Monumental Corporate Worship

Well, if you open up your scriptures, hopefully you have that marked. We'll be in Joshua chapter 3. We'll be in verses 7 through 17. And then we'll continue into chapter 4 verses 1 through 7. So we do have quite a bit of text to go through today, but I have the outline on the screen for you. So as soon as we finish reading the text, you can go ahead and take a look at that. Let's read our text this morning. "And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they set out, and they came to the Jordan. He and all the people of Israel enlarged there, and they passed." And moving to verse 7.

"And the Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel.' That they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. And as for you, command the priests to bear the ark of the covenant, when you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.' And Joshua said to the people of Israel, 'Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.' And Joshua said, 'Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you all the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Gergeshites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.

Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into Jordan. Now therefore, take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, from each tribe a man. And when the souls of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heat." So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water, now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest.

In verse 16, "The waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zerethan, and those flowing down towards the sea of Ereba, the salt sea, were completely cut off, and the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant stood firmly on dry ground, and in the midst of the Jordan and all Israel passing over on dry ground, until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan." Chapter 4, "When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, 'Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you, and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.' Then Joshua called twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe, and Joshua said to them, 'Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you.

When your children ask in time to come, what do those stones mean to you? And you shall tell them the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel, a memorial forever.'" Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for your text. And Lord, please help us in this body of believers always to have monumental worship, worship that is remembered. I pray that you would bless me to deliver this word this morning. Your name we pray. Amen.

Brother Chris has been in a series on Sunday mornings entitled From the Pastor's Heart. And the Lord has impressed upon his heart several different topics. And this has really been so good. It has been a great series. Hopefully you've enjoyed it as much as I have. And specifically, he has dealt with topics that the Lord has impressed on his heart. And in his absence, I felt it fitting to speak to an area that he and I both spent a great deal of time talking, thinking and praying about. Brother Chris and I have been prayer partners since 2004.

We've spent many, many, many hours discussing and praying and talking and studying scripture about the health of the church. Because my calling is that of a worship pastor, we have talked quite a bit about worship and the life of the church. We sing it often and we say it often in our prayers that all is vain unless the spirit of the Lord comes down. So leading up to my message this morning, I've had a question that has been plaguing me, and it is simply this. When we gather, is our worship memorable?

When we gather, whether we're singing corporately or whether we are fellowshiping or whether we're praying, are we engaging in memorable worship services? The reason why I ask that is because I have been around so much in the name of worship that busied our schedule, busied our mind, that busied our attention, yet so much of it did not make a lasting difference. To that end, I felt led and compelled to this text. Now think about this text.

It's very lengthy, but you have the Exodus, you have the wilderness time where because of disobedience, they spent 40 years in the desert, Moses dies, Joshua's at the helm, and he leads the people across the Jordan River, and God miraculously does the first major miracle with Joshua under the helm. In fact, he says, the Lord says specifically, "I will exalt you today so that people will know I'm not just the God of Moses in the past, but I also will do great things to you." So God does this miraculous thing, and what happens, he takes the Jordan River and he walls it up several, several miles upriver.

The water flows down, the people walk across, and God commands them to do something that's very interesting. He commands them to take stones from the river. They pick up the stones, they walk over to the side, and he says, "Establish a monument." The title of the message this morning is "Monumental Worship." We will take a look at this passage and we will break this text down, and then we will examine the life and the health of our worship here at NOLA in effort that we would have monumental worship, that as we gather, as we sing, that the Lord would do things in our hearts and lives that we would tell our children about.

So three points, three main points of teaching this morning. The first, we see a great mission. We see a great mission. So the Lord is taking his people to the Promised Land. This is the great mission. Let's read, and we'll be in verse 7. Let's read 7 to 10. "The Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. And as for you, command the priests to bear the Ark of the Covenant.

When you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.' And Joshua said to the people of Israel, 'Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.' And Joshua said, 'Here is how you shall know the living God is among you, that he will without fail drive out from before you Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Parazites, Gergashites, and Amorites.'" So the first thing, the first main truth that I want you to see under the great mission. The Israelites were unlike any people because the Israelites had a leader like no other. You're taking notes.

