Cave Moments: Finding God When Life Takes a Painful Detour | Josh Leake

Let me just welcome APC family. It's so good to see you guys. God Behind Bars and Somerset, we love you, seriously. And if you are newer to APC as well, we just wanna say glad you're here. My name is Josh, I'm a pastor here. And today, the message we're talking about, the concept is on detours. Everybody say detours. So we're talking about when your normal path is blocked and you end up taking a different route or you end up somewhere you didn't think you would be. So let me give you a couple of examples of this from my relationship with Allison. So when we started dating in 2012, we lived about 20 minutes apart. And Allison was my first girlfriend ever. So I was head over heels and I was, you know, making this 20 minute drive out to her house probably six times a week. Like I was just in love. And so eventually after a few months, she moved closer with her dad. She moved about five minutes away from me. So you can imagine how pumped I was that she had moved closer. And so about a month or two after she had moved, somewhere in that period after she moved close, they started to do road work on a bridge. It was the only connection point.

And so I had to take a detour. Guess how long it took me to get 20 minutes. Yeah, it took me 20 minutes to get, so it didn't save me any time in the end. Pittsburgh road work, by the way, is just, that's a picture right there. It's a nightmare. So that's a physical one with a road. Another detour we had was when we got married in 2015, we had our five year plan. Some of you have heard me talk about this before. Five year plan of we're gonna take our time and enjoy marriage and, you know, get used to things, adjust before having kids. Five years was the plan. What actually happened was three months. So we got married, married in June, pregnant by September. That detour came with a lot of tears. It was a lot of panic and freaking out. Now I can look back on that detour moment and recognize, oh, that ended up being great. Like having kids early has been great. It's been a lot of fun. But in the moment, a lot of tears. So detour, again, is when you, the normal path that you would take is blocked and you have to end up somewhere else or take a different path. So we're gonna study the life of David here from scripture.

And David, from the first moment we see him in the Bible is on a upward trajectory that's explosive. So the first moment we see him, the prophet Samuel is sent by God to David's house where he interacts with David's father, Jesse. Samuel says, I'm here to anoint the next king under God's direction. And so Jesse brings out all his sons except David. Samuel goes down the line and goes, no, no, no, no, none of these are right. And Jesse says, well, I've got one more son out in the fields. He's a shepherd tending the flocks. And so they bring him in and Samuel says, you're the guy. God's chosen you because of your heart. And so from a young age, David is not yet king, but anointed to be the future king of Israel. And then after this is one of the most iconic stories and moments in all of history, which is David defeating Goliath, where a young shepherd boy becomes the hero of Israel and rescues his nation by killing a giant of a man who's trained for war from birth. And people lose their minds about David. They're celebrating him. It says they're writing songs about him. Everybody loved David. Everyone except the current king, Saul. And Saul is jealous and insecure and angry. And his bitterness toward David starts to take root

based on this jealousy. So quick little snapshot from 1 Samuel 18, verse 28 says this. When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him and he remained his enemy the rest of his days. So this insecure, bitter king brings David's meteoric rise. Things are always going well. God's using him, anointing him to be the next king. All of a sudden that all comes crashing to a halt. And it begins one of many attempts of Saul to take David's life. So now David is on the run, constantly trying to escape Saul because Saul is so bitter and jealous and angry that he wants David dead. Not long after this, David ends up in a cave, hiding just to survive while Saul searches the land for him. So life took. A detour for David and the hero of Israel who defeated a giant and the man anointed to be the next king of Israel is now spending his days running for his life and is now hiding in a cave. If God had promised so much for him and had used him so powerfully up to this point, why abandon him here in this cave all alone? Maybe you've experienced this kind of sudden painful detour before, where everything in life

