Oh my goodness, I love this place and I love what God is
doing here and I believe if he hasn't done it in you yet, he
sure can. I'm so thankful that you guys
are here. I want to welcome those of you
joining at all of our different locations, those of you watching
online, and those of you who are part of the Crossing Inside.
Special shout out to The Crossing Inside in Pike County.
Got a chance to spend some time with you this past Wednesday.
And it's just so cool to see people that are a part of our
church that are brothers in Christ with us.
Everybody that I got to meet with has been baptized.
And they're trying to work on the other 22 people that are
serving time. And even though they don't have
the same opportunities that we have, because the decisions that
they've made, they're trying to make the Pike County Jail the
hardest place on planet earth to get the hell from.
And I love that. I love it.
So whether it's your first time or your first time in a long
time, we're so glad that you're here.
And I want to encourage you to swing by the new here booth that
is in the lobby at all of our different locations.
We are in a sermon series called Some Assembly Required, and this
sermon series is part what we believe is a church, part why we
do what we do as a church, and part how to build a meaningful
encounter with God. And I believe one of the best
ways to build a meaningful encounter with God is through
worship. And what I want to do today is
I'm going to answer a couple questions and then I'm going to
do a book report slash teaching. All right, so a couple
questions. You guys have probably been
asked this before. Why does the crossing church
have a light show during worship?
Are you guys just trying to be super hip and cool?
No, it all goes back to church architecture.
When church buildings were built back in the day, they were
designed with huge ceiling heights and massive windows to
allow the maximum amount of light into the space.
And then in the 10th century, churches invented and
popularized stained glass windows to bring into the
worship space different glorious colors.
Then, in the 1800s, churches were some of the very first
buildings electrified in their communities.
In fact, Thomas Edison donated the very first bulb to a
Presbyterian Church in New Jersey.
Why? Because they wanted the church
to always be associated with light.
So instead of the crossing, having to spend tons of money to
build really high ceiling auditoriums and expensive
ceilings, we leverage technology to create a multi colored
experience. And you might be going, why do
Christians like light so much? Let me tell you.
Because all throughout Scripture, light and fire which
produces light are closely associated with God, Jesus,
heaven, and the Bible. You know what The very first
thing God created was light. Let there be light.
God spoke to Moses in a burning Bush.
He led the people in Israel with a pillar of fire.
When the temple was constructed, they put in the lamp stands.
God promises to make His face shine upon us in Numbers chapter
6. God's word is described as a
light for our path in Psalm 119, Jesus is described as the light
of the world, and he came to a world that was covered in
darkness. Later, Jesus says that his
followers will be like a lamp on a stand.
In First Thessalonians chapter 5, Christians are called
children of the You guys are getting it.
First Peter chapter 29 says that we are people who have been
called out of darkness into his marvelous light.
We're told in First Timothy chapter 6 that God dwells in
unapproachable light. So that is why when the church
has always gathered, light has always been part of it.
Now you might also ask, what is the purpose of worship?
Why is worship important? The purpose of worship is to
direct our affection and our attention to God.
It is not about feeling His presence.
Sometimes you'll say, man, I really felt God during that
worship experience. I want you to know that is not
important. It is not about what you get out
of worship. It is about what you give in
worship and if you make whether or not you feel something about
worship, you have started to worship you because now it is
about how you felt about the worship.
Worship is not about you, worship is about Him.
Why does the Crossing sing all kinds of new songs instead of
them old school good songs? I get it.
I've told you before, I like an old song here and there.
I just need you to know this. All worship was contemporary
worship at one point in time. So for those of you who are
wanting the hymns, I want you to know there was a time when there
was a pastor getting nasty emails about these new hymns
everybody's singing. All worship was new worship at
one point in time. But let me just allow God to
speak to this for a second. Psalm 96 one says, sing to the
Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.
In fact, over and over again in Scripture, God commanded people
to sing a new song to Him. He commands it in Psalm 98 and
Psalm 40 and Psalm 33. He says it again in Isaiah 44,
and He described it in Revelation chapter 5 verse nine.
Since God is always moving, His Spirit is always directing our
knowledge and appreciation is always growing.
There will always be a new song being written on the hearts of
His people. Now what I'd like to do for the
remainder of the message, and I'm going to move the lightning
fast, is I want to do a book report.
A while back I was in a Zoom meeting with a pastor from
Nashville by the name of Darren Whitehead, and he gave the
devotional for the day. And later on in that year, I had
an opportunity to attend a conference that he spoke at.
And he has written several books.
And one of these books is the book called Holy Roar.