You can just write the first point that they had a leader like no other. So the Lord God, the one true living God chooses a great man to succeed Moses. Look at what he says. "The Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I will begin to exalt you.' Clearly the Lord was with the people of Israel. Moses had died. And God had been preparing Joshua for a very, very long time." In your notes, if you want to write Deuteronomy 31.7, you can go back and look at this throughout the week as you study Deuteronomy 31.7. I'll read it for you. "Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him, 'In the sight of all Israel.' Be strong, courageous.

For you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it." So God had already told Moses, Moses takes Joshua in front of the entire Hebrew encampment and says, "God has chosen this man." There was no doubt or question that Joshua was God's appointed man. However, God sees fit to do something different. God sees fit to demonstrate his power and his might through miraculous signs and wonders. And he is exalting Joshua. The second thing I want you to see, they had a leader like no other. They also were going where no one else could go.

The Hebrews were about to go where no one else would go. See, this is a great mission. They've got a great leader and they're going somewhere where no one else could go. First of all, no one else is going through the Jordan the way they did. Let's look in verse 10. "And Joshua said, 'Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Parazites, Gergashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.'" I have a recommendation that our children memorize the names of those for Bible drill. That's just a thought. But these are seven nations.

What you need to know about these nations is that each one of them is much larger than Israel. Now think about this. In doing my research on this topic, not one nation, but seven more powerful nations. Not only were they larger, they had more established armies and they were heavily fortified. Look at Jericho. Jericho had this infamous wall. Let me ask you a question. Who does this? We were talking this morning. We're talking karate as we often do. I found out that my son and Jonah both are at Greenbelt. And let me ask you a question. Who picks a fight with someone bigger and more capable than you? Now let's add on to that.

Who picks a fight with someone who's bigger and more capable than you and has six buddies who are bigger and more capable than you? But that's essentially what the Israelites are doing. Not only do you have this miraculous crossing of the Jericho, but you have something that's audacious. A very rather small group of people walking into enemy territory because they are on a great mission with a great leader. And they're going somewhere that no one else, no other nation, would go. The Israelites were like no other people because they served a living God.

So on this great mission, not only did they have a great leader and they were going somewhere else where no one else would go, but they served a living God. They served a living God. Now let me explain the culture of these pagan enemies that they were invading. These were polytheistic times. So typically nations worship more than one God. Israel is credited as being the first monotheistic. And if you look at what Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three together put them together, the most dominant in terms of numerical number of people in these religions.

This almost, the entrance was almost the end of polytheism as the dominant rule in the world. Nations have always been polytheistic until Israel and then the Roman Empire and Christianity. So these were polytheistic times and the way groups would go to war with each other, typically it was a test of is your God bigger than my God? So you have a nation and their gods and they square up and they go to war with another nation and their God. And essentially whoever won would have the more dominant deity as so it was thought. You can think of this as the ancient world's version of my daddy can whoop your daddy.

But the Hebrew religion was something altogether different and this is how. This was an entirely different narrative. This group of people worshiped a God who said he was the only God. In fact, he said not only is our God the greatest as we go to war, but your God is actually not even a God. That was something altogether different. Their higher power completely destroyed Pharaoh and the Red Sea, others might have said. By this time they've been wandering in the wilderness, people knew of them. They knew that Israelites God had conquered Egypt. They knew about the Red Sea, but they had this problem with a golden calf.

And perhaps the scripture says in Exodus that they became a stench to the people around them. What that means is that the people around them were appalled at their wickedness. And so perhaps these nations thought that the Hebrew God had gone to sleep or perhaps he was away. But essentially this guy is like no other. The Hebrew people were unlike any other people because they worshiped the one true living God. The last truth under this great mission that I want you to see is that the Hebrews living God speaks. The Hebrews living God speaks. We look in verse nine.

If you go to verse nine it says, "And Joshua said to the people of Israel, 'Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.'" It was reminded of a story Luke Johnson tells going into a very remote part of India. And he talks into it. He goes into a house and he talks to a family there and there's several idols and statues on the wall. And he asks a question, "Do they speak back?" And the person says, "I don't know." Not only is this group of people unique with a unique God on a great mission, but they're serving the living God who speaks. In verse nine Joshua says, "These are the words of God.

This is what God is telling us to do right now." And all of these seven more powerful fortified nations served many gods, but none of them ever spoke back. You know today God's people still make this claim and we are still at odds with seemingly more powerful enemies. If you go into the marketplace and say you worship the one true God, that goes against the grain. We are in a day where what's true for you is true for you. What's true for me is true for me. And no one's feathers are ruffled. Bless you. Until, excuse me, that's the teacher in me. No one's feathers are ruffled until we say there's only one God.

