Manifesto of Fruitfulness | The Fruit of Praise

By the way, if you're watching online, thank you for tuning in tonight. We're going to be reading from Hebrews chapter 13 verses 15 and 16. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others for with such sacrifices, God is pleased. This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated. What's up? Good evening, Church of the City. How y'all doing? I like the energy tonight. I like it. It's going to be good. Well, my name's Billy. If we have not gotten a chance to meet, I get to serve as one of our executive pastors leading our ministry teams. And tonight we are continuing in our fruitful series. And I want to talk specifically about the fruit of praise. The fruit of praise. In 2015, Forbes did an analysis looking back at 1400 different Oscar acceptance speeches. And they just tracked who were the most thanked individuals from these speeches. I think we got a slide here. Coming in at number one, Stephen Spielberg with 42. Stephen, thank you. Could have done this without you. Really appreciate it. James Cameron, 28. George Lucas, 23. Star Wars. Thanks, man. That's Pastor John's favorite movie. That's a joke.

It's not. I just wanted to throw a grenade six seconds into the sermon. See what happens. OK. Peter Jackson. Pete. Thank you. My man. Couldn't have done this without you. And rounding us out at number five with 19, my maker and yours, creator of heavens and earth, God. Documentary producer Sheila Nevins gave an explanation for why Spielberg gets more thanks than God. She said God cannot give them their next job. Stephen Spielberg can. Praise can reveal a lot about what you believe. Praise is an interesting word, right? Because something comes different into each one of our minds. We see praise expressed differently and towards different things, right? In a given week, like we can praise Sunday at church. We can praise alone with God, but we praise all kinds of things. We praise professional athletes, Broadway stars, great artists, accomplished CEOs. We praise restaurants, coffee shops, write a boss can praise employees. We praise all the time. And before we look at Hollywood and go, you jerks, I can't believe you think Spielberg more than God. The question we need to ask is, what did we praise this week? What did we praise this week? What restaurant did you tell someone about? What show were you like?

Do you got to go see that one? What product did you send someone? This week sounds like Billy, we got to get you a new pen, brass pen, got to get it to you. I'm new to the pen game. So if any of you guys are big pen, people come see me. Yeah, I got a few. Okay, I see y'all. What doctor school vacation, right? Like we praise things all the time. You got to hear about this. C.S. Lewis. He writes, I'd never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. We praise what we enjoy. You experience something awesome. You just can't help it. You're like, I've got to share this with somebody. And then we just burst out into praise of it. And so praise isn't just a Christian activity, everyone praises. And so the question is not do you praise, it's what you praise or who do you praise? Romans 1, 25, it says, "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praise they meant." This is the human condition, right? We didn't stop praising. We just redirected our praise. We started to praise created things versus the Creator. We started to praise the gifts instead of the giver. We started to praise the things that have been made instead of the one who made it. Paul is saying here in this verse that we did not cease to become people of praise, but we exchanged the object of our praise.

So today, I'm not really trying to convince you to become a person of praise because you already are one. Instead, I've got three points to answer this question. If God becomes the rightful object of our praise, right? If we get off creation on a Creator, off gifts onto the giver, if God becomes the rightful object of our praise, what does that praise actually look like? What does that praise look like? Number one, that praise is costly. Hebrews 13, our teaching text, it doesn't just call it praise, but a sacrifice of praise. Verse 15, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess His name." Now the audience at this time, they would have had an image immediately come to mind. They understood the word sacrifice, right? "For Jesus, sacrificing an animal was the payment, the atonement for sin. The wages of sin is death. It's always been death. Blood has always needed to be paid to pay for sin and make our relationship right with God." And so they would have this picture an altar, an offering, a bowl, a lamb before God sacrificed. And then it says, "A sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips," that is just describing the sacrifice of praise. It's this callback to the Old Testament in Hosea 14. Israel is wandered from God, running after idols and wealth and false security. And God's remained faithful, but in verse one it says, "Their sin has been their downfall." And so now Hosea's calling them back. And in verse two he says, "Take words with you and return to the Lord. Come back with repentance, thanksgiving praise. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, 'Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.'"