You can go buy it if you want to, but I could save you the 15
bucks if you just paid attention to my sermon.
In his book, what he does is he unpacks the beauty of worship
hidden in the Old Testament. And my hope is that it will be a
blessing to you today. One of the problems that we
experience as Christians, or more importantly as American
Christians, is our vocab is limited.
For instance, when we read in the Greek text, the Old
Testament or the New Testament, there are different words for
love that is directed in different areas.
But here in for those of us in America, when we talk about
love, we use one word, love. So let me ask you this question.
Do you love your wife? Yeah.
Do you love your kids? Yeah.
Is your love for your wife a little bit different than your
love for your kids? Yeah.
Do you love your dog? Yeah, kinda.
You say you love it. So you mean to tell me that you
love your dogs the same way you love your wife and your kids?
That seems weird. Do you love the Kansas City
Chiefs? Yeah.
Do you love them at the same amount that you love?
And for those of you who are Cubs fans, if you loved your
family the way you love the Cubs, you'd be a way better
father. I can guarantee you that much.
You love rooting for losers. OK, so when we get into the Old
Testament, when it talks about worship, there are 7 different
words for worship. And I believe locked inside of
these 7 words is something that is unexpected and something
that'll change what you experience and what you do in
worship. And my hope is that when you
know these words and the power contained in them, you will
begin to build a meaningful encounter with God through
worship. The first word is yada.
Everybody say yada yada, to Revere or worship with extended
hands, to hold out the hand, to throw a stone, to shoot an
arrow. I went to church with my grandma
one time and the church that I grew up in, there was not a
whole lot of hand raising. All the lights were up way high
and everybody kind of worshiped God like this.
We were so thankful for everything he did.
We did this. Sometimes we might do this.
And I went to my grandma's church and my grandma had her
hand up and I'm like, they're going to call on you.
Like, you better put your hand down.
Now you got to know this. My grandpa's name was Oronnell.
My grandma's name was Cleata. If you're named Cleata, you
probably don't care what other people think about you.
OK. And my name's Clayton.
Like, I'm a generation of people who we need no last name.
Nobody's been like, you know, there's a lot of Matt's, there's
a lot of Brian's, tons of Brads and Bob's, but nobody goes
Clayton who? But like, I think I know who
we're talking about. Cleata was one-of-a-kind.
She was a one off and there she was in the middle of this
Presbyterian Church, both hands up, praising Jesus like this is
you keep doing what you're doing, I'm fine, she's OK.
You die means to extend your hand in worship.
It's used 111 times in the Old Testament.
It's used to describe people coming together and lifting
their hands together in God's presence.
Hear me. It is the natural expression of
excitement, wonder, aw, it's what we do when our team wins,
scores the touchdown. We yada, it's it'd be and it
crosses all geographical boundaries and all language
barriers. If you see somebody in another
nation, in another country going woo, you don't ask yourself, I
wonder what he's thinking. It translates and it is
something that you never have to teach your kids.
Did you ever have to teach your kids how to celebrate?
Now this when we're really excited, here's what we do.
Your kids naturally do it. The first time your kid makes a
basket, what does he do? He you does Psalm 145, verse 10
says all your works. You die.
You, Lord, your faithful people extol you.
The things that God does, you die.
They lift their hands in victory.
Psalm 67, three says May the peoples you die.
You God, may all the peoples you die, you.
In the movies, when you see people shooting their guns in
the air in victory, they are you dying.
When people are launching arrows into the air with joy, they are
you dying. And maybe today, for the first
time, you would. You da the Lord you see you.
Da is an eternal verb, which means that one day we will you
da God forever and ever. So if we're going to do it for
all eternity, we might as well start practicing now.
Interesting devotional. The Bible says that when we are
in heaven, we will see God face to face, then we will have
perfect knowledge of who he is. And when the Bible describes God
in heaven and it describes his presence, this is what the Bible
communicates, that God is surrounded by angels and living
creatures who never stop worshipping him.
They never stop. That means pay attention here,
that as our knowledge of God increases, as our understanding
of God increases, so does our desire to worship him.
The more you know about him, the more you want to you da him.
Word to halal. Everybody say halal.
You guys are learning Hebrew. It means to boast, to rave, to
shine, to celebrate, to act clamorously foolish.
This is the primary word for praise in the Old Testament.
It is from this word that we get the word Hallelujah.
The Oh yeah, the the is Jehovah is Yahweh.
