Word & Deed: Postures of Praise

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Word & Deed, We are Worshipers: Postures of Praise
with Travis Aicklen

This sermon explores the biblical mandate to praise God and encourages believers to engage in authentic worship that aligns their words and actions. The message emphasizes that true authenticity comes from living out our beliefs, even when we don't feel like it.

Key Points:

• Authenticity matters: We long for congruence between our words and our actions, especially in our worship of God.
• Praise is commanded: The Bible repeatedly calls us to praise God with singing, shouting, and various physical expressions.
• Worship is a sacrifice: We offer our lives as living sacrifices to God, making Him the weightiest thing in our lives.
• Praise takes many forms: Seven Hebrew words describe different aspects of praise, including raising hands, shouting, kneeling, singing, making music, and dancing.
• Authenticity is not about feelings: True authenticity comes from acting on our beliefs, even when our feelings don't align.

Overcoming Objections to Authentic Praise:

• "I'm not a demonstrative person": God's commands are more important than our comfort or personality.
• "I don't want to be a distraction": Focus on building up and inspiring others in worship, and ultimately on what God desires.
• "I don't like being told what to do": Recognize that this resistance may stem from pride and choose humility and obedience instead.
• "I'm not feeling it": Authenticity is about doing what we believe, not just what we feel. Choose to praise God even when we don't feel like it.

The sermon concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to push past their feelings and engage in authentic praise that reflects their belief in God's greatness and goodness.

Transcript

How we doing? Good? 

Good. My name is Travis, and I'm the lead pastor here. And like many people here, my life was really shaped by short-term mission trips as a teen. Anybody have their life turned upside down by some short-term mission trips as a teen? 

Even if you're here and you've never been on a mission trip, maybe you're not a follower of Jesus yet. Travel has a way of opening your eyes, does it not? You kind of wake up and you start to see things differently when you travel. And one of the trips that really shaped my life happened when I was 19, and I got an opportunity to go to Nepal and India. And I had already seen and experienced poverty. I had already been slapped by the reality of poverty, but I think what I noticed when I was in India and Nepal was a level of desperation I've never seen before. So some of the things that we encountered that really startled me is I remember, you know, we traveled to a village in the Himalayas where the pastors had been killed. And I remember thinking like, well, this would be a good reason not to go to that village. 

And they were like, we're going to go, we're going to go encourage the saints. I remember also meeting a woman who, because of her conversion to Christ, had been burned severely by her husband. And so it was just so in your face. I remember encountering for the first time parents, parents just like us, who had maimed their children to make them more effective beggars. They thought they were doing their child a service by making them a more effective beggar. I'm realizing now that this went from like laughing at kids. 

It just took a real dark turn, didn't it? I also remember going outside to distribute clothes and telling everyone to line up and then getting rushed and the bag getting ripped open. And I was hoping to distribute one to each, but everyone started to panic and just think they weren't going to get anything if they stood in the line any longer. So I just remember getting rushed, everything was gone. And there was a level of desperation that I've just never really seen before. And quite honestly, desperation when you come up against it, it's really unsettling. 

You know that story where the disciples are telling that guy to please shush because he keeps screaming, son of David, have mercy on me? And what they're bumping up against there is a level of desperation that's making them feel uncomfortable. And they want to shush it. 

They want to stop it because it's unsettling. And later on, on that mission trip, I remember being in worship in a popular worship song at the time was, this is the air I breathe. Anybody remember this song? This is the air I breathe. And so we're all sitting in a circle. 

It's very serious. And then we start singing. And I am desperate for you. And I remember thinking, I just saw desperation. And this is not really what it looked like. And it's certainly not what it sounded like. 

Because it was so desperate. It actually sounded a certain way. And from that point on, I feel like I've been cursed with noticing every time that we're singing about something that we're not necessarily experiencing or doing. Anybody else cursed with this? It's not helpful. 

And I hope to not spread it this morning. But it's like we're singing a song, shout to the Lord, nobody's shouting. And you're like, okay. And then it's like, we're singing, we're singing these songs and nobody's singing. We kneel before you Lord and nobody's kneeling. 

You get the point, right? We throw up all seven of us, throw up our hands and get stared at by the rest of the group. This observation is a little bit exacerbated by my deep love for authenticity. I don't want there to be a gap between what I say and what I do. And I spot gaps in what I say and what I do. 

And I hate those things. I don't want phony anything. I want what's real and not just what's real. 

I want what's homemade. And I hate putting lights on my Christmas tree. Like I hate it. But do you know what I hate more than putting lights on my Christmas tree? A fake Christmas tree. And so I'm putting lights on the tree. I'm groaning. 

I'm letting my whole family hear about how hard I'm working and how this isn't going well. You know, and my wife will just say from the kitchen, we could get a fake tree. And I'm like, no, we can't because that's how judgment works. You make judgment and then you live under that ceiling. 

