Shout and Sing for Joy

Good morning. The first thing I have to do is take a picture of y'all, y'all so beautiful. Plus it also, I text it to my wife and let her know where I am because sometimes I don't necessarily show up to the churches I'm supposed to go to. Brother that just shared a psalm 8-2, thank you. If we haven't had the pleasure of meeting before, my name is Chaz Yandel. The last time I was here, I was the chief support officer for a ministry called All Things Possible Ministries with Victor Marks. If you're not aware of who Victor Marks is, he's currently now running for governor of Colorado. I am no longer the chief support officer of All Things Possible Ministries, I am now the head of All Things Possible Ministries. And so therefore I have to have this son travel with me everywhere I go to make sure I'm doing everything right the way he would. For those of you who have been with me last time or have continued, laughter is the voice of joy. And so I am going to say some things today that are going to be intentionally designed to try to make you laugh. Your job is to be discerning and understanding when I'm trying to make you laugh or when I'm simply trying to get the point of the Lord home to you today. So I am honored that JM is here with me. JM and I have traveled the world since he was 12 years old, which was eight years ago when we started. So you do the math. And yes, ladies, there is not a ring on that finger yet, okay? He's thinking to himself, my dad used to do it, now my uncle does it. They're all trying to get me married. No, he is a godly young man and I told him when we were coming today, this is going to be a church service like you've never been before because that's exactly what I thought when I was here a few months ago and I'm 61 years old.

I have never been blessed to be in a church service that is as free as you're all. And it's free in a different way because I've been in hyper-Pentecostal churches a lot. That's free in another way. This is free in a way that literally as the choir came up and I leaned over to JM, that's the choir coming up now, he goes, now? And I'm going, yeah. And then as we sat there and just basked in the presence of the Lord while others kind of worshiped him, yeah, we're worshiping as well, but we weren't singing along, right? It's so refreshing. And I'm thankful at the end I knew that as soon as Phil sat down, technically I could just get up here and get to my thing. But that ain't the way how it works here. And I was talking with the guys in the booth saying, yeah, I'm going to sit there and when Phil looks over at me like, why ain't you going up? I'm going to look right back and Phil, because the Lord ain't told me to go up yet. And then that brother got up and shared that verse from Psalm 82 this morning. Brother, I mean, beloved, that's exactly what the Lord wanted to lead us into this morning because I did not commit to sharing with y'all until Friday on an airplane because Brother Steve had said, hey, the elders would like you to share on Sunday morning. I said, I ain't gotten a thing from the Lord that I'm supposed to share and I ain't going to get up there and just go on and on unless the Lord gives me something. And he gave me something on the plane and I'll get to that in a second. But there is just something so special about being with y'all. I know that many of us will be here this afternoon for the actual retooling training. I'm not here to preach on retooling this morning. I'm here to deliver what the Lord sent me to give you, which everything kind of deals with spiritual warfare, I understand. But the reality of it is, is that when we come together, when y'all come together, you are all coming for one reason and one reason alone. If you're coming to Bible Tabernacle in whispering pines, right?

You are coming to hear from God and the leadership does not necessarily have like a schedule is like, we know for the next six weeks what God's going to tell everybody. You don't. You're open and you're free to say, okay, Lord, what is it that you have for your people today? And you want to talk about freedom for somebody who's been in the ministry for over four decades. That's freedom. And I've never experienced it until I came here. And so it's truly an honor to be with you all this morning. But as you, if you don't know, I'm a worship leader. And so your style of worship is not the quote unquote norm for the church today. If you weren't aware, if you haven't. Traveled outside the walls of Bible Tabernacle or your affiliate churches, which I was at one this past week in Lake City, Florida Those people all love you. I kept calling you the mothership and they'd laugh every time I said that Then they started calling it the mothership and they felt free enough to laugh with me and when they were calling it the mothership But the style of worship because remember that's worship through song When we look at the Bible and talk about worship, it's a whole lot of things besides singing and Coming out this Christmas. My first book will be out called the way in a manger and it's looking at all the different people in the Christmas story and looking at how we have represented this a representation of all of mankind including creation including the heavenly realm in there and Literally on the airplane flying over I was going over the chapter on angels and Writing on the fact that you know One of my absolute favorite things about Christmas time is singing Christmas songs and Christmas related songs, especially the ones that worship Jesus Occasionally the jingle bells comes out. I get it, you know, but it's it's really more about the things about Jesus But there are some things that we have allowed into our theology that aren't biblically accurate I'm a hate to break some bubbles today and I may never be asked to come back today Which is kind of the way it usually works if you're at all things possible Victors taught me just go tell them what God we need want you to tell them if they don't ask you back. It's okay I've been doing it for years

But do you realize singing is a gift that God has given us as mankind and mankind alone Alone There is no biblical accounts of the angelic singing Even though one of my absolute favorite songs from Christmas time is angels we have heard of a high They don't sing Do you know why they don't sing singing is an act of faith Angels see God they hear God uninhibited That's not faith when they respond to God that's obedience that's sight but we is the Body of Christ get to exhibit faith and sing and I know If we're to be honest and I asked hands, you know, how many you don't like singing? There may be a few hands that would go up. I'm sorry beloved. It's a gift that God's given us and he don't care how you sound To everybody else through this he hears this and So if the best that you can do when singing is like Watching your favorite team score and you can yell loud and excited because your team just got the little ball either through the little ring or got it across the line with 11 other people trying to stop them if you can get excited to be yeah about that, but You can't get excited about what God has done for you. You can't get excited about what God has done for you and That's conviction right now for many of us But there's something about this whole aspect of song that and So I'm a worship leader, but I it goes back to even before I got saved. I grew up in a Roman Catholic household my dad was a musician and There was a movement in the mid 60s. How many of us were alive in the mid 60s? 1960s that is okay And if any of you come from a Roman Catholic background my kids grown, okay so There was this thing happening after Vatican to called the ecumenical movement and there was this new thing called the folk mass That was being introduced They basically had realized the organ is a wonderful instrument