Praise Hallelujah is praise God when you it is the laying aside
of your inhibitions. It is the kind of worship where
you kill yourself conscious. You care nothing about what
other people think. You just want to praise the
Lord. Think of your family at a
wedding. You're at a wedding, everybody's
hanging out and having fun and the DJ comes out and he starts
getting it going and everybody's like, OK, let's go up there
after everybody does their little dance and they get
everybody to do the chicken dance.
They loosen everybody up with the chicken dance and then they
do YMCA and everybody's kind of getting a little bit more
loosened up. Then they do the Electric Slide
and you got grandma with her busted up hip.
OK. And then about 30 minutes later,
while everybody kind of goes back to eat and the cool kids
are being too cool, you'll look across the dance floor and
you'll see a couple old people and a couple young people.
They're no longer doing choreography.
They're just, they're just having fun.
You know what they're doing? They're halaling.
They don't care what other people think.
They are just clamorously foolish.
I have a question for you. How much of your worship to God
has been restrained by your fear of how other people see you?
Psalm 149 verse 3 says let them halal His name with dancing and
make music to Him with timbrel and harp.
When you think about the Lord and you think about all that He
has done for you and you get so focused on Him that you stop
thinking or caring about what others think, you just might be
on your way to what the Bible calls worship, a special kind of
worship. Halal word 3 Zamar.
Everybody say zamar to make music, to celebrate in song and
music, to touch the strings or the parts of a musical
instrument. Praise and worship Music can be
a powerful tool to draw us in to a personal experience with God.
Music is more powerful than we can even understand.
It can soften our hearts. It can soothe our troubled
souls. It opens a door to the spiritual
world that paves the road for the spirits coming into our
lives. Why do we put on music when
we're driving with a loved one? Why do couples have a song?
There is something that happens in us when music underscores a
preaching moment. Immediately we start to relax a
little bit, lean in a little bit more.
Over 40 times in the Bible, zamar is used to praise the Lord
with the instruments to get the music going, to get your heart
directed in the right way. Psalm 144 verse 9 says I will
sing a new song to you, O God, on a harp of 10 strings, I will
zamar you. Psalm 7 or Psalm 7 verse 17
says, I will you die the Lord according to his righteousness,
and I will sing zamar to the name of the Most High.
Psalm 57 verse 7 says My heart is fixed, Oh God, my heart is
fixed, I will sing and give zamar to you.
Music can bolster the human heart and fill us with the
courage to live out our faith as we cling to the promises of God.
Think of the walk out music for a basketball team, the hype
music for a football team. We're getting ready to go to
war. And you know what?
We need a soundtrack. That's why presidential
candidates fight over the rights to certain music to be played
during their campaign. Because they know that the music
moves you, changes you, that there's something that happens
to the human heart. There's something that happens
in worship when an instrument gets played and God gets his
zamar #4 toda. Everybody say Toda, this is an
extension of the hand. You're going to notice something
when God talks about worship. He doesn't spend a whole lot of
time talking about this. There's an awful lot of this.
It is Thanksgiving, a confession, a sacrifice of
praise, Thanksgiving for things not yet received, a choir of
worshippers. Toda in Hebrew is a word that
means an extension of the hand in Thanksgiving to God, not just
for what he's done, but it is a sacrifice of praise for things
not yet received. It is praising God in
expectation. It is a way for us in our hearts
to convey trust in the goodness of our God when things aren't
going right. It's not just praising God for
what He's done. It's praising God for what you
believe He could do. In Psalm 56, David writes this
Psalm while he is experiencing hardship on absolutely every
side. His enemies are attacking him
continually. Let me tell you what he he says
death is staring him in the face.
Earlier in Psalm 56, this is what he writes.
Be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in hot pursuit.
All day long they press their attack.
My adversaries pursue me all day long in their pride.
Many are attacking me when I am afraid.
I will put my trust in you, God, whose word I praise.
In God I trust and I am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me? All day long they twist my
words. Their schemes are all for my
ruin. They conspire, they learn, they
watch my steps, hoping to take my life.
But look how he ends the song in Psalm 56.
In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can man do to me? I am under vows to you, God.
I will present my toda to you. Believe in all right, for You
have delivered me from death, my feet from stumbling, that I may
walk before God in the light of life.
He writes that song while he is being oppressed, claiming in
advance that God will deliver him.
Hear me. When you todah, you are choosing
to worship over your worry. Instead of focusing on the
things that are out of your control, you are focusing all of
your attention to the One who is in control.
