The Struggle Is Real | Part 4: Worship Over Worry

Again, we are in the last message of our series, The Struggle is Real. If you have not been with us or with us for the first time, what we've been doing in this series is learning what the Bible has to say about our emotional health, because if we do not learn how to master our emotions, we have learned that we can rest assured they will indeed master us. Been a great series. I think a lot of people have gotten a lot of help through it. We've talked about depression. We looked at that. We looked at fear and anxiety. I was actually gonna go a totally different direction today, but I really felt like the Holy Spirit wanted me to circle back and hit another facet of this thing so that we can just fully be free. So today we're gonna address one of the most common issues that all of us deal with from time to time, but some of us really find ourselves in a debilitating place. And I wanna just start in Matthew chapter six, because Jesus addresses this issue head on and says something very specific about it. Here's what he said. He said, this is why I tell you not to worry so much about everyday life, whether you have enough food and drink

or enough clothes to wear, because life is more than food, and the body is more than what you put on it. Look at the birds. They don't plant. They don't harvest. They don't save food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them every day. Don't you realize how much more valuable you are to him than they are? Can all of your worries add a single moment to your life? Actually, it's the opposite. The more that we fret, the more that we worry, it doesn't add to our life. It takes away moments from our life. And why do you worry so much about your clothes? Look at the wildflowers in the field and see how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, and even Solomon in all of his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. If God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and then tossed into the fire tomorrow, certainly he will care for you. Why do you have such little faith? Again, so don't worry so much over all of these things, saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? Notice this line. Jesus said these things dominate the thoughts of people who have no relationship with God.

The people who should fret and the people who panic and fear over these things are the people who have no relationship with God because they have not put their trust in their heavenly Father. In other words, Jesus said there should be a vast distinction to the world from believers and non-believers. They should be able to see the difference in how we live our lives because we have solely put all of our trust and faith in the power of our heavenly Father. He said he already knows that you need these things. Focus your main attention, therefore, on God's kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. And you can trust that he will give you all of these other things that you need. Four times, don't miss it. Four times in eight verses, don't worry, Jesus said. Four times, don't worry so much, don't worry so much, don't worry so much. Now let me clarify something here. Let me tell you what Jesus is not saying to us. Jesus is not saying just lay there and don't do anything and God's gonna just provide all that you need. He's not saying that we shouldn't be concerned about some things in life because we most certainly should. We need to work, we need to be wise with our money, we need to be responsible. There are some things that we should be concerned about

in life that are indeed our responsibility. What he's advocating for, not that we shouldn't be concerned, he's saying don't be consumed. Don't be consumed by all of these other things because so many of us actually are consumed. And I get it, it's not so easy, I know, to just say, hey man, don't worry. And you're like, oh, well, okay, thanks for the advice. I won't, it doesn't work like that. I shared with you not long ago, and I'm gonna circle back around, about the comedian Carl Hurley telling the story one day about trying to throw away a trash can and in his bit, he said it's the one thing you just can't get the garbage man to pick up. He said, I set an old rusty garbage can out by the street one morning, thinking the garbage man would understand that it was dilapidated, it needed to be thrown away, but when I came back that afternoon, he had stacked it up neatly with the rest of my cans. Next week I put it out, this time I turned it upside down so that he could see that it was completely rusted through and needed to be thrown away. But when I got home again, he had stacked it neatly next to my other cans. He said, I made up my mind, I was gonna do this thing right. So I took a sledgehammer and I beat this thing into pieces and put it out by the road.

And not only when I came home, was it stacked by the other cans, but he had actually tried to beat it back into shape for me. He said, finally, I did the only thing I could do. I went to the hardware store, bought a heavy duty padlock and chain, chained it to a tree in my front yard. Sure enough, somebody stole it out of my yard that night. Well, worry is a lot like that trash can. We all want it gone. We all know it should be gone, but getting rid of it is easier said than done. Because I wanna show you a principle in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. There is a principle called the principle of replacement and what it says is you can't just set some things down and not replace it With something else. It's not like you just take something out of your life There's a void that's left when we when we take these negative things or these things that are not like God out of our life They have to be replaced with something that is holy and sacred and good and godly So for the sake of what we're talking about today, let me just cut to the chase and show you this The true secret to worrying less is actually to worship more the real secret to worrying less is Actually to worship more and let me be clear about what I'm talking about I am NOT talking about what we just did in this room with our Voices and the worship and the music that is a part of worship, but that is not just worship alone It's not just what we do on Sunday. Not just what we do on Thursday Worship in its purest form is a choice that we make every single day to see the goodness of God in our lives in Spite of what has come into our lives. It is a conscious premeditated decision That we are going to look for the good and see the good and see the goodness of God in spite of whatever is happening in our lives Several years ago. I read about a fascinating research study