And your God is actually a false God. Then we become intolerant. And at that moment what we need, desperately what we need, is we need a God who speaks, who does a miracle in our lives, who does something that other gods cannot do. See, it was this walling up of the Jordan River that was significant, is that this was something that only God can do. So we see, number one, a great mission. Secondly, we see a great miracle. We see a great miracle. Let's read verses 15 through 17.

"And as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water, now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of the harvest. The waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away at Adam. And the city that is beside Zerethan and those flowing down towards the sea of Ereba, the salt sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho. Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan.

And all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan." Well, I want us to notice the depth of this miracle. Notice the depth of this miracle. Matthew Henry, the commentator, notes that this event occurs in the springtime, and it's the time of the barley harvest. So the Jordan River is at flood stage. So what that means is that the river is at its greatest depth and at its greatest width. Now, why is that significant? God could just as easily have walled up the Jericho River when it was in its lowest stage. It's a miracle either way.

But what makes that so significant is that you have all of this snow melt from the mountains of Lebanon, and the river is at its peak, so the wall is much greater. You can think of this miracle as being the perfect time. Now, commentators suggest that this river was affordable at other times, so you could cross it just about at any other time. 1 Chronicles 19-17. But in flood season, the only people who could cross the Jordan River were probably very large, tall, strong men. They could probably wade through it.

But for an entire encampment of people, and we're talking well over a few hundred thousand people, women, men, children, but you have priests who are carrying the Ark. Remember the tabernacle. The tabernacle was their temple, basically, their worship place. It was a tent. And whenever the cloud moved, they would take it down. So you have thousands and thousands and thousands of equipment. And this passage would have been nearly impossible. Most armies would have invaded without their entire equipment, and they would have done so at a different time of the year. So this was unheralded.

This was a perfect opportune time for the Lord to display His power. The sheer magnitude of this incredible site would have sent these polytheistic pagan people into a panic. So God holds these waters up for a considerable amount of time. Think how long it would take for hundreds of thousands of people to walk across this on dry ground with all their equipment, with all their women, children, pack animals. This is not a very expedient thing. So we're talking about this very, very high wall. And the wall would have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger because the water does not stop flowing from the mountains of Lebanon. It was a spectacle.

No doubt it would have sent sheer panic and terror through the hearts of these neighbors. So this was something only God could do for a people that only God could have chosen, for a people that only He could have called, equipped, and sent to His promised land. So in application of this point, church, God still desires to move among His people in ways that only He can explain. And as we gather weekly for worship, we must intentionally remember the miracle of God that He has accomplished. Now perhaps the Lord does not wall up a river in a very noticeable way, in a way that sends your lost co-workers panic.

But perhaps the miracle that God wants to perform in your life is something that is very subtle, but no doubt just as miraculous, more miraculous. I think more miraculous than Lord walling up the Jordan River is when He simply changes the heart of a sinner. Now I would have been voted most religious in my high school. I actually started a Bible club, and people knew me. I wore Christian t-shirts. I actually got several nicknames for going to church and church camps. But that does not make you a Christian. The Lord saved me when I was 26, and He showed me that the essence of my religion was quite hypocritical, and therefore it was worthless.

When the Lord changed me, He performed a fantastic miracle. And my wife recognized it, and my family recognized it, and my co-workers recognized it. He totally restructured the entire trajectory of my life. And it was more miraculous than the Lord performing a great physical miracle. And the last thing that I want us to see is that not just a great mission, not just a great miracle, but this is a great monument. A great monument. Let's read in verse 4, chapter 4.

"When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Take 12 men from each tribe and command them, saying, 'Take 12 stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan from the very place where the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you, and lay them down the place where you lodge tonight.' Then Joshua called the 12 men from the people of Israel, whom he appointed a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, 'Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder.

According to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you, when your children ask in time to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it passed over the Jordan. The waters of the Jordan were cut off, so these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.'" Matthew Henry says that God's works of wonder ought to be kept in an everlasting memory. I'll read that again. Listen to this. God's works of wonder ought to be kept in everlasting memory.