So he's calling back, this is the fruit of the lips in the Hebrews, and Hosea in that offer the fruit of the lips, the Hebrew word there is the bowls or the calves of our lips. And so what Hosea and our verse and our teaching texts in Hebrews is doing is it's taking the imagery of that costly animal sacrifice that's being laid on the altar and it's saying, the words we speak are an offering equivalent to that sacrifice. The words we're speaking are an offering. And so the question is, what are you laying at the altar of God? What's been coming out of your mouth this week? Has been complaints, criticism, bitterness, contempt, anger, malice, rage, jealousy. Right, those things cost us nothing from a worldly perspective. There's no cost there. Their workplace is almost built around criticism or complaint. It's like, I'm just operating in the system. Gossip of someone could gain you favor with someone else. Right, this doesn't cost us in our worldly sense. And we get into these modes where like we have words to support like, oh, you're just venting, just keep going. And we go into these things that don't cost us anything and the praise that we're offering God is this complaint and criticism. And on the other hand, we have the opportunity to lay praise at the altar. Thankfulness, love, joy, grace, mercy, goodness of God. This actually costs us. I think the primary cost for us in this cultural moment is social status. Our cultural moment, we're beyond where at work you're going to get fired for being a Christian, like the openness of our culture has now reached Christians. So you're not getting fired for being a Christian the same way someone else is getting fired for their religion. And so the cost really becomes a social cost. Like all of a sudden, I don't fit into this conversation with these friends or these co-workers because they're criticizing, right?

They're working in gossip and jealousy. I no longer step into that. If you give in a praise of generosity, you're like, I no longer operate on the same plane as my peers who make the same amount of money because I give generously. The cost is social. So this costly praise, it actually tears down our pride. It causes us to come in humility and it says, my way is set aside for your way, God. This praises costly and it often goes against our flesh and what we're conditioned to do or say. Matt and Beth Redmond, they wrote this song, "Blessed Be Your Name." Anyone in here to know that song, "Blessed Be Your Name, Strong." They wrote that song in response to 9/11. So after September 11th, the Redmond's noticed something about songs the church were singing. It says, "We had songs for blessing, abundance, and victory. But what do you sing when tragedy strikes?" Matt Redmond wrote this, "Where were the musical poets and prophets to help the people of God find a voice in worship at this tragic time? When it came to expressions of pain and lament, we had very little vocabulary to give voice to our heart cries." There's this line in that song that says, "Though there's pain in the offering," that's a sacrifice of praise and though it costs me, I'll still praise. Matt Redmond later wrote a song called, "Place of Praise," and it references this incredible story of David. In 2 Samuel 24, David is growing as king, the army's huge, like every I wanna take a census, I wanna count all my soldiers, all the able-bodied men in the kingdom. And even one of his generals is like, "Dude, why do you wanna do this?" And he insists, so they do it. They go count 'em all up, they come back

and they give him the report. This is just a flex by David. It's just pride in his heart. Go, "Look what I've built, look what I've done." And they give him the report and the second that comes, he goes, "I sinned against God." So he repents, he's like, "God, I repent. "What do I need to do?" There's consequences. And then he sees on his threshing floor of a man named Maruna. He sees an angel and God says, "Sacrifice and offering for me on that threshing floor." And so he goes up and Maruna goes, "Hey, this whole thing is yours. "It's free, I'm giving it to you. "Here's the woods you need, here's the ox in you need. "You're king, like whatever you need, this is free." And David, in verse 24, he says this. He says, "No, I insist on paying you for it. "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God, "burnt offerings that cost me nothing. "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God, "offering that cost me nothing. "A sacrifice of praise. "On the altar, historically a bowl, a lamb, "it's now the fruit of our lips. "I won't bring an offering of my lips "to the Lord that won't cost me something. "And then do you remember what the Bible calls David?

"A man after God's own heart. "A man after God's own heart. "Jesus says in Luke 645, "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." In Matthew 15, 8 says, "These people honor me "with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. "This is why praise is so costly. "He doesn't just want your words, he wants your heart. "He wants your heart. "He doesn't need empty religious praise or the right thing "or what you think other people need to hear or want to hear. "He wants your heart to overflow into words of praise, "a sacrifice of praise for him." Charles Spurgeon, he said, "Many will give God "a waterfall of words, but scarce a drop of true gratitude "in the form of substance consecrated." Fast forward 200 years, here's my translation. "We'll give God a waterfall of praise, "but scarce a drop of gratitude "that actually costs us something. "That actually costs us. "A sacrifice of praise by nature will be costly. "It'll cost us time, comfort, money, pride, preferences, "social status, there will be a cost." So the question for us in praise being costly is who or what do I praise and does my praise cost me anything? Does my praise cost me anything? So number one, praise is costly. Number two, praise is defiant.

