Thank you. Yeah. Good job, guys.
And now Pastor Jonathan has a week to learn that for you all for
next week. Just
kidding. Is that not the most fabulous.
How can you not have joy with that? How can
you. That is what a garment of praise looks like.
That's what a garment of praise looks like. It just. You know, every parent in
here is grinning. You know, grandparents are grinning. Everybody's like, that is
just so cool. If they would just be like that at home. No, I did
not say that. I'm excited about what
the Lord has. This is important. Muy
importante. Because this
is one of the things the Lord's been dealing with me about this week is
choosing the garment of praise instead of a
spirit of heaviness. Does anybody understand that?
Anybody understand how sometimes we
have to make a choice and we have to choose to put
on the garment of praise? It doesn't just, like, automatically
happen. You. You know, I know that's what happened in the Jetsons. But we're not
there, and the kids are going, who are the Jetsons? Anyway?
There are things that we have to choose in our life and
in our spiritual walk. We make so many choices.
And my prayer would be, I'm just gonna do with you what I did
last week. I'm gonna walk you through where the Lord took me this
week and worked me through some of my problems and
my issues. And. And I
trust he will do the same with you. Because what I believe, he's calling us
all to do that. He wants to give us beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for
the spirit of heaviness.
Worship is a garment we must intentionally put on.
We have to intentionally put on. I was so tickled today
when I walked in and other people were wearing the Worship Anyway T
shirt. Amazon link. Guys,
let's see how many we can get in here next week. You want to. And
here's the other thing. If you should take it in your heart to
get one for yourself, get one for one of the teens, one
of the kids. Cause you know, they ain't got no money. And
let's get them to worship anyway. Cause they're working through this, too.
So, Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for your truth. I
thank you for the hope that we find in you
continually. Continually. I'm so
grateful that we serve a God who does not change. So, Father,
I ask that you just hover over this place.
May your holy Spirit just penetrate our hearts.
Teach us, Lord. We've come to learn from you not from me,
Lord, I ask that my stuff fall in your stand. In Jesus
name. In Jesus name.
We'll start where we should always start, with Scripture.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with. Now, I'm gonna pause right there. There's this
show used to be on. I guess it's still on, but it's called what not
to Wear. I'm getting ready to share with you what you
should wear and what you shouldn't wear. It has nothing to do with
your clothing, but it has everything to do with the decision that we make every
single, single day in how we walk on the
planet and how we choose to carry out our lives in such
a way that it glorifies our Father. So therefore,
as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness, and patience. Now, he twisted this one on me
a little bit, or actually, the Holy Spirit impacted me a little bit with this.
And he had me, as I was reading this aloud over and over in my
office to go, Now I want you to add the
word you. Okay? So instead, I was like,
therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly
loved, you clothe yourself with
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
You bear with each other and forgive one another.
If any of you has a grievance against someone, you forgive
me. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And
over all these virtues, you put on love,
which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Say it with me now. You let the peace of Christ
rule in your heart, since as members of one body, you were called
to peace. And you be thankful.
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach
and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns,
and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude
in your heart. And you and me,
whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we do it all
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
him. These are the clothes that we are
to wear. These are the things that we are to clothe ourselves
with. And so I was like, okay, Lord. You know, there's a
couple of those I'm okay with, and there's a couple of them I can really
grow. Need a new T shirt there, because that one's not
really working. People are gonna come in and gonna say, compassion,
you know, kindness. They're like, oh, I see what the struggle is here.
Okay.
In contrast, what to wear this,
it says. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of
the Lord and Satan standing at his right side to what,
accuse him? The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you,
Satan. The angel said to those who were standing before him, take
off his filthy clothes. Then he said to Joshua,
see, I have taken away your sin, and I will put
fine garments on you. We have the contrast here.
