← Victory Church: Paul Daugherty
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- [00:04]
Pastor Paul
Number one album right now for Christian music on itunes. And the number two top singles is AI. And I think it's important that we.
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Worship Leader
Just pause a little bit and kind.
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Pastor Paul
Of ask the questions of, like, is this something that we want?
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Worship Leader
At minimum, AI does not have the Holy Spirit inside.
- [00:42]
Pastor Paul
Come on, everybody, say worship. We are starting a new series this weekend on worship. And, you know, I was praying this last week about what to finish the year preaching on, and I felt the Holy Spirit say, finish in worship. Finish the year, y', all, we got five weeks left in 2025. This year has flown by for some of you. For the some of you, it's been a long, slow year, but I believe you're going to finish better than you started. You're going to finish better than the middle was. Your last part of this year will be the best part of your year if you will finish in worship. How many all are going to finish in worship at the end of 2025? These last five weeks, as we go into Thanksgiving, I think about how really Thanksgiving is an act of worship. A grateful spirit is a worshipful spirit.
- [01:29]
Worship Leader
And.
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Pastor Paul
And worship really is gratitude. Worship is more than a song. And if you're looking to take notes, note takers are history makers, world changers. I'm already giving you some thoughts today to write down. I want you to just title this message the Heart of Worship. The Heart of Worship. Worship is a heart posture. Worship is not just a song. It's not just what we sing here for 20 minutes at church or 30 minutes. Worship is a lifestyle. Worship is how you treat people. Worship is how you obey God. Worship is taking God at his word. Worship is a sacrifice. Worship is trusting in God, even when it feels scary, when it feels uncertain. You know, before I was a pastor, I was a worship leader. For 15 years. I led worship here at the church. When I was in middle school and high school, I would lead worship for our chapels, for our youth group, for our children's church. And in fact, my biggest, like, first start in leading worship was the children's church service. I still remember kids would be throwing their Starburst into my guitar hole while I was trying to sing and lead them in worship. And I was like, God, this doesn't feel like worship is going good. And I remember the Lord teaching me that worship was more than just my songs. Worship was me leading these children into a closer relationship with Jesus. Can I tell you, to the moms and dads in the room, when you are teaching your kids about Jesus, you're worshiping him. Worship is not just what we sing on Sunday. It's living our lives and surrender to him. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday. So if you have a Bible, turn to Luke 17. Luke 17. Come on, you could shout louder than that. Yeah, Luke 17. I want to look at a story. The Bible is full of stories about worship from Genesis to Revelation. The very first time worship is mentioned in the Bible is in Genesis, when Abraham told his family that he was leaving to go worship with his son Isaac. Now, God had spoken to Abraham to lay his son Isaac on an altar. And Abraham actually calls this moment a moment of worship. But when you think about worship, it's not just obedience to God. And little did Abraham know that God had provided a ram in the thicket so that his son Isaac would be spared. But Abraham was willing to obey God, even if it cost him everything that he wanted in life. And Abraham called it worship. But I think about how worship is what happens throughout the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Whether it's the story of Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, or whether it's the story of Moses saying yes to God, obeying God to go and deliver the people out of Egypt, out of slavery, or the story of Esther saying yes to her uncle Mordecai, knowing that she was here for such a time as this. Worship is more than a song. It's more than just lip service. It's life. Service to God. Worship really is like placing your life in an offering envelope, saying, here I am God. Here's all of me. My past, my present, my future, my. The ugly parts of me, the difficult parts of me, the frustrating, everything I have, I give to you. Worship is the only thing you could give to God that he did not give to you. Everything else was a gift from God. Your time, your talent, your treasure, the breath in your lungs, it all came from God. But when you worship him, that is literally your gift to God. Saying, God, thank you for the breath in my lungs. Thank you for these hands that I have to work. Thank you for the brain I have to have strategic connections and ideas and inventions. Thank you for the feet I have. You forget what you have until you go without something. You spend six months not being able to use your feet. All of a sudden, you become the most thankful person to have feet that work. You spend six months in a wheelchair with a walker. You spend time not being able to see. You start realizing how thankful you are for eyesight. You start that. I remember when I lost my hearing in one ear. I had my Eardrum ruptured, and I couldn't hear out of my right ear for six months. I was deaf in one ear. And I remember when my hearing came back. Y', all, I am thankful every day that I can hear out of both ears. Any thankful people in the room today? So let's talk about this. The heart of worship is. It's a hard posture to say, I am thankful. Thankful I am not entitled. I am thankful to God. We're going to see a story of people who have a choice of how they're going to respond to Jesus. In Luke 17, verse 11, as Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. And as he was going into a village, 10 men, everybody say 10. Now, this is important because all 10 are about to experience a blessing. But not all 10 are going to respond the same way. All 10 had leprosy. All 10 had a problem. Can I tell you? Everybody who comes to Jesus comes to Jesus with a problem. We all come to Jesus in need of forgiveness. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Whether you admit it or not, you have a problem, I have a problem. My problem is that most of the times, the problem is you. You are your worst enemy. And for these guys, their problem was leprosy. Now, leprosy was a sickness or a disease that could start on the inside and lay dormant for years before it begins to surface on the outside. This was a sickness. You could have leprosy and not know you had it. It could be sitting in your body for 10 or 15 years, and then all of a sudden, peeling starts to happen around your hands. Peeling starts to happen on your ear and your nose, and things start to. Gradually, your skin starts to, like, crust up. It's a very painful disease. And as soon as you discovered you had leprosy in the Bible, there was no cure for it. You had to separate yourself from your family. Imagine a mom who just gave birth to a baby. All of a sudden her skin starts peeling. She can no longer touch her baby, can't breastfeed her baby, can't stay in the same house with her daughter. Has to separate, has to isolate, has to go to the priest, turn herself in and say, I'm unclean. And the priest says, now you must isolate in the leper colony, the leper community. This is why it's a big deal. When you hear stories about people ministering to those who had leprosy, like Mother Teresa ministering to the lepers of Calcutta in India, right. It was like identifying with people who felt like they were the outcast, who felt like they couldn't even talk to their wife, couldn't kiss their husband, couldn't sit with their children. And so these 10 lepers, they felt like they were isolated, but they heard Jesus was coming. And they knew in their minds, if there's anyone that's willing to talk to us, anyone who's willing to touch us, Jesus is not intimidated by your problem. He's not intimidated by your sickness. He's not intimidated by your sin. He's not intimidated by what people judge you for. See, we judge each other by the outside, by what we wear, by the way we look, by like all the outward appearances, but God looks at the heart. And so they got close enough to Jesus, but not too close. It says they stood at a distance, right? So they were standing far enough to speak to him. And they called out in a loud voice, jesus, master, have pity on us. I think the first act of worship is acknowledging that Jesus is able to fix what no one else can fix, that Jesus is lord over every area in your life, that he's able to reverse the curse that you have been living under. Whether that curse is a generational curse, whether it is a sin problem or a skin problem, an addiction, a leprosy, something, sickness, disease, whatever it is to acknowledge Jesus, you're the only one who can fix this. So at first, they're all worshiping by calling out to the Savior. When Jesus saw them, and he sees you on the back row and on the front row, he sees you wherever you're at, wherever you're watching online, he sees you and he says, go show yourselves to the priest. In other words, this miracle is going to happen as you move. There are some miracles that are motion activated. They won't happen until you take God at his word. I think about my friends Juan and Erica on the front row, right? How Erica, she had a hole in her heart. She discovered this four months ago in August, she was hospitalized. She was hooked up to an iv. The doctor said, you're going to be hooked up to an IV the rest of your life. You're not going to live long. This is going to take you out unless something miraculous happens. She said, watch what my God will do. She began to worship.
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Worship Leader
She began.
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Pastor Paul
She began to pray. She began to stand on the word of God. And by faith, she started believing that hole is getting healed. Friends, she's sitting on the front row today. The hole is completely healed. The doctor said, I don't Know what happened? There's no more hole. God closed the gap. Only God can do it, friends. And he's still in the business of doing miracles. You know what I sense in my heart during this series for the next five weeks? I believe that as we focus on worship, worship is going to pave the way for miracles. Some of you that need a miracle in your finances, you're gonna find it through your worship. Some of you that need a breakthrough in a relationship, in your marriage, your family, some of you need healing in your body. I'm telling you, worship paves the way for miracles. Every time Jesus moved in the Bible, it required an act of worship, an act of faith. Worship is obedience. So as they went, they were cleansed. This is amazing, right? All 10 get healed. But watch, only one of them, 10%, comes back to Jesus. 