seemed to be clicking and going well, felt like God was on your side, and then all of a sudden things take a painful detour and you feel alone and in pain and lost sort of in the middle of a cave like David. And we're in the middle of one of these seasons as a church right now, where in February, things took a turn, my dad passed away, completely unexpected, feels unfair, and we find ourselves in the middle of sort of a cave moment where cave moments as things are fine, but then all of a sudden you're in the dark and you're just trying to survive. For David, he didn't ask for any of this. He didn't ask to be anointed the next king. He just tried to do what was right. He saved Israel from the Philistine army and from Goliath. And he treated Saul well, he honored God, and now he is in this cave alone fighting to survive. So why does it seem like God left him? If God could have just removed Saul, since he had anointed David to be the next king and his hand of blessing was upon David, couldn't he have just removed this petty, insecure king from the picture and put David on the throne? But at one of David's lowest points in his life, his response is unique in this cave. Psalm chapter 57, this is one that David wrote while he was in this cave. David actually wrote probably about half of the Psalms.

And we know he wrote Psalm chapter 57 in this moment because if you wanna, we'll put it on the screen as well, but if you wanna turn there in your Bibles or on your phone, you'll notice at the top before the Psalm actually starts in Psalm chapter 57, one of the things it says is, when he had fled from Saul into the cave. So we know that at this low point cave moment is when David penned this Psalm. Okay, so let's read Psalm chapter 57 verse one. He says, have mercy on me, my God. Have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God most high, to God who vindicates me. He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me. God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. Pause there for a second. So he's reminding himself, God, I know you're good. I need you to help me. He continues on and he uses some very poetic language to describe his circumstances. I'm in the midst of a lions. I'm forced to dwell among ravenous beasts, men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. And then look at verse five. Be exalted, oh God, above the heavens. That's an interesting little shift.

He's talking about poetically, I'm surrounded by lions. The men whose tongues are sharp swords and then be exalted, oh God. But this is an important shift for David's mindset. So verse five again, be exalted, oh God, above the heavens, let your glory be all over the earth. Let's jump ahead to verse eight here. Awake my soul, awake harp and lyre. I will awaken the dawn. So he's sort of commanding his soul to worship and poetically say, I'm gonna awaken the dawn with my worship. Verse nine, I will praise you, Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love reaching to the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. So in a moment where it feels like God has abandoned David to die, like he was cursed for no reason, separated from his home and from his comfort and from security, now he's choosing to worship. So again, he had been honoring God. He had been living right. God had a promise on his life to anoint him to be the next king. God had a future for him and now all of this is ripped away seemingly for nothing and yet David is worshiping. Most people see cave moments like what David did. David is in as a sign of failure or a threat to be avoided.

If you're in the cave, something's gone wrong. God has removed his hand from your life. You're being punished, you're being disciplined. But if you wanna truly know God, you have to understand the truth about cave moments. The moments where things take a painful detour from where you thought things would go and you feel in the dark. And here's the main idea of the message. You can't deeply know God until you learn to worship him in the cave. Why? Because there's a depth that comes from the cave that doesn't come from anywhere else. For God, this was an opportunity for David's spiritual formation and preparation and rededication for the future. Because when everything else is stripped away, it cultivates a dependence on what really matters. There's a quote from, I think it was Pastor Rick Warren, who said, you don't know that God is all you need until God is all you have. So it's this sort of holy dependence that comes when everything is stripped away and you depend fully on God. David is deep in a cave, but he's deep in worship. When we talk about worship, also, just to clarify this idea, worship is bigger than music and is bigger than a church service.

Sometimes those things get connected and it can mean those things. But really, when we talk about worship, we're talking about the act of adoration or surrender or thankfulness directed toward God. It's attributing ultimate value or worth. So worship really comes from worth-ship. It's giving God ultimate worth. And David was precious to God because of his heart posture of wanting to be close to God through worship. If we compare David to the current king, Saul, Saul actually looked like a better king in terms of his attributes on paper, because the Bible says he was tall, he was handsome, he was talented, he was a good leader. But Saul's problem was that he became dependent on the approval of the people. It made him prideful. And rather than becoming dependent on God and running to God, he became prideful in his own ability and he became dependent on the approval of the people he was leading. And so because he refused to come back to God, God rejected him and instead raised up a shepherd boy who loved to worship. Not the easy choice on paper, but somebody who loved to worship. And David worshiped as a young shepherd boy out in the field. He worshiped as the hero of Israel who defeated Goliath