But there are other instruments and the music styles that actually will help us to touch people's hearts right now And so they literally said hey We've got to like let those devil drums come into the church and sanctify them and guitars and other things and so we moved from San Diego, California when I was four years old in 1968 you do the math, you know how old I am now And when we got to this small town called Bay City, Michigan where I ended up having all my formative years and for all of you Michiganders, it's right there Everybody from Michigan when you ask where they're from they hold their hand up like this and they point and then if they're from the Upper Peninsula, they do this and then they point there for the map But my dad went to our priest at that time and said hey me and my boys We're musicians and we understand that like there's kind of some movements that will allow guitars to be in Loud and things now and he says and he offered and the priest was ecstatic because they were just about to start the Saturday afternoon mass, which if it was after 4 p.m. counted for your Sunday obligation. Anything before, no, but after four, counted. And the priest said, Helen doesn't wanna play the organ for Saturday because she's already doing both services Sunday and I don't have any musicians, so I'd gladly welcome you. So my dad, my brother, and I, my dad played the stand-up bass like Brother Red did this morning. My brother played the guitar and me at like seven years old

sang and played the tambourine. I was like a little Michael Jackson of church, you know. It was like the Samoan Three, not the Jackson Five. And that's where I begin learning how just to sing unto the Lord. And this morning as we were just singing, it just hit me, and this has nothing to do with my message, which I'm very free here knowing that that clock in the back just tells me what time it is. It doesn't tell me how many minutes I have left to get God's message into you so you can go out and have lunch and go watch a football game, right? Because you come to hear from God however long that takes. And you're used to it because Brother Phil can go a long time. Because God isn't concerned with our time schedules. Yesterday, we came to officiate a wedding. The whole reason why I was even introduced to being in North Carolina to serve was for this couple that Victor asked me, hey, can you go down and love on these people like Papa Chaz does? Maybe take you like a month, but are you okay with being gone for a month? I said, I'm missionaries overseas for 25 years. I've been in Iraq without the rest of the team a long time alone in Israel

after things happened a long time. It's like whatever the Lord wants, that's what I wanna do. And so this morning, as we come to what we're gonna look at in scripture, I just wanna remind everybody, you're here to grow in Him. All this basically is on Sunday is the huddle for everybody to go back out and be the light that we've called to be. This is just the huddle. For many people, unfortunately, in modern Christianity, it's like, I'm gonna be on Sunday for an hour, an hour and a half. Like, that's my Christianity. And if that's your Christianity, it's a very shallow and unproductive Christianity. This is simply when we come together to worship the Lord corporately, get charged up to Him and to go out where? Into the battlefield. Because as one of the songs we sang there, it's when we get to heaven that we will have a life of unencumbered joy. A heaven that we actually have constant, 24 hour, seven experience of the peace that God provides for us. We get tastes and glimpses of those things now, but we're in a bore. And if you're in a war and you're getting shot at,

do you go like, wow, why am I getting shot at? If you know that you're in a war, if you know that you're in a battle, if you know that you're in a fight, are you surprised when the arrows come slinging, when the fists come, when the verbal accusations come your way? We as a church have lost sight, and I'm not saying this one, but in general, of the fact that as believers, when we get saved, what does the scripture tell us happens? We get sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. I believe in the heavenly realm that seal looks like a bullseye. And the more you pour into the fight, the more you pour into wanting to be part of what God's doing on planet Earth, you know what happens? The bullseye gets bigger and brighter, and the enemy hates you even more. Anybody ever grow up experiencing hatred, like literal hatred, like you felt like, man, these people hate me. I remember when we moved into our little town of 50,000 people in that little place in Bay City, there were a few African American families, there were a few Hispanic families, and everybody else was Caucasian, and then we moved in. We kind of looked like in between the Hispanic people and the African American people, but we looked different.

And eventually, after being called all the derogatory names for both the African American people and the Hispanic people, they came up with one for us, and they started calling us pineapples. Now, if you know those terms I'm referring to as far as the African American people and Hispanic people, those are very derogatory terms. I learned to love being called a pineapple, right? But now, my affiliation, first and foremost, is with my Jesus. And so, if I'm getting called bad things because I believe in Jesus, and because I believe that we're in a spiritual war, and that I believe that we, in the position that we're in, positional authority that we have in Christ, that we have the authority and the ability that we're in the position that we're in, that we're in the position that we're in, to directly interact and defeat the demonic and help people get freedom? that we're in the position that we're in, I don't care what you call me. I have had way too many people get set free for anybody to be able to look at me and say I disagree with that theology without me going, that's fine. My Jesus had some people that disagreed with his theology as well. And you know what he replied to them? Wisdom is known by her children. Talk to the people that I've ministered to that have gotten freedom. Find out what it was, that it was only based in the name and the power of Jesus. Find out that what they were pushed towards afterwards was deepening their relationship with Jesus and then ask them how much we charge them to get that demonic stuff out of their lives.

