June 29, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
All right, going through Romans. We’re in chapter 12, and we’ve been going through like a whole chapter a week. Tonight, two verses. We’re going to do two verses. And here they are.
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2, CSB)
And God, may the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight. O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
All right, I’m going to talk tonight about worship, but first I want to talk about the word therefore. Therefore is in the middle of all of Paul’s letters. In your English translations, you’ll see at some point in Paul’s letter, he says therefore. And therefore is a transition word. And really another way of saying it is so what? Or here’s the takeaway, here’s the application.
And Paul is very, very specific in his letters. The first part of Paul’s letters almost always has to do with the theology of the Gospel. And then the second part of his letter is, here’s what that means and here’s then how you should live. Since A is true here, then B is how you should live. Therefore, do this. All right? Therefore, do this.
Kevin, my wife says, the kids are coming and I have much work to do. Therefore, Kevin, ask your wife, what can I take off your plate and help you do? I’ve known after 40 years of marriage, that is the therefore. The therefore is not. Hope you get it done, sweetie. Or, you know, it doesn’t really need to be done, or why do you get psyched out when people come to our house? None of those are appropriate therefores. The best therefore is what can I do to help?
All right, so therefore, what’s it there for? Paul in Romans 1 through 11 has laid out in all of his letters the most clear, concise theological treaties. Most of his letters are dealing with specific problems in the Church.
But in Romans and in Ephesians, he’s teaching kind of the theology of Christ, the theology of the Gospel. And in Romans, it is dealing with a specific issue. It’s dealing very specifically with the issue of what does it mean in the first century that the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, has come into the world. What does it mean to be a Gentile and a Jew under that circumstance?
But in doing that, he really lays out the gospel, and his gospel, basically in Romans 1 through 8, is this: that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. And this is the work of God’s grace that the old covenant of Moses no longer applies. Nobody could follow it anyway. And the way to righteousness, the way to a right relationship with God, the way to peace with God, the way to be justified by God is to put your faith in his Son, the Messiah, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Put your trust in him.
Not believe mentally, not just assent mentally to it, but put your life there. Align yourself with Jesus. And when you do that, your sins are forgiven, and you are not obligated by the old covenant law. You are made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
In fact, he points out that God was doing this in the Old Testament, that the law was even a therefore. The law was, since you have faith in Yahweh, who delivered you from slavery in Egypt, therefore obey these commandments. Now, that therefore is simpler than obey these commandments. Put your faith in Jesus.
And then what does it mean to be a Jew or a Gentile? Nothing. Oh, you’ve got a great history as a Jew, and as a Gentile, you’ve been grafted into this great history. But the same message, the same gospel applies equally to Jew and Gentile. There’s no difference between Jew and Gentile on how you are justified before God. You don’t have to be circumcised anymore. You don’t have to make the temple sacrifices anymore. You have to put your faith in Jesus.
All right, now we got it. Therefore, the appropriate response is to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. What does it mean to put my faith in Jesus? Give yourself over to God. Now, living sacrifices are the worst kind. Dead sacrifices stay on the altar. Living sacrifices are always squirming off. I wonder how voluntary Isaac was? Dad. Where’s the sacrifice? The Lord will provide. Then he starts tying him up like, yeah, but this isn’t even being tied up and bound. This is, here I am, Lord. Do with me as you will.
Present your body as a living sacrifice. Your body, your life. Not just spiritual. We’re not Gnostics. It’s not like, well, I can do anything I want with my body because I spiritually belong to God. Therefore, because you’ve been justified by faith, give God body, soul, and spirit. That’s what it means to put your faith in Christ, that you surrender to him. You give yourself over to him. And Paul says, this is worship. This is your appropriate spiritual act of worship.
We have so mistaken in contemporary American evangelicalism, Charismatic whatever. We have so mistaken the word worship and so dumbed down the word worship to mean the songs we sing before the preacher preaches. That’s not worship. That is a tool of worship. I’m very careful when I talk to you and say God has given us this tool to worship him.
But you can sing those songs and not worship. And there’s hundreds of ways to worship without singing those songs. Because to worship means to be a living sacrifice. To worship means to give, to have a bow down. Literally, the word means to bow down, to humble yourself before God, to live your life in such a stature that you’re constantly in admission that you’re God, and I’m not. you’re creator, I’m creation; you’re lover, I’m beloved; you’re Savior, I’m saved; you’re forgiver, I’m forgiven.
I am in constant need of your grace and mercy, and I’m eternally grateful for receiving. It is a bowed down and a humbled life, and then our further acts as a Christian, because listen, we only have three jobs. Our job assignment is three things. They’re all found in the Great Commission.
In Matthew 28, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and they worshiped him. But some doubted. And then he said to them, go into the world, the whole world, and make disciples of all peoples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I am with you always to the end of the age.
19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20, CSB)
Go make disciples. All right, we’re to make disciples, and we do that by going. That’s two of our jobs. you’re not going to sleep here tonight. you’re going to go, you’re going to go back to work. You’re going to go back to your neighborhoods, back to your households, back to your families, back to your communities, back to your little league teams, back to your buddies and your girlfriends.
You’re going to go to the restaurant and go to the mall and go shopping and go to Walmart, go to the local store. And wherever you go, the assignment is to make disciples. But you notice that going and making disciples starts with “they worshiped him.”