and he worshiped as a fugitive hiding in a cave. He had developed a genuine, deep relationship with God. And so often we forget or don't realize that this is what God is after, a genuine relationship. Genuine relationship means that we pursue him and wanna get to know him and worship him in the good seasons, but especially in the cave moments. So the cave that David found himself in, this cave moment, was not a sign of God's indifference. It was God's path for the future king. We look at the cave moment so often as a threat, but this was God's path to prepare David for the future because the cave brought depth and dependence that David would need. Our problem is so often we wanna skip the cave. When we're in the pain, when we're feeling lost and alone, and we wanna speed through it, or we wanna avoid it entirely, we would rather go straight to the throne of Israel and bypass the cave. But we can't skip the cave because cave moments matter for what God is doing in us and they matter for what God was doing in David. Cave moments are precious to God because they are an opportunity to take pain, tragedy, difficulty, and draw nearer to God in worship. So again, if you wanna get to know God deeply, you have to learn to worship deeply in a cave moment. Cave moments, it's learning to worship deeply and draw nearer to him when life takes that painful detour.

And when we do this, it actually. births some things inside of us. When you start to cultivate this habit, especially in seasons of cave moments, it births things inside of you. So let's talk about what a couple of those things are. Number one, it births a confidence in his character. So David, when he's worshiping and writing Psalm chapter 57, he's reminding himself of who God is because the situation around him looks dire. He's reminding himself God is present and he's kind and he's faithful. He's protective. So he's teaching his soul as the circumstances around him are painful and frustrating, he's teaching his soul. God's character is not defined by my cave. So this is a habit we have to form when we're worshiping, especially in the midst of a cave, to say, God, I don't understand why I'm here, but it doesn't change who you are. God was no less committed to fulfilling his promise to David even though the circumstances had changed. So let me just say the same thing to you, especially if you're in the midst of a painful season. God is no less faithful to fulfill his promises and to care for you, even though you might be feeling lost or broken. Because God does not change. Cave moments, they rock our confidence.

And the hard questions that come where we say, God, where are you? God, if you're really good, then why would you allow or why would you not step in? But worshiping in the cave brings us back to truth. It brings our soul back to the fact that God is unchanging, that God's feelings towards us don't change even when we can't sense it or see it. So when we worship, we're actually pushing in to say, God, I thank you that you're a provider. God, I thank you you're my healer, that you're a good father. You're my comforter. Sometimes you just gotta press in and worship to remind your soul to be confident even when your mind doesn't feel it. There's a song I think of when I think about this concept. It's one that wrecks me every time. Two reasons. One, because this is one of my dad's favorite songs, Goodness of God. When I think of the song, Goodness of God, I can picture him up on this stage at the end of a service leading. I can picture the sound of his voice singing this song. He loved this song. But also because the song, Goodness of God, is one of those songs that's preaching to my soul about who God is, right? All my life you have been faithful.

So when you're in the middle of a cave, all my life you have been so, so good, right? You're preaching to yourself to say, come on, you gotta be confident that God is faithful, that he doesn't change, right? Worship in the cave develops confidence and trust in who he is, that he doesn't change. And some of you today need to start to really lean in. Maybe you had developed a heart of worship, lifestyle of worship at one point and it's kind of fallen off. Some of you, I know though, it's for the very first time. You grew up in a very stoic, ritualistic approach to Christianity and cultivating a personal relationship of worship like what David has takes leaning in, building confidence in who he is. Okay, so if you're gonna learn to know God, it's worshiping in the cave. It births confidence in his character. Number two, it births clarity of his glory. So this is his greatness independent of us. When we're reminding ourself of his character, we're reminding ourselves, this is who God is to me, my father, my provider, my deliverer. When we're talking about clarity of his glory, it's this is who God is, his greatness, regardless of me. It has nothing to do with me because we see his majesty, his beauty, his eternal, holy, powerful, worthy, the center of the universe. Also, this is a vital part of how we select songs