When you Todah, the things of this world get smaller and you
start. To see your God for how big He
really is. Hear me, I got a devotional
thought for somebody today. If you are here today and things
are not up and to the right. If you are walking with some
worry, if there's some pain in your stride, if there's a
marital hardship, you're navigating a parenting pinch
point. If you are listening to my voice
right now and you are still waiting and praying for the
salvation of a loved one. If you're here today and you're
beat down. If you're tired, if you're sick,
if you're sad, you're depressed, you're overwhelmed, stressed
out, needing some guidance, in search of direction, longing for
peace, you have all of the necessary ingredients to Da Da,
the name of the Lord, Lord Most High.
Remember the song Do it again. To do it again is a todah song.
When you sing that song and your heart moves in the middle of
that song, it's because your heart is saying todah.
Stupid Todah. Look at me walking around these
walls. I thought by now they fall.
But you have never failed me yet, Todah.
Waiting for change to come, knowing the battles won for you
have never failed me yet, Toda. I've seen you move, You move the
mountains, and I believe I'll see you do it again.
Toda, you made a way when there was no way, and I believe I'll
see you do it again. Toda some 121 verse one through
2 says I lift my eyes to the mountains.
Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the
Maker of heaven and earth. When you're in it, you can look
at your problem, or you can look to the hills, knowing that God
is on his way. And you can todah #5 Barack.
Barack means to kneel to bless God as an act of adoration, to
praise, to salute, to thank. This word is commonly translated
as praise is a word of humility. Barack embodies the notion of
kneeling before God, blessing God, adoring God, recognizing
your position in relationship to God.
This word is used 289 times in the Psalms on each occurrence.
It is used to describe worshippers falling on their
face before God in reverence, adoration, and thanks.
Scholars of the ancient Hebrew provide additional insights into
the word Barack. They believe that in the
original context, the term did not simply mean just to kneel,
but to kneel down and keeping your eyes fixed on the King.
That when we Barack, we are recognizing that he's in charge
and we are not taking our eyes off the King.
Psalm 72 verse 11 and 15 says, May all the kings bow down to
him, and all nations serve him. Long may he live.
May gold from Sheba be given him.
May people ever pray for him and Barack him all day long.
When Barack takes place, even the most powerful lay aside
their egos, their power, their desires.
They give all they have to him. Their gold, their prayer, their
honor, their gaze. They have an understanding of
who they're worshipping. If we've experienced the
goodness of God, if we've seen him work in our lives, in the
lives of our friends, in the life of our church, how can we
not, Barack, how can we not fall to our knees in gratitude with
our eyes fixed on him? Because when the king walks in
the room, everybody kneels Number six, Tequila.
Some of you said tequila, and that's why you choose the
crossing. Tequila means laudation, a hymn,
a song of praise, a new song, a spontaneous song.
The Old Testament psalmist were masters of incorporating the
stories of their history into songs of praise.
And their story praise is captured by the word tequila.
In fact, tehila is a Hebrew word meaning hymn, song of praise,
new spontaneous song. The book of Psalms is actually a
collection of these kinds of songs.
And in fact, in the Hebrew language, the book of Psalms is
called the tehilam. Tehilam is a word that is used
57 times in the scripture with over half of those occurrences
being found in Psalm. Psalm 22 verse 3 says you, yet
you are enthroned as the holy 1 You are the one Israel Tehilas.
Songs of Tehila may not rhyme, they may not even be the
catchiest tune. But these songs, even though
they're not the most polished, they come from the worshippers
heart and the moment. Songs of Tehila flow from the
depth of our intimacy with God, singing a made-up song to God.
Follow this with me. Some of you have probably sang a
song to your wife. It's probably not in the same
stratosphere as what we're talking about here, but you have
been so moved that you sang her a little song made-up a little
Jingle. When you did that, you were to
heal him. There's something that happens
to us when we sing a made-up song to God.
Full disclosure, I had never to heal him until recently, but
when I was working on the Storm was like, I got to start giving
it a try. So there's been a couple times
that I've been driving and I just try to like, OK, God, I'm
going to try this to heal him thing out.
And can I tell you, it's been special every time.
If I can come up with a cool little Jingle for my wife, I can
probably come up with a Jingle for God.
And it's not a song for everybody else.
It's a song for me, and it's a song for him.
Even if the words don't rhyme, even if you can't carry a tune,
even if you don't know quite yet what to sing, practice raising a
spontaneous song of praise to God.
It may be awkward at first. It may even be uncomfortable.
But if you do, there's a gift for you.
The Bible says that God dwells into helium.
Some of you may have grown up in church and you have heard this
verse before. God inhabits the praises of His
people. There's a certain type of praise
that He inhabits. In fact, I already read you the
verse. I just read it to you in a
different version. Psalm 22 three is God is
enthroned and inhabits your tehila.
