Worship Is My Weapon

Today, everybody, I'm going to conclude this series we've been in called In God We Trust, and I want to preach a message that I've entitled, worship is my weapon. And you might be thinking to yourself, you know, over these last couple of weeks that this hasn't really been much of a financial series. I mean, we haven't even really talked about money. Pastor Matt, you told us in week one, all the statistics of money that the Bible addresses and talks about, but we haven't even addressed it or talked about it, and you would be right, but you would also be wrong. You'd be right and wrong, all at the same time, when we preached the struggle is real, and we listed those statistics, we followed back up with first and best. We talk about the tithe. And everybody's like, Oh, strap it on our seat belts. Like, oh, he's about to talk about finances. I don't know if I'm gonna come to church for the next few little weeks. I'm not sure entirely. But then last week I preached a message called the deep end, and I didn't mention finances almost at all. And this week I'm about to preach this message, and I might mention finances just a couple little times. Is that okay? So everybody take a deep breath, give the person next to you a high five, a knuckle bump, a handshake, a chest bump, whatever you're comfortable with, and just tell them it's going to be okay. It's gonna be okay. The bottom line today, for me, everybody is this, if you don't hear anything else that I say through the duration of this message, I want you to hear this next statement, God does not want your money. He does not need your money. Mercy city, Church does not want or need your money. Hear me. Hear me. We don't need your money. We don't want your money. What we want for you is the same thing that God wants for you. God wants for you a personal relationship with you, between you and him, and he offered us His Son, Jesus Christ, to make that a reality. Now, there are some things that we can do practically to align ourselves with the Word of God, to align ourselves to relationship with God, and I believe that the way that we do that is through our worship. But worship isn't just the slow song that we play at the close of our set. Worship is actually a lifestyle. Worship is actually a an attitude. Worship is actually a posture. Worship is actually a decision. That's why we encourage you to lift your hands, because the decision is to align with what the Word says about worship, and that's we lift our hands. It's a sign of surrender. See, some of us like to worship with our hands on our pockets, and sometimes that's that's okay, but the majority of our worship posture should be with our hands lifted, with our eyes closed, and locked in on the presence of God. That's worship. But the Bible says also that we can align our heart to God through the way that we give. That's why we touch on giving all that every single weekend, you're going to have an opportunity to take a next step in faithfulness and obedience, in your giving, not because we need your money, not because we want your money, but because we know that the Bible says when we bring our first, the first of our increase, into The storehouse, which is the church, that's when God can command His blessing on your life. We want your lives to be blessed. I want your life to be blessed the way that I've seen my life blessed. And not because I give to this church, but I started 25 years ago, given to church because then people come at me. Well, it's easy for you to say, Pastor, you know why it's easy for me to say because I've lived this since the day I said yes to Jesus. I make no apology for it. Y'all ready for this? It's about a heart heart posture, and that's what I want to talk to. You about today, a heart posture of worship. Worship is my weapon. If you got a Bible, you can open up to Genesis, chapter number, 22 Genesis 22 and we'll dive in there here in just a minute. But I want to bring you up to speed with where we are in the book of Genesis and kind of what's going on. For those of you who may not be familiar with much of the Bible or scripture, or the way that God does things. So Genesis, chapter two, we find ourselves being being told a story about a man named Abraham, whose name was originally Abraham, but God met him and changed his name. And when God met him, what he did was he actually gave him a promise too. He said, Abraham, you're going to be the father of many nations. Through many, many generations, you're you're going to extend through you. Many generations are going to receive the blessing of heaven. How many of y'all know that's a good day? God shows up to you and says, you're going to be blessed. And through many generations, the blessing of God is going to come through you. That's a good day. That's a good day. How many of y'all know that when God promises, he promises something, it's good, but when you don't see those promises come to pass, well, it's not so good. It's not so good. And sometimes when you receive a promise from God, just like what happened to Abraham, and it doesn't come to pass you formulate plot or come up with a plan that is your own to fulfill the promise or plan of God. So what happens is Abraham's married to a woman named Sarah, and Sarah comes to him because she knows that they're very fully aware of the promise, like, you are going to be the father of many nations, but Sarah realizes I cannot produce you a child. I'm barren, and so she says, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you one of my servants to marry, and you marry her, and she's going to have kids with you. Abraham's like, seems like a good idea. I guess you know what I'm saying. For the record, fellas, if your wife comes to you and says that do not, don't take the bait, man, don't fall for that trick anyway. So what happens is they end up having a child named Ishmael. And Ishmael was not part of God's plan or promise because he came