here at APC that we sing. And when I was the worship leader here seven, eight years ago, I would have conversations with my dad about this and now Sarah and I, who's the worship leader here, we talk about this concept all the time of selecting songs that are focusing on God's glory and giving him the attention because there are a lot of really great worship songs that don't actually really function as worship. We'll even sing them here and they're good songs. but the attention is more directed towards us. So example of this, great song. I love this song, No Longer Slaves. Right, some of you know this song. I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. You're reminding yourself, because of what God's done, I'm a child, I don't have to be a slave, but the attention is focused more here. There's a place for those songs, those are good, but we want to be choosing songs that are upward, meaning they're getting the attention on beholding, meaning setting before us who God is, his character and his glory, his greatness, beholding him. This is one of the most important things that you can learn to do, right? The Bible talks about beholding his glory. It's genuine attention and appreciation on God's character and God's greatness.

So one of my favorite analogies that I heard growing up, my dad used this all the time, is the microscope telescope comparison. Some of you remember. If you remember my dad using this, give me a little wave so I can see. Okay, yeah, some of you do. The idea of this is when you're focused on your problems, it's like you are a microscope looking at your problem and it makes it seem huge. But when you worship, you are like using a telescope, seeing something so much greater and far beyond you. It brings perspective. So worship is getting our eyes off of our immediate problem, off of our tiny slice of the world, our tiny little slice of history, and we start to behold God's majesty, his greatness, because God existed far before you and I were ever born, and he's gonna exist long after we die. He's infinite. And God spoke and created everything that exists. Every single star and ocean and every minute detail of your life, it didn't even take a little bit of effort. He just spoke and it existed. And we can't even remotely begin to comprehend the size of the universe. Just think about it for one second. Our brain can't wrap around the scale of galaxies, planets, stars, how big it is,

and yet God created human DNA at the atomic level. God's infinite and eternal and creative, and there's no darkness in him, no selfishness, no brokenness. When you're in a cave, what you need to do is we need to get our eyes off of our problems and making those huge, and we need to recognize the one who is the center of the universe, because a lot of times our brain convinces ourselves we're the center of what's happening. When you're in a cave, everything feels like it revolves around you. Doesn't mean it's not difficult, but what we need to do is get close to God through worship by beholding his greatness, getting our eyes off ourselves. Okay, so again, we're talking about if you wanna get close to God, you gotta learn to worship in the cave moments. It brings about confidence in his character, clarity of his greatness, his glory, and then number three, it brings about calibration to his purpose. By the way, I had to go with a third C. If you know my dad, when he would preach here, he could not avoid alliteration to save his life. He always would do three of the same letter. So I had two, I had confidence and clarity, and I was like, I gotta do it to honor my dad. Pick a word that starts with C, calibration.

So worship in the cave, it develops a closeness. Keeps you in tune with what God's doing. And David was able to discern what God wanted even in the cave. Because there came a moment where Saul entered the cave to relieve himself. He was searching to kill David, but he took a break in this cave. And now David and the men who are hiding out in this cave with him see this as the pathway forward. God has now delivered your enemy into your hands and you can be free. And as David sneaks up behind Saul to kill him, all of a sudden he hears the voice of God say, no, no, no, this is not the path I've chosen for you. What seemed right to David on paper was not the path that he had set up for David. So discerning the voice and the heart of God requires closeness that's developed in cave moments. It's calibrating ourselves, tuning ourselves through worship to recognize God is still working in the world around me. And not even just for me. Yes, God is working for me. And if you love him and are serving for him, Romans says he works all things out for your good according to his purpose for you. you, but also he has plans that are so much bigger. So another really famous cave moment in the Bible is Paul and Silas are missionaries preaching about Jesus