That was done by a Northwestern University professor by the name of Vicki Medvec she studied world-class athletes actually Specifically she studied Olympic medalists and their psychological profiles and in her study She uncovered something that when I read it, I thought man that is incredibly interesting But you'll know why it's so in just a moment One of the things she discovered was that bronze medalists Were actually significantly happier about their results than silver medalists. Now, how could that be? How could a bronze medalist be happier about finishing third than a silver medalist about finishing second? Well, here's what she discovered She discovered that silver medalist tended to focus more on how close they came to winning gold So they viewed their silver as more of a failure But bronze medalists tended to focus on just how close they came to not winning a medal at all So they viewed their third place finish as a tremendous overall success the takeaway Your focus is what actually determines your reality your focus actually determines your reality how we feel It's not determined rather by our objective circumstances But by our subjective focus our reality is actually determined not by what happens to us But actually how we perceive it how we process it and how we view it your internal Attitudes are far more important than your external circumstances We know this to be true the great English poet John Milton once wrote these words the mind is its own place and in itself Possesses the potential to make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven It's absolutely true you and I both know people who can find something good to focus on even in the worst of Circumstances you and I have been amazed by people in our life that regardless of what was happening in their health or regardless What was happening in their family or regardless what was happening in their career? They look for the good that could find something to glorify God about and praise God about but then there's these other Group of people that you and I know there are some people who can find something bad to focus on Even in the best of circumstances I've always said that I've known people in my life in this world that when they look at a peacock all they ever see is His skinny legs. That's it, bro. They don't see the beauty of it They miss the blatant beauty of God All they see is what's wrong with everything what's wrong with everybody and they live their life out of this negative

This negative dark place and because of it It literally shapes all of their lives and many of us don't even realize we're doing this But here's what we're doing every day you and I both we are developing theories about things all the time and Then we look for evidence to support that theory and then ignore evidence that would contradict Anything that we want to believe I give an example of this if you decide for whatever reason that you don't like someone Okay. Now don't get all holy on me and sit there and polish your halo either and act like Oh pastor We love everybody. Well, you're called to love everybody, but you know good and well, you don't like everybody There's some people you'd rather have a root canal than go to dinner with and you know, it's true You can take your church face off and just set it down next to you. You're a canvas now Okay, but if you decide for whatever reason that there's just some people in your life that you don't care for You know what? You'll do watch you'll do this. You'll begin to notice Everything that is wrong with that individual while at the same time Ignoring anything that you could potentially like about them There's a scripture that says love covers a multitude of sins you heard that one Love covers. Okay. So here's what it when you fall in love with someone or when you truly We love someone, what that love does is it blinds you to the things in their life that could be wrong or that could be negative. Other people see it, but you don't see it because love has blinded that to you. You just overlook it. Well, if it's true that love covers a multitude of sins, I'm also telling you hate covers a multitude of good. It does. If there's any potential good in somebody and you just don't like them, you ain't gonna see it. We see what we want to see. That's what I'm telling you. We see what we are looking for to see.

Therefore, worship is not a result of the external circumstances that come into my life. According to the word of God, Old Testament and New Testament, worship is a choice that we make. Worship is a decision that we make as followers of Christ. It is a way we set our mind and our soul to live life and to view the world and what happens. A worshiper makes a pre-decision to look for something to praise God about even in the worst of circumstances. And when they do, life changes not only for them, but I'm gonna show you in a moment that it will change for everybody in their proximity as well. Act 16, I'm gonna show you one of the clearest examples of this. The apostle Paul was with another missionary by the name of Silas. They had traveled to a large Roman colony called Philippi. While they're there sharing the gospel, they encountered a young slave girl whom the Bible tells us was actually demon-possessed. This was very common in biblical times. Bible says that she's following them all through the city and she's like declaring these are the men of God, but she wasn't really genuine in her accolade. She was taunting them is what was going on. And she's following them everywhere. She was handled and owned by some local merchants who were making money marketing her as a fortune teller. And when Paul gets a belly of it,