Have you told anyone recently about something great that the Lord has done in your life? Has it just come up? Has something that only God could have done in your life just happened to have come up? You cannot really escape it. You know, these stones that were placed on the side of the Jordan River would have made an interesting monument. The first thing that I want us to see, I want you to notice the stones. Notice the stones. Each of the twelve stones represents the tribes of Israel. One commentator suggested the stones were not necessarily large, since one man could put them on their shoulder.

However, I'd like to think that perhaps the men that were chosen to pick up the stones from each tribe happened to be the biggest, strongest men. So I'm imagining very large guys picking up very large stones. If they were simply small stones, you would not have needed to put them on your shoulder, and they would not have lasted for an eternal, as an eternal memorial, Scripture tells us, an everlasting monument. But the size doesn't really matter. The purpose of these stones do matter. Notice their significance. These stones were underwater. Think about it. These stones were completely submerged in the Jordan River.

They were actually part of the miracle. If a stone had been underwater and it's selected as a very large stone, then this is part of the miracle in and of itself. In a sense, the monument is connected to the miracle. Now, in a river that could be forded, perhaps other people could have picked up stones. Perhaps someone could go through and they could have picked up a large stone and maybe gotten it out the river and they could set up their own monument. But it would not have been attached to this miracle. These stones were special because they were connected to a miraculous event.

You know, as I've told my testimony throughout the years, I've had people tell their story. It's not uncommon for you to tell your testimony and someone tells a story about maybe a change in their life. But this testimony that they have does not always produce holiness and righteousness. You just start to maybe raise an eyebrow. That in time, people see a monument connected to a miracle. You know, monuments can be imitated. Monuments can be mimicked, but the miracles can't. And monumental worship must be connected to something that only God can do.

You know, we're in a moment in the Bible Belt in this history where there have never been more monuments. So don't get me wrong. I believe that God is still at work in the world. God is still working in all parts of the world. But here in the Bible Belt, you know, a lot of people say that God showed up a lot. People have meetings. People have worship meetings. They get together. There's a lot of emotionalism. There's loud music and people, how was the event? Oh man, it was just great. Just God showed up. But when you start to investigate and maybe you see their life, their life's not marked by change.

And unfortunately, we have a lot of churches that do worship and build monuments that are not connected to miracles, the miraculous Word of God. Some churches don't even value the Word of God. To illustrate this point, I tell a story of a friend of mine's church. He's since left that church. He was hurt very badly. But in this particular church, they did a lot of loud music. They did a lot of pageantry. And the music minister thought that what the service really needed was a light show. What it really needed was some lights, some expensive lighting. So they accessed some lights.

But the problem is you can't really have a light show on a Sunday morning unless you black out the lights. You black out all the windows. So all these windows you can imagine drapes placed over them. Now the problem with that is when the preacher comes up, there's no light. People can't read the Word. So you really, literally would have at the service, after the song service, people taking out their phones, taking out sometimes bringing small flashlights, trying to read the Word. And something else happened though. With the lights, as this loud music show was happening, people in the choir loft started to get very hot.

These lights were extremely, extremely hot. So then they had to take the air condition and bring the air condition very, very low so that people in the congregation were freezing to death. And this sounds comical, but I'm telling you the truth. Not only do we need to have a light show, but we have to have drapes for the light show. And we have to have air condition because the lights are so hot. These are monuments. These are monuments imitating real worship that is connected to a miracle, is connected to the real, true and living God.

I can think of another friend who we met at youth camp who said he went to another youth camp where the music was literally so loud you could not lean over to someone and find out if you needed the passage of scripture. He said he literally could not hear someone talking right next to him because the music was so loud and you would leave with your ears ringing. Brother Chris and I have discussed this and prayed about this for years. It has really shaped a big part of who I am as a worship leader. We have got to keep the miracle of God's Word, the miracle of the cross, the miracle of salvation connected to whatever we do in our worship.

Because you know if you have monuments without miracles, all you got is a bunch of rocks. And if our monuments are not connected to the miraculous and we have empty worship that does not change lives, can you imagine a child going to their mother and saying, "Why do we have drapes?" They would have to say, "Well, we need a light show." Now let's talk for a second about the monument that might be in your life. I really did not mean to say this and I really, really do not mean to puff myself up in any sense. But one day I got convicted about something. The Spirit of God just ministers to my heart sometimes and speaks to me.