and they get arrested and beaten just for preaching and they're thrown in prison. So Acts says that they're severely flogged. Acts chapter 16, they're severely flogged. They're thrown in prison in the deepest cell. They're put in chains and stocks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas begin worshiping. And if you know this story, you know that God sent an earthquake that opened the prison doors and their chains fall off. You can tell people who have developed closeness through worship in cave moments before. Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned. They had been severely flogged, so probably whipped, beaten, bruised, bleeding, and they're in the dark part of this cave cell and they're worshiping at midnight, singing, not because it was a quick fix to bring a miracle, but because they had recognized through cave moments before God's purposes are bigger than this circumstance. Cave moments are an opportunity through worship to calibrate, to tune yourself through worship to what God's purposes are. And as we get ready to close, something I wanna do is, my dad was always pushing me to do this when I would speak. Sometimes it's just to close out and lead in worship. And this is actually something that my grandfather used to do as well. My grandfather on my mom's side was a great piano player and worship leader. And so since this message is on worship,

I thought this would be great. Just take a little bit of time at the end to kind of coach us through this response together. But before we do that, I just wanna say a couple things. So first of all, in the past couple of months, I have been so deeply moved by and inspired by watching my mom's response to my dad's passing. So even from the moment that we were together as a family in the hospital, moments after my dad passed, watching her not only emotional resilience, but her heart of worship that she wanted to draw closer and has continued spending extended time in prayer, extended time in worship. I want that, that's so inspiring to me. It's not easy to do. That type of closeness, by the way, that's not developed overnight, right? That's when you go through cave moments and seasons and you learn to worship and develop closeness with God through those moments. Let me just say a few final things here before we worship together. When you're in the midst of a cave moment, don't despise that moment. It's easy to get bitter or angry or let your frustration or emotion rule you. And it's okay to hurt. It's okay to ask questions. It's okay to feel lost, to grieve, to feel alone. But as we're wrestling through that,

we have to move closer to God, not distance ourselves from him. Sometimes just as a knee-jerk reaction, we actually push God away because we think, God, you could fix this. We have to remind ourselves, don't despise this moment. We have to move closer to God through it, cultivate dependence on him. And I know for some of you who you really haven't cultivated this yet, or maybe it's there, but it's not much, my encouragement to you is we just gotta start somewhere. So if you don't know how to do it, it's not a specific routine you have to follow. There's no magic ritual because God is not after a ritual. God's after your heart. He chose David for his heart. So how do you develop this? You find a simple prayer to pray. Wake up in the morning and just pray a prayer of worship. Maybe you pray Psalm 57. Maybe you find a worship playlist. You spend a few minutes just worshiping God, getting your eyes off yourself and starting to cultivate that heart of worship. And so my encouragement again, don't coast. Don't distance yourself from God. Fight for this. Fight to cultivate this heart of worship.

So we'll practice this here in a minute, but would you just close your eyes with me now as we prepare to close. If you are feeling distant from God, you've never surrendered your life to Him, or maybe you, at one point, you were living for God, but you're not living for Him now, I wanna give you that opportunity because Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven, to have life on this earth, and to have life after death through the ultimate cave moment where He died on the cross and was buried in that tomb. He went through that cave moment for you and me where He absorbed the cost of our sin. God Himself saw that we couldn't save ourselves because we have, each one of us, rejected God's leadership. That invited sin in, there's no way to save ourselves, so God Himself came as Jesus to bridge the gap so that we could be made right, we could be adopted into His family. And the way that you experience life in this life on earth and eternal life in heaven, rather than separated from Him in hell, is through faith. It's not through being a good person, it's not through attending church, it's through faith in the person of Jesus Christ and surrender to Him. So some of you, you're feeling that tug to say, I want to live for Jesus. I've been living apart from Him.