he finally turns around and in the power of the Holy Spirit, cast this demon out of this girl and frees her from her possession. Good news for her, terrible news for the miserable merchants who owned her. The cash cow is gone. They made a ton of money off of her terrible plight and now it's over. And these men wanna kill Paul because of what he's done. Instead, they go to the Roman authorities and accuse them of teaching things contrary to Roman custom. And the authorities agree and go after them. And that's where we're gonna pick up the story in Acts 16 verse 22. Here we go. A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas and the city officials ordered them stripped, beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten and then thrown into prison. And the jailer was then ordered to make sure they did not escape. So he put them into the innermost part of the dungeon and clamped their feet in stocks. Now, we read things like this and it's so hard sometimes to feel the full gravity and the weight of what we're actually reading because here's the truth. I've had some bad days, man. You've had some bad days.

I've had some things go wrong. I've had some twists and turns in my life. But I'm pretty sure nobody in this room has ever been stripped naked, beaten with wooden rods, thrown into maximum security prison and then chained to the floor like a dog. That's a bad day, dude. That's a bad day. After something like this, it is not hard to imagine after going through something this traumatizing that someone could be completely emotionally drained, emotionally spent and even spiritually at their lowest point, which what makes verse 25 so utterly incredible to read. Then around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing a passionate hymn to God. And the other prisoners were listening but could not believe their ears. I mean, it's hard to wrap your mind around this. They're bleeding, they're sore, they're bruised, they're battered, they're chained to the floor like a dog and instead of getting bitter and angry, or mad, Paul looks over at Silas and says, hey man, you know how great thou art? It's my sermon, that's the song I choose. When you preach it, you do whatever you want. And Silas goes, do I know how great thou art?

That's my favorite hymn, man. And they crank it up. And I'm just trying to put myself in the room with all of these other prisoners and they begin to hear these voices ringing and echoing through the dungeon as they lift up glory to God. It's not just amazing, it's life changing. They were confronted with a choice just like you and I are every single day to either complain or worry. or worship, and they chose worship. And when they chose worship in a minute, I'm gonna show you how God responds every time we choose worship over worry. But before I get there, I wanna show you three things out of the text here that choosing worship actually does in our life to break the bonds and the chains off of us. Number one, you need to know that choosing worship, because it's a choice, choosing worship keeps us focused on the bigger picture at hand. I've learned this personally in my own life that when I get stuck in a spiritual or emotional slump and I start becoming a victim of worry, it is usually because I have zoomed in and fixated on the problem in my life. I have focused in on the problem in my life and it's all I can see.

Think about it like a camera with a telephoto lens. If you wanna view something through that telephoto lens and you zoom all the way in, that thing that you're focused on fills the frame. It's all you can see. You can't see background, you can't see woods, you can't see margin. All you can see is the thing that you are so focused in on in your life. But when you focus out, you see context. I start looking too closely at the things in my life that are going wrong or that are not going right in the moment. And the only way that we find our way back to health and momentum is by zooming out and so we can get a proper perspective and context. It helps me understand there's a lot more going on in my life to be thankful for than I originally thought. Worry zooms in and it's all you can see. It's all you can think about. It's what dominates every day of your life and all of your thoughts. When you choose worship and you zoom out, worship zooms out and you realize, yes, that thing is there, but still God is here and this is good here and God is still blessing over here. There's still something to worship and glorify God about in my life, even in the worst of moments. Zoom out.

Worry zooms in. Thank you for the four of you that believe that. I praise God. The rest of you will get there. Worry zooms in. It's what I'm doing. And worship, when I back up and zoom out, I get to see the goodness of God is still operating in my life. God has not left me, nor forsaken me, but he's still with me all the way, even to the end of the age and there's still something to glorify God about. It blinds you to the good, zooming in. You gotta zoom out for context. It's exactly what this one college student I read about did and she wrote a letter to her parents. She was off at college and her mom and dad get this letter out of the blue and here's what it said. It said, dear mom and dad, because of the fire in my dorm set off by wild student rioting, I experienced temporary lung damage, had to go to the hospital. While I was there, I fell in love with an orderly who was taking care of me and we have moved in together. I'm now dropped out of school when I found out I was pregnant. He has recently been fired because of his alcoholism

