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God has already given us access through Jesus. We don't need to strive for acceptance—we already belong as His people. Thanksgiving unlocks worship, and God's character never changes. Scriptures: Psalm 100:3-5, James 1:2, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Philippians 4:6, Philippians 4:8, Malachi 3:6
We are a local Church in Orange County California who are passionate to witness lives being renewed in Christ, strengthened through discipleship, and to thrive in the fullness of living for Christ.
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Hi, thanks for tuning in to this Week's message at C3OC. We hope that it blesses you, equips you, and fills you with faith. Let's dive in as we continue on through Psalm 100. We're going to be focusing on the second half. And this is the foundation of our worship. The foundation, you can call it theology, doctrine, but the absolute revelation that you can hold onto through every season in how to worship God. And so the. See, they're rocking out upstairs. That's awesome. And there's heavenly worship just bouncing down. Okay, so the title of today's message is Stop knocking, you've got the keys. Stop knocking, you've got the keys. There's that song by. Well, Guns N Roses kind of made it famous. We're knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. And I feel like there's some kind of assumption that can live within us, that we're trying to get access. We're trying and we're vying to get access into a court that God has already opened up for you. And we spend our lives living in this space of like, I just need to strive harder. And hear me when I say there are commands for us that need to be expressed within our lives. That's what the Bible is for. But the pure core of it in terms of when I come to worship, if I just worship hard enough, then God will accept me. If I just sing loud enough, then he will accept me. That's a fallacy and a lie. The keys have already been given to us. All we have to do is use them within our life. I don't stand at my front door and knock before I come in. I don't stand at doors where I've got the key to walk into and stand at the front and knock and be like, can I come in? Am I going to be allowed to come in? No. I stick the key in the door, I turn that sucker, and I walk in. Because I know that this is the place where I'm supposed to be. And it's the same within the courts and the presence of God. He wants you, you in his presence. And what he's looking for is a response within us, not just a fickle emotional state that today is a good day to worship. Today I feel like I can make a joyful noise. He's saying that there is reason enough in who God is that we should live our lives in a state of worship. Psalm 100. It just becomes so familiar to us. If you've been around church for a minute, you would have heard this said, you know, a million times in a million different ways. And the problem with something becoming so familiar is that we can exclude weight, which means that we are taking honor away from what God is commanding us to do. So. Psalm 100, it says, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. That's what we focused on last week. He says, make, serve and know. Those are the, the three keys that we have to make a joyful noise. James 1 says, Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds of. I like finding joy in the trials that I choose. But this one says, in all your trials, consider it all joy. That's really pleasing for my mind. Where it says, consider it all joy doesn't say, just make it a fact within your life. It's saying that what I have considered as an outgoing cost, as a debt in my life, I just want you to consider it as a blessing. I just want you to start putting it over here as something to be joyful for. For there is something that's going to be developing. So he says, no, no, that the Lord, he is God. You don't have to check your brain at the door to worship God. You don't have to check your name at the your brain at the door to actually know the scripture, understand the scripture, to believe the scripture, to believe the resurrection, to believe that he is an ever present God. It's actually he wants you to use your brain. His word says, love the Lord your God with all your body, with all your soul. I'm forgetting the order. Body, soul and mind. He wants you to know the word of God and to chew on this so that this mind understands that God is God in our life. Goes on. In the second half of verse three, it says, it is he who, who made us, and we are his, and we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. Why? For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever. And his faithfulness to just a few generations. Is that what it says? Just, just like two generations forward. That's. That's his faithfulness is only good for just a few generations. No, it says, his faithfulness to all generations. All generations. I'll tell you, God is a good God. God is a God where fulfillment for your life is going to be found. And when we worship him, we are surrendering our own ideals and saying, God, you are the Lord of all. And so here I want to focus in on that second part of verse three where it says, know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us, and we are His. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Point number one here today is you are not locked out. You are not locked out. I can't tell you how many times I hear, oh, man, I just feel like God is. He just doesn't want me. I just feel like, you know, I feel like, you know, everything that I've done, all the choices I've made, all the bad things that I have done, I just feel like I'm locked out from his presence. But this scripture absolutely dismantles that lie that begins to echo within our mind, that left unchecked, this scripture says, you are God made, you are God owned, and you are God led. This is your identity. This is you understanding that regardless of your past, regardless of all of these things that either happen to you or you have done, the decisions you've made, the small, little hidden secrets that you have, the big secrets that you have do not disqualify you or have locked you out of his presence. This is the identity that the psalm assigns to us. And that's not a small thing, especially within the ancient world, that when a king, when a priestly king calls you his own, to declare that you belong to a shepherd was to speak about provision, protection, and purpose all in one breath. I want you to say this out loud. I am his. I am the sheep in his pasture. The sheep don't wander into the field every morning and wonder, am I allowed to be here or do I belong here? The sheep wander into the field and the shepherd is there. And they feel protected, provided for and led to green pastures. They don't earn their place in the pasture. They belong. Their belonging is not conditional. This is the grace and the love of God. When he sent Jesus, who defeated death, he hung on the cross. He took the sins of the world on his shoulders, and he defeated death. He said, my love for you is unconditional. You don't have to earn it. There's nothing that you can do. There's no work in this life that you can finish or complete to actually earn my salvation, to earn your belonging in my kingdom. But it's by grace and through faith that you would receive the love and the covering and the adoption into his family. You're not just a person or a nameless face within his pastures. You are His Sons and His daughters. And so their belonging is not conditional. Your belonging is not conditional. And in his presence, when the scripture says we are his people and the sheep of his pasture, it's not some comforting, far off metaphor that we can think about in our lives. It is laying out for us the reality of yours and I, our identity. And this is. This is an understanding that when we have this, we will begin to worship God as a response to who he is and who he calls us, not how I'm feeling within this moment. It's not situational, it's not conditional, because we. Although God's love is unconditional, we kind of have conditions, whether we want to admit it or not, to show him that same love back. So it's laying out for us this reality of our identity. It's a language of ownership, of belonging and of covenant. And it tells you something about your origin, your position, and your security all at once. I'm telling you, you are God. You are God's possession and you are under God's care. Full stop. That's the truth right here. And still with all of that clarity, there are some of us who are striving for his acceptance, striving just to. Just to think, to get over the thought in our life. Like I have been locked out of his presence. There are times when God is a little quieter. There are times when God feels like he might be distant. But the scriptures would tell us that even though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, there he is, right beside us. I will tell you this, that the teacher is quietest when the test is going. When the test starts and the clock is ticking. The teacher's not walking around having conversations with everyone. He's not teaching the classroom at that point, but he's sitting and observing in those times. I want you to know that those moments are an invitation to stand on revelation, not on emotional hype that we begin to conjure up in our lives. You're not becoming his through worship. You are worshiping him because you are already His. He made you. He claimed you, and he has not withdrawn that claim. It doesn't change when that truth moves out of the form of conceptual, you know, thinking within our mind, and it turns into a conviction of the heart. Worship in our lives begins to change. It's no longer driven by effort or anxiety, but by recognition. Recognition that he is God and you are His. You're no longer trying to ascend towards God, but you are responding to the reality that he has already brought you near. Oh, Friend. He died on that cross never to say shame on you. He died on that cross hanging there to say shame off of you Shame off of you that I would be stripped bare on that cross that you would not have to suffer that same shame, that same mocking that comes against. No, no, no, no. He stood there and he walked through that he carried that burden to say shame off of you he has already brought you near to him. 1 Peter 2:9 is one of the greatest scriptures on identity. It says, but you, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim, meaning, sing, shout, dance the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you were God's people. I mean, I have that kind of, like, tattooed across my heart. I was once not a people at all. I was once a lost, wandering, drug addled, confused, covered with