You can't push out past it. And I was like over my dead body, probably next year, my dead body. And I know that I'm not alone. I know that our generation really values authenticity. I think I have some working theories, but I think it's because we watched a generation before us be very committed to things, but not necessarily connected. So they were committed to their work. They worked the same job their whole lives. 

They hated it, but they did it their whole lives. They weren't connected to it. And then we watched them do the same thing in their marriages where they were committed to that marriage, but they weren't necessarily connected. And then I think we've swung over to the other side that's like, I won't do anything unless I'm connected to it. And the worst thing in the world would be to be committed to something that you're not connected to. 

Both are extreme and then both have problems anyways. That's not in the sermon. So what I'm trying to say is we all want to mean what we say, and we all want to close the gap between our words and our behaviors. And so I'm hoping today to close the gap between what we say and do, and that's already begun. The Spirit's already been doing this even without these words, but we all want to close the gap. 

We're here because we want what we believe to shape how we behave, and we want to be congruent in that way. So I want to talk about the biblical mandate to praise God with song. And of course, the Christmas story is full of this. If you've read the Christmas story lately, it almost reads like a musical. 

There's not many characters in the story that aren't singing, praising, worshiping God, even nature, heaven and nature are singing. In fact, Philippians 2, which explains what we celebrate during the Christmas season, says this, Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing. By taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. 

What we know about this section, this very familiar section of Philippians 2, is that these words were not just said by the church, they were sung. It was like this was too good to just say this stuff. We have to sing this stuff. So the Christmas story, the reality of what happened in Christ's coming has to be sung about. So when I say worship, you probably think about the three songs that get the preacher warmed up and give people time to get here, right? 

That's unfortunately what we think about. And you might be surprised to discover that there's no direct connection in the New Testament at least between worship and song. They're not connected in the New Testament. There is a huge connection, almost an exclusive connection between praise and song, but not worship. And so I want to, because we're in a series discussing how we're worshipers, I want to explain really briefly what worship is and then move into the postures of praise. Worship, I think is best explained by using this passage in Romans 11. It's a doxology actually in Romans 11. It says, oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. 

It's mind blowing, right? Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor, who has ever given to God that God should repay them. For from him and through him and for him are all things to him be glory forever. 

Amen. It goes on, therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Worship for us starts with this word glory and this text that says to him be the glory. That word glory means weight. So what you worship is the weightiest thing in your life. 

It's what you value most. It's what weighs the most and it becomes a sort of organizing center for your life like you revolve around it. You orbit around what you glory in and then you make sacrifices. So you once you have someone or something in that place of glory, you make sacrifices for it. 

Whether it be a person or an experience or an idea or a dream, you start to make sacrifices to serve what you glory in. You give your time to it. You give your money to it. 

You give your thoughts to it, right? You choose what you glory in and then you offer yourself to what's weightiest in your life and this is worship. This is worship, making sacrifices for what you deem to be worth it. 

And so the question is not will you worship or not, but what are you worshiping? Every one of us has a weightiest thing in our lives that we make sacrifices for and so that can be a career and many of you have made great sacrifices to build what you've built. That can be self, that can be sex and money and power, that can be sport or hobby or family or fears. We all are worshipers and the question is like who or what are we worshiping? This type of worship in our lives as believers, as we make Jesus the weightiest thing in our lives, leads to praise and let me describe praise using Psalm 47, 1 through 7. Clap your hands all you nations, shout to God with cries of joy, for the Lord most high is awesome, the great king over all the earth. He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet. 

He chose our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loved. God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our king, sing praises, for God is the king of all the earth. Sing to him a Psalm of praise. This is our praise and I want to talk about this, but man I'd love to not just talk about it. That would be great. 

I would love to do this and we've already started to do it this morning. Last week I was with a group of men up at a mountain and we talked about these postures of praise and it had a real impact on us. And if you're interested in more on this, actually Darren Whitehead and a guy named Chris Tomlin who's written a few worship songs, they wrote a book on this about these seven postures of praise, but there's seven Hebrew words that are all translated praise. How many remember the discovery that it was to find out that there were four Greek words to describe our one word love? And it was so helpful because we love sushi and we love our wives, right? 

And then we were like, oh this makes sense. There's four different words for this. Well there's seven different Hebrew words for praise. 

And when you understand the word that's being used, you kind of understand what goes with that word and why that word makes sense. The first one is yidah, which actually means to extend your hands, to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow. What does that look like? Well of course it looks like the fist pump. 

If you've never used the fist, I mean to throw a stone, you know, that's what that movement is. And that's an acceptable way to praise the Lord. Raising your hands was a normal posture of praise for the Hebrew people. So when you raise your hands in worship, you are not joining a Pentecostal church. You're not joining the modern worship movement. 

You're not joining Hillsong or Bethel. When you raise your hand, you're joining centuries of Christian history and tradition. This is a really fitting way to worship God. Psalm 44.8 says, in God we make our boast. 