and we may be moving to Alaska and possibly getting married after the birth of our baby, your loving daughter. P.S., none of this really happened but I did flunk chemistry and wanted to help you keep it all in perspective. Ha, ha, ha, ha. That's a zoom out, boy. That's a zoom out. Because listen, man, flunking chemistry can be bad but it's hardly the end of the world in comparison to what things could be. She did a good job of zooming out. That's what worship does. It zooms out and it serves to keep everything in its proper perspective. If Paul and Silas would have zoomed in, think about it. If Paul and Silas would have zoomed in, they no doubt would have lost their joy, maybe gotten bitter, maybe gotten cold, maybe blamed God. Maybe they could have said, this is what we get. I mean, dude, we're out here preaching the gospel. We're obedient to the Lord. We came out here in obedience and we're doing what God's told us to do and this is what, instead of getting rewarded by God, instead of being blessed by God, what we get is imprisoned and beaten

and chained down like a dog. This is how God repays our obedience. See, that's what happens sometimes. We look at what we're doing or we look at what we've said or we look at our relationship with God and then we look at this thing in our life that's going wrong and we zoom in on it and we just look at this one thing that's going wrong and then we blame God for all of it. When in fact, if we zoomed out, we could see, no, man, there's still so much good that God is doing in our life. Listen to me. When things go wrong in your life, don't go wrong with them. Things are gonna go wrong but when they go wrong, you do not have to go wrong with them. Worship reminds me that nothing has caught God off guard, man. Worship reminds me that no matter what happens in this world, Romans eight, nothing can separate me from the love of God. It's Psalms. It restores to me the joy of my salvation. Worship reminds me that it is well with my soul even when everything is not well with my circumstances and no one can ever take that away from me, that it is well with my soul,

that he's still with me. He's never left me nor forsook me but he's going with me. with me all the way even to the end of the age. That's what worship does. Choosing it keeps the bigger picture in mind. Worry zooms in, worship zooms out. Number two, choosing worship keeps you from having to live your life like a victim. Now, let me tell you something I've learned and I just wanna address it. I've learned over all of these years of ministry that there's some people that love being a victim. And if you love to be a victim, the enemy will make sure that you're a victim for the rest of your life. He'll give you plenty of opportunities and plenty of excuses. And if you nurse that thing and like the way you feel when you're a victim and people are always asking about you or you wanna live that way, the enemy will make sure that you can always be that way. There was a reason why at the Pool of Bethesda, when Jesus encounters the man that had been there for 38 years, he asked him a provocative question. Sir, would you like to be healed? What kind of a question is that? I haven't walked for 38 years because Jesus knew some people don't wanna be.

Some people don't wanna be. But if you wanna be, you can be free. You're not caught. The Bible says we are no longer slaves because of the blood of Jesus. We are sons and daughters of the most high God. Jesus didn't die on that cross and rise out of that tomb on the third day for the enemy to kick our teeth in for the rest of our life. We are more than overcomers through Christ who gives us strength. We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength, man. We're not victims. He's never called us to be a victim. He's called us to be victors. Maybe you're familiar with the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It's an unbelievable collection, man, of the memoirs and the experiences of Frankl who was a Holocaust survivor and lived for multiple years in a Nazi concentration camp, including a one-year stint at the infamous Auschwitz death camp. In Auschwitz, his wife Tilly, his mother Elsa, his brother Walter were all killed. Everything was taken from Viktor. They took his clothes. They took his personal belongings. They took his pictures.

They even took his name and tattooed on his back 119,104. That was his total identity to the Nazis. He was a number. But in his book, he writes something incredible. I quote. He said, I've learned in my life that everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last hope of all human freedoms, the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. That's right, bro. That's absolutely right. He came to grips with one of the most profound truths any human could ever embrace. Listen to me. Something or someone may be able to make you a victim for a moment, but it is our choice whether or not we're gonna be a victim for a lifetime. We do not have to be a victim for the rest of our life. I'm not downplaying what somebody did to you. I'm not downplaying what happened to you. I'm not trying to make light of it. All I'm saying is if you nurse that thing and keep giving it life, it'll run you for the rest of your life. But because of Jesus and the power of spirit and the power of his word, that thing can be broken. You get to make a choice whether you're gonna be a victim for the rest of your life or not.

