Singing Prayer (ft. Alex Rettman) | Prayer E5

Hello and welcome to the John Mark Comer Teachings podcast. My name is Yinka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space. It's wonderful to have you with us. We're continuing our prayer series, exploring the different facets of what it means to commune with God. This week we're hearing from Alex Repman, exploring how a singing can actually be prayer to God and how worship has the power to change us, move God's heart, and shift the circumstances around us. Alex is a former pastor at Bridgetown Church, currently serving as a senior leader of Saints Hill Church in Newburgh, Oregon. If you want to dig deeper into Alex's teaching, check out Saints Hill Church podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Here's Alex. Hey, so I've been at this church working here for about five years now, a little over five years. And from the very beginning, something that has just been so deeply on my heart is that we would taste some of the heights of worship that we've been tasting together as a community. I mean, hasn't it been awesome? Some of the moments of worship that we've had encountering the Lord together, it's been just so, so good. And, you know, so kind of out of that season and out of desiring that and over the past year, I have some things that I just want to share from my heart tonight. I don't know if any of it is going to be like intellectually mind-blowing. but it's just stuff that I've been chewing on. You know, we've been in this prayer series and talking about different forms of prayer. And so if you think about a diamond, all of the different facets on a diamond, I want to just rotate that diamond tonight and look at another facet. So specifically, I want to put forth this. If you're taking notes, write this down. Your singing can be prayer to God. Your singing can be prayer to God. Your worship, the songs that you sing, can actually minister and connect directly to the heart of our Father. Did you know that? Augustine, one of the church fathers, once said, the person who sings prays twice. I love that. Isn't that good? So tonight I want to talk about three things specifically that singing to God does. First thing that singing to God does is it changes us. Worship changes us. Worship moves God, and worship changes circumstances. It's so simple. Three things. Worship changes us. It moves the heart of God, and it changes our circumstances. So first, worship changes us. Let's all turn in our Bibles to Exodus chapter 33. If you're unfamiliar with the Bible, that's the second book of the Bible. The Bible is really not one book, but a library of many books. And so we're going to be in the book of Exodus 33. If you still can't find it, in the front of your Bible, there should be a table of contents, and that'll tell you where you can find various books of the Bible. It's the second book, what we like to call the Old Testament. So Exodus 33, and we'll look at verse 18. This is a powerful passage, one that has just been really impactful for me. Check out what it says. It says this, Moses said, please show me your glory. Verse 19, Wow. Interesting. Let's flip over to the New Testament, to the book of John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's the fourth book in the New Testament. And we're going to be in John chapter 1. In the first chapter, the author of the book of John, John, he's kind of explaining why Jesus came and who Jesus is and the role that he's played within the Trinity. And it's just this amazing passage I want to show you. So it says this in John 1, verse 18. It says, no one has ever seen God. Remember that? Moses said, I want to see you. I want to see your glory. And God said, no, I actually have to hide you. So no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. So do you catch what's going on? It's a little bit confusing grammatically, but what's happening is John is saying nobody's ever seen God face to face, but guess who came to make God known? Jesus. Jesus came so that you could have a face-to-face interaction with the Father. That's the purpose of Jesus. Why does he come? To reveal. Okay, one last place. Let's flip to the next spot. 2 Corinthians 3. It goes Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 16. Now, I don't know how many of you guys know this, but today in the church calendar is Pentecost. You guys know this? And Pentecost is this beautiful moment. It's when that ancient prophecy from Joel chapter 2 came to fruition. That one day the Spirit of God would be given to all flesh. And that men and women would see dreams, have visions, and prophesy what God wanted to have happen in the world. And so because of the Spirit, because that actually happened, we actually are recipients of the Spirit. Paul can write this in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16. He says this. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is what? Freedom. Wherever God's Spirit goes, guess what happens? People get free. Verse 18, And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, where have we heard that before, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. how many of you guys here tonight know that the kind of access we have to the father has never been seen before do you guys know that that because of jesus because of his spirit we now with unveiled face get to behold his glory and it's so powerful just to see god just to behold him it changes you that is powerful this is what jesus said about this this is this is really interesting to me. Jesus said, for truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Don't take the new covenant for granted. You all, as new covenant people, people of God, have access to the Father to see him and to hear him like people have longed for, for thousands and thousands of years. because of the spirit we can see God as he really is and when we do we actually change now Paul says this he says beholding as we behold God what does it mean to behold something because it's different than just looking at something right when somebody let's say you you go on a hike I don't know if this has ever happened this is a dumb dumb analogy but maybe this has happened let's say that you're going it's just on the spot people let's say that you're going on a hike Angel's Rest. How many of you guys have been to Angel's Rest before in the gorge? All of our church. Awesome. Let's say you're going on a hike and you're almost to the top, but your friends already made it there and they're like, behold this. Right? Because when somebody says behold, what they point to is something really good. Right? It's something, when you behold something, you're taking it in. You're taking it back. Oh, you're captured by the beauty of it. Right? It's not just look. It's behold. It's behold. And the whole point of beholding is enjoyment, right? To behold something is to really take back and enjoy it, to take it in. And to worship God is the exact same thing. That what worship is like Worship at its heart is placing worth God you worth this I beheld you and oh you worth it worship is verbalizing and physically acting out your delight in God That what it is C Lewis he has this quote that just been like wrecking me recently. He says this, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. Do you catch that? It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete until it's expressed. It's amazing. See, beholding, looking at God, and praise is incomplete until you actually express it to God until you figure out a way in your life to sing it or to act expressing to God the delight. You see, if I wake up one morning and I look over at my wife, she's the only person I've ever known who looks good in the morning, and it's awesome. I'm blessed for the rest of my life. It's amazing. So if I wake up in the morning and I look over at my wife and I go, man, she looks really good today. She's totally beautiful. And I keep it to myself. How many of you guys know that's one degree of delight. That's one type of enjoyment. But when I tell Emily how beautiful I think she is, I feel it even more, and I even mean it more. See, worshiping God is actually the same sort of thing. It's not just beholding that changes you. It's when you verbalize what you like about God in his presence that it makes you mean it in a more powerful way. It's the consummation of delight. That's what worship is. The simple act of using our mouths and melody to sing God's excellencies can put you in awe and actually can bring you to silence. In Paul's language, wall, God transforms you from one degree of glory to another. That's why, I don't know, how many of you guys, maybe you've seen this happen before, you've been a part of a worship gathering where this happens. Do you know those moments where the band just sort of stops kind of singing and playing, and there's just a moment of calm and still. Have you ever had some of those moments? Sometimes Matt will be just strumming the guitar in the background and you're like, are they gonna play another song? Or like, what's going on here? Have you ever been there? What's going on in that moment? What's happening? I think what's going on in that moment is the Selah moment. Have you guys ever read the Psalms and seen that word Selah? What does that word mean? What that word means is that you've just seen a description of the glory and beauty of God. Now pause and reflect. Now pause for a moment. Just take it in. Discern what kind of worship should come next. That's what we're doing up here. It's kind of like, have you guys ever seen a pointer dog? A dog that when it goes hunting, it points at the birds. Have you seen this? So I didn't really know much about this. I'm not much of a hunter, but last night I was watching a lot of YouTube videos, so somewhat of an expert. Yeah. So anyways, so this is the way that these dogs work. They're amazing dogs. The hunter who's bird hunting completely depends and trusts his dog to go point out where the birds are. And so he'll release the dog, and the dog will just sniff around. It has the scent of the bird. It will look for a bird, and when it sees a bird, or when it smells out a bird, it will just pause and stop at the right distance and point like this with its nose right there. There's a bird. So