See, when you leave this place, hopefully because you were involved in corporate worship, you don’t leave this place going like my father used to say. Well, I went to church, got another one under my belt, put another one in the bank. No, God is not impressed with you going to church. He’s impressed with how you leave church. That’s the important thing. Are you going as a disciple maker? Are you going into the world as a representative of Jesus?
And that’s the goal of worship, to transform us into an obedient lifestyle where we go and make disciples. But it flows from worship. It flows from presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. So worship is much more than singing. Worship, in fact, is to give. God has given to us, and here’s what we give. We sing. We do sing, we praise, we shout. The Psalms are full of that. Shout, sing, clap, praise, extol, use your mouth. Give God the fruit of your lips.
There’s something about saying something that makes it more real. If you write something down or you speak it, it makes it more real than if you just think it. People will tell you this all the time. Business people tell you this. If you have goals, write them down. The chance of you achieving those goals, once you write them down, increases. Proportion increases greatly once you write them down.
You know what else increases them greatly? If you confess them. Say, these are my goals. Somebody asked me, what are your goals? These are my goals. I’ll tell you. It changes something inside of us when we say it. You may love your spouse, but one of the healthiest things you can do for your relationship is with your spouse and your children and your parents and your loved ones is actually say the words.
Say the words, I love you. And two things happen when you say that. They feel loved and you actually feel more love for them. My wife has busted me on this. I’ll start saying, you know, I love you, baby. She goes, you’re mad at me about something. Like kind of. Yeah, but I’m not saying that as a phony. I’m saying that because I want to change my attitude. And the minute I tell her I love her, whatever that was that was annoying me becomes less annoying.
And it’s kind of. There’s the minute that comes out, even though I know it in my head, I love this woman. But the minute I say, I love you, then it starts kind of rushing to me, why do you love her? And all of a sudden, all those reasons become bigger than the thing that’s bugging me. And it helps me.
Gratitude. Say it. Say, I fight tooth and nail not to be a grumpy old man. I don’t want to be a grumpy old man. I want my grandkids to say, I want my little granddaughter to say, I want Kahuna to hold me. She doesn’t want a grumpy old man to hold her. She wants a nice guy to hold her. But, man, I find that I, you know that get off the lawn thing is real. Not for me, because I give a rip about my lawn, but things like traffic.
Just the last two days, Friday and Saturday, I got in terrible traffic jams. And I just can feel this anger rise up in me. Irrational anger. I’m on the road. These other people obviously have a right to be on the road. But I’m thinking, you people, get off the road. Go home, watch TV. What are you doing? What’s so doggone important with your life that you’re inconveniencing me? Why aren’t you home? Get off the road.
Why did you close all five lanes of the highway? Couldn’t you have just kept one open? Washington Department of Transportation. And I just the other day, I’m going to Noah’s baseball game, and I’m late because of a huge traffic jam on 405. Because they closed the dang freeway for some reason. I’m sure it was a good reason, but it wasn’t working. For whatever it was, it wasn’t satisfying me.
Why do these people close the freeway? Why is it everybody’s trying to. And I just thought, I do not want to go to my grandson’s baseball game with all my family in town, grumpy. And so, right there in the middle of the traffic jam, I started saying, God, I’m in a comfortable car. Thank you. The air conditioning works. Thank you. I will get to this game. Thank you. Where I have healthy grandchildren who are going to be playing and laughing and enjoying this outdoors. Thank you.
I’m going to be with two of my three children and their spouses who all love Jesus and are raising their kids to love Jesus. Thank you. My lovely wife’s going to be there. Thank you. And I love baseball and my grandkids love baseball. Thank you. And you have given me a great salvation and a great hope. And who gives a rip if I’m going to be in traffic 15 more minutes than I want to when I get to live in eternity with you? Thank you.
And you know what? I still wanted all those people to go home. But I was feeling better. I was feeling better. It worked. And it didn’t just work. Thinking worked, saying it. Give God the fruit of your lips. Thank him for what he has done. Praise him for who he is. And by golly, music’s a great tool to do that with. And we have never lived in such a world where we have so much of that tool available to us.
You don’t like the songs we sing at church? Well, you know what? For a few bucks a month, you can have Spotify, and you can pick all your favorite songs and blast them in your house. And you know what? If your kids don’t like those songs that you’re singing in your house, they eat your food for free. Let them deal with it.
And kids, if your parents don’t like what you’re listening to, if you’re listening to songs about how much you love Jesus, just say, well, Mom, I can turn it on to grungy rap rock or something and sing all those songs. And they’ll say. They’ll say, you’re good. you’re good. Sing those songs about Jesus. Let it be the fruit of your lips.
So when I say that music is not all that there is to worship, it is a powerful tool for worship. In fact, the Bible says that’s exactly why God created music, to give him glory and praise. And you’re going to sing a lot in heaven. There’ll be a lot of singing in heaven. And some of you, you can’t carry a tune, you know, at all. You sing like a cat at the vet.
But there you will sing wonderfully. My mother loved to sing, and, oh, my goodness, she just sounded like, you know, something in pain. And I’m just looking forward to singing next to her and having to go, mom, you are hitting every note. Good for you. I could actually bear it. I could hardly bear it in church sitting next to her.
You’ll be able to sing in heaven then. Give God your time. All right, preaching to the choir. you’re here. You came to church. There are better things to do if you don’t know God. I think one of the silliest things people do is they go to a church to impress other people. That’s becoming less and less a reality in our culture.
