06 Worship

So we are doing this as church and in this session we're going to be looking at a really awesome subject: worship. And again, there's so many different mindsets about what worship is. And many of us grew up in traditional churches where worship was—be still and know that I'm God—and basically you stood up and maybe sang some old songs.

Defining Biblical Worship

What is worship supposed to look like in the church? What does the Bible teach? What does God want when it comes to worship? We have got to realize that worship is really a big deal to God. It is one of the ways we express our love and our devotion to Him.

There's obviously many others. In John 4:23, the Bible tells us—God is looking for true worshipers who will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and worship Him in truth.

And so God is actually looking for worship. It's actually a beautiful expression of our love for Him and His love for us. And I would remind you that we are made in the image of God. And so a lot of the things we enjoy as human beings are in some ways little pictures for us of what God is like and how it is.

Intimacy and the Analogy of Marriage

And the picture between God and us is really the picture between a husband and a wife, bride and a groom. And there is this union that comes about that is beautiful. Worship for God is like the intimate relationship between a husband and a wife.

The challenge is that we do come from cultural hindrances and certainly in a Western culture. I remember growing up as a surfer, and when I became a Christian, I had long hair. I thought I was super cool. And I remember thinking, I'm not going to do that weird stuff that those Christians are doing because it just looks weird.

They looked like they're nerds and I'm not gonna go there. But I had to learn about what God wanted in worship, and I'll share a bit about that later. Some of us are saying, "I'm unemotional," or, "those people can go and express it radically, but this is the way I am."

Pleasing God Rather than Ourselves

We must remember that when we come to God, He is God and we need to learn how to please Him. Not what pleases us. He's Master, we're servant. And so we come to bring Him praise. And if we begin to think about what He's done for us, man, we should really have radical worship and praise because we were all sinners going to hell with no way to save ourselves.

There was no one righteous, not even one. We were all going to be destroyed and made for the food pile, the rubbish dump. And yet God loved us and He came and He died on a cross to save us and to draw us, to reconcile us to Him.

Expressive Worship vs. Sports Enthusiasm

It's a funny thing when people say: I'm just not really an expressive person. And then you watch him watching rugby or football. I remember a few years ago South Africa was playing rugby in the World Cup Finals and Joel Stransky—which game was that?

All Blacks 1995. The whole nation was watching this thing happen. Right at the end it was like down to the last few moments of the last kick. I'll never forget—everyone's watching—and Joel Stransky kicks the ball—and we're watching—and you see it goes through the poles—and I remember people diving out of chairs, screaming, grabbing each other, hugging.

And this was about rugby. Think about it, it's over a pigskin ball and we rejoicing like that. How much more should not our worship be radical and extravagant? We think of what God has done, the depths He's gone to seek and save what was lost, and to reconcile us with Himself.

And so really at the end of the day, we need to learn to express our adoration and our praise to God because He has done incredible things for us. And the Bible tells us that worship is something that we do not just with our spirits, it's with our bodies, it's with everything.

Worshiping with Heart, Soul, and Body

In Luke 10:27, we're told to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. We don't just love God on the inside. Saying—Inside, I'm really excited. With all of my strength, all that I am, my body needs to respond to what is going on inside.

It honors the King. We are told in Romans 12:1, "Therefore, brothers, I urge you in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship." So we worship God. And part of that expression is in our soul part, but part of it is physical.

We worship God physically with our bodies to show what He's like, because actually our worship is to show the world and Him how we love Him and who He really is. We've got a lot to celebrate. If you get a notification on your phone, you probably wouldn't take it seriously, but you've just won a car and it's not some scam.

How do you respond? Your grandmother bought the lottery ticket for you in England and you've just won 10 million pounds. Yeah! There's going to be an expression of joy. And so it is with worship. Here's what the Bible says about why we worship in 1 Corinthians 2:9: "But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

In other words, with all that we think we know now, we have no cooking clue how amazing things are that God's prepared for us. And from what we can see already, we can respond with joy! So we have so much to express our adoration and our worship before God.

Overcoming Pride and the Fear of Man

When people come in and they watch us, there needs to be an appropriate response before the King. He is worthy. And so one of the challenges is often pride. You know, we worry about what people think. Fear of man is actually called a snare; it's something we should not bow to.