90%, walks away. Nine out of 10 said, yeah, it's awesome. Maybe in their minds, they thought they're thankful. I'm a thankful person. I'm a grateful person. Gratitude is not gratitude until it's expressed. Worship is not worship until you express it. Yeah, I'm a worshiper yet. Well, when's the last time you worship Jesus with your hands raised? Yeah, I'm a worshiper. When's the last time you pulled your hands out of your pockets and you opened your mouth and said, thank you, Jesus? Gratitude. You could think you're a grateful person in your marriage. Ask your spouse, how often do I say thank you? They'll tell you, you could think you're a grateful kid. Ask your mom and dad, how often do I say thank you? See, there's people that just. They think it, but they never say it. If you think a grateful thought, say it out of your mouth. Maybe these nine weren't bad. Maybe they weren't entitled. Maybe they weren't snobbishly, you know, thinking, well, I deserve this. I earned this. Yeah, I got my healing because I've been through a lot of hard things. God owed me one. So I don't need to turn around and say thank you. He owed it to me. I've been through enough bad stuff. God did some bad stuff to me. If God is your problem, and let me tell you right now, God is not your problem. But if you've made him your problem, you're gonna have a hard time worshiping him. Cause you're gonna think he owes you. I'm telling you right now, God doesn't owe us a dime. God has been faithful. He has given us more mercy, more grace. And once you have A revelation of the kindness of God, the unmerited, undeserved favor of God. You start living with a grateful spirit. Ungrateful people are unhappy people. People who don't have a grateful spirit. They're the most discontent, angry, grumpy old men I've ever met. And they're not always old. Sometimes they're young. I remember I was sitting at a group with pastors at a pastor's gathering. This was probably eight years ago. And in walks the room. We were 20 pastors were sitting in there. And these were people that pastored massive churches. I was like, why am I invited here? I'm grateful for what God's done at Victory. But these pastors were big deals, you know? And I was like, I'm not a big deal, you know? And I'm sitting in the room, and in walks John Maxwell, the author of, like, 100 leadership books. I remember my dad used to give me books by John Maxwell. And when he walked in the room, I stand up, I start clapping. People are looking around like, who's this dude over here clapping for somebody? None of them were clapping. I was like, this is a big deal. I sit back down. Cause I felt a little embarrassed. And then he starts teaching. And I'm, like, taking notes because, like, here's the thing I've realized about worship and gratitude. It causes you to lean in more. It causes you to value and treasure every moment. It causes you to put your phone down a little bit more and be present with the people you're grateful for. When someone's in the room that you respect and you honor, you're like, man, I want to soak up everything I can from this person. So I'm writing stuff down, and then he says, I want to pray for you pastors. So he starts praying for us. Well, honestly, ever since my father passed away, which was actually 16 years ago this weekend, it was yesterday, marked 16 years since my dad's been in heaven. But ever since he passed away, I really lean into, like Father, like figures. And John C. Maxwell, in my mind, was like, a great mentor, still is a great teacher. And so when he put his hand on my shoulder and said my name, he said, lord, I pray for Paul. The fact that he knew my name, y', all, I just start bawling. I just start weeping. And people. I could tell people were like, what's going on with Paul? No one else was crying. And I got out of my seat and I just got on my knees. I wasn't worshiping John Maxwell. I was overwhelmed. With gratitude. The fact that he knew my name and he was praying for me and I started worshiping Jesus and he stayed a little bit longer on me and he kind of just stayed there as he prayed for me. And then afterwards he gave me his number. I don't know if he gave his number to everyone, but here's what I know. Gratitude opens the door for favor. Gratitude opens the door for more than what you came for. And I thought something that day I wrote this in my journal. I would rather be embarrassingly grateful than snobbishly entitled. I would rather be the embarrassing worshiper than the snob that does not look to God and go, thank you Jesus, for what you've done. So nine walk off. Probably excited to see their spouse, probably excited to go see their kids, probably excited to get back to normalcy. Because it's hard when you've not had. When normal becomes unnormal and you're in that season for a long time, you're excited to get back to normal. But one of them, one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back. The heart of worship is to come back to God. On the mountaintops and in the valleys. He came back and he praised God with a loud voice. In other words, worship is not a quiet thing. It's not a silent thing. It's an expression. It's a PDA moment, a public display of affection. It's saying, God, thank you, thank you for delivering me, thank you for rescuing me. Thank you, God, that you even think good thoughts about me. Thank you for your mercies that are new this morning. Why don't you just take a 10 second praise break for a moment. Just thank God if he's done something good in your life. Go ahead. Right there. Come on. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Here's what happens when he has this moment where he returns back to Jesus praising God. He throws himself. And I think this is what Jesus is looking for, where you just forget about like you just become. I'll even become more undignified than this. David said. When David's wife mocked his worship because she thought, what an embarrassing husband of mine, just like throwing himself out there, dancing to Jesus. David said, you think this is embarrassing? I'll become even more undignified than this. And God said, that's a man after my own heart. So watch this. This man throws himself at the feet of Jesus, which might feel kind of wild and weird and people are like, why is he so thankful for Jesus? You don't, don't judge somebody's Worship when you don't know their story, when you don't know what they've walked through. I need some help. Maya, where you at? Maya, if you're in here, come over here for a second. This is my friend Maya. She sings in the worship team. And Maya has been. She doesn't always lead the songs. Oftentimes she's singing in the choir. She's singing behind one of the lead singers. But I'm telling you, her posture of worship is powerful. Tell them what you've walked through, Maya.