through the maid servant and not the daughter Sarah. But they were waiting a long time, and as they waited for a long time, they talked themselves out of the promise of God, they were getting old, and in their barrenness, they had lost hope. Anybody ever lost hope on a promise that you felt like God gave you? Maybe you're feeling older than you were when God gave you the promise, and you're wondering, God, where are you? You told me, I thought you said. And so then you take matters in your own hands. Sure you have. We all have. We've all done it, and what it does is it communicates where we put our trust. I'm here to challenge you today. It's time to bring our trust back, to put our trust back in the person of Jesus, Christ and the power of God. So that's kind of where we find ourselves, God shows back up to Abraham, and he says this, sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith. I gotta just underline this. You know how I like to make some marks in my Bible. God tested Abraham's faith. God tested Abraham's faith, and God's going to test your faith to just be aware of that. God called Yes. He replied, here I am Take your son, your only son, the son that you had, not Ishmael, but Isaac, not when you did your own plan, but when you operate according to my plan, and you had your son, Isaac, I want you to take Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. Go there and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you. If you haven't read the Bible, do yourself a favor and start reading the Bible. It is so rich man, it's interesting, like, what are we talking about? You? The next morning, Abraham got up early. This is so funny to me. God tells me to sacrifice my son, and I'm not going the next morning. I'm just wait a little bit like God, you sure you said? I mean, I know you I know this is what I heard, but are you sure that you said what you said? Because I heard what you said, and it wasn't really what I thought you should say. So God, anybody ever had a prayer time like that the next morning after God told you to do something that you didn't really want to do, sure you have but he got up early the next morning, he sat at his donkeys, and he took two of his servants along with him. His. On Isaac came along as well. Then he chopped wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place that God had told him about. And on the third day of their journey, somebody, say, the third day, Abraham looked up, but he saw the place in a distance. Stay here with the donkeys. Abraham told the servants, the boy and I will travel a little further, and we will worship there.I don't know about you, but in Hastings, we wouldn't have called that worship. You know what I mean? Like worship. You him. Maybe in Seward, you call that worship. I bet in the chapel, y'all would call that worship. But when I grew up in Hastings, we did not call that, see, the chapel does call that worship, champ, weirdos, man. We're going to go there and worship, and then we'll we're going to come right back. So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, Father, Abraham says, Yes, son, we have the fire and we have the wood. The boy said, but there is no sheep for the burnt offering. You. God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering. My son, Abraham, answered, and they both walked together. When they arrived at the place, God told him to go. Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it, and then he tied his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood, and Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. And at that moment, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. Abraham. Abraham, yes. Abraham replied, here, I am. How many of you all know this a good time to have your ear totally tuned in to the voice of God? You know what I mean, but here's what I believe, with all my heart, he wouldn't have been able to have his ear tuned to the voice of God here, if he had not tuned it to the voice of God. When God said, do this. And he immediately went, Don't lay a hand on the board, the angel said, Don't hurt him in any way. For now I know that you truly fear God. Now I know. Now I know that you truly fear God. I didn't know before, but now that you're willing to lay down the promise that you thought that I gave you, I know. Then Abraham looked up and he saw a ram caught by its horns and a thicket. So he took the ram and he sacrificed it as a burnt offering in the place of his son, Abraham, named the place Yahweh. Yahweh, which means the Lord will provide. I'm here today to tell you that the Lord will provide no matter what it is you feel like you're up against, no matter what you feel like you're in the midst of the Lord is here to provide for you, but the but the Lord doesn't provide the way that you think he provides. The Lord provides the way the Lord provides. He might tell you something to see what you do. Well anyway, can I just start here by saying, Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus that God's not asking us to sacrifice our children anymore. God's not asking us to even sacrifice our best animals anymore. God's not asking us to do those types of things, but God is asking us to sacrifice something he is he most certainly will, and it will almost always have something to do with what you feel like he's promised to you. Because God is surely into testing our faith. In fact, I call this the true test of faith. The true test of faith, if you're going to walk with Jesus for any amount of time, there will be a moment where your faith is truly tested. Somebody say the true test of faith. See, the true test of faith is never about what you're holding on to. It's never about your son. It's never about your bank account. It's never about your career. It's never about your endorsement. It's never about your stuff. It's not about the stuff that you're holding it's about what's holding you. It's about what's holding you see, these