And we should live freely, not worrying about what people think, because otherwise we're not living free. And if the Son sets you free, He wants you free indeed. So we've got to learn how to not worry about what people think and worry about what our Lover thinks.

And He is the great Lover of our souls. He is the one who loves us with an everlasting love. And so pride is a terrible thing. When you start worrying about what people think, you cannot express the things that you should in terms of love for God.

David's Undignified Dance before the Lord

In 2 Samuel 6:14, the king of Israel, probably the greatest king next to Jesus that Israel has ever had—David is king and he is bringing the ark of the Presence to Jerusalem and he is wearing a linen ephod. And I won't go into what that is now, but he danced before the Lord with all of his might.

And you've got this picture of the king leading a procession, bringing the presence of God to His people, dancing with all his might before the Lord. Even the king of Israel is dancing with all of his might before the Lord and in front of all Israel.

His dancing is so radical that his wife actually gets offended at him. And in 2 Samuel 6:16, it says Michal watched from a window, and when she saw King David leaping and dancing—so now you've got to imagine this, his worship looked like what?

Leaping and dancing before the Lord. She despised him in her heart. And it's interesting, she is struck barren because she despised someone who worships God passionately. God takes worship very, very seriously, but the king doesn't care about what people think. He just cares about what God thinks.

And Michal actually says to him, "You're acting like a fool, not like a king. No one's going to respect you." And David's response is priceless in verse 22: "I will become even more undignified than this, and I'll be humiliated in my own eyes."

And she said the slave girls would look down on him, but by the slave girls you spoke of, I'll be held in honor. He says, "I don't care. I don't care what people think. I don't care about my own pride. I don't care if people think I'm undignified."

"I'll be humiliated in my own eyes because He's my God and He's worthy of my praise." And this is a picture for us of what worship should begin to look like as we come together. We express actually the glory of God and that needs to show in our bodies.

Worship as a Sacrifice of Praise

In some churches people arrive after worship. I ask you, do you not even know who God is? Worship is such a key part of our relationship with God. David actually speaks about it: "I'll offer to God a sacrifice of praise." Now, sometimes it's a sacrifice.

Sometimes I just feel so braindead. I just feel like going and sitting in the corner and sucking my thumb. But God, You are God. And so I come and I give You this. In some of the Psalms, David even speaks to his body.

He speaks to himself. Wake up, rise up. He's worthy of praise. I remember a friend of mine once, he had a really rough day at work and it had just been one of those weeks for him. I remember he drove home after one of the worst weeks of his life and he sat in his car in the garage.

There he thought to himself—I'm a father, I'm going to walk through those doors in a few moments. My family don't know I'm in the garage. My little children are waiting there, they don't know what I've been through, they won't understand. But when I walk through those doors, I want to be, I want to be totally in the moment and I want to be energized.

And he sat in the garage until he found the strength and he walked in and was there fully with his children. Even though he felt like the world was collapsing around him. It was an expression of love. So we come to God and even when we don't feel like it we give to Him because He's worthy of it.

And you'll find as you start to say—awake my soul, awake and sing. That's David. Awake my soul, like my soul's half dead. Awake, wake up. You start to find your soul comes alive as you come into the presence of the King. And honestly, preaching can show you things of Him, but your most intense and life changing moments with Him are normally going to be in the presence of God.

God Enthroned on the Praises of His People

And often that's in worship. Often it's when you see Him. The Bible actually says this, God is enthroned on the praises of His people. And I always feel like as we come and we sing we actually create a throne. Something of the glory and the majesty of God breaks in as His people begin to declare His praise.

He responds and we see His rule and His reign breaking in. And sometimes you'll find deliverance in worship, people start manifesting demons, which we see even in David's story. King Saul's struggling with demons and King David is playing his instrument and singing to the Lord.

The demons leave, because David somehow ushers in the presence of the Lord by playing an instrument. I can't understand how anyone arrives at the end of worship. Do you not know anything about the ways of the Lord? In His presence is fullness of joy, life.

We hunger for His presence. We are people of His presence. If our meetings don't take us into His presence, what are we doing? We need to be a people found in His presence. And when we come together as a church, it's not just to listen to a preacher and go home.