Sometimes I can get emotional and I may start tearing up about something. Nothing happens. But God can sometimes prick my heart and speak to my heart. I remember on one occasion my daughter, she is about five or six, she said, "Dad, why are you crying?" I said, "Well, God just said something to me." She said, "Well, what's that like?" I said, "Well, why are you crying though?" I said, "You know sometimes you get in trouble, I'll give you a spanking." She said, "Yeah." I said, "You know sometimes Daddy's got to get a spanking." Sometimes the way Daddy gets a spanking is that the Lord speaks to my heart and uses the word and he convicts me about something.

Those tears and even that story are a monument. Your kids ought to look at certain things in your life and they ought to say, "Dad, why do we do this? Why is this our tradition? Why is this our custom? Why?" You know everybody in other churches sing these songs. Why do we sing these? If you ask why we do what we do at NOLA in terms of worship, we usually have an answer. And it usually comes to a biblical conviction and it usually comes down to Scripture. So in conclusion, how are we doing here at NOLA? Well Chris and I are so thankful that we don't have to fight the worship fights that so many other churches are fighting.

We count this as a blessing. We thank God for y'all. I have never in my years of being here since 2011, no one has ever complained about the style of music that we do. I did one modern worship song this morning. I did the rest hymns. They all were connected to the service, to the preaching. They're all chosen intentionally. Next week I might have the opposite. I may have four modern songs and one hymn. And I do want to thank you. I'm very thankful for you. I have friends who are worship leaders who are constantly under a microscope.

And many times now this new generation of worship leaders, the people are not necessarily putting them under a microscope. But what's going on outside the world and what other worship records are put out, that's a microscope. We've got to keep up with the latest. But how are we doing here? I am so thankful that we don't have to fight over entertainments, the need to entertain. I want to give you some challenges. And this will altogether not be anything that we have not already said, but I want to give you a challenge. Number one, come prepared. Bless you.

If you notice something that we do that is distinct, I think, is we take a minute or two. And I challenge you to examine your heart. If you were to add up the time that we do this, it probably takes about a minute and a half. This really is not enough time. You cannot come in from a busy, chaotic world and expect a minute and a half of prayer. Lord, please help me to have a good worship service today. This is not going to cut it. We do that because we're being intentional. If anything, it shows you that you ought to be prepared. But if you're not prepared before we have a time of silent prayer, perhaps maybe that's meant to be a fine tune.

If you've been yelling at your family all week and you've not repented of that, a minute is probably not enough time to get that straight. By being prepared, what we mean is Psalms 24, 3 through 4. And this would be a passage that you would want to teach your children. You would want to put this on your door posts. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart? This is a passage that I learned from youth camp. It's called "Glory Days." And I'll have to be very honest with you, and I'm very sad to say this. You really can't get more Baptist than me, I think.

I have about a fourth or fifth generation pedigree that I really think could have easily sent me to hell with as arrogant as I was. But I grew up in the context of my dad leading guitar, much like I do, singing a lot of the same songs. In small churches, much like this, I grew up being exposed to the '90s worship battle between contemporary or traditional. And it really was not until after I got saved, after I went to a youth camp, that someone challenged me with this verse. Brother Chris and I have talked about this. He would tell you that he and I learned this at the same time together.

We learned this progressively, along with Jared, along with other friends. Because all my life, I had heard, I've gone to worship conferences, and this is how it goes. You just start your worship service off with an uptempo song. If you're going to reach young people that needs to be uptempo, maybe even a secular song, you can change a couple of words here. You start with a secular song, and then you transition to mid-tempo song, and then a slow song, that sets the mood for worship.

I learned all about how you need to structure your singers and your keyboardists and your electric guitars and your drums, and this argument whether we need electric drums or acoustic drums, or maybe the acoustic drums with the glass cage around it. But no one had ever showed me Psalms 23, 3 through 4. You can have all of that, and I'm a fan of musical instruments. I love musical instruments. I love them all. And I think a lot of things can be used in worship, but if you miss the main thing, you miss it all. You set up a monument without a miracle, it's worthless.