One of the reasons people bemoan, you know, church attendance is going down. It’s not all bad because there are less and less nominal church attenders. It’s less just a cultural thing, and it’s more people come to church because they’re really seeking God or because they worship God and know God.
In my parents’ generation, everybody went to church, but not everybody went to church because they knew Jesus. You went to church because it’s a good thing to do, and you got the respect of your neighbors. You couldn’t get elected city council unless you went to church, and you couldn’t sell Napa auto parts unless you were a deacon at the local Baptist church.
You know, there are other reasons to go to church. Not so much anymore, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Goodness, listen, only you guys, I just got to feel like you guys are the real deal because you’re one of the eight percenters in Kitsap County. So you’re giving God your time. But not just Sunday night, Sunday morning. When you, you know, when I became a Christian, how many of you, when you became a Christian, people say have a what? Have a quiet time. Have a quiet time. Anybody get that? Or is that just my generation? Brian. Right? Go have your quiet time.
And what did the quiet time mean? Read your Bible and say your prayers. Be alone with God. Don’t let anybody else bother you. My brother-in-law, for an hour, will go spend it, and he spends it with the Lord. And my sister will try to interrupt him, and he’ll just look at her and say, leave me Jezebel, I’m with God. I love that he calls her Jezebel. She’s deserved it. Leave me, Jezebel, I’m with God. And so Jezebel has to leave.
So, all right, give God some time on a daily basis. I give God time on a daily basis. And by the way, I start with music. I start with music, I listen to music, I sing music, and I pray during music. And then after that, I open up the Word of God and I dive into the Word of God. So give God your time.
Give God your treasure, tithes, and offerings. All right. Give God tithes and offerings. Now listen, I’ve studied this. I used to be hardcore about preaching on tithing. That is every Christian’s obligation to give 10% of their income to the storehouse, to the local church, and you know, anything less, you weren’t living up to it. I don’t know that that’s what’s taught in the New Covenant. That was taught in the Old Covenant.
Tithing was taught in the Old Covenant. I don’t know that tithing is explicitly taught in the New Covenant. But here’s what I have to say. I practice it. I give God 10%. My wife and I, we give God 10%. We give 10%. I believe we give 10% of the gross, not the, not the net. We give 10% of the big number and we give it on things, on benefits that we don’t receive cash for.
We give it on what her health insurance is worth and the whole, take the whole package and say move the decimal place one point over, and that’s what we give, alright? And I’ve practiced that for years. I practiced it when I couldn’t afford it, when I had three kids at home. And I’ll tell you something, I am not a prosperity preacher in the sense I’m not going to stand up here and say you’re going to make some kind of transaction with God.
If you tithe, he’ll bless your life, and he’ll give you this much money, and everything will be fine and dandy, and you’re just sowing a seed that’s going to grow. Thirty, sixty, you know, if you give $100 to the church tonight, God is going to give you $1,000 next week. I ain’t saying that at all. I’m not going to say if you give your money, you’re not going to suffer. But I will say this, and I think the Bible backs me up on this. You cannot outgive a generous God. I dare you to try.
And I know the three families here. I’m preaching to the choir, but I’m preaching, so I’m going to preach it. It’s in the context of this message. And I don’t preach about money a lot. But dear ones, if God doesn’t own your wallet, he doesn’t own your heart. He’s got to own your wallet. And you know, when I look at, like, financial advisors, when I look at Christian financial advisors, they tell you two things that make wonderful sense and one thing that’s counterintuitive.
Here’s the two things. Listen, I don’t know a lot about finances, but I think if you follow these two things, it’s good. you’re in a good place financially. Spend less than you make. Now, Isaiah, I know you’re good with numbers and good with math, but even that might have gone over your head. So I want to just say it again so you get the formula and you can do the calculus on it and everything.
Spend and think of that sign less than you make. Yeah, you make is on the big side of that sign. Spend is on the small side of that sign. That works. That actually works. Spend less than you make. Look at what your employer pays you. Okay, now what can I spend less than that. Works.
Another thing. Invest your money and invest your money in things that make money, not lose money. Buy houses, not cars. Now, you need a car to make money. Most of us. So buy a car to make money, to get back and forth to work, to drive your family around, to drive all over the state so your kid can play baseball. All right, Buy a car. Get a reliable one. If your kid’s in traveling sports because you’re going to be traveling a lot, buy A car. But don’t buy an expensive car.
If you’re going to buy something expensive, buy something expensive that’s going to increase in value, not decrease in value. Again, very difficult to understand. But you see, if you buy stuff that goes down in value, you lose money. If you buy stuff that goes up in value, you make money. Buy stocks, buy real estate. I don’t know, talk to people smarter than me. But those two seem to do pretty good.
Now, here’s the one that’s counterintuitive. Then recklessly, with reckless abandon, give 10% to the work of the Lord. Start at 10% and then give more. My wife and I give 10% to the local church and then give tithes and offerings on top of that. Now, here’s the testimony from me. You know, those first two things that make incredible sense, I did not practice those things till much later in life. Far too late to make a big financial impact.
Very unwise as a young man, had credit card debt, bought a new car I couldn’t afford. As a young man with a, with a family, stupid decision after stupid decision, spent more than I made, did not invest at all until much later in life and bought a house. And that things started to change.