the hunter knows where the bird is. See, these moments in worship where we actually pause and we take a step back, it's like we're doing this. We're going to honor the point. We're going to honor what should come next, God. See, I'm not going to always assume that I know what the next piece of worship should be. I'm not going to assume that I know what you're going to ask of me next or what surrender you want to bring out of my life. I'm going to pause and I'm going to reflect on your glory. I've beheld your beauty. Where do you want me to change? What do you want me to do next? What do you want me to do? These are the moments where the biggest thing in the room is him, not what you did last night, not how you feel about yourself, not the tensions you face at work, but him. So you can't worship if you're overwhelmed with how bad you are. Do you know that? You can't worship because the focus is on you, and if it's all about giving him worth, you got to get your eyes off of yourself. That's what worship actually is. And when we do that, when we respond to him in that way, the goodness you've shown me, I'm giving back to you. I'm giving that worth back to you. I don't know how it works, but Paul says, the scriptures say, we change. We get transformed. So here's the encouragement. In our worship times together, pause and reflect. You don't have to come to him with all of your ideas for how to change. Remember, Jesus doesn't say, hey, come to me, all who are weary, but have a really good idea how to do discipleship. He also doesn't say, hey, come to me, all who are thirsty, but you got some ideas of where to find water. No, either he's our rest and he's our water or he's not. When you come here to worship, it's about beholding his glory, expressing it. Why? Not because he needs it, but because you experience the consummation of delight when you express it. Okay, that was too long. I went long on that one. Secondly, God responds to our worship. God is moved by our worship. Probably many of you guys know about King David, right? You've heard stories about King David. You've read about King David. What was King David known as? He's the man after God's own heart, right? He's known by a lot of things, but that mainly, right? He's the man after God's own heart, and the reason behind that is because he had a heart for worship. When David sets up the temple, it was a Jewish custom that the temple would be the space where you would sacrifice for the sins of Israel. You'd sacrifice animals on an altar for the sins of Israel, and David's like, yeah, that's all good, but God, I don't know if you know this, he doesn't just delight in sacrifice. He delights in broken hearts. He delights in hearts. And so, you know what David did? He set up the priest to actually sing to God 24-7. He said, you know what your job is? It's worship 24-7. You're worshiping. That's what he set up. He also wrote many of the Psalms. So he created this incredible tradition of singing your season to God. I promise you, there is not a season you'll go through in your life that you can't find in the Psalms. Singing your season to God. Now, at one point in the life of David, there's a wealthy man who comes to him and says, hey, listen, I got this plot of land. I'm going to give it to you so that you can build an altar to God on it. And even, I'm going to throw in some cattle that you can burn some sacrifices to God on it. And David, being a king, he was used to these sorts of gifts, right? But you know what David replies with? He says this, I will not give to God an offering that costs me nothing. Wow. See, because worship is entirely based on his worth, it will always cost us something. Do you know that? There's always a cost in worship. It could be your time. At the very minimal, it's going to take time to worship God. It could be your grip on a worldview. Oh, I'm not about that, you know, feely mumbo jumbo. I can't do that. But you know, the scriptures say, it doesn't say, hey, if you're an extrovert, praise the Lord. Or if you're feeling good about your day, praise the Lord. It says, no, praise the Lord. So it's a command. So you might have to give up that. It might cost you control over God. How many of you guys know that when you worship God, you don't have control over him? You're saying, you're the one who actually has control over me. And I don't know if you know this, but God is actually moved by the cost of our worship. Think about it. The widow, she comes into the temple to give her all that she has to live on. And you know what Jesus says? She's given more than anybody else. He's moved by the cost. I love that story. Or you know the woman who is bleeding, she's unclean, and she goes into a crowd of people jeopardizing their cleanliness according to Jewish ritual, all because she just is desperate to touch Jesus. And he says, that cost you socially? I felt your touch. He was being touched by a lot of people. How did he feel hers? Because she was paying a cost for it. Worship has to cost us something. If it doesn't rock you, it doesn't rock him. For some of you, raising your hands in worship, it's like it's so easy to express