depression person. I was of no people. But God redeems and he says, you are now my people. And in this, he says that you are his special possession. I love this. Do you know? Okay, so I don't know when it was 1996 or something. MTV Unplugged, Nirvana plays a show. And there. It's an acoustic set. And he's playing. And he's playing. The guitar is. What is that? A Martin D18E acoustic guitar. Okay. I had a guitar that was kind of similar to this. It's real cool. Look, it's got, like, little Les Paul volume knobs on it. If anyone's a, you know, audio geek, then you might understand. But. So he plays that. Plays that guitar now. I played a similar guitar. That guitar cost, you know, retail around that time. Around $5,000, right? Pretty expensive guitar. I had a similar one, and I had sold that at one point, and I got $2,000 for it. 2,000 bucks for it. Kurt Cobain, when that guitar went to auction, it fetched $6.01 million. Why did his guitar fetch more than my flipping guitar? I want $6.01 billion for my guitar. It's not because of the guitar itself. It's because of the person who holds it. You are God's special possession. Okay, you may say I'm only worth 5,000. You are held by the hands of God. You are invaluable to him, and you are valuable to this world. Stop disqualifying yourself. So I'm not good enough to be his people? When he spread his blood across this earth, saying, you are my People, and you are worth dying for. Understand that and claim it over your life. I am the sheep within his fold. I am within his pasture. I am his people. This is the promising return for this promise that's been received. It's our return of worship towards Him. We actually understand how good that is, that you are not your own people. You're not out there without no covering or a refuge. No, you are covered by him and you are his people. You are not locked out. You are his, the people of his pasture. Access granted to the living God. Amen. And in that place where he is rightly exalted and you are rightly positioned, standing upon that truth, you won't lose yourself and you'll finally become who you are meant to be. And when you realize that I don't. I can't contain the gratitude that is within my heart. Why you think I'm dancing around and jumping? Oh, because he's the pastor of the church. Oh, because, you know, that's what he's the hype crew down the front. No, I do that. Where's Hannah? Hannah Nevarez. She was like at one point, I kind of stand off for a moment and I pray and I worship. And she walked in and I'm looking, I'm standing at a wall and I'm like this. Because you're great and you're my. I will do it on my own. I will do it in front of people. I'll do it in my car. Because I know how good God is and how dark my life was without him. And. And it's by his saving grace I can't help but overflow with gratitude in my life. Point number two is this. Thanksgiving is the key. Thanksgiving is the key. It's your key. It's my key. It's our key. It's his people's key. Verse 4 says, Enter his gates with. What? Enter his gates with. And his courts with praise. It's not just some fancy poetic imagery. It's pure instruction. For you and I. There is movement implied here. A progression of steps into the presence of God. And that movement begins with something that we can so easily overlook. And that is gratitude. That is thanksgiving. I mean, you only have to look at. Go do your research on the scientific data of inserting gratitude into your life. Blood pressure goes down, it changes the neural pathways of your mind single handedly. I'll say this. One of the most powerful tools in my arsenal in my armory, is that of gratitude. As I was walking out of my drug addiction and alcoholism and all of that life. The guy I was walking with, my mentor in that time, he said, you got to write a list of gratitude every morning. I. I did that for 18 months, and I was like, this is the stupidest thing. Every morning. I was just writing down little gratitude. And I could understand why, but I never saw the effects within my life. And at around 18 months, 18 months of doing that every single morning, do you know what happened? My perspective throughout the day, Instead of looking for all the things that I can complain about and give reason to why life is kind of really hard right now and it really sucks. No, instead, my mind switched and started looking for the things that I should be grateful for. And all of a sudden, I had this. This, you know, like, urgency within me. Like, there is so much to be grateful for, but it's so simple for us to overlook. We're like, that won't work. My problem's so complex. You got to understand the dark intricacies of all these things. Like, I need. I need the deepest psychological words to guide me through all this. I'm telling you, insert gratitude into your world. Insert gratitude, you know, even down to the deepest point. It won't just change your neural pathways, but it'll sink into your DNA, and it can change the DNA of who you are. It can change the legacy. If you suffer with depression, insert gratitude into your life. Force yourself to do it. This doesn't say, you know, probably if you can try to come into the gates with some Thanksgiving, not just enter with Thanksgiving. That I would not recline myself into my cynicism, but I would incline my heart, man, I'm grateful. This is what I'm grateful for. This is what I'm grateful for. I am the sheep