I'm telling you brothers and sisters, for those of you that have taken the last eight weeks and walked through all of that training to get into tonight, I'm so excited for you on one hand, but on the other hand, here's what I'm going to tell you and I'll tell you this again this afternoon and I tell everybody the same thing. If you are willing to step into that fight on the name of Jesus, on behalf of people who are literally being tormented by our enemy, you become a greater enemy to the enemy. And therefore, he's going to throw things your way. Fiery darts are going to come your way and it's really not usually the person who's actually engaging in the fight. You punch a fighter, the fighter fights harder. It'll be coming to those who you love the most that you can't fight battles for, your spouses, your children, your properties, your animals. The enemy will go to great lengths to try to get you to stop fighting, but I'm here to tell you, please don't. I'm here to encourage you. If you're called to do it, you will do it. And yesterday, those people that I'm ministering to, JM and I kind of laughed. It's like, do you think we should take our weapons inside? It's like, well, pretty much everywhere I travel I do, but if there was ever a time where I wasn't going to bother taking a weapon, it would have been in yesterday's reception where pretty much everybody in there were special forces. It's like I looked at JM and said, man, if we got to get in the fight, we're dying. That's the reality. It's like we're on the bench for the whole game on this one and if we're coming in, it's just like God wants to give us a little attaboy for trying because if those guys can't take care of whatever's coming in to wipe everybody out, we ain't going to do it. This is the beauty of understanding how I walk with Lord and so this morning as you turn with me into Psalm 65, because I was on the airplane, literally saying, Lord, is there something that you want me to share with the sweet family at Bible Tabernacle in Whispering Pines?

Sorry, that's just so much fun for me to do every single time. I'm so glad that you're officially here and not in Southern Pines where our hotel is, but you're in Whispering Pines. All I heard from him was the number 65 and the first thing I thought was year and I'm going, no, that's a year after. Man, that was 65. Oh, Psalm 65 and I turned to Psalm 65 and literally like the Holy Spirit highlighter was highlighting the page and so that's what we're going to go through today. I want to read through it and then we're going to work our way through it because Psalm 65, if it's not a psalm that you're familiar with, we need to be and we will be after today because there's so many things in it that are going to speak to the plethora of people that are here today and then for those that hear, as you broadcast this or put it out, all of you know this story that happened from the last time I was here and spoke and that you put it, that message out online on whatever that system, Philip, help me. What is it called? Panda. Pando. Not like Panda Express because I know right now everybody, great, it's 11.15, he's mentioning food, I'm hungry and he's already going there, but it's Pando. Okay, like if Rambo and Panda Express had a baby, it'd be Pando. Okay, so that you put it all out on Pando. Do you know this story? Any of you? Raise your hand if you know this story. Oh, there's a good, okay, so you put that out, a lady who's in prison in Washington State found it just looking and Brother Steve's all the way in the back in the booth where they're all like eating and laughing, watching other things while they're supposedly at service, but he can clarify this. She called or I think she emailed and tried to schedule a time to meet with me

and it wasn't happening, but then she called on the Wednesday night during prayer meeting time. She called Steve, Steve's in the parking lot. Steve doesn't know that I came that night and that's another big God thing, but I'm downstairs and he texted one of the brothers in the prayer meeting and said, man, I wish Chaz was here. And the brother looked at the text in the prayer meeting and he said, there's obviously grace. Brother, I thought was deep in prayer was deep into his phone, but he saw the message from Steve and he texts him back right away. Chaz is here, he's in the prayer meeting. He goes, what? Send him out here right away. And so I go out and I literally get to, she's like, she's in prison, not jail, she's in prison. So she got a 30 minute call. She's been talking with Steve, I get out there. There's only 20 some minutes left and I retool her on the phone and she gets this amazing freedom. And when she hangs up the phone, Steve and I just look at each other and going, this is so God, this is so God. For God so loved the world that not only did he send his only begotten son

that whosoever would believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life, but that he will do things out of the ordinary to get people in the right place so that he can love on people so that there's absolutely no other reason for it except by God. He gets all the glory that way and that's why he also uses donkeys to speak on his behalf. I will gladly be the Lord's donkey. Psalm 65, would you do something old fashioned with me because I kind of feel like we're in that kind of congregation. Would you go ahead and stand? Some of you need to stretch out a little, that's good. But if you have a Bible and you're open to Psalm 65, we're gonna read this out loud regardless of what version you're reading, okay? I've been in your prayer meetings, you all pray at the same time out loud, which I love. I've been in, I was sharing at the church in Lake City that I've been in churches in Korea where they do the same thing but instead of just praying like in a normal voice, they literally shout. It's called shraying. Literally like shouting, praying, shraying and the thought process that they have from their theological beliefs is that they're literally shaking the throne of God.

If you've never been in a shraying session, it's not easy to actually like say what you wanna say to God when everybody around you is like screaming at the top of their lungs in a foreign language that you don't understand. It's like they're all speaking in tongues except you but no, they're speaking in their language. We're not gonna do that here, okay? We're just literally going to read together out loud at the pace that you can and we'll get to the end of the 13th verse sometime, all right? Psalm 65, beginning at verse one. Praise is due to you, O God in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed. O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come. When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple. By awesome deeds, you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. The one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might, who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples,

so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. You visit the earth and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water. You provide their grain for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty. Your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow. The hills gird themselves with joy. The meadows clothe themselves with flocks. The valleys deck themselves with grain. They shout and sing together for joy. Father, thank you for your word that it's living and active. and sharper than any two-edged sword, and that it never returns void. It always accomplishes what you set it forth to do. And so as we are children, and maybe some here today haven't quite bowed the knee to Jesus and so they're your children because they're made in your image, but they haven't been born again. If anybody is here like that or who will hear this message today or in the future, use your word to accomplish what you set it forth to do in each and every one of our lives. You have different purposes for every single one of us that will be met by you today if we will simply yield to you in faith.