physically the way that I feel about God. This just comes naturally. This is probably the case for me, actually. And so for you to raise your hands in worship, that costs you nothing, right? So you know what God might be asking you to do? He's asking you to dance. And you like yeah but if I dance then I might not look cool right Well what matters more right For some of you it like I can raise hands Are you kidding me I will never be tempted to dance, okay? I'm never going to do that. For some of you, it's just meaning what you sing, and God honors that cost. He says, you're paying a cost to believe what you're singing. For some of you, it's just singing. I'm actually going to put melody and words to the way that I feel right now. It's actually singing. For others of you, it's just not paying attention to the people around you, right? That could be the cost that you're willing to pay. I'm just gonna be focused in this moment. I'm gonna sit in my seat, but I'm gonna be focused on you, Lord. But for us to get to a place of sacrifice, giving all that we are to God in worship, we're gonna have to get rid of the fear of what we think people think about us. Because how many of you guys know that the fear of man is not being afraid of what people think? It's actually being afraid of what you think people think. See the difference? So let's say that you're in a moment of worship and you're beholding the Lord. It's a tender moment. And let's say that you want to kneel out of reverence to God. You want to get on your knees. But then all of a sudden, you think, oh gosh, but what would that guy think about me? Or what if they saw me? What would be going through their minds? Are you going to do it? Are you going to kneel? No. No, because you're not going to kneel if what they think matters more than his worth. See, that's the equation that you're playing when you aren't willing to sacrifice for the Lord. What people think about me matters more than your worth, God. And I don't know how else to put it, but as a church, I think we need to grow in our belief that what God desires of us matters more than what people think about us. and worship is a really, really important part of that. David, the king of Israel, dances before the Lord with all of his might. His own wife despises him for it. She looks at him and she goes, what are you doing? And David says, I'll be even more undignified than this for the sake of the Lord. What is the cost that you're going to pay? Lastly, worship changes circumstances. Did you know this? Worship changes our circumstances. How many of you guys know that God is at war with Satan? Do you guys know this? God's at war with Satan, that on the cross, he defeated Satan. I love this analogy. It's like D-Day, right? D-Day happens. The Allied forces storm Normandy. They take the beach. Everybody knows this war is over, right? But guess what? There's 11 more months of fighting before the war officially ends. So this is like the cross. The cross was D-Day. Death has been defeated, but we're waiting for the return of Jesus and we're fighting those last little battles and skirmishes, but we know we're on the side of the victor. Do you know that? See, when Jesus teaches us to pray, he says, pray that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, which means, inevitably, that there are places and spaces and times where God's will isn't being done. What else could it mean? So sickness, do you guys know anybody who's chronically ill? You guys know somebody who's chronically ill? Do you guys, have you ever dealt with any death in your life? Anybody, have you ever had a close person to you pass away? Have you ever experienced racism? Been the person who's actually perpetrated racism or received it? Has that ever happened? Do you know anybody who's self-righteous? you never have to wonder if any of those things are God's will you want to know why I'll let you in on a little secret because Jesus is perfect theology so when you see Jesus going around eradicating all of those things why would God be working against God it is not God's will for people to be sick it is not God's will for people to die for whatever reason we think we should just be comfortable with death we should not be comfortable with death. It is the enemy of God. Jesus treated death almost more seriously than he treated sin. He was constantly going after it. So how many of you know that Jesus actually invites you into that same war and he wants to partner with you? And he doesn't say, hey, listen, the world's owned by Satan. He's running the show. So things are going to be bad and they're going to only get worse, but just hang in there. Do you know that that's not his message to us as followers of Jesus? Do you know that his message to us is actually you're more than a conqueror? Do you know that? That's actually his message to you and to me. So pay close attention to this because I want to show you how our praise, our worship, actually plays a role in pushing back the dark kingdom. Check this out. This is in Psalms 22 verse 3. but you are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. Okay, the psalmist to God, where