When you sing a made-up song about the goodness of God out of
the overflow of your heart, God says I'm coming into the middle
of that. I will inhabit your tahila.
He does not inhabit your Barack, he inhabits your tahila.
He doesn't inhabit your yadah. He inhabits when you just start
singing to him, saying no one can do stuff like you, no one's
better than you. No one's loving me like you do.
He's like I'm on my way. That's my living room.
That's where I like to be in your tahila #7 Shabak to address
in a loud tone, to shout, to commend, glory and triumph.
Psalm 117 one says praise the Lord, all you nations, Shabak
him, all you peoples. What he's doing is it is our the
final Hebrew word of praise. It means to address in this loud
tone quite literally, it means to raise a holy roar.
The word is used sparsely in the Old Testament, but these 11
times that it shows up, each time it has a powerful effect,
similar to fans at a sporting event, joining together in a
thunderous sound, all cheering, all yelling, all declaring the
celebration. This corporate celebration, this
shout of praise that erupts in a stadium during a match of soccer
or during the game of football is Shavak.
And every time we gather with God's people to praise him with
one voice uniting with another voice, these songs become
anthems. These anthems become
declarations. These declarations become a holy
roar. Psalm 145, verse 4 says One
generation shall box your works to another.
They tell of your mighty acts. Shabbat transcends time and
geography. It is this holy roar that
reaches from one generation to the next generation.
And this shout of praise needs your voice because no one can
Shabbat God for you. Only you can do that.
But when you Shabbat and I Shabbat and we Shabbat, when we
gather as a church, we are lifting a holy, triumphant roar.
Why? Because we have won through
Jesus. We are celebrating the victory
that was won on our behalf when Jesus was crucified on the cross
and rose from the grave. You see, the reason we gather to
celebrate is because sin has been destroyed, guilt has been
cast off, shame has been dismantled, Satan has been
crushed, Hell has been defeated. So how can we not show up and
Shabbat with everything we have? And here's what I'm wondering
What would happen to our worship if we started worshiping?
Not how we feel, but how God commands and how God deserves.
We're moving to a time of decision, Tyler McKenzie, who
preaches here a couple of times a year, recently wrote in a
Christian Standard article. These words hang with me.
In 1947, African American theologian Howard Thurman.
He gave a famous speech for the Ingersoll Lecture Series at
Harvard. He explored how worship songs of
slaves gave them hope amid chaos and suffering.
He referenced their songs that spoke of Chariots swinging, low,
trumpets resounding, tombstones bursting, and sinners trembling.
The popular critics of African American spirituals was that
they were too heavenly minded and that this sort of thinking
made slaves passive and too other worldly to fight back
against slavery. But Thurman used his lecture to
challenge this critique. He argued that their hope and
divine judgement and eternal heaven empowered them to trust
God's sovereignty, endure pain, and conquer evil with good, that
their songs of hope were fuel for the ultimate fight.
They knew that they would outlive all of the chaos they
experienced in this world with God and eternity, and that
enabled them to look evil and hardship in the face and sing.
To experience unthinkable hardships and write songs about
God is on his way. That they could be separated
from their families, abused and beaten, but because their mind
was so focused on the God who reigned supreme, they could
sing. Swing low, Sweet chariot coming
forth to carry me home. And times like these and the
times that you're living in right now, this sort of hopeful
theology sung with a spiritual family can be just the medicine
we need. So to those of you who don't
have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus, you
don't have anything to sing about yet, but heaven is waiting
for you to join the triumphant chorus.
And so in just a few moments, when the people around you stand
and sing and a lot more of them start worshipping and some of
them come to the steps and pray, I want to encourage you to talk
to somebody. Or if you want, walk right over
there underneath that screen next to the baptistry and talk
to somebody about how you can begin an intimate, personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. So you can understand why we are
so excited to sing about the goodness of our God.
And to those of you who do have an intimate, personal
relationship with Jesus, it is time for our worship to join the
heavens. That this is not about how you
feel right now. This is not about how your week
was. This is not about whether or not
you feel the best or don't feel the best.
This is about is God worthy of worship and are we willing to
give Him what He desires, what He requires, and what He
deserves. Would you stand with me?
I think probably the right thing for me to do, God, is to
apologize for all the times we've done it wrong, to
apologize for all the times we made worship about us.
And instead of making it about you, I'm incredibly thankful
that you are long-suffering and patient with us.
God, I pray that you would release a culture of genuine,
authentic, obedient worship in this church, not just here, but
at all of our locations, but not just at all of our locations.
Release it in May Release it in US.
Hear my pray. Amen.