types of true faith tests will help us identify what actually holds our hearts. Some might call them strongholds. And can I tell you, strongholds don't only have to be bad things, they can also be good things that can add value to your life, but if they're holding you, they're dangerous. If we're able to identify these places in our lives where the enemy has this stronghold, the only option for healing or wholeness is obedience to God's Word through a. Really dirty church word called surrender. Surrender is not a sexy word everybody. This isn't what church folks like to talk about. Church folks like to talk about sacrifice. Religious folks love to talk about sacrifice, because what we can do is make sacrifice about us. Look at what I lay down. Look at what I gave up. Look at how hard I'm working. Look at how far I've come. See, religion always makes a relationship with Jesus about us, but a relationship with Jesus actually is always about him. That's why this word kind of tends to be dirty in church life, it's surrender. Surrender always makes it about Jesus. It's not about us, it's about him. Surrender means this specifically ceasing to resist or submission to authority. Stop trying to be a control. Stop trying to navigate everything. Stop trying to put your hands on everything and make it turn out the way that you want it to turn out. We gotta stop doing that. We gotta cease to resist. That's not surrender. That's just another attempt at sacrifice. Let me be in control. It's an attempt at sacrifice. See, I think this is a really interesting topic. Surrender again. Like I said, I do think it's a dirty word in church, but I think it's also a funny word, because 99.9% of the church world 99.9999999% of the actual world would look at this story and their immediately thought is sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. You mean to tell me that you are going to lay down the life of your son, and it's not a sacrifice. Well, we're trying to make it about us and all the hard work that I've done, but I'm here to tell you that I think Abraham knew even while God said, I want this to be a sacrifice, he knew he had a choice not to make this a sacrifice. He had a choice to put his trust in his father, and he had a revelation that made him realize, okay, oh, this is not, in fact, sacrifice. This is actually surrender. It's actually worship. And it's this type of surrendered worship that is a weapon in my hand, because it's not fighting battles the way that I would naturally fight battles. It's fighting battles the way that God You have called me to fight battles again, I say to you, thank you God for your Son, Jesus Christ, thank you for not asking me to offer my son. Thank you for not asking me to offer my best goat or prized calf However, God does ask you for things in sacrifice. He think about it. Everybody, think about it. He's asking you, and he's been asking you for things like your time, your talent, your treasure time. What does time look like? And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, because y'all are here today, but average church attendance across the US is once every three to four weeks. That's average, that's mediocre. That's missing it. If you ask me, that's telling me that I don't value the things of God because I can't be bothered to be in his house with some kind of consistency or regularity. That means I'm not in charge of my time. My time is in charge of me. Y'all hear what I'm saying. How about our talent? We don't use the thing that God has gifted us to to push forward or advance the kingdom of heaven. And I'm not just saying the church, I'm saying the kingdom of heaven, the things of God. Do you hear what about your best ideas? The the best of you, the talent that God gave you, the best of it. Aren't you offering it to God as an offering? Is it a sacrifice? Oh, man, it's just so hard. I want to give God all the good stuff, but it's just so tough. I wonder if you changed your perspective, realizing, you know what, it's not a sacrifice. This is surrender. This is a joy of my life, to be able to give you the best, to be able to give you the first God, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. You can't catch me not finding myself in church consistently, not because I'm a pastor. I did this before I was ever a pastor. I did it as a Christ follower. Why? Because I knew that my wife needed to know we're gonna put Jesus first. This is not a sacrifice for our world. This is surrender of our lives. This is. An act of worship. My choice to get up on Sunday morning and be in the presence of God is an act of worship. Me showing up and not worrying about what I look in front of everybody, but putting my hands up in the air, not worrying about how my voice sounds around everybody, singing at the top of my lungs. This is my choice. It's an act of surrender. It's an act of worship. I choose to worship. How about our treasure? Man, that's tough, isn't it? I know
it's tough. What is where your treasure goes say about who your trust is in. I'm not going to talk about that much, and you might say to me, Pastor, Matt, none of these things have a hold on me. None of these things have a hold on me. Can I ask you one question? Then, why are you still holding on to them so dearly? My Sunday mornings are sacred. Okay, what are the times you're given to the Lord? What? What is that? What does that narrative tell your spouse or your future spouse? What is that narrative tell your kids? What does that narrative tell your coworkers? People pray all the time, God, I just want an opportunity to share Jesus with my coworkers. You know what your opportunity is, telling them about how how different your Sunday morning is from theirs, man, let me ask you a question. Why do you why do you why do you go to church? Every Sunday morning you go to church? Man, let me tell you about my relationship with Jesus. Let me tell you about my choice to surrender. I don't have