And now I’m approaching retirement. You say, well, if you were stupid about those two things, you’re going to be a pauper in retirement. No. Way I look at it, my wife and I, we got more than enough. Part of that is we live in America. And America is very forgiving financially. A lot of money in America. But, you know, I didn’t have. I have a big money-making career.
You know, people think, oh, you pastors are just raking it in. Listen, I’m not a televangelist, all right? For my level of education. I have a level of education that is equal to a lawyer or a high school principal. I don’t make nearly as much as either one of those two. Not even close. Not a ballpark, right? But I’m going to live well.
I live well. Now. I have two houses. They’re nice houses, very livable houses. I have cars that run, I have plenty of clothes, and we’ve got enough money. As I’m doing the math and kind of figuring it out as I’m approaching retirement, we’ve got enough money to play out the string without having to, you know, get up our kids. Now, they ain’t going to get rich when we die. But you know what? They could have ate less as kids. There would have been more left over for them. All right?
So you know what we did, though? We didn’t do those two intuitive things. We didn’t do those two things that were right. But we always did the counterintuitive thing. We always tithe. And guess what? God has blessed that. We bought three houses in our lifetime. And two of them we bought at the exact right time to buy a house. Not because we were wise and we knew what the market was going to do or anything. We needed a house, and we bought one. And lo and behold, those houses made us a lot of money.
You know, we invested some money kind of casually. Lo and behold, not because we were smart. We weren’t like market analysts or anything like that. Just like, put our money there, made money. When we needed jobs, we got jobs. When we needed money, money came our way. When I was young and poor, I can’t tell you the number of stories where just at the last minute, just in the nick of time, the Lord provided. My kids never went hungry. We only slept outside when we were camping. I only went hungry when I fasted.
Dear ones, I dare you to tithe. I dare you. And this seems like a marketing scheme, but I do it at every church I pastor. I just tell people. Just because I trust God so much in this, I just tell people, you tithe. You tell me. You can’t. I went to this woman’s house when I was a Methodist, and, you know, she was on the board. And I said, people should tithe. And she said, pastor, she was a single mom. She had a great job. Single mom. She said, pastor, the numbers just don’t work out.
Well, her kid was out there watching cable television. Like, what do you mean the numbers don’t work out? Those are choices. Those are choices. The numbers don’t work out because you’re paying $400 a month in car payments when you could have bought a car for cash three years older than the one you’ve got and have no car payments. What do you mean the numbers don’t work out? Now, if you want to buy a new car and you can afford it, I am not. Do it. Do it.
All I’m saying is put your money in God’s kingdom first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Why? Put your money where moth and rust can destroy and thieves can come steal. Invest your treasures in heaven. And Jesus says, all these things will be added to you as well.
So here’s the deal. If you tithe for a month and it doesn’t work, you come back and tell me, and I’ll go tell Ats and we’ll give you your money back. Money back guarantee. Tithing money back guarantee. I know that sounds like cheap marketing. It’s not cheap marketing. It’s just. Is this true? It’s just true. God will honor your tithe. Give God your treasure.
The two things, time and treasure, right there, those are the two most valuable things most human beings feel like they have in this world. Time and treasure. To worship, to have a laid down life means that those things are surrendered unto God.
Then give God your talents. you’re good at something. Spiritually, you’re good at something. you’re not good at everything, but you’re good at something. All right, listen, if you’ve got a deep need in your life and you come to me because I’m the pastor and pastors are supposed to be good at everything spiritual, and you say, Kevin, pray for my deep need, I will tell you this right now. I’m just being honest.
I will absolutely be faithful and pray for that deep need. And I’ll probably do it on the spot so I don’t forget. And hopefully I’ll do it some more throughout the week when it comes to mind. But here’s what else I’ll tell you. If you want some real prayers to pray for that deep need, I got some names of people in church. There are some people in this room be like, hey, you’re the prayer. you’re the one I’m going to for those deep needs. All right?
There are people out there who are just gifted intercessors. They love to pray. They love to be alone with God, and they have intimacy with God, and they take those things before God, and they’re really good at it. I’ll do it because we all can do it. But there are people in this room who are better than me at doing that. And you know, most of those people who are better at me at doing that, if I ask them if they wanted to preach, they go, oh, no, God, I can’t preach. I’m not spiritual enough.
Well, you’re a better prayer than me. I ought to be able to preach. But everybody’s got their gifts, right? Everybody’s got their gifts. There are people in here who just love to serve. They love to do the behind. I’m not going to start naming names because you all know who I’m talking about anyway. And then if I start naming names, then if I leave somebody out, they’re going to feel hurt.
But there are people in here who love to serve, and they’ll just do things behind the scenes. They just are servants at heart. I took a spiritual gifts inventory one time, a test. And service was one of the things. I scored higher on martyrdom than I did on service. Now, if there’s something that needs to get done and there’s nobody else around to do it, I’ll do it. That’s part of the kingdom. Everybody serves, everybody pitches in. I’ll carry the water bucket. I’ll do the small task. I’ll change the light bulb. I’ll sweep the floor.
But doggone it, if there’s one of those people who just joyfully loves to serve and they’re around, I will go to my study and read a book and get better at my sermons. And they can sweep. I showed my wife that. I said, look, honey, I scored higher in martyrdom than I did in service. She said, I knew you’d rather die than help. Kind of true. But she. Oh, my gosh, my wife. So we have stuff going on in the Bremerton Church. I say, oh, we’re going to. We had a young lady and a couple, a man, and they’ve been trying to adopt a kid for. For a long time. We’ve been praying for them. They got their daughter, and they brought their daughter to church. All right.