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Maya
So in 2012, me and my kids were staying at a shelter, and we had. Yeah, we were homeless, but we were staying at a shelter. And in that time, I kind of was looking for another church home, too. And we found out that a bus came out here to Victory, and we ended up coming out here. And I just remember being so touched and blessed by the worship service and sitting in a seat and God speaking to me, like, one day you're going to be up there worshiping on that team. And I remember hearing Pastor Paul, because I think you were still senior pastor then. And everything that he was speaking, it was like things God had been putting in my heart. So I knew that this was the place that God wanted me to be. So anyway, God, he delivered us out of that, and we were able to move closer to Victory. And as soon as I got planted in here and just got involved in worship, God just opened so many doors and so many miracles and so many things I had been planning over the years, like I just saw manifest when. When I got in the house that he had me to be planted in. And so I'm just grateful. Like, we got blessed with a car. Like, he just took us to another place financially. My son, his school is paid for, and it's just been such a blessing just to see God just manifest, just the harvest that he brought forth, just being planted where God wants us to be.
- [18:45]
Pastor Paul
Okay, don't leave. I don't know if y' all caught this. Maya was homeless when she came to Victory, living in a homeless shelter as a single parent mom. And she got a vision of worship while she was sitting here at Victory. Let me tell you something. Today, God has you here on divine assignment. Some of you have walked through the hardest year of your life. Maybe you find yourself in the same place that Maya was in 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And I'm telling you, God has you here because he wants to lift you out of the miry clay, out of the pit of despair, and he wants to place Your feet on a rock and worship is your way through it. As she began to worship, God began to move. As she began to seek God's presence. Now today, she has a house, she has transportation, she has a car. God's paid for her son's schooling, her education. She's continued to see the faithfulness of God. Worship paves the way for breakthrough. Come on, give Maya a big hand. A powerful worship leader in this house. I don't know if I've ever heard Maya lead a worship song, but she's led us in worship. You don't have to be the lead singer to lead people into worship. You just have to have a posture of worship in your heart. Heart is more. Worship is more than a song. It's your heart before God. It's that grateful spirit. He threw himself at the feet of Jesus and he thanked him. Everybody say, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Is Michelle here? Who played the violin? Michelle, are you in the room? If she's not here. Oh, there you are, Michelle. I gotta. We gotta have another testimony. I love good testimony. Michelle, come over here. You know, she was talking with our team last night, just about living. Tell them what you shared.
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Michelle
Well, hi, guys. I grew up in Texas. And four years ago, my parents and my family, we were stationed. Now they work for the US Embassy. We were stationed in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. If you don't know where that is, that's in the Middle East. And it's such a beautiful place, but it's also a Muslim country. And so the life of being a Christian over there is very different from what it is here. Actually. Our church has been shut down so many times and we have had to relocate 10 times in this past year. And so since coming back, and I always come back for school and. Or you. I go. I'm a student there across the street from here. And I'm always just so reminded and so grateful of how we can we worship freely here, that we get to pray publicly, that we're able to open our Bibles and just meet worship with like, no fear. And while I was over there, actually I had a friend. And she loves the Lord, but she doesn't have a Bible. And she would just come to my house and we would meet up and she would just ask to read my Bible and just like memorize as much as she can so she can go home knowing that she had the Bible written on her heart and the scripture written on her heart. And for me, that really convicted me because I've had the Bible my entire life because I'm American and we live in a country where I could have that. And it really convicted me because I questioned, like, okay, I've had it my whole life. How much do I have written of it in my heart? And so I just want to encourage you church that, like, don't take this freedom for granted. It is such an honor and such a blessing that we get to meet here every day and. And there are believers all around the world that would give anything to be. To experience what we experience every Sunday here.