So, for instance, I'm going to ask you just a couple of questions to see what you do to get prepared. Have you ever stopped your car outside of service with you and your family and apologized, maybe for being a little short, maybe things were hectic? Have you ever apologized and said, "Listen, I need to repent"? The Bible says, "I've got to have clean hands." Right now my hands aren't clean because I was fussy today, and I apologize. And I take worship seriously, so would you please forgive me? The Scripture says not only should we have clean hands, but we should have a pure heart. Have you ever done this?

You say, "Lord, I'm not happy with the state of my heart in this area." "Lord, my life and my prayer life, Lord, it's just been really dull and dry lately." I confess that to you. I ask you to change that. I'm about to go into worship, and I need you to change that area of my life. Are you prepared? I'm thankful that I learned this from Gory Days. The second challenge that I have for you is not just to be prepared, but be engaged. Please be engaged. I know all of us can maybe fight with a mind that wonders, but if you come prepared, then we'll have a better chance of being engaged. What does it mean to be engaged? Song service, for instance.

I think that there is a temptation for some of us to maybe see the song service as like a warm-up. The song service is not a warm-up. The song service is a miraculous monumental occasion. When our worship services and our song services are done right, they teach. And if you're prepared, the Holy Spirit will move in through you, and we can be engaged mentally and emotionally. Emotions are okay in a worship service. I grew up in an area where there was never any clapping. There was a time for clapping. I grew up. I had lots of charismatic friends in New Orleans. You see fewer Pentecostals and more Charismatics.

I've been to Charismatic services where there is raising of hands and lots of clapping. There's a time and a season for everything under Heaven, as Brother Chris often says. If some of your relatives get saved, you've been praying for for years, we may just shout. All of us. There's a time and a season for everything under Heaven. But when we talk about being engaged, I want to just ask you, are you self-conscious when you sing? I can understand that. But I want to tell you what your singing does for me. As I sing, I have a lot of things that I try to remember. I try to make sure that I'm playing the right chords and singing the right words.

But most importantly, I try not to think about those things. They're important. I want to do my job very well, play well. But I try to not think about them. And what I try to think about is, what are we singing about? And that can be challenging. But I want to tell you how you bless me. We have people in this church who don't necessarily sing loud, but I hear them. When I hear them, we are fulfilling Scripture. Because Scripture says, sing songs and hymns and spiritual music one to another. I believe there's something very special that happens. The Holy Spirit lives in me. I'm a Christian. The Holy Spirit lives in you as a Christian.

And when I sing, the Holy Spirit in you is edified. And when the Holy Spirit within me hears truth, the Spirit is edified. And if your life is a miracle, then guess what? You are a monument. And you are a living stone. And you're part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you sing out as a testimony of what the Lord has done, people look and they say, why does so and so sing like that? You know, they don't really have a good voice. But you see their face radiate. I have got a very good friend who has a very bad voice. But he sings very loud. And I will tell you that this blesses my socks off.

And as a worship leader, as I'm singing, all of a sudden I'm not thinking about words, chords. I'm worshiping. We as a church will have monumental worship if we all are living stones and we're participating in living stone worship. Finally, I just want to challenge you with this. I think we all can probably stand to maybe be a little bit more prepared when we come. But what would happen if we all came to church just 10 minutes earlier than we do now? And what would happen if we all opened up our Bibles and looked over the text? I think that that would really solve a lot of problems for us individually.

You know, something that I thought of this morning, we preach verse by verse. If you came in first thing and you just opened up your notes from last week and you've already looked at them a few times a week, but you look at the text from last week and you look at the text this week, you enter into the worship service and you're starting to sing and you realize, "Oh, we're singing this because we're talking about worship today." And this is the doxology and praise God from whom all blessings flow. You know, Lord, you bless me and I haven't thanked you today. So I'm going to ask you to be prepared and ask you to be engaged.

And I want to thank you for how you do bless me. I think all of us, including myself, can become more worshipful worshipers and we can strive for monumental worship. Tonight, I'd like to invite you to come back Sunday evening. And what we'll do is we're going to look at Joshua chapter 5 and we'll look at individual worship. This morning we looked at corporate worship. Tonight we'll look at life-changing private worship. Let's conclude with our closing prayer. I'm just going to be silent for a moment. I want to ask you to respond to this in your heart. After we have time of silence to respond, I will close in prayer.

Lord, I confess I need this message the most. As a worship leader, I can sometimes not be the lead worshiper I need to be. I ask you, Lord, for all of us, that we would be prepared and that we would be engaged.