of his pasture. This is what I'm grateful for. I can make a joyful sound for Jesus died for me. Go back to these fundamental truths. I tell you what. Because Thanksgiving is our keys. It's a key within our life. I think immediately about my wife laughing at me, because around three times a week, I walk into the room with a confused look on my face, and she immediately knows. She goes, what are you looking for? And it frustrates me so much because I want everything to live in the right place. And I know where it is, but it's pretty much always my keys, okay? And I think I should probably get a LoJack or a little. What do you call it? Apple Airtag. Thank you. Thank you. An airtag on my key, because I lose it all the time. And this is what I'm Saying to you, I think you might need to press the button to find your key of gratitude again. That if you. If he is saying, enter through my gates with thanksgiving, this is our first step, man. I want gratitude to be overflowing in my life, not just on my lips, but I'm going to convince my heart, I'm going to transform my heart, I'm going to transform this mind. I'm going to put a spirit of thanksgiving within us. And I think it's so important because if it's entering his gates with thanksgiving, I wonder whose gates we're walking through with an unthankful spirit? Whose courts are we walking into with not praise, but doubts? There is power in your words. Don't neglect that. What you speak does not have power. The Bible says life and death are in the power of your tongue. The Bible says it's a small muscle, but it's like the rudder of a ship. It can steer you that direction or it can steer you this direction. Do not deny the power of your tongue and do not leave thoughts unchecked in your mind. You know, the scripture says, take captive every thought. What is that like? What does that mean? How can I actually take captive every thought? It's so ethereal. It's up here. I found in my life, the way to take captive every thought is to speak the truth of God out loud. And I like to get aggressive. Like, I actually, why don't you just stand there and say, I take captive. I take captive every thought that stands against God's truth. All these lies that are stealing all kind of confidence, that are discouraging, that are destructive within my life. I take captive every thought and I lay it at the feet of Jesus. And at that. I'm not just going to leave it there in the sense of, that's it. No, I'm going to speak the truth of God right now. So this is a command. Enter his gates with thanksgiving. Whose courts do you want to be in? Do you want to be in the courts of confusion? Do you want to be in the courts of deception? You want to be in the courts of anxiety and stress? Man, change your language and start speaking thanksgiving. Start thanking God for everything within your world. The simplicity is where we resist this truth. We assume deeper encounters with God must require more complex or elevated spiritual states that we have to learn all the big words that we got to go deep. No, it just says, be thankful, man. Be thankful for the breath in your lungs. Be thankful that you have people standing around you. Be thankful for the step for Waking up this morning for food in the fridge, for a roof over your head. Be thankful that we live in such an incredible country. Be thankful that God loves America and he's going to save California. Amen. I'd be thankful in that, because my Thanksgiving is not only what I have right now, but it's faithful, what I'm going to walk into tomorrow. 1 Thessalonians 5:18. It says, Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is what. What does it say? For this is what? Oh, man. What's the will of God for my life? This is a common question that we have, man. I just want to know the will of God for my life. Give thanks in all circumstances. This is a part of the will of God for your life. Philippians 4:6 says, With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Psalm 91. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, and I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. It's a key to thanksgiving. We were singing just before. What does it say? All I need is a memory of a victory, like a stone in a sling. Sometimes you just got to recount his good deeds. Bible says over and over. David would write, oh, I remind myself of the good things he has done. Start living under a good report in your life. Live with a good report, man. Philippians 4:8. It says this. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, what does it say? Think about those things, man. 12 spies were sent out from Israel to spy out the land of Canaan. They sent out, and they spent 40 days out there. They came back, and there were two spies who came back with a good report. Do you know their names? Okay, tell me the other 10 names. They're all written there. They're all written in the Bible. I'll tell you why. Because monuments are not set up for critics. Monuments are set up for those who come with a good report. Though Caleb came or comes from the tribe of Judah. You know, Judah is the tribe of praise. It's the tribe of worship. And when you worship God, a good report will be your perspective in life. Come from worship. So that no matter where you run, you go out there. And they saw the giants of the land. The fruit was good, man. The pomegranates were giant. The grapes they had to carry on sticks between