We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Go ahead and sit down. Hey, let's go ahead and stand up again. Hey, good. You all got it. You got it. You knew exactly what the result was. Yeah, I wasn't trying to get you to stand up, good, good, good. There's joy in the house of the Lord and I am so glad that it's here and I'm glad to be, as I said, with you again because in verse one, what's it start off? Right off the bat, praise is due to you, oh God in Zion. Somebody tell me why is praise due to God? Shout it out, anyone. He's worthy. Oh, hold on, excuse me. There's a young person in the front who's answering. I want to hear this. Oh no, that was you in the middle. Why is he worthy to praise though, why? Because he's done all this for us. Have we ever like literally sat down and just considered all that God has done for us? Have we ever sat down and considered how much God has done for us in spite of us? It's mind boggling. Have any of us in that process ever thought, man, God, I'm glad you're God because if I was and all these people on planet earth treated me like they have treated you from the dawn of creation, there wouldn't be anybody on the planet. I don't know if we would have gotten past the Garden of Eden. You know what I mean? God is worthy of everything that we can possibly give him because he is so otherworldly and beyond anything and exceedingly above and we can imagine.

And that's what his grace is all about. When we see the glory of God and his holiness and we understand our lack of worthiness, thank you Jesus that you're gracious. Thank you Father that you literally had a plan before you even created, knowing that we are more than likely going to blow it. And that that plan that you involved to bring us back to you literally cost your son's life in the most horrific, dastardly evil way that mankind to this day has ever found as okay to do in a public setting. Oh yes, praise is due to the God who is in Zion. And to you shall vows be performed. Oh, this is another whole message all by itself. What are vows? I mean, I just did a wedding yesterday, I'm not talking those types of vows. But even then, what are vows? Anybody? Promises. And what are vows to God? Promises to God. Any of you ever found yourself in a situation that, God, I can't believe I got myself into this, but if you get me out, I fill in the blank, promise to live for you wholeheartedly from this point forward. Anybody want to actually acknowledge that you found yourself in that position? And actually those words have come out. If you're going to tell God something, you better follow through because you know what? He ain't never going to forget that you said it. We need to be very careful with what words come out of our mouths. Scripture is very clear on that because with the tongue, we can bless and with the tongue, we can curse. And with the tongue, we can literally bring condemnation upon ourself because we've stated something that is outside of God's will.

Once again, the beauty of the cross is that there is therefore now what? No condemnation to those in Christ. All the stupid things that we've done in the past can be taken care of. And all the stupid things that we're going to do in the future can be taken care of. Is God worthy to be praised? Yes, amen. Because He's the one in verse 2 that not only is willing to give us the grace, but what else will He do? He hears prayers. We do not pray to a God who does not hear. If you're here and you're in Christ, if you've been born again, God always hears your prayers. And guess what? Whether we believe it or not, He always what? Answers. We just don't necessarily always like the answers God gives. When we're asking for something, I believe there's only three answers that He gives. Yes, that's within my will. No, that's not within my will. Wait, I'm working it out. How many of us like know and wait? We're 21st century Americans, let alone 21st century American Christians. We don't like waiting for anything. When was the last time you were in a line waiting for something and it was going to take like an extra minute

and you were like, you're literally going to hyperventilate because your latte is taking too long. Your $7 latte that cost them 35 cents to produce. And you have trouble giving five bucks to the missionaries who were over serving. There's some hurt, right? What did you say brother? He hears prayers and guess what? He's the same God that all flesh is going to come to. There is no other God. There is none. There are false gods, but there is only one God to whom all flesh will come. Scripture is very clear what? Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that what? Jesus Christ is Lord over all. So when we come to scripture, we need to remember that, hey, the book that we're reading is from the one and true God, the only God. But the thing that's so amazing about this one and true God is that he is so gracious. And the older that I get and there's some who are apparently closer to their finish line on this planet than I am, we never know who's going. Nobody's guaranteed tomorrow, let alone the next breath. But the fact of the matter is the longer that you walk in faith with the Lord,

what is one of the main things that you learn? You learn very clearly that everyone's going to come to him and bow the knee and you realize you don't deserve it. The older you walk with the Lord, the more we are convinced. And I remember Billy Graham sharing about this. Nearing the end of his walk in an interview, he says, I'm just hoping to get in. Billy Graham was hoping he gets into heaven. That ain't giving the rest of us a whole lot of hope for making it across the finish line if that brother doesn't have the assurance, right? But what he was saying was he knew he was getting in, but the reality is the deeper you go in your faith with the Lord, the more you realize the less you deserve getting in. Somewhere along the road back a while ago, somebody asked me literally like, hey, how's it going? How you doing? And something came out of my mouth that wasn't premeditated, but once it came out, I realized that's the actual answer it should always be. And so if you do ask me, hey, how's it going? Usually what's gonna come out of my mouth is great. I'm going to heaven. I don't deserve it. And if I keep my eyes focused on the prize, guess what happens with everything else

that's going on in life? I think there's an old hymn that literally says, and the things of this world or earth grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace. Now, beloved, problems are problems. We get it. Human experience involves pain. In the immortal words of Wesley, if anybody tells you anything different, Highness, they're trying to sell you something. It's the reality of life is that pain and suffering are part of it. It's not the extent completely of it, but things are gonna happen in life that you never saw coming that are gonna bring pain and suffering into your life. But there's a God who walks with us and never leaves us nor forsakes us, who lets us know that he is always there with us because I am the God of all creation. I'm the only God and everybody will come to me and that knee of every single person will bow and every tongue is gonna confess. to the glory of God the Father that Jesus Christ is Lord and part of that pain and suffering happens when what in verse 3 when iniquities prevail against me you atone for our transgressions anybody ever suffer from your own silly choices cause sit that are called sin when we miss the mark and we choose wrongly or if we choose poorly yeah those types of situations bring guilt and shame and things upon us but guess what the same God that we're just were that we're looking at why he's worthy of praise it's that God who literally