to sacrifice time. This is an opportunity for have my to have my wife and kids, to have my family, to be with my friends in fellowship around the person of Jesus, lifting up and exalting the name of Jesus. Man, that's good. That's really good. What we choose to hold on to for ourselves and withhold from God proves where we put our trust. You can tell yourself, you can tell me whatever you want, but the proof is in the pudding. That's what they say in the south, this type of living starts with surrender, surrender to God's will and not to our own. This type of living is is learning to use worship as a weapon. I've got four thoughts, everybody on surrender. Y'all ready for them? Strap on your seat belts. We're going to kind of rock and roll. Okay, y'all ready for this? Feels a little sleepy in this room. I know Seward's doing good. I know city impacts doing No. The chapel is locked, bro. See, always, always. I don't even have to wait. I don't even have to wait. I love it. Number One thought is this, surrender starts with immediate obedience, immediate obedience the next morning, the next the next morning, the next morning, you know, I'm saying he didn't even wait. He was like, Well, God, you know, I think that maybe I misheard you. I was like, you know, trying to, try to clear my ears out a little bit. I think I may have misheard you. Anybody ever had that with God where you didn't want to start immediately? Surrender starts with immediate obedience, and true obedience begins right away. Surrender remains obedient no matter how long it takes. The scripture went on to say that it took a long three day walk, and then it was often the distance that he saw, so he still had to travel some more to get to the place. But Abraham wasn't going to be talked out of obedience, not this time. He wasn't going to be talked out of it, not again. Remember when Abraham was promised at 75 that he was going to give be the father of many nations. And then by the time he was 90, it hadn't happened. 95 it hadn't happened. So his wife comes in with a plan and says, Hey, let's do this. He says, okay, but then, lo and behold, she's 90, and he's 100 and they give birth to their son, the promise, the son of promise, Isaac. He remembered the pain and the disappointment of getting out in front of God and creating something that wasn't the promise of God, but still had to be navigated with decency, order, love, attention. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? He was not going to be talked out of it. He had learned patience. He didn't want to get ahead of God again. He didn't want to get ahead of God's promises. He learned patience, a lot of patience. How many of y'all know you can learn a lot of patience in from 75 until 100 and then from a. 100 until the Bible scholars think that during this, this story, Abraham might have been as young as 110 but was more likely about 130 that's a lot of patience. That's that's a that's a lot of patience, everybody that's a lot of patience. Surrender starts with immediate obedience and learning of patience. The second thing is this, surrender is works. Let me say surrender his work. Surrender his work. So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders, and while he, while he himself, carried the fire and the knife. I want us to notice something. Abraham took the firewood and placed it on the shoulders of his son. See, we read this story, and we think this brother must have been a young buck, maybe two or three, maybe four or five, certainly wasn't old enough to carry a load of firewood for an altar to be built. But if Abraham was 110 and Isaac was born when he was 100 then he was at least 10. But like I said, most scholars think that he was 130 which would make Isaac 30. So yes, surrender is work. It's but it's not sacrifice work. It's surrender work. See, what is described here in the Bible is he carried the wood. He chopped the wood down, he carried the stuff. What's described in the Bible is sacrifice work, which we're good with. We're we will sacrifice until the end of the day, man. But when it comes to surrender, we have a hard time surrendering. Have a hard time surrendering. I think the real work was work of surrender, being able to describe to his son, Hey, son, this is what we're going to do, and here's why we're going to go do it. Here's what's happening. We're going to worship. We're going to surrender. Not talking about all the hard work. That was hard work, yes, but it's not about the sacrifice. It's about surrender. Abraham was seeding the idea of surrender in Isaac right now, and that's hard work. Surrender is work because it's easy for me to talk to you about the sacrifice, but it's harder work for me to describe to you the work of surrender. The third thought is this surrender continues as a lonely walk. This is a big, big deal. This is actually when I think that surrender gets really real. Every like somebody say really real. It gets really real right here, because surrender number three continues as a lonely walk. Stay here. Abraham told the servants, the boy and I will travel a little little further. We'll go there and worship and we'll come right back. This is This is tough. This is the step where you have to begin to silence the voices of those who have been walking with you, those who have been alongside you, through it, with you, in the thick and the thin but those are the people that fall into the 99.9% who would see this as sacrifice and not as surrender. What happens their voices get loud and they start saying things like, why would you give so much to the church? Why do you go so much to the church? What you can identify about voices like that is this, they are not sons, they are servants, and as long as you hang out with servants and servant attitudes, you're going to stay stuck in a place of sacrifice where you don't see the things of God as a gift. You don't see them as surrender. You see them as sacrifice. So there comes