Praise is defiant. Verse 15, "Through Jesus, therefore, "let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise." Let us continually offer praise. Cory Tenboom, she wrote a book called "The Hiding Place" and she talks about these unbearable conditions that her and her sister were in a Nazi concentration camp, 1944, World War II. And it talks about it being overcrowded, no sanitation, and they get into their bunks and discover the straw bedding was infested with fleas. It's just everywhere they're getting bitten. That morning, they had been reading 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 through 18. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Betsy, Cory's older sister, sees their circumstances through that scripture and starts thanking God in a concentration camp. She thanks him that the sisters have been assigned together. She thanks him that Cory had managed to smuggle their Bible into the camp. She even thanks him for the overcrowding because more women will be able to hear scripture when they read it out loud. And then, Betsy thanks God for the fleas. Cory can't take it anymore. And says, Betsy, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.

And Betsy responds with 1 Thessalonians, give thanks in all circumstances, she quoted. It doesn't say in pleasant circumstances. They later found out the reason they were able to openly read their Bible and share in their barracks, the reason the guards never came into barracks 28 was because of the infestation of fleas. God is crazy, he's crazy. Let us praise content. One of the things I love about my role at church today I get to talk to you guys meet with some of you and then through our Incredible ministry team pastor Ralph our care pastor. We look through care cases benevolence cases pastor Marisa leading our lingering team What are the prayers coming through and I just want to say is we're talking about like this actually being a cost Right like when we talk about going into fiant praise and regardless of the circumstances. I know in this room Some of you are going through it You are just like the weight you are carrying is significant And you might be comparing to someone like well, it's not as bad as this situation and it's still just crushing I just want to say we see you and we want to walk with this like walk with you in whatever you are going through and This is why we need praise Because praise doesn't dismiss what you're going through it's defiant towards it Defiant praise praises in the suffering in the attack in the warfare Habakkuk 3 17 through 18 It says though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines though The olive crop fails in the fields produce no food though. There are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior Praise does not require you to dismiss you're though Right though my housing never seems to stabilize Though my marriage is struggling though. I can't say how my finances will work out though I feel alone though my family situation with my parents or siblings

It'll never go back to the way it was yet. I will rejoice in the Lord You can be honest about your though God wants you're though, but bring your praise with it There's a pastor in California whose wife died of cancer and he talked about praising God even in the mystery of the circumstances of this and He said this real faith does not deny the existence of a problem Instead real faith denies the problem a place of influence Do not let what you are caring and burdened by and the problems in your life gain a place of influence let praise have the place of influence Let worship to God have the place of influence Declare praise and defiance to what you're going through and it's not because every problem is going to get fixed in praise But it's because Jesus is worthy Tragedy strikes blessed be the name of the Lord Your relationships you're going through it. It's under pressure blessed be the name of Jesus tears falling down your face acknowledging the problem acknowledging brokenness holy is the lamb worthy is the lamb who was slain praise be to God Lift up a sacrifice of praise Paul and Silas in act 16 they go to this town There's a demon possessed slave girl whose owners are using her like demon possession to make money and Eventually Paul is just sick of it and he's like get out They realize they're gonna lose all this money. So they take him to the magistrate. They have a beaten strip naked flogged and thrown in jail And so when Paul and Silas are in jail in act 16 verses 25 and 26 says it says about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken at once all The prison doors flew open and everyone's chains came loose Paul and Silas aren't praising because they know the prison doors are about to open They're praising God because Jesus is Lord. He is worthy whether the doors open or not We only have so many moments in our lives for an opportunity to praise God in defiance in Brokenness with tears and sorrow and pain because in the age to come it says he will wipe every tear from every eye There will be no more pain or suffering or sorrow

