43:27

Right? Like when God brings hardships, when when the thing that you thought wouldn't happen happen and now you're walking through unanswered prayers and confusion and the condition you're in is worse than where it was. How many of you know that hard things can happen to you? How many of you know that hard things can happen to you and God can use them for his good? Now he doesn't cause evil.

Darren: 43:49

He doesn't desire pain and suffering, but he uses it. Right? The cause is the result of sin and brokenness and Satan in a broken world, but God will use all things for his good and purposes until it's restored. So what you have to have is an eternal perspective. That in the brokenness, in the loss of a son, in the loss of that dream, that job that becomes for you the primary place to enter into worship.

Darren: 44:18

That you bring the tears, the anger, the questions. You bring the broken heart, and you direct it towards God, and you steward your suffering the same way Jesus did. And his suffering became a catalyst for resurrection. His wounds become the doorway into our salvation. And God uses suffering as a way to train up us for eternity.

Darren: 44:47

So I wanna invite you to worship through the suffering. I love what happens in acts 16. You don't have to go. I'll summarize it. Paul everywhere he goes in the will of God experiences suffering.

Darren: 44:58

How many of you seen that in the book of acts? He is at the center of God's will and he gets beaten. He gets stripped. He gets flogged. He gets shipwrecked.

Darren: 45:09

He goes hungry. He gets confused. They call him all these different names. He gets arrested. He shackled in this story in acts 16, he's beaten, he's stripped naked, he's flogged, he's put in prison, he's he's fastened with stocks, his feet, and at midnight verse 25, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

Darren: 45:29

When his body's pulsating with wounds from the flogging, he sings to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, some of you are going through it and I wanna say Psalm 103, bless the Lord oh my soul. What's David saying in that Psalm? Soul, get in line with reality. I'm gonna tell my body what to do even when I don't feel like it.

Darren: 45:54

I'm gonna tell my voice what I'm gonna sing even when it doesn't feel right. I'm going to tell my hands even when they're sore to get up there because he is worthy of my hands being raised. I'm going to kneel even when my knees crack and it hurts because he's worthy of a posture of humility because that's the posture he took as a slave. That's what we do. Why?

Darren: 46:15

In view of God's mercy. There's only one thing you can do, make your life worship. Let's pray.

Intro/Outro: 46:22

Thanks for listening. For more information, please visit garden.church.