- [22:32]
Pastor Paul
Come on, give Michelle a big hand. Powerful. Everybody say this with me. Don't take it for granted. Don't take anything for granted, but especially don't take what we have with Jesus for granted. I think this is where this leper was at, this Samaritan. I think it's interesting how the Bible actually says he was a Samaritan, he was a foreigner. In other words, he realized. I don't know if I was supposed to get this because I thought maybe Jesus was only coming for the Jewish people. And he had this recognition, like, Jesus just opened the door for me. A foreigner, someone that wasn't part of the inside club. Like, he wasn't a Pharisee, he wasn't a religious person. He wasn't even a Jew, Wasn't, you know, part of Israel in the sense that it wasn't his nation, but Jesus did something for him. When you realize you didn't earn it, you didn't deserve it, but the goodness of God showed up in it. Don't take for granted what God has done for you. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Jesus asked, were not all 10 healed? Were not all 10 cleansed? Where are the other 9? Just say that with me. Where are the other 9? Where are the others? Where's the other grateful people? Were they in a hurry? Were they too busy? Were they entitled? What made them not say thank you? Has no one returned to give praise? That's important right there. Jesus sees gratitude as worship. Jesus sees thank you as praise. Every time you say thank you, you're worshiping the Lord. Even when there's no keyboard, when there's no guitar, when there's no band, when you say thank you, Jesus, you just had a worship service. Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner? And then he says to him, rise and go. Your faith has made you well. That word well is translated in that language. It was translated as sozo. Sozo actually has multiple meanings. See, everyone that had come to Jesus earlier, that was part of the 10. They got healed physically. But this man got something more than anyone else. He got more than what he came for. He came to just say thank you, but he got sozo. Sozo refers to complete spiritual and physical healing. This man got what takes 10 years to get counseling for the trauma that you've walked through. He didn't have to go to a therapist. Not only did he get healed in his heart, healed in his body, healed in his soul, of all the pain, he got saved. My friends, Sozo actually means salvation. When Jesus said, today you are made well, he was saying, you are saved, you are delivered, you are rescued. You are like today, you are healed from the inside out. Jesus was giving him 10 times more than what the others got. When you give worship to God, you get more than what you came for. Friends, there's something about worship that flips the script on the enemy. When David was discouraged, when David was overwhelmed, when David in the Bible felt like everybody wanted to destroy him, everybody was against him. David began to encourage himself in the Lord in the midst of the congregation. The Bible says that David would get in the presence of God and worship changes the outcome. Worship changes the circumstance. And before worship changes the circumstance, worship changes you. I thought I'd come out and worship with you guys in the room, because worship is not what happens on the stage. Worship is what happens in the room. So I thought I'd come out here. Got my headphones on here, so I don't hear the echo. But, you know, this is where I would go. Oftentimes, right after my dad passed, I would come in this room and I would come out in these chairs, and I would just play guitar. Or sometimes there would be a piano somewhere in the room, and I would sit down at the piano and I would just sing to God my raw thoughts. And in his presence, I would find encouragement. I would find peace, and I would rediscover the goodness of God even when I was walking through a hard time. When Job lost his kids, he lost his wealth, he lost his house, he lost his job, he lost his health. The one thing he didn't lose was his worship. The devil can't steal your praise. The devil can't take your ability to worship. By the way, earlier when we watched the video that introduced this series, you heard from Forest Frank say, start talking about AI. How the number one album in Christian music right now is AI. Which, by the way, I am so tired of AI. I'm like, I'm done with AI. Here's What AI can't. AI can't worship. AI has no soul. AI has no holy spirit. A high. AI has never walked through valleys. AI has never walked through hard times. AI has never lost its job and still gotten up and praised the Lord. AI can't do what humans can do. Friends, we were created to worship God. Animals can't do it. Not even angels can do it. And absolutely robots and computers and AI Artificial can't do it.
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Worship Leader
Why?
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Pastor Paul
Because there's no spirit. And one thing that a human spirit has is emotions, feelings, and the ability to choose in a hard time that I still worship the Lord. That I still choose to praise. That I still choose to give God all that I have. And how great.
- [27:56]
Worship Leader
Is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God and all we'll see how great, how great is our God.
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Pastor Paul
Come on, sing it if you know it this morning.
- [28:17]
Worship Leader
O Lord, how great is our God. Would you sing with me? How great is our God and all we'll see how great, how great is our God. You're the name above. You are worthy of all things. And my heart will see. How great is our God. In the angels cry holy. All creation cries holy. You were lifted high. Holy. Holy forever. O Jesus, hear your people sing holy to the King of kings. Holy you will always Holy. Holy forever. Your name is the highest, Your name is the greatest. Your name stands above them all. All thrones and dominions. All powers and positions. Your name stands above them all. Oh, your name, Lord. Your name is the highest. Your name is the greatest. Your name stands above them all. Above all powers and dominions. All powers and positions. Your name stands above them all.
- [31:07]
Pastor Paul
Jesus.
- [31:12]
Worship Leader
You're the name above all names. You are worthy of all praise. And my heart will sing. How great.
- [31:35]
Pastor Paul
Is our God. Come on, you're worshiping your way through it right now.