I thought, well, won’t it be great just to acknowledge, hey, they got their daughter at church. No, no, no, no. We’re going to bring them up. We’re going to pray for them. It’s a little girl. We’re going to buy more pink donuts than, you know, 40 people can eat in two weeks. You know, that thing is like, oh, we got to get donuts. Like, okay, we got 40 people in church. Get 40 donuts or 400. You know, just. But ambiance, you know. You know, and we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.
You know, I have a Bible study. Brian, here’s what a Bible study is. I know you’re with me on this. We will sit in chairs, and what is required? To bring a Bible. Yeah, and we’ll study it. No, no, no. That’s not a Bible study. There have to be refreshments. There have to be. The tables have to be. Have a. What’s the theme of the Bible study? We’ll put some artwork up. We’ll get a tablecloth that meets the theme. We’ll have music. We’ll have. Yeah, we’ll have aromas. We will set the mood for the Bible study.
It’s like, okay, you could do that. All right. All I’m saying is some people are good at that. And I’ve learned not to belittle that because it’s not important to me. I’ve realized that it’s important to a lot of people. It makes a difference. My wife will tell me that it makes a difference, and I say, not with me. And she says, yeah, but you’re weird. I said, wait, point taken. Point taken. Alright.
And so, dear ones, you’re good at something. Here’s how you find out what you’re good at. Ask somebody around you, what do I do that blesses the church, that blesses you? And when they tell you, that’s what you’re good at. Okay, again, I just have such a temptation with this small group to start using examples. But then I’ll just, I’ll feel, you know, 500 people, you can pick three people out and use examples and nobody gets hurt. You know, 13 people, you got to name all 13. And then if you see seems contrived. So I’m just. I’m going to resist the temptation to do it.
But it’s in my mind. If you want to know afterwards, I’ll come tell you. Yeah, I was thinking about you for this. And I was thinking about you for this. There’s nobody here that I don’t think you have some. You know, you’re a wonderful contributor. All right, love you all.
Give God your attention. you’re paying attention to me now. At least I hope you are. You pay attention to the Word. That’s an act of worship. It’s an act of worship. It’s an act of intentionality to give God attention to his Word and to the teaching of his Word.
Give yourself to others transparently. The Bible says, confess your sins to one another. All right, now I highly recommend you don’t confess your sins to everybody. Everybody is not safe to confess your sins to. But you know what? Find some friends that you can tell the truth to, and then tell them the truth, and they tell you the truth back.
And then you have a deep bond of commitment and love and accountability. And you begin to grow and be like Jesus. And you can pretty much rest assured that friend will never rat you out. Because you have the goods on them too, right? Like if they tell on you, you can tell on them. So that’s not a great motive. I’m just saying accountability kind of works that way.
All right, confess your sins to one another. Be transparent. No more phony Christians. All right? Turn to somebody next to you and say, no more phony Christians. No more phony Christians. All right, enough of fake spirituality.
My little 2-year-old granddaughter walked into the room the other day. Little dainty, sweet little girl, right? Just food and goo all over her face. Wearing mixed clothing that she had been playing in the sandbox with, just dirty from head to toe. And she walked in, and she had stolen somebody’s soda. She starts talking to her mom in this little sweet voice, mommy, will you. The loudest belt you ever heard. And I thought, there, that’s a transparent little girl right there.
She’s not concerned that anybody’s going to consider her unfeminine or not cute. She’s just like a little feral little kid comes walking in the room. All right, I’m not telling you just to start burping at church, but I am saying we all do. And more than that, we all have flaws; we’re all less than perfect. Confess our sins to one another. Be transparent, don’t be phony religious. Nothing kills a church faster than fake spirituality.
Just I hope one of the things I hope when I die and people talk about me, I really hope people say he was a pastor who never came across as he was better than us, you know, I hope I never come across that way. All right? I really do. I don’t. So if I do get highfalutin, just tell me, all right? But I do not want to come across as being better than you, though I probably am. I can’t resist. I can’t resist self-deprecating reverse humor. You know, when I say that, I mean the opposite, right? All right.
And finally, give God love to his children. Love one another. Unity, fellowship. Forgive one another’s faults. Accept one another. Enjoy one another. One of the ways to enjoy each other I already touched on. Focus on people’s strengths, not their weaknesses. That just works with every relationship. Everybody. There’s something about everybody that annoys you. And there’s something about everybody that delights you. Pick which one you’re going to think about. Pick which one you’re going to think about. Dwell on that.
Whatever is pure, whatever is praiseworthy, whatever is honorable, whatever is lovely. What does Paul say? Let your mind. Set your mind on those things. Set your mind on those things. Set your mind on loving one another. And so that’s what it means to worship. It means to give our time, our treasure, the fruit of our lips, our gifts, our love, our honesty. We give. God has given to us. And in the community of faith, we give back to others.
So avenues into worship, when you gather with other people, come with a holy expectancy. Nothing is stupider than spending an hour and a half of your time, Sunday after Sunday, in a meeting where God doesn’t show up. What a waste of time that is. So expect to meet Jesus. My wife and I, we. Somebody asked us today, when did you start the Firehouse Church? We said 2007. July of 2007, we started the Firehouse Church in our living room over in the Central Valley area.