We have what we've been told to put on, and then we have this
thing that's being referred to as filthy garments. And filthy
garments have everything to do with what it said right here. We. When it
said the accuser. The accuser,
we often put on garments that the
accuser has told us to wear, Right? You're not
worth it. They're not worth it. That one to me is even worse. When
we stand and we're going, oh, we're gonna judge somebody else's sin when our
rags are filthy? But to go the
accuser, anytime you hear that voice in your spirit towards yourself
or if you're using that voice toward anyone else, you need a spirit
check. Because God is the judge. Amen. And we
are not the sons of Satan. We are not the sons of an
accuser. We are of a father who
loves and is compassionate and kind. And he
takes off those garments. He doesn't
just go, I'm going to cover your filthy garments.
He says, take them away. Get rid of them.
Take them off. Those things, those accusations,
those dark places, the sin that you carry.
Because God has new garments for us. God has new
garments for us. He has something that we are supposed to
wear that doesn't look like that. Therefore, we
also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily
ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
What does that have to do with this? Sometimes the weights we are
wearing, we are so acquainted with those
weights. And not every weight is a sin. Some things
just weigh us down, some things just weigh us down. We're carrying
around things that we were never intended to carry. Like, for
example, confusion. It's not a
sin to be confused. But the Word says God is not the author
of confusion. So we know if we're feeling that that's a
weight, right? That's something heavy that we have chosen to take
on judgment. The Word tells me that God is the judge and
that God will judge us. So when we take on the role of judging
others in that sense, that's a weight that we were not
intended to carry. God is sovereign God is good and he is
sovereign and he is just. There's a passage that says,
justice and mercy have kissed. That's what
he does. God looks and he judges with mercy
and justice. Only he knows how to do that.
Disappointment, frustration, comparison.
Well, I wouldn't have done that. That's what Absalom
said. Comparison,
regret, fear, offense.
And sometimes just exhaustion. Sometimes you are so
weary, and that's just what you're carrying is that weariness,
that weightiness, because you're dealing with these things and God's going,
wait a minute, I have a different garment for you. See, God never
intended his people to carry what only his shoulders were built to bear.
You know what's so cool about this? I had been studying this in my office
and having a kind of pretty tough day, and
one of the elders in the house sent me a message. And he said, I
just felt like the Lord wanted me to tell you that, that your shoulders were
not intended to carry the weight, that it's his
weight to carry. And I had just written that down in my notes. And
I'm like, I love. Scripture tells us that he is a God who confirms the
word of his servant. And I love when he steps in and he confirms
something in our spirits. Here's what he was
reminding me of this week. Some people have
worn their weights for so long that they mistake it for identity.
The weights are not who you are. They are only the garments you have
chosen. They're the garments that you have chosen. You're like,
I'm just an angry human. I'm just. I am just. I
am just. I am just. And every
time you add that weight to you, and according to the Bible that I
read, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Before even one of your days came to be, they were written in his book.
All the days ordained for you were written in his book before even one of
them came to be. He knew you before you were knit
together in your mother's womb. And he said, you are
fearfully and wonderfully made. You know, sometimes I can look at my
kids if they're going through something or they're having a struggle, and maybe
sometimes all they see is the struggle. But as a parent, you know what you've
put in those kids. You know that even though they struggle,
there's a foundation in them that they can draw from. And even
when they're struggling, you can see the other side of it and go,
no, I know what is in there. And I believe that for
many of us, that's what God is Doing, going. I realize
I see you in this struggle, but I also see what's on the other side
of this, because I know what I've put in you. And he is
so faithful. Here's this. I thought this was so cool. A garment of
praise that translates to a garment of praise has been bestowed
to you. And it means by pure grace,
God has draped his joy over your shoulders.
By pure grace, he has draped his joy
over your shoulders. But we get a choice in whether
we carry that if we decide to wear that or
not. And it changes everything when we
do that. Worship changes the atmosphere before
it changes the circumstances. This is what I believe. When the Lord said,
I want for three weeks, I want you guys to worship anyway
for three weeks. I know it's gonna be a little bit hard, you know,
but I want you to worship anyway. And I truly believe that
on the other side of these three weeks, if we will do what God has
called us to do, it doesn't mean that everything's gonna change. But worship will
shift the atmosphere. It always does. It always does. Have
you ever gotten here to service early? Oh, wait, wait a minute.