- [31:43]
Worship Leader
You're the name above all names. You are worthy of all praise. And my heart will sing. How great is our king. I'm coming back to the heart of worship. And it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. I'm sorry, Lord, for, for the things I've made it when. It's all about you. It's all about you, oh, Lord, it's all about you. It's all about. It's all about you, Lord. And it's all about you. It's all about you, Jesus. Worthy is your name, Jesus, you deserve the praise. Worthy is your name.
- [33:18]
Pastor Paul
Worthy is your name.
- [33:22]
Worship Leader
Jesus.
- [33:34]
Pastor Paul
Come on, give him praise today. Church. There's something about that raw form of worship. You know, I was debating whether I wanted to come out into the crowd and sing on this piano because I was like, I might mess up the keys. I'm not a great keyboard player. I might crack in my voice. And I heard the Lord say, yes, that's what I want. The raw worship, the real worship. No gimmicks, no tricks, nothing in it. Like this is. This is just you and God, just singing to God. Friends, my best worship moments with Jesus have happened when there is no band on stage, when there are no click tracks or drums or anything that's perfected or anything that's rehearsed. It's when I'm just raw before God, singing to him. And I remember hearing this story about this guy. In 1997, he was part of a church in England. The name of the church was Soul Survivor. That was their church name. And the. The nation of England was experiencing like a revival of worship songs. But this one church had grown dry and become apathetic. People had just taken worship for granted. And so the pastor did a radical thing. He removed the sound system, he removed the band, he removed all the instruments. And for eight months, he said, I don't know how long we're going to do this. We're going to do it until God changes things. But he said, we're going to learn to worship just from our spirit. We're going to join together. We're just going to sing to the Lord. As they begin to do this, week after week, people started leaving the church because they were like, this is awkward. I need a band, I need a keyboard. We need someone to lead us. The church started shrinking in size, but started growing in the heart of worship. They started going deeper. Come on. You can gain the whole world and lose your soul, but if you will go deeper with God, I would rather go deeper in our heart of worship with God. Even if we lose some people on the fringes. But listen, it's one thing to have like, the devil is not afraid or intimidated by a big church. He's afraid of a united church that has a genuine heart. After Jesus, God is not impressed with a big crowd. He's impressed with a heart of surrender. What got Jesus's attention was the man threw himself at his feet. So this church started growing in this heart of worship, right? And, and what happened was finally, after eight months, the pastor said, we're going to bring the, the instruments back out. But when he brought the instruments back out, people were like, so engaged in worship. Every hand was raised that this Guy who's leading worship on stage. His name is Matt. Matt Redmond. He starts singing these words when the.
- [36:24]
Worship Leader
Music fades and all is stripped away.
- [36:30]
Pastor Paul
And I simply come.
- [36:36]
Worship Leader
Longing just to bring something that's of worth, that will bless your heart. More than a song for a song in itself is not what you you have required. You search much deeper within through the way things appear. You're looking into my heart. I'm coming back to the heart of worship. And it's all about you.
- [37:26]
Pastor Paul
Yeah, sing a church. Come on. How many all just feel the presence of God in this room right now.
- [37:53]
Worship Leader
It's all about you, oh, Lord.
- [38:00]
Pastor Paul
The best healing that has happened in my life has happened when I'm just worshiping God. And many times I'll come in this room when no one's here, and I'll just start crying saying, God, I'm walking through a hard season. You know what I love about that picture is it's got mountaintops and valleys. The heart of worship is I'm going to worship you whether I'm in the valley or whether I'm on the mountaintop, Whether I'm in a low place or a high place. You might have lost your job this week, but you didn't lose your praise. You might have lost your kid this year, but you didn't lose your praise. You might have lost your marriage this year, but you didn't lose your pray. Don't let the devil steal your worship today. Come on. This is the way you turn it around. You turn it around by saying, I choose to worship you. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
- [38:45]
Worship Leader
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
- [38:49]
Pastor Paul
I still got a reason to praise. I still got a reason to worship. If there's breath in your lungs, you still got a reason to praise. I talked to a guy this last week. He was at our Thanksgiving harvest feast, and we were passing out, you know, meals, and he comes up to me. He goes, pastor, he said, I watch you every night on tv. I said, you do? He said, yeah. He said, I gotta repent, though. I said, why? He said, I got drunk the other night watching you preach. I was like. Like really drunk. He was like, yeah. He's like, I had, like, 15 beers, man. I just got wasted. I was like, why? Because I was lonely. And he said, I just. I. I just got sad. And he said, for me, if I do one drink, I. I gotta have 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. He said, I just don't know how to stop. He's like, I can't go back to it. He said, but I got good news for you. I said, what? He said, I'm three days sober. I said, come on, brother. I said, let's go. And he's like telling me. He goes. He says, I need something else, though. Like, I need. I need. I need an alternative when I want to drink. I need something else to do. And he's like, I need something hard. I was like, yeah. We started going through, like, drinks, like sweet tea, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper. He's like, none of that's gonna work, bro. I said, yeah, you need something really hard. You need something that, like, captivates you, something that saturates you, something that makes you more drunk than beer. You need the presence of God. You need to get in the presence of God. I'm telling you, worship is the best vice. It's the one thing you could spend an hour doing and you don't regret that you just binged on the presence of God. You should binge on worship this week if you're going to binge on anything. Go. Just get. Get in the presence. Presence of God. Just begin to worship God. Why don't we just take a minute just to let Thanksgiving come out of your mouth this morning. Let praise go ahead. Just sing to the Lord. Just worship him all over this place. Worship is your only weapon that's going to beat the enemy. It's your only weapon that's going to defeat discouragement, it's going to defeat loneliness, it's going to defeat depression, it's going to defeat anxiety, it's going to defeat stress. Worship is your own way.