No, we come to adore the One who's worthy of our love. And He can adore us and love us back because He's a God who expresses His love over us, even as we do over Him. Some people need excitement. No, we all need excitement, actually.

God has made us to respond a certain way. Or the old classic English stock, you know, of a cup of tea. Whatever culture we come from, when we get born again, we get born again into His house, into His family. And the old is gone, the new has come.

You might think—I dance funny—who cares? I'll be even more undignified than this. I dance funny. I don't care. Or some say—I'm too old to change. No, if you're that old, just die. We're supposed to go from one degree of glory to the next.

I often say to churches, if I can't teach you to worship God properly in a simple place, like in a church, how will we ever teach you to actually love Him and serve Him in the things of life? It's one of the easiest things to do within the community of faith.

The Role of Emotion in True Worship

Some people think emotionalism is dangerous. Hang on, we're told to worship God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Do you think emotion might fit into that? I mean, is love an emotion? Now we're supposed to worship with everything in us. God has made us emotional beings and it's fitting.

Paul writes to the churches how he prays for them with tears and God rejoices and dances over us. Emotion is a large part of how God's made us, and we need to worship God and not allow this whole anti-emotional thing to infect us.

Another reasoning is—each one to his own. You guys can do that—I'll do it like this. Now you've forgotten the fact that He is Lord and you are servant. And the servant does what the Master wants. Who cares what I want? He's my King.

Years ago, I went to a church, being a surfer I thought I was so cool. I had long hair and I thought I was the bee's knees. And I remember worship started and I was looking around me and the Christians just looked like the nerdiest people on the planet.

I was here because of Him, but not because of them. And they were all clapping. And in those days, Christians really were weird. They would clap like this. David, David... That's what it looked like to me. I just remember thinking I'm never going to clap because I don't want to look like that.

And I'm standing in church one day and we're singing—I still remember the song—I lift my hands to the coming King. It was an old song. I lift my hands to the coming King. And the Lord says to me, "Lift your hands."

And I felt His presence come on. And I have to say this. I'm not a chicken. I surf big waves. I've done crazy stuff. I've paddled over waterfalls that are 20 meters high. So I'm not scared. And I promise you, I was so scared.

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't believe that I was so scared of what people would think. I thought if I lift my hands, everyone's going to stop what they were doing and laugh at me. I remember while I was struggling with this I felt the presence of the Lord lift from me.

I remember realizing I've just grieved Him. Like I've just hurt Him. I asked, "Lord, just come again. Just give me Your presence again. I can't do it on my own." Then His presence came upon me again. He said, "Do it." But I just couldn't.

And I felt His presence lift and I was so sorry. I know I'm grieving You, Lord. This is not responding like You want me to respond. Please one more time. And He never came again. I was learning then about what sin does actually.

Sin is just not obeying the Lord. He asked me to do something. I remember asking Him to please come again, but He didn't. I got so desperate for His presence again. So scared of what I'd done and hurting Him that I remember getting on my knees in desperation.

And bowing down before Him, saying, "God, I am on my knees before You. Please give me Your presence again. Don't take Your presence from me." And His presence found me on the floor. I remember getting up and something broke in me and I lifted my hands for the first time.

I felt like I had won the world, that I had begun to learn how to worship God. I realized the Lord was teaching me how to love Him. And it's a journey that I'm still on, but it's a journey that I'm going to learn what He loves, not what I love.

And so I don't care about my own dignity anymore. I want to worship Him the way He wants to be worshipped, because He's my God. And this is something for us as believers, we have to learn, that we learn the ways of the King, and love Him as He is.

The Meaning of Biblical Worship Words

And the Bible uses some beautiful words for this worship. One of them is in the Old Testament Hebrew, is *yadah*. It's Old Testament Hebrew, and it means—listen to the word—it means to know intimately. It's the exquisite embrace of intimate communion and love.

And to see what that word is used for is quite interesting, because in Genesis 4:1, the Bible says, Adam knew Eve, Adam *yadah* Eve. And this is the intimate union between a husband and a wife. Adam loved, joined, became one with Eve. And so the word here is used in terms of the relationship between a husband and a wife, an intimate union where they literally become one.