a point in time where the servants have to stay and Sons get to go. You'll never find the place of promise. You'll never find the place of worship. You'll never find the place of surrender. If you're walking consistently or continually with servants. Sometimes you gotta stop and tell somebody respectfully, shut up and stay here. Y'all hear what I'm saying, and you just say it with a little smile on your face. And guess what? You're gonna offend them, and they're gonna have their feelings hurt and all kinds of stuff. But here's what I'm here to tell you today, where people have surrendered, not sacrifice, and I'm not going to buy the lies that everybody's trying to piddle just, just put off on me. This is this is surrender. This is worship. This isn't sacrifice. Surrender. A son can come, but sacrifice. The servants get loud. Fourth and final thing, fourth and final thing, and this is, this is a big deal too. Can you imagine what kind of conversation this led to? Surrender is revelation and communication. As the two of them, Abraham and Isaac, walked together, Abraham says to Isaac, Father, yes, my son, Abraham replied, we have the firewood. But the boy said, Where's the sheep for the burnt offering? Like Dad, I've seen you surrender in the past, and I know what your surrender looks like. It looks like you giving the best of the best that we have as an offering to God. I've seen your surrender, and I know your attitude in worship. I know that worship is your weapon. I know that you move forward, always aiming to worship the Lord, but we have the fire, and I see your knife. But where? Where's the sheep? I love this. Abraham replied, God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering. My son and they both walked on together. Abraham looked at Isaac. He said, God will provide. He didn't say, I'll provide. He didn't say, we'll figure it out. He said, God will provide. Don't feel the temptation to explain to your sons or your daughters how it's going to happen. Just know that God will provide and trust that the character you've established, the credibility that you've established over the years, are going to set them up to trust not only you, but to trust God as well. Some of y'all are hearing this message as young people, this is the most powerful message you can hear, because your surrender gets to start now, rather than when you're 25 or 35 or 45 or 55 or 65 the trajectory of your life changes now, but it happened through revelation and communication. You talk about the goodness of God. I've never allowed my kids to believe that I was the man. Every good thing in our world God gets the glory for you, hear what I'm saying, and that goes two ways. You don't take the wins from God, but you also don't take the losses on your shoulders, either. Both of those are prideful, because if you take the losses or the things where God doesn't come through on you, you'll most certainly take the winds too. Surrender requires revelation and communication. Last thing I want to talk to you about is this. I grew up, many of you know my story, broken home, parents, divorced, poverty situation, and I can remember my mom, and every time she got paid, and I knew she got paid because she would sit down at the kitchen table and she would pull out her checkbook. Anybody remember a checkbook? And she would, she would just start writing first check she wrote every single time she got paid was her tithe check. Just write it check, and I'm like, Mom, what are you doing, giving to the church. We can't even buy groceries. You can't buy me new shoes to play basketball, but you're giving money to the church. What are you doing? And I was upset with her, but she said, Matt, listen, one day you're going to understand. And I told her, I'm never going to understand. I'll never understand why you would give to a church and take away from our family. I'll never understand it. But my mom realized that she was not giving to a church, she wasn't sacrificing her family, she was surrendering her heart to the Lord, and because of that, she had a promise to stand on. And when things got really crazy with me, she just stood on that promise, and she called me back to my purpose, called me back to my potential. Why? Because she had a promise for her son. Some of you in our rooms this morning, you might have forgotten about your promise. You might be living in this place of crazy sacrifice. I'm here to tell you this morning, this isn't sacrifice. This is surrender. This is worship, and worship is our weapon. You've been trying to fight with working more. You've been trying to fight with good ideas. You've been trying to fight with all of these things in your own power. You felt surrounded. You felt like everybody, like the world's caving in on you. It's time not to fight according to our flesh and blood, according to our strengths and weaknesses. It's time to fight according to the Word of God, by His power. It's time to surrender and worship. If that's you, you say, Pastor, Matt, I've been living sacrifice. I need to live surrender. I've been withholding worship and proving my trust in me, but I need to give worship and prove my trust in Him. If that's you, would you stand up on your feet in all of our rooms? Come on, everybody. Don't wait. If that's not you just stay seated. That's fine. And as you do, as you stand, would you lift your hands to heaven as a sign of surrender? The team's going to lead us in this song. We fight our battles with our hands lifted high. We fight our battles with our eyes fixed on Jesus. We fight our battles with our hearts surrendered to Jesus Christ. That's how we fight our battles, even when it looks like we're surrounded, surrounded in our marriage, surrounding us. We're surrounded us. We're pursuing it. Moving forward, they look like I'm surrounded by darkness. I'm in the midst of your prayers. End of my life, I'm in the midst of your prayer. Destiny submitted to your prayer in Jesus name.