No. Sometimes you get here a little early because,
you know, our service times can be a little bit different. And you walk in
the back of the room and worship's still taking place, and it
just feels different. It just feels different when you walk
in, because worship shifts an atmosphere. I
love that he does that. And we get the choice before it changes the
circumstances. Worship changes the atmosphere. That's where I believe we are.
I believe that the Lord is going, worship anyway. Worship anyway.
Worship anyway. Somebody else who saw that they were in a battle,
Jehoshaphat. There were all of these mighty armies coming against
Jehoshaphat. He didn't have enough men. He didn't have enough
strength to go and fight that battle. But this is what he did.
King Jehoshaphat didn't answer. An overwhelming army with
overwhelming strength, but with overwhelming worship.
That's what he did. He decided. I got tickled. I
was thinking about. He decided to send the worship team first
and send them to sing. Don't you think the worship team was like, what?
All of these guys have metal on, they
have spears, and we've got a liar. I
mean, seriously, it had to be, like, a little bit of a shakeup to go.
You guys are going first. And then I was thinking, you know,
there are probably many times when the worship team comes out and
maybe feels that way. They know they've got to plow some ground
for us. To go. But you know what happened here. As they began to sing
and praise, the Lord set
ambushes for the enemy, the Lord went ahead
of them. One version says, while they sang, God fought.
While they worshiped, God fought on their behalf.
They began to sing and praise, and the Lord said, ambushes.
And they were completely defeated. See,
they didn't go in going, oh, well, if we worship, there will not be
an army coming against us. They will not be greater
numbers. They didn't deny what? Worship doesn't deny what is true. It
declares a greater truth that God is sovereign over all of it.
Regardless of what you're facing, regardless of what's coming at you,
it isn't that you're going, oh, this is not happening. The stages of
denial and the stages of grief. You're not going, this isn't happening.
You're going, God is greater than this. God is better than
this. He is sovereign over all of this. I love
this. Tozier says, praise is the rehearsal of our eternal song.
And when we worship, we come into agreement with the heavens.
When we worship. Sometimes, you know, especially sometimes in first
gathering, you know, the numbers will be low or whatever, and you're like. And there
aren't a lot of people singing here. Oh, but there is a
host. There is a host that we have
joined when we sing Holy, Holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. Don't you know, we are just the sweet, smallest echo
of worship that's going to continue to take place. And we
just come into agreement with it. See, here's the thing. Breakthrough begins the moment
our worship enthrones God above every circumstance. It
begins the moment that worship enters the room. It begins
the moment that you make a decision to worship anyway and
begin to worship the Lord. When you decide to
go vertical, when you decide to take
your worship to the feet of Christ. When you decided.
See, here's the thing that I do, guys, and
it's just me when I'm struggling and I don't know quite how
to get there with the Lord, you know, when I don't know quite how to
push things, I will close my eyes, I will enter into that
place of worship. And in my worship, in my mind, I
go right to his feet. I go right to his
feet. And the words that are coming out of my mouth,
I'm singing to him. And I can see it in my
spirit. I can see it in my spirit. That's why it's so
important, the songs that we sing from the platform. If I can't
sing it to him, then I'm not gonna sing it to you. But
to go there in your spirit and trust him and to just
worship him. And I can tell you something, something shifts
in you when you do that, that the heaviness
begins to leave. All of the things that you carry into that
space, you have the opportunity to leave. And at his feet.
In this season and in all of our seasons, we need to remember that our
worship preaches before our words ever do our
worship preaches. There's a message in our worship
before we ever open our mouth. And here's the thing that the Lord
keeps driving home to me right now. Never
underestimate your worship in hard places. Someone else is learning how
to worship there by watching you.