By Central Valley High School or Central Kitsap High School? No, not by Central Kitsap. By the other one, Olympic. Olympic High. We were right there, Central Valley Road. And there’s me, my wife, my daughter, and a guy who came up with us from Oakdale named Jimmy. We got a recommendation from the one family we knew up here. They showed up.
This woman and her daughter showed up, and we got a recommendation of some, you know, some straggling Christians who are out of church that we had called and contacted. And one of them showed up.
But before that service started, Jill and I were both praying separately. And like every church planter, I will tell you, this is the church planter’s prayer. You might think they’re holy. Lord, we just humble ourselves before you and ask your kingdom come and your will be done. No, Lord, send people. We’re planning a church. We need people.
Can’t plant a church without people. So we’re both praying, send people, Lord, send people. And both independently of each other. We didn’t even know we were both praying at the same time. We both hear the voice of the Lord, and he says this to both of us. Would you like me to come? Oh, yeah. That should be a priority, too. Send people. But you come.
And I’ll tell you this. This is one prayer I’ve been faithful at for 18 years now. Every Sunday night, driving up Highway 3, every Sunday morning, driving up 16 and 3 from Port Orchard to Bremerton, and then Sunday afternoon driving up from Port Orchard to Poulsbo, I have prayed just about. Maybe I’ve forgotten a Sunday or two, but just about every Saturday night or Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, I pray three things faithfully, consistently.
Send people, Lord, but I don’t pray. You know, I’d like Him to send lots. But I say, Lord, bring the people you want to be there. Hey, you guys, God wanted you to be here tonight. All those other people, he didn’t want them to be here tonight. This is way over their heads. This is graduate-level stuff. you’re the only ones who can handle it.
Send people. And then I pray. Every week since that first week, Lord, I know you’re everywhere, but make your presence known. Let us experience you, let us encounter you. Otherwise, we’re wasting our time. Lord, you come. Holy Spirit, be there. Let us see Jesus. It’s not even that long. Most of the time, like, Lord, you be there.
And then the third, I just pray. Set a guard over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips, and establish the work of my hands. I want to do this well. I want to do this in a way that nourishes you and feeds you and helps you.
3 Lord, set up a guard for my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips. (Psalms 141:3, CSB)
I want to be more like Jesus. And so I pray that God and I want to. I don’t want to be too sarcastic to hurt your feelings and too smart alecky. Just enough to endear your hearts, but not enough to make you think that guy’s a jerk. Alright, how am I doing on that, Sophia? Excellent. All right. Sidney, how am I doing? You’re a jerk. I know. All right, thanks.
All right, so have a holy expectancy then. Give God your praise. Get involved physically. Stand, raise your hands. The word praise. The Hebrew word praise actually means spin around. My sister and I went to a Vineyard conference one time, and we weren’t at much of a dancing church, and there were people dancing all over the place. And my sister and I are very similar. We are not mocking in a way that we’re putting it down. We’re just teasing in a funny way. And so we had a little game we were playing called Name that Dance. Alright, Name that Dance.
And again, we weren’t putting these people down, but one guy was doing this spinning around like this. We named him the Martini Glass, you know, because he’s making the glass. Yeah. So we would name that dance. But that’s literally got me a little dizzy there. That’s literally what it means. That’s what the Hebrew word means. Lift your hands. That guy was praising God. David danced before the Lord in his linen Ephod, and I love that.
The Bremerton Church, we start every service and a group of kids grabs those little flags and they get up and they just wave those flags and start worshiping Jesus. Waving those flags. What are those flags for? They’re to dance. Well, you dance in church. Hope, sue, hope to. If you want to dance here, you can dance. Just don’t get in, you know, just don’t.
We had, you know, we had a church in California and people started dancing and waving these big flags. We had this one lady. I had to say, Cindy, you’re whacking people. Stop whacking people with your flag. You know, move, you know, move to the safe dancing area. Don’t get in somebody’s way.
We had one lady at Bremerton who would just wave her flags in front of everybody. She got offended when somebody said, hey, could you do that over there? But, yeah, do it over there. But you can do it. You don’t have to be timid. Get your body involved. Oftentimes your body will get involved whether you want it to or not.
People will cry. People, it just used to crack me up, man. Now I’ll pick on Jamie. I haven’t been singling people out, but I’ll single out Jamie, you know? Yeah. I always thought, you know, fighter pilot, you know, I’m thinking tattoos and, you know, and she’d come up for years, she’d come up for prayer and I’d start praying for her and she’d start crying. It’s like, man, what would the Marines think of that? Not much, but still. Still. Sophia, Sidney, your parents are bad, all right? They flew jets.
But we had these ladies in Oakdale, they cry all the time. Why do I always cry at church? Because I think Jesus. I think the Spirit of Jesus is impacting you, and you need to cry. I don’t understand it. You don’t have to understand it. We’d have people laugh. We had holy laughter taking place. People get so annoyed at that. People shouldn’t be laughing.
They should be repenting of their sins. Well, what do you do after you repent of your sins? Have joy. Didn’t Paul say, rejoice always?
16 Rejoice always, (1 Thessalonians 5:16, CSB)
I can’t believe that people get offended with what they call holy laughter. It’s like laughter is a manifestation of joy. We’re supposed to have joy, so people can laugh in church, alright? Not just at the joke. Sometimes you just… People lay hands on you, and you start laughing. That hasn’t happened much here. But it’s gonna. It’s gonna. It’ll be great. It’ll be fun. All right?