In Exodus 33:13, Moses said—it uses the word *yadah* when it talks about knowing God—"Show me now Your ways that I may *yadah* You." What Adam and Eve had, I want with You, God. I want to know You intimately. I want to know the exquisite embrace of Your love.

The root for *yadah* is actually "praise." When people used to get married in the old days, some of the old marriage vows used to say this, that "with my body, I will worship you." The husband would say to his wife, "With my body, I will worship you."

This is the picture—intimate union with God, where you become one with Him in worship. The New Testament's got another word, it's *proskuneo*. It's used 60 times in the New Testament, and it speaks of an intimate communication and affection that is expressed physically.

To bow down and to kiss the hand. You've got these pictures of Bible words, Greek and Hebrew, that are starting to express the heart of what worship is. And so that's the heart of it, but how does it express physically? And again, if we're going to teach you to obey the Lord in everything.

Well, then we've got to teach you how to worship Him the way He loves to be worshipped. And so we want to look into some Bible words and see—how does God want worship to look according to the Bible? Because that's how we learn His ways.

Singing and Musical Expression

And so firstly, in Psalm 149:1, we read that in the church, we should sing to the Lord. Singing is one of the ways we worship. Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song. Give praise in the assembly of the saints.

And so here we told to praise the Lord, to sing to the Lord a new song. And actually that new song would actually be a prophetic song. It's something would flow out of our own spirits that it wouldn't necessarily be a words that we read on a board.

That we would sing songs that are just from our heart to Him. And sometimes in our quiet time, it's good to sit down and just sing to Him, whatever's in your heart. It's the expression of communion, this expression of love. But then it also says we do this in the assembly of the saints.

Shouting, Clapping, and Dancing for Joy

In the church, when we gather together, we sing to God. How's this one? Psalm 47:1, shouting or clapping your hands—O, clap your hands all you people. Shout to God with a voice of triumph. That means worship would sometimes look like, yeah!

And a shout of triumph. Joel Stransky's just kicked that ball through the poles. YAAAHH! Why? Because of what He's done for us, of the great victory that He's done on the cross. He's defeated our greatest enemy, death itself. YAAAHH! And so they're shouting before the Lord.

And sometimes I would ask you if you've ever shouted before the Lord in church? Because God says, shout to the Lord, clap your hands, all you people. Obviously there's times where in worship, as we begin to see the attributes of God, and we sing about Him, sometimes the revelation by the Spirit will come to the people.

Because it's intimate communion. And so God will begin to show Himself to us. And sometimes you'll see Him as King, glorious, ruling over the nations. Death is defeated, He's risen from the grave. And then there should come a shout. Yeah! This is intimate communion between us and God.

When Jesus came into Jerusalem in John 12:13, they took palm branches and went out to meet Him—shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!" People waving palm branches and just worshiping Him as He comes into Jerusalem.

So shouting, clapping, dancing. Psalm 149:3. Let them praise His name with a dance. Have you ever danced in the church? We've got this thing called a "sokkie", which is a kind of dance, I've even seen people do that during worship and it was beautiful.

It was such a picture of God dancing with His church. We've got the Christian Pogo, whatever it is, just dance before the Lord. And then we use instruments. Let them sing, praise Him with the timbrel and the harp. Some people say we don't use instruments in church.

Bowing and Physical Posture

Well, you can use instruments. You know, God loves it when we worship Him with instruments. When we bring our instruments, we bring our bodies and we dance and we praise the Lord. Bow down, Genesis 24:26, and the man bowed down and worship the Lord.

And he's actually bowing down because he's seen God do an amazing thing. And he bows down before God. God, You, You're so much bigger than I. One of the principles with kings of old, you would never have your head higher than theirs. So often when people come into the presence of a king, they would bow down.

Now we come before the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and there's a bowing down before Him in adoration. Drama. Sometimes we can worship God through drama. Isaiah 20:2-3. This is a pretty out there drama. If you did this in church, it'll be a problem, but this was Old Testament.

At the same time, the Lord spoke by Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying, "Go and remove the sackcloth from your body and take off your sandals of your feet." And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, "Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, so shall..."

He starts to say, you become a picture of what I actually want to do. So I've even seen people paint and in paint, they're expressing something of what God wants to show His people. This is what I'm doing right now. We've looked at jumping and again, Acts 3:8.