- [41:03]
Worship Leader
Moms, dads, sons, daughters.
- [41:05]
Pastor Paul
When you begin to worship, the enemy begins to tremble. And God inhabits the praises of his people. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. I was sitting in my daughter's class this last week. She had a Thanksgiving special and they invited the parents to come and I had to be there because I've missed moments with my kids and I've got PTSD because they remind me when I miss the moments with them. I said, I can't miss this. I gotta be there. And so I get in the class and I'm just excited. Got my phone out and they start singing this song. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One.
- [41:48]
Worship Leader
Give thanks because he's given Jesus Christ his son.
- [41:56]
Pastor Paul
Give thanks with a great tears coming down the eyes of moms and dads because it's that simple reminder. He deserves all of the praise. He deserves all the thankfulness because he's given us Jesus Christ and Now let the weak say I am strong. And let the poor say I am rich. Let the blind say I can see. It's what the Lord has done in me. Come on. If you got a reason to praise, a reason to worship, go ahead and just give it to him one more time. Give him thanks. This morning, I know it's time to end the service, so let me just do this. Some of you are walking through a hard thing right now. Some of you. 20, 25 was the best of times and the worst of times. It was like a mixture of good, bad and ugly. Whatever you've walked through, here's what I remember. The night my dad passed away, November 22, 2009. My mom looks at all of us siblings, all of her kids and our, our spouses, the in laws, and she said, let's worship. This doesn't make sense to people who are grieving. The fact that they just lost their dad at 57 years old. You're not supposed to lose your dad when he's 57. That's way too young to go. There was grief in the room, there was sadness in the room because we didn't just lose our dad, we lost our pastor. And there was this. Even these feelings of uncertainty, like, what is the future going to look like? But I'll tell you what happened as we begin to sing worship to God the week of Thanksgiving, knowing that we were going to have an empty chair at the table at Thanksgiving, the chair that my dad always sat in, it was the end of the table. And knowing that we would sit at that table in three days, that he died right before Thanksgiving. And we begin to worship God. Worship is your only way through some things, I'm telling you, like the bar is not going to fix it. Sexual addictions are not going to fix it. Drugs are not going to fix it. Another, an affair is not going to fix it. There's like, there is nothing that can fix a broken, broken heart except for Jesus. The presence of Jesus, he's your only way through it. He's your only way through it. We started worshiping in that hospital room. MD Anderson, Houston, Texas. They flew him down there because they said that was the hospital that could, that could save him. And I remember watching the EKG monitor flatline, just wishing that it would bounce back up, that he would come back. And growing up knowing, like, man, no matter how many good things I could confess in that moment, trying to get his body to come back, trying to faith speak him back, he wasn't coming back. I could tell he was up in heaven. I could just see it. I was like, he's worshiping Jesus and I'm missing him down here. But I remember just crying tears in that hospital room as my mom was worshiping as a widow without her husband. My brother, my sisters, we were all worshiping Jesus because we knew, man, the only way we're going to get through this is worship. The only way we're going to get through this is worship. I was reading a book to my kids the other night, where in the book it says, you can't go around it, you can't go under it, you can't go above it. You got to go through it. And the only way through certain things you're walking through is going to be worship. I'm telling you, worship is going to be your weapon against suicidal thoughts, against fear, defeat, depression, discouragement, wanting to throw in the towel. Addictions, all of those vices, temptations. Worship, worship, worship. And I just want to invite those of you that are in the room that you're in a season where you really need to surrender to God and worship. You're walking through some stuff, the enemy has thrown some stuff your way. Dart after dart, attack after attack. And today is a day where you declare, I choose to worship in spite of everything. Not for everything, but in all things. I choose to give thanks to God. Watch what God will do. If that's you, I want you to just raise your hand across this room if this word was