And so we can only offer a true sacrifice of praise and defiance in brokenness in this life And we don't do it because he's gonna bring an earthquake or an instant healing or fix the problem, but because he's worthy He's just worthy to be praised Praise isn't defiant because it gains us victory We don't praise in order to win. Jesus has already won on the cross and so we praise from victory not for victory Praising from the victory of Jesus's death on the cross Now and you're like, hey man, none of that applied to me. Just wanna say, we're so glad that all five of you are here. We are like, just so pumped, we need you, team needs you, okay, glad you're here. The cold appraises still there. Jeremiah 17-8, it says they will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit, right? So don't wait for the drought to learn and establish this life of praise, right? Don't wait until you're in the valley of the shadow of death to be like, now I'm gonna start going to war with praise. Build it up, have the reflex of praise in every and all circumstances so that you build it in a season of abundance and it sustains you in the year of drought. Continuously praising, praises defiant. So the question for us is, do I praise in the highs and the lows and do I give defiant praise?

Paul and Silas, when they prayed, saying hymns to God, it says the other prisoners were listening and then all the doors open, the jailer woke up, he's about to kill himself and they yell, "Don't harm yourself, we're all here." And the jailer asks, "What must I do to be saved?" And the jailer and his whole household are saved. Which leads us to our third point, praise is public. Praise is public. I saw this wild stat in Pew research. In their 2023/2024 religious landscape study, Pew found that among adults in the New York City metro area 57% identified as Christian. It's Catholic and Protestant. 26% are religiously unaffiliated. That's like agnostic atheist and other. And then 15% identify with other religions. That's Judaism, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and some 1% of others. 57% Christian? They're like, hey, there's like a 3% error. I'm like, or 20%. I mean, dude, where are my dogs at? Where are they in New York City? 57? But when I saw that stat, I thought, what if our primary problem isn't Christians being absent from New York City, but our problem is that we keep our faith private? The problem isn't absent Christians, it's quiet Christians.

What if more fame and deeds exist? More of them are out there to be known, but we don't know because we keep our praise private. Right before our teaching text in verse 11 through 13, it says the high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. So when they would make these sacrifices, the high priest, they bring him into the holy place, make the offering, but then they take the animals' bodies out to go to be burned. And the author is saying, Jesus in the same way suffered outside the camp. Jesus wasn't crucified in the comfort of like a religious community, right? He's taken outside, outside the gate rejected and disgraced. And then verse 13, that's our response. Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. It doesn't say Jesus is outside the camp, so let's invite him back in and roast marshmallows and hang out together. Let us go to him outside the camp. Let us identify with Christ. There's this version of Christianity that stays safely inside the camp, right?

I praise Jesus around people who praise Jesus. I talk about Jesus around other people who talk about Jesus. I worship Jesus only in places where other people worship Jesus. And I want to say, praise God for that. I need this. Sunday, be encouraged, hang out with you guys, it's the best. But Jesus is calling us to identify with him outside the camp and church in the city. We are a church that will go with Jesus outside the camp. We will praise him outside the camp. We're in New York City for crying out loud. The nations are here. Anyone you talk to outside is essentially outside the camp. Like you just can't help but run into it. If you're like, dude, I just want to- for us as a church in New York City. Go outside the camp. Praise us public. This is why in verse 15, our teaching text, it says, "Through Jesus, through Jesus," and then verse 16, "and do not forget to do good and share with others for with such sacrifices God is pleased." It says, "Do not forget." Why does anyone ever say, "Do not forget?" Because you might forget. Do not forget to do good and share with others. This pleases God. I wonder if some of us think this can happen where we confuse this personal relationship with Jesus with a private faith in him. So we have this relationship where Jesus came for us. He died for us. We love him. We speak to him. He speaks to us. And we go, man, I've got this sweet personal relationship. But then it leads us to keeping that into a private faith where we never go outside the camp. Romans 1, 21, it says, "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him." They know him. They actually know God, but they do not praise him. It's this awesome story in Luke 17, where Jesus runs into 10 men who have leprosy. And he heals them. He says, "Hey, go show the priests." And on their way, they're healed. And in verse 15 and 16, it says, "One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice." He threw himself at Jesus' feet and

thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. He's overflowing with praise. Praising God in a loud voice where everyone could hear. He made it public. And then it says, and he was a Samaritan. That's just a little jab for us. That's just like, "Ah, let me get you here." That means he was your least favorite person in New York City. Not a knowing person at work. Someone who believes the opposite of you politically. Whatever it is. That's who went back to thank Jesus while you kept it private. That's what that's trying to tell you. The woman at the well. It's one of my favorite stories in scripture. Because all she does is openly professes the name of Jesus. She does not know it. She's not this theologian. She doesn't have all this knowledge. She's going, "Come see this guy." He told me everything. Isn't he the Messiah? All she does is just openly profess his name and praise him. She doesn't go to the town like, "Well, here's where the old vidical law plus these pieces come together to make him the Messiah." Like, she just come see this guy who told me everything I ever did. I think he could be the one. And it says, "Many believed because of her testimony." Not because of her breakdown theologically. Not because of her reasoning and apologetics. They many believed because of her testimony. C.S. Lewis and his reflections on the Psalms. He says, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment." This is why social media works. When I'm having the latte in the coffee shop and it's awesome and delicious and like, "This is incredible. I'm enjoying this." But then you take your phone out. Picture #BlessedPost. Now it's like the full completeness of the enjoyment. The joy is not complete until it's praised publicly. That is how we were designed. That is why that works. Jesus tells the woman at the well, "I'm the Messiah. Everything about her life. What's her first response? Go and tell everyone. Get my praise into the full completeness of the joy." The leper comes back. Praising God in a loud voice. They're completing the enjoyment. Do you know what's amazing at this? Joel Bartlett. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Y'all know Joel and our church. Come on. There it is. I knew y'all knew him. Joel Bartlett praises God more in one day than I do in a year. I was like, "Joel, how you doing, man?" He's like, "Dude, great. Dude, praise God." I'm like, "Yeah, how's work going?" He's like, "Dude, got some obstacles, but praise God." I'm like, "Yeah." He works at Slack, like a significant role at Slack, and he gets this big promotion. I'm like, "Dude, heard about your promotion? Congrats." He's like, "Dude, yeah, thanks, man. Praise God." I'm like, "Dude, I knew you were going to say praise God. It's in you. It's in him." Now, can I tell you what this does for Joel? This is important. It makes him incredibly secure

and confident in Christ. His public praise makes him very secure and very confident in Christ. We have a six teenagers got baptized at that facility. Awesome. Our team gets together. Joel is on this team, and we get to do an Easter service, and Pastor Ralph goes and preaches, just crushes a word. As these teenagers are walking, this is the first time. Joel's never met any of them. He is dapping every one of them up. Dude, what's up? Praise God. What's up? Praise God. I'm like, dude, secure and confident in Christ. So then Pastor Ralph brings the heat as he does, and does a little altar call, and one of the young men who raises his hand, Joel gets to go and pray for him. They pray together, and Joel goes, hey, man, can I give you a hug? Gives this kid a hug, and I couldn't help but think, I wonder the last time that kid in this correctional facility got a hug from somebody who said, I love you and God loves you. He is secure and confident in Christ. Praising God publicly, offering a sacrifice of praise, sharing with others, and God was pleased. So look, maybe you're not going to say praise God every sentence, but we need to get a resolve in our spirit that we won't keep private what Jesus did in public. We need to get a resolve in us, that we will not keep in private what Jesus did on the cross in public. Praise is public, and so the question for us is, do I see any fruit from my praise? Does anyone outside the camp even know? We need a wrestle with that. Does anyone even know I follow Jesus? Is this all just in terms of this private? Is this for me? If God becomes the rightful object of our praise, what does that praise actually look like? That praise is costly, it's defiant, it's public. And David says, I won't give God something that costs me nothing. Paul and Silas, all praise God, regardless of my circumstances, and the leper and the Samaritan woman, I won't keep private what Jesus did in public. So what do we do with this? First, listen to the spirit. You've got to ask, what do I do with this? How do I grow in praise? How do I make this costly and defiant in public? And if you have no idea, I've got three ideas to help get you started. Number one, do a seven day complaining fast. We're like, dude, I was with you till you said that. I don't want to do that. A seven day complaining fast. Now, look, this is just to help you identify what fruit is coming out of your lips. You will be shocked at how many of your relationships are built around complaining. What if in your closest friendship, you have built this communication line around criticism and complaint? You'd want to know that. Do a seven day complaining fast. Number two, build a rhythm of praise. Every morning, out loud, praise God for three things.