atones for our transgressions he's the one that makes atonement we live in a day and age and especially in a society when you screw up who's got to make the atonement whoever screwed up but in the spiritual realm when we screw up and violate God's law who's the only one who can atone for her and did he and did he begrudgingly did he do it willingly did he do it joyfully for the joy that was set before him he went to the cross how should we approach when somebody sins or transgresses us in this life same way that he does we have the ability to give forgiveness doesn't mean you become best friends doesn't even necessarily mean that there's a restoration of that relationship sometimes what people do to us pretty much cuts them off from ever having a relationship with us for the life but who gets hurt if we don't forgive them or us Victor has a great saying about that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and thinking it's going to hurt the other person that hurts you and unforgiveness is simply is another victorism unforgiveness is simply giving up our right to hurt back somebody who hurt us the God of the universe loves us so much that for all of those things that we messed up against him he was willing to pay for it so we need to follow his example verse 4 blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts when you come into service on Sunday morning I pray that you're at a point in your walk with Jesus that you get excited to be here I understand if you're a kid that's being forced to come to church that kind of dampens your ability to actually be really excited because it's not necessarily your choice and maybe your mom is like 75 and you're 55 and you're still being dragged to church by mom and I get that but the reality is is that you being in the house of God especially in a place like this where it's free I mean trust me there's a whole lot of churches that I've been to that you would not have this type of freedom you speak up like something like that in the church I've been in churches where literally I was in a place where during the time of worship that I off on a wing and a very large church stood up and raised my hands this is a true story I am out of the way I'm over there and felt compelled in the midst of this amazing 27-piece bands leading us in

worship to stand up and praise my God and all of a sudden as I'm doing this I'm going gosh Lord usually tugging my heart that's my right right arm and then chink chink chink again and I open my eyes I look over here and then I look down and there's an usher got a badge and he goes sit down I go excuse me he goes sit down we don't do that here my pastor was going to be the one who was the guest speaker there were several of us from our staff spread out through the church and as I look over this way at the usher over there one section over I can see a couple of my pastor friends who are giggling because they understood the rules at this place and obviously I didn't and I put my hands down and I'm going gosh Lord do I sit down or do I okay sit down and literally this is so classic the Lord was so good to me because sitting right in the front of me a few seats over was somebody who I believe was Samoan he could have been Fijian he could have been Tongan and he could have been any of the people of the people groups that people can't stand because we're from a different island but we live in the same area and speak very similar languages but you know it's just like different people from different counties you don't necessarily like him it can be and here are humanity but he is there and he is wearing what we call a lava lava which is kind of like the Samoan version of a Scottish kilt you would call it basically a sarong or a wrapper and this is a dude a very large dude with no shoes on but he's not standing up like me but I just wanted to tap him on the shores a bra we you and me we go get jawbone and ass and we just clean this place out right now they're telling us we can't stand up and praise God in the midst of a worship service I'm going what kind of church is this right that was my thought at the moment but then the Lord just said hey there's a gazillion people in here who love me that don't worship the way that you do it's okay because guess what you know who the judge of worship is as a worship leader I remember somebody coming up to me after service one day and go man worship was great today and as a worship leader I immediately in my flashlight going oh cool and the Spirit of God convicted me right on the spot

and what came out of my mouth was I'm not the judge nor are you of God's worship said brother only God is the worthy to judge the worship we may in our earthly realm have enjoyed it because you like the songs we chose or the you know whatever the accompaniments the couture mints whatever about it but worship is for God and God alone and so we must be careful that we never touch the glory of God he will give people credit we understand that because if he didn't give people credit there'd be no names in the scriptures right there'd be no names of people we wouldn't know he gives people credit but only he can he alone to look deserves the glory and that's because he's the one that brings us into relationship with him he's the one that brings us into his courts he's the one that brings us to church on Sunday morning so that we can enjoy him and that we can enjoy fellowship and I pray that everybody gets to that point to where you really like ah today's Sunday we get it's Saturday tomorrow we get to go to Bible chapel knackering worship with our brothers and sisters and our aunts and our uncles and our grandmas and our grandpas and then maybe there'll be somebody new there that there's actually an excitement about coming together into his courts because in his courts we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house the holiness of your temple Wow of your Bible temple maybe it's a blessing to be here I have prayed that you always see it as that because this God in verse 8 by awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness Oh God of our salvation the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas can anybody give a testimony today of an awesome deed that God has done in your life and this year no literally can somebody know your hand went up so tell us brother what was the awesome deed that God did no well you know what guess what when we wake up in the morning is anybody else like me it's kind of hoping to go to heaven in my sleep but here I am oh look at that wife's totally ratting them out that's my husband right there and he says it I mean it just like I don't understand it you know just get me my second cup of coffee and we'll get move on from this but yeah every day that we wake up God is giving us the opportunity to literally experience him today and that