So let your body get involved. Still your flesh when you come in. You got a rat race going around in your head. Tell it to be still. You can get to those things later. Now is the time to turn your attention to God and his people. All right? The to-do list will be there when you walk back out the door. Put the to-do list aside, put Monday aside, and just be with Jesus. Let go of your agenda and let the Lord lead God.
This is what I want to have happen tonight. Then God goes in a different direction. I can tell you this, you know, I’m preaching through Romans, so I have an agenda.
Every week I study Romans, I study the next passage. And most of the time, 99% of the time, that’s right on. Every once in a while, I’ll hit a week. And it’s happened here, it’s happened in Bremerton. It’s happened everywhere I’ve gone, where the thing is just not clicking.
I’m thinking about it Wednesday, it’s not falling into place. I’m thinking about it Thursday. Friday, it’s not thinking about it Saturday night. And by Saturday night, if this thing’s not falling into place, I now know to stop and say, what do you want to do, Lord?
What do you want to do tomorrow? And then, like, another Scripture will come to my mind and say, look at that, our. Here’s what I want to do. Sometimes that happens during the singing part of worship. The Lord just puts on and says, you’re going to do this. Sometimes it happens in the middle of a service.
Well, have spirit-led leadership. That’s the next one. I’m leading worship, and I’m preaching. I’m in the preaching part of worship. And there’s a young man up in the balcony. And this was in California. And his mother and sister were strong in the Lord. The three men in their family had all backslid, and the Lord had said that these three men are going to come back to the Lord.
The youngest of these three men, the youngest of the family, shows up in the balcony. He’s just sitting there. He’d always just come, sitting there, or whenever he’d come, he’d just sit there. He hardly ever came, but he’d just sit there. Not, you know, just not like, why are you here? And I’m preaching.
And the Lord says, tell Jimmy today’s his day, all right? Right after the sermon. No, do it now. But, Lord, it’s the middle of the sermon. And now I’m fumbling and bumbling with my sermon, right? Because I’ve got this. I can’t do that. I can’t preach and argue with God at the same time. And so I kind of pause. Well, it’ll just seem weird. God, let me finish my sermon. He says, fine, you can finish your sermon, but you’re going to miss the moment. I don’t want to miss the moment.
My preaching isn’t all that important when God says there’s a moment. And I say, okay, God, tell Jimmy that today’s his day. So I look at the congregation and say, I got to stop. I got to stop. The Lord has put something on my heart. And I looked at Jimmy up in the balcony and I said, Jimmy, the Lord says today is your day. If you want to be good at this point, you know, Jimmy, the Lord says, today is your day. Jimmy, with authority, Jimmy, step forward, give instruction.
Every case you get this moment, you know, you don’t need to enhance what God’s doing. But sometimes, you know, it helps. Jimmy, the Lord says, today is your day. And Jimmy throws his arms in the air and goes, yes, I knew it. And rushes down and we pray for him to recommit his life to Christ.
And my brother-in-law had been counseling this boy and we’d been having all these spiritual manifestations. And my brother-in-law is really skeptical about it. And he actually told God that week, he says, I’ll know this stuff is for real if it ever impacts Jimmy. And then the next week, Jimmy is there getting prayed for. And sure enough, I lay hands on him. Holy Spirit, come and fill Jimmy. And Jimmy’s just on the floor, just boom. Today was his day.
So you leaders, when I’m not here, and even when I am here, be led by the Spirit. You know, there’s nothing stopping you from saying, Kevin, I think the Lord wants to do this today. I may say, yes, I may say, let me think on that. Don’t get offended if I don’t do it your way, but maybe I’ll just. Oh, yeah, you’re right, the Lord is in that.
But we want to be spirit led, spirit sensitive in our worship. Don’t be distracted by distractions. Don’t be the devil. At the most powerful times, when you’re going to have an encounter with God and the devil has nothing left to tempt you with, you’re surrendered, you’re focused, you’re there. He’ll bring a fly into the room and it’ll land on your husband’s forehead.
You think God wants to change my life? But that doggone fly is on that stupid man doesn’t even feel it. I gotta brush that thing away. Just the most ridiculous things in Bremerton, you all know how that’s built. We got that big window that goes out to the parking lot to Crazyville. You know, there’s some people there, right? We’re just preaching up the gospel and God is moving and all of a sudden somebody’s walking through our parking lot going. All the eyes are going.
I don’t know if you know this, but this is the rule in Bremerton. You take your eyes off me and start looking out in the parking lot, clothes start coming off. I’m going to get your attention back. Praise the Lord. We’ve only got the shoes. Up to this point in the history of that church, that’s been enough to scare them. Is this, and they’re like, okay, we’re with you. We’re with you. We don’t want to get to the suspender level, so I can’t do that with you. There’s nothing back here.
But, I don’t know, I can threaten you with something if you start losing attention. All right, don’t be distracted by distractions. And then again, offer a sacrifice to praise. Finally. What is the fruit? Well, the Bible says you will know the will of God. You will test the will of God. You know what his pleasing and his perfect will is. You will no longer be conformed to this world. What? You will be transformed and you will have obedience. That’s the goal.