is God? He's enthroned in the praises of Israel. Did you catch that? He's enthroned in the praises. Another translation says that God is dwelling in the praises. Here's the key, where his people praise, there he is. Did you know that? And do you know that with his presence, he always brings his kingdom. Wherever the king goes, you'll find the kingdom, right? So if when we sing, he inhabits our praises, he dwells where his people praise, and wherever he goes, he brings the kingdom. What is he bringing with him? He's bringing healing. He's bringing purpose to your life. He's bringing in salvation and peace. How many of you guys live with peace? Peace is so hard to get in our society today. He brings peace. He's the prince of peace, and he's bringing it with his kingdom. He brings joy and justice. So when we sing songs, when we worship, we're not just singing songs. With our praise, here's what we're doing. We're laying a target for the kingdom of God to come right here, God. Land here. This is where we want to see you. That's what we're doing with our worship. Did you know your worship was that powerful? Did you know it was that powerful when you opened your mouth in melody that that could happen? Take a look at another aspect of this. This is powerful. This is in Isaiah 42. It says this, sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you islands and all who live in them, let them give glory to the Lord and proclaim his praise in the islands. Then watch what happens. the Lord will march out like a champion like a warrior he will stir up his zeal and with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies so get this when we worship God when we sing to him something stirs God up to conquer his enemies in the spiritual realm did you catch that? I love this image. It's like when we praise, when we worship, God gets pumped. He goes out and he conquers Satan. How amazing is that? He stirs up his zeal. We don't talk a lot about zeal. I googled the word zeal and it's the height of its use was in 1849, okay? It's tapered off a little bit since then. But what is zeal? Zeal is this. It's great energy and enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. That's what zeal is. When we praise, it's like fuel for God. Did you know he responds to your praises? When we praise, God goes out, he raises the battle cry, and he says, we're pushing back the kingdom of darkness right there. Why? Because I'm enthroned in the praises, and that's where my kingdom's going. Did you know that? So powerful. It's almost as if we're placing a target on whatever we're singing around or whatever situation we're singing over or whatever person we're singing over and we're saying, this is where we want to see your kingdom come. Now this phrase in Psalm 42 is really interesting. It says, sing to the Lord a new song. A new song. That phrase, sing to the Lord a new song, is repeated 87 times in the entirety of scripture. Now what is a new song? Well, it's certainly not an old song, right? See, I think the new song, it's my opinion, but I think I'm right on this one. The new song is referring to someone singing what comes to their mind or their hearts in a specific moment. It's something that's maybe never been sung before. These are called spontaneous songs And I believe that these songs that are laid on our hearts in a moment or come to mind in a moment have the capacity to be prophetic and have spiritual implications in our world today David, this is from 1 Chronicles, this is amazing. David together with the commanders of the army. Okay, pause right there. I just want to paint this picture for you. David's sitting at the head of the boardroom table. He invites all of his generals in. He says, I got a matter of war that we need to talk about. It's a matter of war. Here's what he says. Set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jedethon for the ministry of prophesying accompanied by harps, lyres, and cymbals. So David's like, hey, listen, big time war issue. We need prophets. I love that. And notice, what are they prophesying accompanied by? Things that make melody. They're singing prophetic songs, and he says, how are we going to triumph over our enemies? How are we going to see the kingdom of God advance? We need people to prophesy to song. Wow. Paul actually says this in Ephesians. He says this, sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. It's great when you sing other people's songs, the songs that we sing on stage here, but what is the song that you have? What's the thing that you need to sing over that situation that you're in? What's on your heart? It could be a sad song. It could be a song of triumph. It could be a song of joy. It could be a song of aching. What is the song that you need to sing? It could be that in a gathering like this one, when we give you freedom to sing your own song, sometimes Matt will be up here with the band playing and he'll just say, hey, sing whatever's on your heart. And in that moment, just whatever comes to mind, just verbalize that for the Lord. Look, you may not sound great and the person in front of you might not like it very much, but