for you. And you know, right now, there's some things you need to bring to the altar. Maybe you need to surrender. Fear, worry, shame, discouragement. Maybe you just need God's help. Right now. You just need the help of the Holy Spirit. I'm telling you, worship paves the way for breakthrough and miracles. Worship opens the door for healing in your heart. If that's you, I want you to leave your seat. Come and meet me at this altar. Come join me today. Throw yourself at the feet of Jesus. Men and women, young and old, rich and poor, whatever tribe, whatever tongue, today the door is open. Enter his gates with thanksgiving in your hearts. Enter his courts with praise. Bring it to the Lord in worship. Turn it into worship to God. Turn whatever you're walking through. Disappointment, bring it to God. Unmet expectations, bring it to God. Join the list of people in the Bible that learned how to worship. Hannah when she couldn't get pregnant. Abraham and Sarah when they weren't sure what. What the future held. Gideon when he was surrounded by enemy. Jehoshaphat. Whatever the story is, I'M telling you, the cure is praise. The cure is worship. Let's just begin to worship him today. Find a place at this altar if you need to surrender to Jesus. If you need to get saved today, come and find a place at this altar and just give it to God. Surrender to him. Repent of your sin. Receive his forgiveness, Receive his mercy today.
- [47:09]
Worship Leader
Receive.
- [47:10]
Pastor Paul
Worthy is your name, Jesus. Holy is your name. He's your healer, he's your father, he's your redeemer, he's your best friend. He's a husband to the widow. He's a father to the fatherless. He's a shepherd to the lost sheep. He's the redeemer, he's the restorer. Worthy is your name. Jesus. He's not finished with you yet. He's not done with your story. He loves you, he's for you. He's with you. He's never gonna leave you, never gonna forsake you. He won't abandon you, he won't walk out on you.
- [47:54]
Worship Leader
When everybody else leaves, he stays. He stays with you, Jesus. And worthy is your name, oh Jesus, oh you des have praise. Worthy is your. The name above all names. Be exalted now in the heavens as your glory fills this place. You alone deserve our praise, you, Glory fills this place. You alone deserve our praise. You're the name of all. Jesus, Name Jesus, you deserve. Pray. Worthy is your name, Worthy is your name, oh Jesus, you deserve the praise. Worthy is your name, Worthy is your love, Jesus, you deserve the praise, oh, Worthy is your name. Worthy is your name, oh Jesus, you deserve the praise. Worthy is your worthy. Worthy is your name, Jesus. Oh you deserve praise. Worthy is your Worthy is your name, Jesus. Oh you deserve the praise. What is save I live to worship you, To worship, To worship you. I live, I live to worship you, To worship you. I live to worship you. I live, I live to worship. Thank you so much, so much, Jesus. Thank you so much, Jesus. Thank you Lord. Thank you for the cross, Lord. Thank you for your nail pierced hands, Lord, thank you Jesus for your healing. You catch every tear that I cry. You hold my heart, you hold my word, God, you love me, Lord, you love me, God, you know my scars, you know my flaws, you know the good, the bad and ugly and you still love me, Lord, you still love me, God. You search my heart, you search my mind, your thoughts for me are always kind. You love me, Lord, I was made to worship you. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. I Sought the Lord and he heard and he answered that's why I trust him that's why I trust I sought the Lord I sought the Lord I cried out from the pit Pulled me from the miry clay that's why I trust him that's why I trust him I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered.
- [54:55]
Pastor Paul
I trust in God.
- [55:00]
Worship Leader
God my Savior the one who will never fail he will never fail I trust in God my Savior Sa the one who will never fail.
- [55:39]
Pastor Paul
Y' all are the best sounding church in the world. I love listening to victory worship. How many just felt the presence of God Even just as we've been singing today? Pray this with me before we end today. Just say these words, Jesus, thank you for your mercy, for your grace, Lord. Thank you for the breath in my lungs. Thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross. For my sins. I repent. I receive your forgiveness. Thank you, Jesus, that you rose from the grave so I have resurrection life. So my best days are not behind me. They're right in front of me. Because you live inside of me. Thank you, Jesus.
- [56:29]
Worship Leader
In Jesus name, amen and amen.
- [56:31]
Pastor Paul
Come on, give him praise today. I love you, Victory. God loves you.