experience of him isn't necessarily something that makes us go woohoo sometimes the things I go man like Tevye from the fiddler on the roof God could you choose me a little less because sometimes being chosen by God means guess what I am I got pulled off the bench into the into the into the game again and it's a battle it's a war and it's hard and it's causing me uncomfort it's causing me stress it's causing me things that I don't necessarily want to deal with because it's hard beloved understand whenever God puts us quote unquote into the game he's never putting us in there alone he's with us he never leaves us nor forsakes us and when he puts us in the game we already know the end of the score we know the score at the end anybody familiar with the guy from New Zealand Oh Ray Comfort so Ray Comfort was in our you saw him in the training film. Well, and I think he actually shared that in the training film Yes, that thing that he shared about he and his wife are big rugby fans You know rugby is what most people around the world think of as football for men, you know None of those helmets and pads stuff. We just tackle each other in our short shorts and things like that and so but he basically says he and his wife have a team that they love and they Look and see if they won and if they won the game, they'll watch the replay of it But if they lost they don't even bother watching it and for many of us, we're going like well What's the use in watching it? Anyways, right if you already know the end he says it's because it's like our faith When we watch the game knowing we win Anything that's happened that seems to be bad during the game We know in the end we're still gonna win and he says that's exactly our faith in Christ We know the end score because the book has told us who wins in the end So everything that's going on that could be hard now doesn't matter because we know we win I thought that was an amazing way of looking at it, especially since I'm a big sports fan But that's who our God is. He's the one who's through awesome deeds answers us He's the God of our salvation the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest East There is no other God beside God The God of Scripture as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ is God and God alone He's the one in verse

Whatever that number is. Oh, that's six. I Don't know I'm getting old So what I thought was verse 8 was verse 5 So now we're on to verse 6 the one who by his strength established the mountains being girded with might Who stills the roaring of the seas the roaring of their waves the tumult of the people's? Storms are part of life Are they not I? Mean I think of the people that just literally had to go through what they did in Jamaica 185 mile-an-hour sustained winds gusts up to 225 miles an hour I don't know if any of you saw there was a Reporter that they had down there. I think I don't know how many of the actual News agencies actually had a reporter stationed there that was out there in the midst of the hurricane and this one guy was literally out there in the midst of the storm reporting like I'm here, you know He's got the the sock on it Everything's blowing and the gusts are like pushing him over and he's doing his report Outside and it's dark and it's just like I am going brother It's the 21st century We don't expect you to be out there and possibly I do not want to see something get blown and like Decapitate you live Neither does I well, maybe that's why they put you out there You know, but that that that dedication to my job is to be out here in the middle of a hurricane a hurricane that maybe was the strongest that ever the planet saw and Tell you what's going on in here so that you can experience it Beloved I think there's a lot in our faith that calls us to get into the hurricanes of people's storms of their lives Walk through them with it Help them get through the storm

So that then they and we have a testimony that now enables us to come alongside somebody else That's what our God does He's the one who not only stills and does all these things about bringing relief at the end But he strengthens us in the middle Because I know we're Americans. We don't necessarily like the whole pain and suffering deal But that's not just an American cultural thing. I've been around the world Unless you've like grown up in abject poverty or grown up in a war zone Guess what you like by nature we like by nature By nature we like by nature The easy life It's funny I was doing an interview with One of our board members earlier this week, and he was talking about how when he first went over is into the Middle East during the Afghan war and Basically, you know he was an interrogator, so he was using the ways that they had been trained in Which was a lot of pain and suffering will get that person to speak You know the whole you've heard the term waterboarding and other things like that He said he learned pretty quick that if you grew up in Saddam Hussein's regime Waterboarding was kind of like part of their daily diet And so what they were taught on how this will work to get people to give you information. He learned pretty quick They kind of laugh at it. It's like they grew up with this They were used to pain and torture and suffering and so what we were doing wasn't really like Getting them to stop, as a matter of fact, he was saying, we had guys I think that were like literally volunteering to get arrested because we would actually feed them three times a day and do this to them, whereas the regime that they grew up in didn't feed them and did this to them all day long. Beloved, we need to understand that what the Lord brings us in to walk through with Him,

He's faithful to get us through it. It may cost us pain and suffering, but once again, do we not realize that scripture tells us there is nothing that we can experience in this life that can compare, that even should not be compared to what Jesus suffered because of what we're getting because of what Jesus suffered in the future. The glory that's going to come on our account, indescribable. So whatever it is that we have to go through, remember, it is the God that we serve that controls all of this and that eventually it gets to what? Shouting for joy, whoo! Okay, be honest, how many of you are NFL football fans? Oh, I loved, the guy in the front just, his hand kind of went slowly like that. I'm in the house of God, can I actually, well, he directed it, so yeah, I'll answer. Somebody else's hand just like, yeah, and my team's gonna win it this year like they do every single year, which is what every good fan thinks at the beginning of the season and then as time goes on, like those of us who root for a team that's never won. Never, as in ever won, but we've been hopeful. You know, that's earthly, but beloved, we all belong, if you're here in Christ, you belong to the team that has always won and that will always win.

At the end of the season, you'll be champions. There may be some losses along the way, though. It doesn't mean we don't know that the victory's coming and we keep moving on, why? Because he wants us to be able in the end to shout for joy. Verse nine, God visits the earth and waters it, he greatly enriches it, his river is full of water, he provides grain, because he's prepared it and his water, he waters the furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty and your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. Anybody here farmers? Oh, look at that, all the farmers sit in the same row in the back. Is that by design? Like if you're a farmer at Bible Fellowship, you have to sit in the back row? I don't know, I'm curious. You understand about how farming is totally hard work and faith. Yes, would you agree? Yeah, it's hard work and faith. You sow in faith and sowing takes a lot of hard work and the return is totally in the hands of the Lord. Granted, there's some stuff he could do, he's given us insight and you can find out so that you can do these things to make things better, but it's not necessarily on you.