Someone else is learning how to worship in the hard places
by knowing that you, our family, are going through hard
places and how you're dealing with this, how you're dealing
with the hard places. And this could have nothing to do with anything going
on here. I know some of you guys are going through some hard times,
going through some difficult seasons. And here's what the Lord reminded me.
Wear worship loudly enough that your family learns where peace comes from.
Wear it loudly enough. When you don't feel like worshiping, turn it
on anyway. When you don't feel like dancing, do it anyway
because he's worthy and he's good. It's not denying your situation.
And here's the thing that just like I said, these are things,
places. He's been ministering to me, and he took me here.
Jesus exchanged garments so we could wear praise.
Jesus exchanged his garments. Let's see what that looked like.
When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his
clothes, dividing them into four shares, one
for each of them. With the undergarment remaining, this garment was
seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. Boy, that'll
preach right there. Does that sound like a veil?
Let's not tear it, they said to one another. Let's decide by lot who will
get it. This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled. That said, they
divided my cloth among them and cast lots for my
garments. So this is what the soldiers did.
And here's the paraphrase. They stripped Jesus of his garments,
and he took on ours. He took on our
grief. He wore our sorrows.
He wore our punishment. He took our shame.
All of those filthy garments that brought
him to that place. Jesus chose.
He chose to exchange that for all
of this that we carry and wear. Jesus chose to
exchange his majesty.
His majesty for our filthy
garments. That's what he did.
The royal robes that he wore when with his
father, all that he possessed, all that he was. He
made the choice to exchange
that majesty for our mess. He
chose that. And now, because he chose that, we get to
choose a garment of praise instead of a spirit of
heaviness, because he has provided it. But the
instruction is, remove the filthy garments. Which
ones? The shame, the judgment, the anger,
the frustration, the confusion. All of the things that
the enemy would love, the accuser would love to robe us in
now and in all seasons. We choose to take those
off because we have been given a garment of praise. And I
can give you a shirt, I can give you a dress, and you will
have it, and you can lay it across your lap. Or. Or you can choose
to put it on. God has given this to us, and we have a choice
whether or not we put it on. He tells us this. Rather,
clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about
how to gratify the desires of the flesh. What? Clothe
yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ. So I tell you this and
insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the
Gentiles do. This is what the clothes look like, guys, in the futility
of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life
of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening
of their hearts. Boy, can our hearts go there fast.
And when your hearts get hard, you shut him out and
you're like, I don't hear the Lord. Well, sometimes our hearts get so hard
that we shut down the instruction of the Holy Spirit. Having lost all
sensitivity, they have given themselves over to the sensuality so
as to indulge in every kind of impurity. And they are full of greed.
That, however, is not the way of life. You
learned when you heard about Christ and were
taught in him accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You
were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off.
Put off your old self. Take it off, throw it away, get rid
of it, don't hang out with it. Don't put it back in your closet, which
is being corrupted by deceitful desires to be made new in the
attitudes of your minds and to put on the new self
created to be like God in righteousness and holiness.
It's a choice. We get to choose because everything has
been provided for us. Everything has been provided. Christ took our
grave clothes and exchanged them for robes of righteousness. And
how weird would it be for you to wear both?
Seriously, grave clothes belong in Graves.
That's not you. That's not now.
That's not ever Death. Hell and the grave were defeated
by what Jesus did. God
demonstrates his own love for us while we were still sinners. Christ died
for us. Can worship Team come out.
You cannot wear both grave clothes and robes of righteousness. They don't fit.
They don't fit. It makes you double minded. You either. You know, it's like
you gotta set your face like flint toward him. This pilgrimage that we are
on in him, our eyes are supposed to be on him, right?
Not everything else that's going on. We can't start to focus
on the fact that we have no more garlic. You know, the things that they
mourned over and grieved over in Egypt and they had to keep their eyes on
him. They were getting ready to go through some water. They needed to be pay
attention to where the Holy Spirit was leading and what he was doing.