Maybe you were living there at one point, but you're not now, maybe you've never surrendered. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna count to three, and if you wanna make that choice to surrender, I just want you to raise your hand. It's good to have an act of your will when you're making the biggest decision that you could ever make. It's good to have an act of your will to say, yeah, I'm making that choice. I'm gonna be bold about it. Okay, so when I count to three, I want you to be bold and just say, yeah, that's me. Ready, one, two, three. Yeah, say, Jesus, I'm choosing you. Just lift up your hand. It's beautiful. Just keep it outstretched for a minute here. Feel yourself stretching towards God to say, Jesus, thank you that you chose me. Today, I choose you. I wanna follow. That's beautiful. Awesome, you can put your hands down. Let's pray a prayer of dedication now together. All together, repeat after me. Say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying on that cross. Thank you for shedding your blood for me. Lord, I need your forgiveness.

I need you to cleanse me. So I surrender to you. Be my leader. Be my king. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Come on, give it for those that made that decision this morning. Yeah, would you stand to your feet with me now? And if you made that decision either today or maybe in the last couple of weeks, we want to help you take some next steps on this journey. Following Jesus was not meant to be something you do alone on a personal, individual level. So we have some next steps, resources. We would love to help you with. One of our pastors, Pastor Matt's in the back, waving his hand and back in this corner. And as we're singing, I encourage you to slip back there, even as we're singing and worshiping and meet him back there. And it's good to know somebody also, but we have some resources we want to give you just to help you with next steps in your journey. But now as we prepare to close, just we've carved out some space, take a few minutes and now respond to this. Just to respond in worship

and begin to draw closer to God through cultivating a heart of worship. So would you close your eyes with me now? Fix your eyes on King Jesus together. See him seated on the throne, high above everything, eternal, infinite, holy. Jesus, we worship you. We've come in this moment to give you the praise that you deserve. We depend on you. Now just join me, put your hands up in front of you, just a simple expression like this to say, Lord, I surrender to you. It's a simple way to physically express Jesus, I worship you. Now I bring you my worship. Let's sing together now. Sing, I give you my worship. ♪ Mm, I give you my worship ♪ ♪ You still deserve it ♪ ♪ You're worthy, you're worthy ♪ ♪ You're worthy of my song ♪ ♪ You're poor, I'm crazy ♪ You're worthy. Sing it to them. You're worthy. I pour it out. I give you my worship. You still deserve it. You're worthy.

You're worthy. You're worthy. I pour it out. I pour out your praises. Oh, you're worthy. You're worthy of my soul. Jesus, I depend on you. My solid rock. Sing, I'm going to sing. I'm going to sing. Till my heart starts changing. I'm going to worship. Till I'm on every word. Cause the way I feel. And the fear I'm facing. Doesn't change who you are. Or what you deserve. Let's give my worship now. I give you my worship. You still deserve it. You're worthy. You're worthy. Tattoo on your. Oh, I pour it out. In blessing and breaking. You're worthy. You're worthy. Yeah, you're worthy of my soul. You are worthy. Every breath I breathe.

Every song I sing. You go to live. My king is risen. I preach to my soul. That you've already won. And even though I can't see it. I'm going to keep believing. That every promise you make. Is as good as done. Come on and give him your worship. I give you my worship. You still deserve it. You're worthy. You're worthy. Oh, yeah. You're worthy. I pour it out. You're worthy. You're worthy. Jesus, you're worthy of my soul. You're worthy. You're worthy. Jesus, you're worthy of my soul. You're worthy. You're worthy. Turn the time now. You're worthy. You're worthy. Jesus, you're worthy. You're worthy.