You can write it down. Thankful journal is great. Say it out loud. Three things, build this rhythm. This might be a battle cry for you. You might be like, dude, I am in the valley of the shadow of death, dude. I'm barely hanging on. This is a, this is a rhythm of praise you're building as a battle cry going, man, I will not kneel. I will not bow. I will praise God. Three things every morning. Seven day fast, build a rhythm of praise. Number three, share God's story. Share a story where God helped you or provided for you with someone ideally outside the camp. You can share it with someone inside the camp, but I'm challenging you. Go tell someone outside the camp. Talk about when your child was born. Talk about how you got to New York City. Talk about how you got your job. Talk about how you got your apartment. I promise it's a miracle. I promise God was involved. Just tell someone it was a miracle. God moved. Can I tell you what definitely won't work? You walk out of here, going, I got to praise more. I just need to praise. I just need to praise harder. I just need to praise even defiantly. I just got to go praise. It's not going to work. Even psychology tells us like this intention is not long lasting. We actually have to build these practices and these rhythms and these actions. James says faith without deeds is dead. We got to build this into action, but above all of that, the primary thing we need is a fresh revelation of the one who is worthy to be praised. We need a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ. We need a fresh revelation of the love of the Father. that we in our sin walked away from God, creating distance and separation from that relationship, and that the only person who can restore that relationship is the one who is worthy to be praised. It is the Lamb of God that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We need fresh revelation that we didn't do anything. We're just receiving the free gift of mercy and grace and forgiveness. We need revelation of Jesus. Psalm 40, one through three, it says, I waited patiently for the Lord. Are you in a season of waiting?

You know how hard it is? It's costly to trust Jesus in a season of waiting. You want to take the reins. You want to control. It's costly to praise Him in that season. I waited patiently, but then He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, praises defiant. Are you in the slimy pit? Are you in the mud and mire? Praise Him, He lifts me out of it. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God, so that could praise Him publicly, and many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him. (gentle music) - Kathy Keller, Tim Keller's wife, she did an interview recently, and they asked her about this quote that Tim Keller had where he said that the gospel of Jesus is bitter on the first bite, 'cause of the demands, the offensiveness of it, and it says, but after that, it's infinitely sweet. And the guy asked Kathy Keller, have you ever experienced that? Which I'm not gonna lie to you, I thought that was a really silly question to ask Kathy Keller. I was like, of course she's tasted the gospel.

Of course she's tasted the sweetest of Kathy Keller. And she goes, most people would describe my joy as being limited to just contentment. And she goes, when I've learned these later years and I wish I could share this with Tim now, is that I've learned that the limit of my joy is from the sin of omission. The sin of omission is not stepping into the things that God asks us to do, right? Versus the sin of co-mission, which is I'm just gonna avoid the bad things and not do those things. She's saying that what has limited my joy is not stepping into the things that God has asked me to do, to step into praise, to step into evangelism like John talked about last week, to step into serving the poor, the things that God calls us to, 'cause I was limited in my joy, 'cause I didn't step into it. And she goes, I missed out and had too little worship and praise in my daily life. Kathy Keller, 76, fresh revelation of Jesus. She's going the joy I'm experienced now, I've never experienced in my life. I want that revelation now. I want the revelation of praising Jesus, who all of our hope and trust is in, who died on the cross for us. I wanna understand that the praise is costly.

I wanna step into defiance. I'm not laying the whirlwind. Jesus already won on the cross. I wanna step into this public praise. I wanna go outside the camp. I want fresh revelation in this season, not fall into the sin of omission. And so church, this is gonna be us. This is church of the city. We're a church that praises. We're a church that goes outside the camp. We're a church that praises and defines. We're a church that praises even when it costs us. Amen? Yeah, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we love you. Thank you that you love us. Thank you for sending your son, Jesus. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for your worthiness. Jesus, we just say it's a joy to praise you no matter the cost. Father, I pray for the spirit of defiant praise in this room. That no matter what every single person is going through in here, they praise you defiantly. Praise you in all circumstances. Father, I pray for the public praise. Praise that goes outside the camp. I pray that we would be marked.

You guys must be a part of that church that praises outside the camp. Father, I pray that we wouldn't just avoid the bad things and live this fruitless life, but that we would step into the calling you have for us to live a life of praise and experience the fruit that comes from abiding energies.