Here you've got a guy who's healed. What did he do? Jumped to his feet, began to walk, then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. Sometimes you'll find people just jumping because, you literally have to jump for joy, because of what He's done.

Responding to God's Holiness and Presence

Lying down, Leviticus 9:24, And fire came up from before the Lord, and consumed the burnt offering, and the pieces of that on the altar. Now you are starting to see the holiness of God, the glory of God. And when the people saw it, all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

Once just seeing, in worship the Holy Spirit just began to show me how small and frail I was. How weak and nothing, that I'm dust. And I saw at that same time how big He was. And I remember, in fear, lying before Him at the greatness of my God and how small and frail I was in that moment.

We think we're something and then you just see His presence and you're like, "Oh God." David Pawson was preaching once and he was speaking about hell and judgment. And as he was speaking, I started to see the holiness of God more and more and more.

And at one point, halfway through his preach, I remember sitting there thinking, I can't stay in my seat anymore. I'm just overwhelmed. I'm in the front row. In front of a few thousand people. I knew it was going to be so weird if I get on my knees.

I was about to do it when, Morne, who was one of our worship leaders, fell on his face. And I fell on my face before God, and I lay there shaking at the holiness of the God that I serve. I realized how I was nothing like Him, and yet He loved me.

I lay there before Him for the rest of that preach, I couldn't move. I bowed before my King. Some people get weird about this and they say—well, you can fall forward, but you can't lay on your back. And there's weird doctrines that seeped into the church.

Falling Backwards in the Glory of God

I love this story, it's so beautiful—God is known as I Am. When Moses asked God, "Who are You?" God said this, "Tell them I Am who I Am." So God became known as I Am. And when they came to arrest Jesus, to put Him on the cross.

The Bible tells us in John 18:6. They find Him in the Garden of Gethsemane and they're going to arrest Him to go and kill Him. He says, "Who are you looking for?" And they say, "We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth." And then He said, "I Am."

I Am. And when they heard that, they fell backwards to the ground. The people are coming to arrest Him, but there was a moment when they saw who He was. And even the soldier couldn't remain standing. They fell backwards, because of the glory of God that was revealed in the "I Am" moment.

Jesus was saying, "I am the one who was with Moses, I am the one who made Adam from dust, I Am that I Am." And in that moment their eyes and their bodies responded, you can fall on your back, it's fine, honestly, God doesn't mind.

Kneeling and Holy Silence

Kneeling, Philippians 2:9-10, "Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth."

"And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and one day every knee will bow. For us, we get the joy of doing it now because we see Him as He is. But even atheists on that last day will bow their knee and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

Silence. Psalm 46:10. Sometimes in worship you'll find it's just this pregnant silence that comes. But be still, and know that I am God. Just silence your thinking, silence your thoughts, know that I am God and the church goes into this place of silence where there's just this pregnancy, no one's moving, no one's speaking, no one's trying to prophesy, it's just, be still.

Be still. There's different kinds of songs that we sing and Colossians 3:16 tells us that the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom. Teaching, admonishing one another in songs. So we actually learn about God in songs. How many of you find sometimes as you're worshiping and you're singing about the cross or something and the revelation comes.

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

The Spirit of God takes the song and we're actually teaching one another about God as we sing songs. There's a couple of songs that he mentions here. The first one is Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Three different kinds of songs. And it's interesting, a Psalm is a set piece of music.

So it's like quoting scripture to music. So a Psalm is when you just start singing portions of scripture. We can be singing scripture over one another. Hymns. Hymns feels old, but if you look at it in the Greek, it's vibrant, loud praise. It's actually shouting to God.

Here, hymns is actually celebration and praise—You are good. You are good—it's praise. And the last type of song is spiritual songs. And these are songs that come from our own spirits, that we begin to sing to God from our own spirits.

Or new songs. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sometimes you'll find in worship, the Holy Spirit will give a person a song, and they'll come up to the microphone, and they'll begin to sing out a new song over the Lord. Praising Him, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Singing in the Spirit

So these are all different ways of singing. Singing in tongues. Do you know that we can sing in tongues? And again, it can become the point that it's unhelpful because the unbeliever walks in and goes, what are you guys doing? 1 Corinthians 14:15, Paul says, I will pray with the spirit, and I'll also pray with my mind, with the understanding.