two soldiers, between two of the spies, they carried them back. It was good land, flowing with milk and honey, as is what they said, but there are these giants. Worship will fuel you with the faith to step into something that could seem impossible. But knowing that you are the sheep of his pasture, that you are owned by God and that he protects you will give you a new perspective in this life. It'll shift any kind of entitlement in your life. It'll dissolve it. Because gratitude acknowledges that what you have is not owned, but it's a blessing in your world. Bitterness will begin to lose its footing because gratitude recognizes that God has been present even where pain has been very real. In your world, comparison will lose its power because gratitude anchors you in what God has entrusted to you rather than what someone else has been given. What begins to grow in an environment of thanksgiving is a solid life, a foundation for you to stand on. And while gratitude may not straight away shift the external conditions of your life, like I said, 18 months, man, I just did it. I just wrote it down every morning at least five things thoughtfully that I'm grateful for in our life. It might not change all the situations in your life. It'll change your position in the man middle of them. It moves you from reacting to your circumstances to standing within them from a different perspective. Listen, when you and I struggle to sense the presence of God, that is not a point of accusation. It's a point of invitation. Enter his gates with thanksgiving. Amen. Last point here today. God hasn't moved. Moved out. God has not moved out. Your worship needs to be built on what does not change. Worship is not built. It cannot be built on our human experience, on the feelings or emotions. It's not on the worship experiences that we know today. But it's built upon his divine nature. And hear me when I say man, isn't it incredible when you encounter the presence of God and you feel, you feel that warmth burning within? You know what I'm talking about. You feel that closeness to God. But I'm telling you worship God because of who he is and not just because of how you feel. We want to create environments where the presence of God is ever present, that we encounter and we touch Him. We feel that love. We're filled with his peace. But man, in the middle of whatever you are facing, you can still worship God just as passionately. Verse 5 says, the Lord is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Forever in his faithfulness to all generations. They're not seasonal promises. It's not seasonal character that God is talking about. They are declarations of what is permanently true about God. He is always good. His Love will endure forever. And thank God that He has endurance. Amen. Because I beat it him to have endurance with his love and thank, thank goodness that his faith, it lasts all generations. Malachi 3, 6 says this. For I, the Lord do not change. I, the Lord do not change. This word was true then, it's true now, and it's true tomorrow. God's goodness, it's not reactive to your life. His eternal goodness and faithfulness is not contingent on your circumstances aligning in a particular way. It is the nature of who he is. That means his love does not intensify when you are doing well and it does not recede if you fail. It remains consistent because its source is not your behavior, but it is his nature. It's his nature. He loves you and his faithfulness endures for you. He is a good God. And I know your English teacher said. Said, don't use the word good. But the substance of that goodness is available for all of us here today. His faithfulness reaches well beyond singular moments or even individual lives. You know how grateful and thankful and praise filled I am that Charlie experiences the faithfulness of God the same way that I have throughout my life. That it extends and it goes forth to Charlie's children and those children and the children after that. They will experience the same faithfulness. The faithfulness that the church or Israel encountered in the Old Testament to the early Church, in the New Testament, to the apostles that came after that. His faithfulness from then until now is still extended. So don't think like these miracles are reserved for back then. No. His faithfulness endures all generations without erosion, beyond all circumstance. They are still the same today. This is what allows worship to always continue in life. Rather than relying upon your situation to worship God. There will be seasons where worship feels easy. Oh, it's on top of the mountains. It's awesome. And there will be seasons when it's really hard to worship, where it's really challenging to worship. But I can tell you this, that if you are guided by fickle emotions or by preference of song or by preference of band or leaders or whatever, then you are missing out on the truth that God is laying out for us here today. He is a good God who deserves all of our worship. He will not change. His character will not shift. His faithfulness will not weaken. And when worship is rooted there, it no longer is dependent upon the volatility of life, but upon the unchanging nature of God. Amen. Hey, thanks for tuning in. There's a bunch of different ways that we connect throughout the week, including Sunday mornings, and we would love to see you there. You can check out all the details@c3oc.com.