you know what? God likes it, and he's the one who matters, right? It's about his worth. And I believe that in that moment, when you sing that song, it could become a prophetic act that signals to God, stir up your zeal right here in this situation, in this circumstance. Sometimes a word or a phrase will just be laid on your heart, and to sing it is to agree with what God is doing in the midst. Sometimes you could even be in your car, and you could have the radio on, and you might be singing to a song that has no worship intention in it at all, but when you sing it over a certain situation in your life, or when you sing it with someone in mind, it becomes prophetic. Do you know that? Do you know that all of creation is God's and he can use anything? That's a good thing. That's a really good thing. The other day, my high school team, we got together before the high school group, and we were listening and just asking the Lord, what are you saying? What do you want to do? and oftentimes we ask the Lord to actually minister to one another, fill us up before we go pour ourselves out for these students. And my wife is, she has a great voice actually, a very strong voice. She's a real loud person. If you ever hang out with her, like, wow, you're really strong pipes. It's incredible. And you know, she would never get up here on stage and sing. That's just not her. She's not ever going to do that. But in this moment, I was so proud of her. It was just one of the most proud moments I've ever had. She said, hey, I think Lizzie's one of our leaders. She said, hey, Lizzie, I think I'm supposed to sing a song over you. Can I sing a song over you? And it was so powerful. It was so prophetic in that moment as she sang, and you could just tell she was nervous. Her voice quavered, but she, but you know what, she quavered, but she was resolute. This must be sung over this girl in this situation. It's going to break something off, and it's gonna bring freedom. And it did, it was so powerful. See, there's direction that God has given us in the scriptures. If you wanna know what God's will is, it's really easy. You can actually go to the scriptures and find out what God's gonna do in this world and you can partner with him. But when we sing prophetically in a moment, we bring our hearts' desires to bear on the plans of God and he thinks, oh, that's a good idea. We should do that. That's the relationship that he has invited us into. That's what prayer is supposed to do. So here's my encouragement for you. What circumstance comes to mind? What needs to be sung over? Just the other day, I was in the office on Wednesday, and I was prepping for this message, and I had my guitar there, and everybody had left the office. It was later on in the day. And I was learning this new song, and the Lord just said, go stand at the window and sing it over Northwest. sing it over that space. And so you know what I was doing in that moment? What I was doing is I was saying, God, whatever this song is saying, do it here. Do that here. So it's so easy. Throw some headphones in, walk around your neighborhood. I don't know if you want to do this. I actually sing out loud because it's not that strange in Portland to hear somebody singing out loud on the street. I'm like, I don't care what you think. So, but I go around and I'll say, whatever I'm hearing in this worship song, God, do it here. Wouldn't it be amazing if you did it here, Lord? I'm laying a target. God, change the circumstance. Now to end, the misconception from this message could be that worship is complex, and you have to intend your worship in a certain direction to get the desired result. But remember this. Worship is not primarily about getting from God. Worship is about his worth. He is our prize, and nothing else. We were made for worship. Humans were made to worship, which is why when you look around you, everybody's worshiping something. It could be a car. It could be a dream of a vocation. It could be a school. It could be a person. It could be a gender identity. Everybody's worshiping something. But when we choose to worship God, it's the holy exhale again and again since the first breath of God we received in Eden. That's what worship is. It's worship. And when we do that, God is good enough to bring with him all of his benefits and all of his excellencies. We change, he's moved, and circumstances around us change. Let's go ahead and stand up as we close. The practice of pausing in worship where we stop to reflect and rest in what was just sung can be deeply meaningful. So to end, I want to take some time to sit a little longer with this teaching, to reflect on what stood out to you and rest into that. Start by taking a few deep breaths with me. become aware of God's presence and just bring to mind what stood out to you most in the teaching I'll give you 30 seconds here and then close with Amen Amen. Thanks for listening. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. Thanks to Little Thoughts for our show music. We're a crowdfunded nonprofit, so everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. 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