When facing a battle, a storm, an enemy,
a barren or hard place, what garments
do you choose?
I got up one morning and I was just like,
lord, I don't want to. I just, I don't want to. That's usually
a clue right there, right? I don't wanna.
I don't wanna. I don't feel like. I don't
think I will. I. Most sentences that start with
I can create issues, but anyway. And all of
this was rumbling through my head and rumbling through my spirit. Rumbling
through. And I felt like the Holy Spirit goes,
choose, choose.
And I knew what he meant. I get to choose how
I walk this day. See, on one side of this
closet hangs the filthy garments. Anger, bitterness, frustration, fear,
anxiety, judgment, gossip,
shame, blame, comparison and
discouragement. And this is a closet that we can all draw from if
we choose to draw from it. Or
on the other side, garments of praise,
gratitude, worship, honor, faith,
joy, thanksgiving, hope, love, and a peace
that passes all understanding.
And here's the thing, guys. The garment you choose determines the atmosphere that
you carry into a room, into a
space. You wear and carry the fragrance.
Your choice. You wear and carry the fragrance of your
choice. I have to read this to you because I have read this so
many times. It's in Second Corinthians,
but for some reason, man, this time.
Corinthians. I love
that sound. Babel Bible page
is turning, but listen to this. Second Corinthians 2, starting at
verse 14. But thanks be to God
who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ. And
through us, through us spreads everywhere
the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. Now this is the part that I want
you to pay attention to. For we are.
For we are. Are
to God. We are
to God the aroma of Christ
among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
See, I've always known
and enjoyed that we are the fragrance of Christ.
But we are the fragrance of Christ. To
God. To God. Have you ever
just put your nose against your kid's head?
After bath time is important. And
you just put your nose right there and you smell that child,
and it's like, that's my baby. That's my baby.
And you could pick him out of anything. Or you put on your husband's T
shirt or his jacket and you can smell the cologne that
he wears. And there's this intimacy, there's this connection that
comes through fragrance. Or on the opposite side of it,
you get anywhere near a school bus and you step on there and you're like,
all of a sudden have flashbacks to when you were kids. But anyway, because
the fragrance takes you there.
And when I read that, this tells me that we
are to God the fragrance
of his son. The fragrance of his
son. So that when healing's over and we are
walking among the ones that are headed toward death or headed
toward life, he sees we are the fragrance
of Christ. And when it says, put on Christ,
it's all of the above. It's all of the
above. We are the fragrance of
Christ.
Choose. Choose the garment
of praise. Scripture says, choose you this day. Who you
will serve as for me and my house. We will
serve the Lord. We will serve the Lord. And you get to choose.
And he's given us everything. And
my hope would be that we all decide to allow him
to drape that garment of joy
by grace alone over our shoulders
in this season and in all seasons to come. Can we just
do that? Can we do that together? As the body of Christ,
as one unit? As the fragrance of
Christ. To the Lord. To our Lord
God. We are going to this week and
next week as well. Those are the three weeks I told you about.
We are going to end with praise.
However, I do realize that there are some who probably need prayer
tonight or today. What month is this?
And so I will ask the elders and the prayer warriors, after
we have praised our way through, if you all would gather
over here so that anyone who needs prayer can come for prayer. But for the
rest of you, can you come praise with me? Can you
come with me for just about 4 minutes and 8 seconds? Isn't
that about what the song is? You got 4 minutes and 8 seconds. In.
You.
Come on down here with me. And we are going to. Here's the
thing. We are teaching somebody how to worship their way
through, just like the kids taught us. We are going to
worship our way through. And my prayer would be that it is a
declaration of joy taking on that garment of praise. And
if you've got any spirits of heaviness or filthy garments
that you've been carrying around, now would be a perfect time to throw
them off, because we are going to worship him.
Let's go ahead, guys.