You can be free in Jesus' name when you let it go and you choose worship every day of your life. Again, when negative experiences come, they will live only for a time and then they will pass if you let them pass. But when we choose to complain constantly, when we choose to dwell on it and give our negative experiences a resurrection and a second life, we're breathing CPR back into that thing so that it continues to dominate our lives. What Paul and Silas prove, what Viktor Frankl proves is that you might be able to chain the human body, but baby, you cannot chain the human spirit that puts its trust in a holy God. You might be able to chain the body, boy, but you can't do nothing with the human spirit that chooses to put its faith in a sovereign, omnipotent, and holy God. I would have loved to heard. I guarantee you they didn't sing one tune. I guarantee you it wasn't in tune. I bet you it wasn't pleasant to hear. I bet you it wasn't nothing like the songbirds we got up here on worship every Sunday. I bet you it was off tune and it wasn't in harmony and it wasn't melody, but I bet you it would have made your skin crawl to hear the conviction in that song. They were singing from a different place.

They were singing from a place. It didn't matter that they were beaten and broken and battered and bruised. They were singing from a place where their soul had put all of its hope and its trust in God and they knew that no matter what those men did to them, they would never be able to do anything with their soul. That was rested in him. It was secure in him and they saw it as a privilege to be able to suffer for the cause of Christ. Worship in its purest form is simply an outward expression of our inner experience and when. We do it. We set off a chain reaction and we get God's attention. I'm gonna show you this. Hang on now. Because there's some things in the Bible that you'll read that happen gradually and then one day suddenly, and then there's some things in the Bible that as soon as it hits, God shows up in an immediate way. And this is one of them. Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake. Suddenly when? They just started to sing. They weren't through the first chorus or the first verse. They were lifting up their voice and giving glory to God and suddenly, there was a massive earthquake and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open.

Watch this. And the chains of every prisoner fell off. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Were the other prisoners singing? No. Were the other prisoners worshiping? No. Were the other prisoners choosing worship and choosing God? No. But this is what happens when people get around a worshiper. Just the people in proximity to the worshiper also experiences freedom because of what God does in their life. There is a ripple effect that happens when you get around a worshiper. Worshipers affect their families. They affect their marriages. They affect their children. It's not just the chains that falls off the worshiper. The chains are broken on the people that are in proximity to the worshiper as well. Your children, mom and dad, are watching how you react to the circumstances and the problems and the pain of life. Our children are listening to what we say and they hear when we talk about trusting God. But then when they see a tragedy or a difficult moment come in our life and they see us fret and panic and worry, they see a disconnect between what we say on Sunday and how we actually live on Monday.

But every time we choose worship instead of worry, we are telling our children that he can be trusted and they will one day grow to put all of their hope and their faith in him as well. There's a ripple effect. Worshippers change the atmosphere for everybody. Everybody who's in proximity to the worshiper is blessed and knows freedom. So when you worship, there's more on the line than just you having a better day. There is a ripple effect that happens. Worship went up, power came down, doors flew open and chains fell off. It frees us from being the victim. It helps keep the bigger picture in mind. And number three, choosing worship reminds us that what's right about our God is so much bigger than really what's going wrong in our lives. Ultimately, worship reminds me he is indeed a good, good God. His mercy is indeed everlasting. His truth does endure for all generations. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I love Lamentations. It was written by Jeremiah the prophet and it was written in a terrible time in Israel's history. They were in captivity and so they were,

had been overthrown by a neighboring nation and they were there for many, many, many, many years and there was a lot of tragedy and terrible things that happened. But he writes Lamentations chapter three, one of these famous verses, and I love what Jeremiah says. He says this, yet I still dare to hope. It's bad, it's dark. I don't know when we're gonna get out of here. I don't know how long this is gonna last, but I still dare to hope when I remember this, the faithful love of the Lord never ends. He's faithful and his love never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies are brand new every morning. Now watch this next line because you need to hide this one in your heart. I say to myself, you better learn how to talk to yourself. You better learn how to talk back to your emotions. You better learn how to talk back to your worry. You better learn how to talk back to your fear, anxiety, and fret. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will hope in him. I read an article that said humans speak to themselves, inner dialogue, 50 to 60,000 thoughts or interactions a day. Do you know what they said at Northwestern University?