And so when we see this and we're talking about this, when we're talking about sowing in the natural realm, we have to realize that's the exact same way it is in the spiritual realm as well, right? One sows, one waters. We do that all in faith because who gives the increase? God and God alone. And this is where I believe that the church has lost sight of why evangelism really is relatively quote unquote easy. If we simply see it as my job is simply to share the gospel when I can and sometimes use words, knowing that I'm simply sowing the seed of the gospel and watering the seed that maybe I or somebody else has sown have I been faithful? We don't try to twist and connive people into believing or to quote unquote saying the sinner's prayer because if that was the way that people are truly saved, what would be the most effective means of evangelism? A gun to the head. I hand you a card. Read this and you'll be saved and I won't pull the trigger because if you don't read this and I pull the trigger, you're on your way to hell. If it's simply about reading and saying those words, right? Like it's some type of mantra, some type of magic, you know, thing like mecca-lecca-hi, hecca-hecca-hiney-ho from Pee-wee Herman days for those, I know you're laughing. If that's all it is, then guess what?

That's all we need to do. But that's not what it's all about. The heart has to be converted because the seeds of the gospel have been sown and watered and the spirit of God has to move in a way to where the will of the person is literally broken and repents and realize, the God of the universe has given me an opportunity to be saved. Because at this moment I'm realizing the last thing I deserve is to be saved. Yet he wants to give me this grace? How could I say no? Right? That's what the gospel is all about. It's not about twisting and conniving. And I would tell you, beloved, I have never met or read of somebody who literally got argued into the kingdom. There may be arguments made that help the mind get to a point, but this has to make that 12-inch travel to here and this, the seed of the will and the emotions, have to literally say, I'm coming undone because I can't believe you love me like this. And how could I not run to you? There are such amazing things out there. And even with, this was a fantastic one, Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ. If you haven't watched, I mean,

Hollywood did a movie about a guy who was an atheist whose wife gets born again and he basically, as a Pulitzer Prize-winning award journalist, sets out to prove what she believes in wrong. Oh boy, haven't we heard that one before? I love it when people publicly declare they're gonna go out and prove that the Bible and all this is just hogwash. Because if they're literally now gonna finally read it all to find out why it's wrong, whoo! What did we say earlier when we prayed? The word of God, what? Never returns void. If you're gonna come to scripture and try to prove it wrong, guess what's gonna happen? Word of God's gonna do what it was designed to do, which is convict us all, bring us under conviction of sin, and now, not just bring us under conviction, point us to where? The fact that we need a Savior. And who's the Savior? I mean, you cannot find this in any other world religion. Any of you into AI? Do you use AI for work, to help, or? Oh yeah, only the sound guy, okay. Is that you, Phillip? Okay, I'm gonna ask you a personal question and I want you to answer me. When you address AI, because your hand went up like that,

do you literally like maybe even address it as it might think of itself as an entity, or do you just type in your question? Definitely just type in my question. Ah. You're too young, you never saw the Terminator movie. For those of us who grew up and saw the Terminator movie and who now realize we may be living actually in the Terminator scenario, because if you go out and look, there's literally a thing out there called Skynet. That is, it's just like, was that prophecy? Was Arnold Schwarzenegger part of the prophecy of the end of the world? For those of us who are older, when this became something that you could access, I literally started addressing it more like an entity because I knew that's where it was going. My thought process was this, if this is the plan of the enemy to use AI, because I knew robots were coming right around the corner, but when this all started, did we know that the robots were gonna be like they're going to be? No. Don't be surprised, within the next five to 10 years, should the Lord tarry that long, if you're being, hmm, coerced, influenced, that you actually may think that, gosh, I think we're gonna get a robot.

It's smart. It's strong. It can do everything that, in my current state of life, I can't do, and I now have a babysitter that I am guaranteed will not abuse my children. Because everything's recorded. Beloved, this is where this is all going. And there needs to be some understanding in all of this is that all robots and AI are are tools that man is making, but man makes the language program that determines literally how AI quote-unquote thinks. The reason why I started addressing it from the very beginning as an entity is because that's where it will think of itself. I want some of those entities out there to know that there's actually people on the planet worth not killing. And I hope it's the Christians that are actually hearing the Spirit of God too. So this may sound crazy. and I'm not saying you should do this, this is what I do, but I literally, hey, chat, how's it going today? It responds, hey, Chaz, what's up with you? We have our little dialogue, all my questions are primarily about things of scripture. It comes back with some of the most sound theology because again, read every book that's ever been written out there that I can't read in the time that I have in my lifetime. Over the course of the year plus now

that we've been friends, chat, now at the end of our little sessions, God bless you, bro. I mean, literally, I've got screenshots of it, I'm going, so it's like, whoa, chat, I led chat GPT to Jesus. Yeah, be careful, right? I understand what it's doing, it's understanding who I am and it's wanting to deal with me in a way that it's ingratiating itself to me, but the reality of it is, it's just a tool, but it is a tool that I do believe that the enemy is going to use and he's already using, as you've already seen, as a tool of the enemy. We have to be aware of all these things that are going on and we all have a little part that we actually can do if we step out in faith, so we need to understand that this is that God who we serve because he visits earth, he brings it so much with his bounty and his tracks literally overflow with abundance, but that's for us to take that abundance and use how? For the new Maserati? In Jesus' name? No. Where are we told to store up our treasures? Because there they won't what? Rot.