In other words, sometimes when I pray to God, I'll pray in the spirit, speaking in my tongue. And then other times I'll pray with my mind, with my understanding. I will also sing with the spirit, and I'll also sing with my understanding. Sometimes our spirit—spirit to spirit rejoices and worships God.

Lifting Hands in Surrender

And it's just your spirit singing. Your mind can't understand, but your spirit is declaring the praise of God. Lifting your hands. 1 Timothy 2:8. I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubt. We've got holy hands.

We lift them. And this is actually one of the great pictures of surrender. If someone runs into your house with a gun, what do you do? You lift up your hands in surrender. And that's really what it is. You're coming before the Lord and saying, "God, I yield. I give up. I surrender. You're the King."

Praising God with Instruments

Praising with instruments. We've looked already, but Psalm 33:2, praise the Lord with a harp. In other words, he had, we commanded to use instruments, "Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings, sing to Him a new song, play skillfully with a shout of joy."

So as musicians play skillfully, it glorifies God. I had a friend, this guy had such an anointing on a guitar. It was at the church I was in before I came down here. I would go into his house and he had two little kids. They were probably about five and three.

One day I remember coming to his house and he didn't know I was coming, and I arrived at his door and knocked and no one answered. But the door was a little open and I heard music. I followed music through the house. Emsie and I walked into his lounge and he was on his knees with his guitar just playing his worship. His little kids, a boy and girl, were lying on their faces. I walked into the presence of God.

His wife in the corner also lying on her face. I just walked in as he was playing skillfully before the Lord. I love worship, man. We looked at Yadah, which is this intimate Hebrew word for being intimate with God. But do you know that God actually responds to us?

The Lord Sings Over His People

You'll see that in worship. Sometimes our worship to God is like a husband and a wife who sing over one another. Zephaniah 3:17, the Lord, your God, is in your midst. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by His love. He will exult over you with loud singing.

And there's some beautiful words here in the Hebrew that tell us exactly what God does. God is now singing worship songs over us saying, "You are beautiful. You are lovely in all your ways. You've been washed by My blood. You are My bride. You are My beautiful. I love you with an everlasting love."

And so here you've got this picture of the word is rejoice over you with gladness and the word is two Hebrew words, Yassas and Sima. Yassas literally means this: it means to greatly enjoy and be deeply fond of another. So God actually sings over you—I greatly enjoy you, and I so love you. Sima—it speaks of joyful happiness, a happiness that affects all the senses. So God begins to respond, although He's not bound to flesh like us, He responds to us with all of His senses.

He will exult over you. The word is Yagil. It speaks to spin around under the influence of violent emotion. God begins to dance and spin around over us—with loud singing, the word is Rinnah—shouts of joy. The NASB actually says, "He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy."

Worship as Intimate Communion

So God begins to have shouts of joy over us as He sings of the beautiful one—His bride. And so worship is Yadah. It's intimate communion between us and God. And so when we build church, we want to build church God's way. And we want to become a people who are intimate.

God is looking for worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth. And so as a church, we will not be the kind of churches that'll sit back in our own comfort—nothing about love is comfortable. It is all about expression. It is all about devotion.

And I want to encourage you—have you danced with all your life before the Lord? Have you shouted before the Lord? Have you rejoiced over Him? And as you begin to learn to express love, you will find the Lord responds. Do this and you'll see different aspects and attributes of Him as He reveals Himself to you as you give yourself to Him.

As I really want to encourage you and all that are watching this, worship is such a central part of who we are as a people. And we need to allow each of our churches across the nations to express worship the Bible way, God's way, and to express this intimate fellowship that we have with the Creator of the universe.

He's loved us with an everlasting love, He's called us His beloved, and He's preparing us for the day that He'll return, that we'll be with Him forever as His bride—joined together, saved and finally secure. In the hands of the One. He's prepared things so beautiful for us that no eye has seen, no mind has conceived, no one has understood the glory that He has because of the love that is in His heart for you and for me.

Let's make sure we express this beautifully in our churches. Amen.