How much of that is negative? 85% is negative talk. We say things to ourselves like, this ain't never gonna happen for me. I'll never get the promotion. I'll never be free from this addiction. It may be a good opportunity, but it probably won't work out for me. I'm not good enough. I'm not gonna be able to do this. I'm not gonna be able to make this work. We say things to ourselves. That's why you better learn how to talk back to yourself because if you allow your emotions to be the only one doing the talking, you are always going to live under the thumb of the enemy. You gotta say to yourself, no, man, God is good. I am his son. I am his daughter. The best is yet to come. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. We have to change what we say to ourselves. Stop telling yourself how bad you are and how bad this thing is and start telling yourself how good God is. and how much he's gonna show up in your life. He's going to. Same article. The author was Ellen Langer. She said we all tend to have what she called

premeditated cognitive commitments. Fancy way of saying what we've been saying. We all tend to see what we're looking for. So the apostle Paul later writes this epistle to a group of believers in Philippi and he gives some priceless instruction. I read it to you last week. I wanna circle back around and end our series with it because I see eight premeditated cognitive spiritual commitments that we make. In other words, that you have to set your heart and your mind to look for every day. He said and now my brothers and sisters, one final thing, choose worship. Focus your thoughts. This is not reactionary, this is proactive. He's saying set your thoughts, set your affections, set your mind to look for what is true. If you're looking for the truth, you'll always find truth. If you're looking for what's honorable, you'll find what's honorable. If you look for what's lovely, you'll find lovely things. If you look for what's admirable, you'll see things everywhere in life that's admirable. If you think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise, you will always see things in your life that are excellent and worthy of praise. But if you choose to see what you didn't get, what's not happening, the pain, the suffering, the heartache, the misery, the dishonesty, the untruth,

it's all you'll see. What are you focused in on? Buzzard, last week y'all, hummingbird. A buzzard finds dead things because he gets up every day looking for dead things and so he finds them around every corner. So hummingbird gets up across the street, he's looking for sweet things and that's exactly what he finds. You are gonna find in life exactly what you're looking for and a worshiper. A follower of Christ, a believer, Matthew 6, an individual who has a deep-seated, intimate relationship with their God, chooses daily. Yes, there's negative, yes, there's dark, but we choose daily to see God and the good in our lives and in this world. And because we do, life changes not only for us, but for everybody in our proximity. Some marriages struggle because you got two people that are just looking for the worst. And it seasons their marriage because all they pay attention to is what their spouse isn't doing, what they're not for them, what they're not being, what they're not doing, what they're not saying, how they're not acting and they just pick each other apart, pick each other apart, pick each other apart. It's a death sentence to a marriage. If we would be as quick and as committed to see the good in our mate and praise them for it

as we are quick to see what they don't have and criticize them for it, that alone would change everything. Mutual respect and love would grow. It is the fertile soil that something beautiful can happen. If we look at our kids and just pick our kids apart, listen, man, our friends, our coworkers, whatever it is, bro, this applies to everything. What if we were bold enough today with thousands of people that call Canvas home? Because I know this, with this many people, there are some people that are listening to this or in this room or at the Gainesville campus or maybe at the prisons. If you would just get honest for a minute, you would be bold enough to say, the truth is I've lived my whole life out of that negative zoom-in view. And I look at the lack of peace and I look at how miserable really I am and how miserable I've made other people around me and I realize that there is a ripple effect, yes, that can happen for a worshiper, but there's also a ripple effect that happens for miserable people. And you make everybody miserable around you and your whole life is just lived out of this dark, negative thing and all you do is just look at how other people

have it so much better than you. Man, we are not called by God or saved by His grace to be victims, but to be victors. We are more than conquerors and overcomers, but we have to choose worship. We gotta look for the good. How different would our marriages be? How different would our families be? How different would our jobs be? I got another question. How different would our testimony be to the people that we're trying to invite to church and invite to Christ when they finally see a difference in the way we live our life and the way the world lives their lives? One of the reasons why sometimes. Sometimes people don't give any credibility to us or come to church is because we talk about loving God and we talk about going to church, but on the job, they don't see no difference in your attitude than the guy across the cubicle from you. And we go, man, you really ought to come and experience. Why? Don't look like it's done anything good for you. But what if, instead of complaining about the boss, what if, instead of complaining about the jack legs, lazy jack legs we work around, it creates more work for us? And complaining about all this stuff, what if we turn the tide?

And while they're sitting there complaining and griping, instead of joining in the chorus, we look for the good, we defend the good, we see God in moments. And we show them that Jesus actually does make a difference in the way that you live your life, in the way that you view the world, in the way that you view everything in your life that flows out of your relationship with God, I guarantee you what'll happen then, they'd get hungry for what we're telling them. They'd get hungry for the Jesus that we're sharing with them. They would see the difference and go, man, I don't know what it is, but whatever he's got, I want some of it. And God would use you to be a catalyst for change in places and in areas that you couldn't even begin to fathom when we choose worship over worry.