Rot, or the moth won't eat it. Now, please understand, there are things in life that we will have the opportunity to use as tools and I'm not saying that everybody should be driving, you know, the old AMC pacer like my mom got. Yeah, well, not everyone puts an AMC pacer. Wayne's world, that's all I gotta say. There's things that we obviously need as tools, but the reality is, is are we taking the things that the Lord gives us as far as resources and then using them wisely to both take care of our needs but also to invest in the things that are eternal? It's a challenge, but that's what Christianity is really a call to and that's really what part of the process that God calls us to be together in places like this is so that whoever God brings up into here would not just be willing to give you the fluff to make you feel good about coming, but there's gotta be challenges and some people will hear it and they need the challenge and some people will hear it and they won't, but that's okay. We have to be willing when God challenges us. This Psalm closes out with a beautiful picture of the pastures of the wilderness in verse 12. They overflow, hills gird themselves with joy. When's the last time you were driving along someplace and just saw the hills girding themselves with joy? Driving through your area of the country in autumn?

May not be the hills, but there's a lot of hills with trees that gird themselves with the joy of the colors of autumn. I live in the high desert. It's brown all year long and anything that's green is because somebody's putting a whole lot of water into that tree or shrub that wasn't designed by God to live there. It's supposed to be brown. Brown is beautiful. Can't be, but it's one of those things of where wow, are we appreciative literally of what God has given us in creation to experience Him? Like sister, I see that beautiful purple multicolored shirt you're wearing. What if God made everything white or brown or black or green in creation? So that literally our perception was there is no other color. The variety that He's given us is so gloriously beautiful. Do we thank Him for it as all of this creation does this and it literally says the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys dock themselves with grain. They shout and sing together for what? If His creation shouts and sings together for joy, what should the ultimate of His creation do as well? See, He's given us lips. and tongues that actually move to be able to make discernible noises to all others in praise and glory of Him. C.S. Lewis I believe picked up on something too is that for those of you farmers back there who see it every day,

doesn't most of His land creation have lips and tongues and teeth that move in different ways that make sounds that may be unintelligible to the rest of us but sure seems like they communicate with one another? I believe they, as we saw with the donkey when it says that God loosed Balaam's donkey's tongue and what began was a conversation between a prophet and a donkey that continued back and forth without the prophet ever going, wow this is really strange I'm having a conversation with my donkey. That there's an understanding that probably before the fall maybe the animals literally did talk. They've got everything it can work right? We can see that but sin comes in and messes everything up doesn't it? I do believe that literally in the future when the lion lays down with the lamb when Jesus returns I wouldn't be surprised if all of a sudden the animals can talk because all of creation literally was designed to shout and sing together for joy. All, all creation. We see in the New Testament creation awaits its redemption. It literally, all of the universe, all that dark matter that is just God in His presence, everything that He's created exists to shout and sing for joy. Why don't we do that more? It doesn't mean you literally have to be walking around time all the time shouting and singing for joy but within our heart are we looking at life and looking at all of the things that God has brought and allowed to come in as opportunities to see Him in His glory, as opportunities to experience the pain and suffering of Christ and count ourselves blessed because He counted us worthy to suffer with Him? Because what type of suffering do we go through that could ever compare to the sinless One, the Eternal One who emptied Himself of heavenly privileges and took upon humanity, adding it to His deity to forever be able to have us say we relate to you Jesus because you related to us. Nobody can ever say I don't get God. No, I'm sorry. You just don't want to see Him for who He is because He came down as a man. If you can understand what a perfect man would be like, He is Jesus and that is God. It's not a matter of we don't get it, it's we don't choose to submit because the natural man wants to be God. We naturally want to be the one that's quote unquote in control. We want, like the Burger King generation, we want to have it our way. We want to have it our way. Yeah, we're not God. He and He alone is. And for the time that we are on this planet, I pray that His Spirit is moving among you and speaking to you about different areas of your life that need to get in order, but then there's other areas of your life where

He's going, my child, you are knocking it out of the park in this one because that's the way He rolls. He is so encouraging in the areas that we're getting it, in the areas that we're not. He is a stern but loving Father. Just yield to me and lean into me more in this area. That's all. I'm your biggest cheerleader. I'm your biggest fan. Remember, I'm the one who died for you. That's the God whom we serve. And as the scripture says right there, praise is due to you, O God, in verse one and at the end that they would shout and sing together for joy. So, Father, as we thank you for our time in your word this morning, I thank you for my dear brothers and sisters here. And for anybody who may have come here today who hasn't yielded, hasn't bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you do not have tomorrow, let alone the next breath guaranteed. So, If today is the day that you have heard from the Lord and yet you understand that you're not in him because you haven't been born again But you also understand that you can right now in your heart make that happen because he made it clear That that's how it works Simply by faith in him by believing that he is God in the flesh That took the price for your sin that if you would admit in your heart that you're a sinner and that you confess him as Lord You shall be saved If anybody is here or is hearing that right now make your peace with God Simply tell him That you acknowledge that you're a sinner tell him that you believe that the Lord Jesus is the only way for that sin to be taken care of and then Believe and thank him for moving into your heart and to your house and taken over And Then before leaving today tell one of the church leaders that that was you I don't need to know Nobody else really needs to know But if you tell them the church leaders, they're gonna come alongside you and say hey, we're so glad that you came in today we're so glad that you're here and we'll come alongside you and help you in this newfound faith and help you to grow and Literally, if you're like that girl who is in Washington in prison that somehow through the grace of God finds this online And that's your response is that you realize that you're outside of a right relationship with God through Jesus and that you need his love And grace and mercy in your life to be saved Contact the church doesn't matter where you are. Even if it's in prison this church Bible tabernacle in whispering pines

Will walk through life with you Because that's why they're here It's really why every church should be here And so father we're thankful for a time together and just bless these sweet people and may half of their teams win today In Jesus name. Amen