The goal isn’t that we sang your three favorite songs and you got the thrills and chills and spiritual goosebumps. Nothing wrong with that. But what do you do after the goosebumps that matters? Nothing wrong with being. I don’t like the phrase, but it’s the common one. Being slain in the Spirit. I love it when people fall down. But you know what I really love? If they get up hungrier for Christ. If that encounter led to transformation and obedience. It’s not how you go down, but it’s how you get up.
Everything about worship is to give us transformation into Christ, likeness, and obedience to his kingdom precepts. If evangelism, if we leave this place more inspired to share Jesus, if we have more love, joy, and peace in our hearts, if we have a deeper humility and gratitude for what God has done for us, those are all the fruit of our authentic worship. If we are hungry for His Word, I really believe that. You know, there are churches now that have reversed the order. They preach first and then sing.
And the reason they do that, I get the rationale, is singing as a response of gratitude to God for His Word. That’s why I changed communion from before the. A couple of years ago, I changed communion from before we used to do it before the sermon to after the sermon. I just felt like, no, the communion ought to be a response to God’s Word here.
But here’s what I believe. I do the singing first. And it’s not just kind of an aesthetic preference. I really believe the singing is like a plow, and it plows the hard soil of our hearts. Then The Word comes, and it’s like the seed. The seed is no longer going on hard soil, but it’s going into fresh, plowed-up ground.
I’ve heard people even say, well, you know that modern praise, we’re worship music is very hypnotic. And hypnotism is evil. No, here’s what’s evil. Hypnotism is simply the state of being open to the power of suggestion. Now, when is that evil? When somebody is using that to suggest bad things to you. But what if you’re singing beautiful songs to God and that leaves you more open to the power of suggestion? And then a guy gets up and says, be transformed and obey God. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. (Romans 12:1, CSB)
And you go, hey, yeah, that sounds good. I’ll do that. Versus you just walk in the door and somebody says, present your body as a living sacrifice. Hey, hey, back off, Jack. I just got here.
You see, the thing itself is not bad. Being in a state of being open to the power of suggestion isn’t bad if the suggestions are good, if there’s a level of trust. And I’m not even saying that modern praise music is hypnotic, but when I heard that phrase, I thought, so what if it is? And it’s followed by the preaching of the word. Good.
I’d like a bunch of hypnotized people going out there. Love Jesus, share Jesus, give money to the church. Yes, great. I wish I could. Maybe I’ll get up here with a watch someday. Go. Love Jesus, share Jesus.
But it plows up so that you are prepared for the discipleship of the Word and responsive to the prophetic ministry. Responsive both to receiving prophetic words to give to others, and also responsive to receiving prophetic word from others.
It creates an atmosphere for healing. Our faith grows when we experience and encounter Jesus in our presence. Like, well, he’s here. Might as well do something. Let’s see what he can do. We believe he’s here, and if he’s here, he can heal. You know, it’s easier to believe Jesus can heal when you believe he’s present.
And finally, it leads to intimacy with God. And all fruitfulness flows from intimacy with God. I love theology. You know, I love theological discussions. Not as much as everybody. There are some people who are more than me, but I’m probably more than most. You know, I love it when my kids ask me theological questions, which is very. I love it when people come and ask me theological questions, and it is so rare, it’s annoying. Please feel free if you got. You know, I wonder what Kevin thinks about this? And you have an hour and a half. Ask me, and I’ll tell you. you’ll think it’s a five-minute question. No, there’s a history to this. It started in the second century. And there we go. We’re off. I wonder if that’s why people don’t ask me that. Could be.
But I also know enough to know this. Knowing stuff about God is not knowing God. Jesus says, depart from me. I never knew you. He doesn’t say, depart from me. You didn’t know the Nicene Creed in Latin. Depart from me. You had a dispensationalist bias, not a covenantal bias. Depart from me. You were a Calvinist instead of somebody with common sense. I can’t help picking on the Calvinist. Depart from me. You baptize babies instead of adults. Or you baptized adults instead of babies? Depart from me. your view of the table wasn’t theologically correct. No. Did I know you? Did I know you?
You know where that knowing comes from? Worship when we present our bodies to him and say, here I am, Lord, here I am. You know what you have. You know what you have better than I know what you have in me. But I am yours, and I will sing my praise and thanks to you. I’ll give you my life, and it will be a far less than perfect offering to God.
More than anything else, I want to know Christ and be known by Christ. And Lord, if at all possible, I want to make Christ known. And, dear ones, that flows from intimacy. Intimacy comes from worship. Therefore, because of God’s incredible mercies in Jesus Christ, every day, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
This is a holy and acceptable pleasing act of worship. And it will transform us into the knowledge, the increasing knowledge of God.
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. (Romans 12:1, CSB)
Therefore, present your digestive system. What? Yeah, your digestive system. And eat a piece of bread. Why? Because the King of the universe invites you to his table and he says, I will feed you with spiritual food if you’ll only believe I will feed.
You know, nothing creates intimacy. The only thing I know is the marriage union between a man and a woman.
The only thing I know that creates more intimacy than that, or the only thing that I know that creates. That’s the only thing I know that creates more intimacy than simply sharing a meal with somebody. That’s what I want to say.
Sharing a meal is number two. All right? Sharing a meal is number two. Just creating intimacy with one another. And Jesus says, I want you all to be united together and with me. And so we’re going to share a meal. So come and eat and be grateful.
Lord, I want to be intimate with you.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