You're worthy. So let's pause for a minute here. Let me just talk about one of the ways we can sort of cultivate an expressive heart before we close. So a couple ways that we do this. The first one is recognize that worship is a spirit-to-spirit connection, right? God, we're not just physical. We're not just mental, but we have a spirit that God has given us. So when we worship, we're engaging our will. It's a choice we make to say, Lord, even in the midst of what I'm going through, I choose to worship. So it's engaging your spirit. We're also engaging our voice. So there's power in confession. Scripture talks about this over and over again, the power of our words, confessing things. And if all that worship says is a stoic thought, academic, rational thinking, we miss the power of confession, the gift of our voice, of singing. So it doesn't have to be crazy loud. It doesn't have to be yelling or loud singing, but engaging your voice is a critical part of cultivating a heart of worship. The last one is engaging your body. This is the one that some people, especially depending on your tradition, background that you may have been raised in, some people are uncomfortable with. But the truth is, a lot of times our mind betrays us, or our emotions lead us in the right direction. So when we worship with our body, by lifting our hands, by expressing ourself physically, we're actually using our body to lead our soul, to lead our mind, and to recognize my body's a gift from God, and if I'm gonna surrender, I'm gonna use every part of me to just glorify God, to express myself to Him. So as we get ready to just close, we'll sing this through one more time. I'm not gonna pressure you. Okay, but I do wanna invite you to take a step,

to just express yourself, your spirit, your voice, and your body, just to say, Lord, you're my king. And let me just, if you are a veteran disciple of Jesus, you've been coming to APC, or you've been following Jesus a long time, I want you to just begin to lead the way, okay? To physically just express yourself to God. So would you just join me and do that now? Just take some step, maybe just put your hands out in front of you. Also, maybe some of you wanna come to the altar, to this area up front. For me, this was like a sacred thing as a kid, is coming forward to this area, because it just signified for me, Lord, I'm coming and giving everything I am. So you don't have to do that, but if you felt led to do that, you're welcome to do that. And now let's just begin to open up our mouths before we sing it again. Just tell Him something simple. You can sing it, you can say it. Jesus, I depend on you. Jesus, you're my father. My comforter. My everything. I know you're working even when I can't see you. Jesus, I worship you. Oh, how I love you. Come on and tell Him you trust Him now.

Jesus, I trust you. ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ Singing the blessing, and the blessing, and the pain. You are worthy. Whether you say yes or no or wait, you are worthy. Fill me in all I choose to say, you are. I'll never stop singing your praise. I'll never stop singing your praise. In the blessing, in the blessing, in the pain. Tell Him you are worthy. No matter what, whether you say yes or no, you are worthy. No matter what, fill me in all I choose to say, you are worthy. You are worthy. I'll never stop singing your praise. I'll never stop singing your praise. When I finally see, when I finally see your face, I'll cry worthy. When you wipe these tears away, I'll cry worthy. Above every other name, you are worthy. You are worthy. Oh, I'll never stop singing your praise. Oh, I'll never stop. I'll never stop singing. I'll never stop singing. Oh. I give you my worship. I give you my worship. You still deserve it. You're worthy. You're worthy.

I cry it out to Him. Oh, I pour out my soul. I pour out your praises. In blessing and breaking. You're worthy. You're worthy. You're worthy of my soul. Come on, one more time. Pour out your soul to Him. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I worship you. I worship you. In the good, in the bad. In the blessing and breaking. Lord, I will worship. I will sing your praise. Mm. All my life, you have been faith. All my life, you have been so, so. So good with every breath. I will sing the goodness of God. Come on and preach it to your soul now. All my life, you have. All my life, you have been. I know that's the truth of every breath Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God Sing, your goodness is running Your goodness is running after It's running after me Your goodness is running after It's running after me With my life laid down I'm surrendered now I give you your goodness Your goodness, your goodness Surely I will sing of goodness

Your goodness is running after It's running after me Your goodness is running after It's running after me Oh, with my life laid down Everything is yours, everything Your goodness is running after It's running after me One last time, sing all my life All my life All my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God Would you just stretch forth your hand now? Let me pray a prayer of blessing over you. I pray as you now fight to cultivate a heart of worship, that you would sense the closeness of God on a daily basis. Even when your emotions don't tell you that, even when you don't feel it, that you would sense the grace and love of God this week, and that it would sustain you, that his grace would cover you and your family. In Jesus' name, everybody said, amen, amen. Awesome, guys. Thank you for being here this weekend. If you want to stick around, I'm going to leave this for a few more minutes, but feel free to go whenever. Thanks for being here.