All day long, we praise yidah, your name forever. We throw up our hands, right? This is a universal sign for many things in any country you go to, whether you're in Nepal or India. To throw up your hands means the eye surrender in every language. 

It means, you know, no one has to tell you like, hey, your team scored. Go ahead and throw up your hands. You know, it's a universal way of celebrating. And it also, no child needs to be taught to put up their hands to be picked up, right? And these are the ideas that are being communicated when we throw up our hands. 

The next word that's used is shabak. And it means to address in a loud tone, to shout, to commend, to glory and triumph, right? And we sing about this, but rarely do we do it. And this is another acceptable, very biblical way to praise the Lord with vibrant enthusiasm and excitement. 

It's a good thing. One generation shall praise or shabak your works to another. The third one is ta-da. And it's an extension of the hand, but specifically for things not yet received. So it's in a sort of receiving mode. It's a sacrifice of praise. It's praising, right? Even when we don't feel like it and extending our hands to receive. And God, I have put my trust, it says in Psalm 56, I will not be afraid. 

What can man do to me? I will render praises to you. This was a sacrifice of praise, a praise given in trust and anticipation of a deliverance that has not yet been received. It's in faith. 

Next is the Hebrew word, te-he-la. This is a song of praise, a new song, a spontaneous song. How many of you have ever wondered, like, what exactly is Moe or Sean doing? They got a lot of nerve taking us off the screen and into some song. 

They're winging in the moment. I know sometimes I've watched Sean begin to sing and I'm like, man, I don't know how he's going to make this rhyme. And I don't know where he's going, but if it's from God, it's got a rhyme. But it's from his, it's from his heart in the moment. 

He's singing a new song and the invitation is for every one of us to bring our own song of praise. In a greeting card, you know, there's always something written on the inside of your greeting card, but you don't just leave it there or at least you shouldn't. Don't just sign your name on what Hallmark wrote for your loved one. You take the pen and you write in some things that are specific. Yeah, you're, yeah, you love them, but you take your pen and you write in, this is why I love you. And this is what you've done for me. 

And this is the difference that it's made for me. And this is this new song that bubbles up and comes out that doesn't need to rhyme or sound good, but needs to come from your life and the specific things that you know and the specific things that you've seen. They, you spontaneously kind of combust into song, you know? I don't know if that's ever happened to you over maybe your child or, I mean, I've sat down to some meals where you want to spontaneously just combust into song, you know? 

It warrants it. The next word is barach, and it means to kneel, to salute, to thank. Praise or barach the Lord my soul, all my inmost being praise his holy name. In the original context, this was a bowing low, but not necessarily with your eyes down towards the ground, but your eyes transfixed on a king. So it's not a bowing low in shame. It's a bowing low in salute while you keep your eyes on what you treasure, right? And many of us have experienced the power and the beauty and the weight of the Lord, and it makes sense for us to kneel, to hit our knees in his presence. 

That'd be a great one. Fall on your knees. And you're like, there's nobody here. We all got dressed up for this. 

Nobody's hitting their knees, you know? The next word is zamar, and it actually means to make music, to celebrate and song. And music, to touch the strings or parts of a musical instrument. Psalm 144.9, I will sing a new song to you, oh God. On a harp of ten strings, I will sing zamar to you. Music is more powerful than we really can understand. 

This is why you shouldn't be listening to Taylor Swift. It can soften our hearts and soothe our troubled souls, Daren Whitehead writes, in Holy Roar. It opens a door to the spiritual world, and it paves a road for the spirits coming. The last one is the word halal, halal, to boast, to rave, to shine, to celebrate, to be clamorously foolish. Think David dancing in an ephod, saying to people who are like, you're the king, you need to cut this out. And he's like, I'll become even more undignified than this. 

I'm just getting started right now. This is a fitting way to praise the Lord. Let them halal his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp. This is the word from which we obviously get the word hallelujah. This is an acceptable way to praise. So that's it. 

That's what the Bible prescribes. And I want to just deal briefly, hopefully briefly, with our objections to this. Because I know some of you are like, I'm not dancing in an ephod. I won't even dance at a wedding. I'm not dancing here. 

So here are the objections that I hear most often from people in my church. I'm not a demonstrative person. That's not who I am. I have my ways of showing it. 

It's kind of the old school thing right where it's like, I told you I loved you once and if it changes, I'll let you know. I've got my ways. I know some of you are here and you're like, man, I am white. Not just white, but very white. Like from the Midwest white. 

That's the kind of white I am. And I don't do these things. I went to a traditional church and I don't do emotions. I don't do these things. That's not who I am. That's one of the objections that I hear. I want to show you something else. This is also a group of very white people, you'll notice. 

These white people are also from the Midwest. Can we go ahead and make sure the audio is on and play the video? Here's the 01. This is going to be a top-ranked client. The Cubs with the Black Seres! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Ah! Yeah! 

Woo! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! 

What do you think? I'm so happy! Oh my god! Look at that posture! 

Oh man. I'm a Cubs fan. Or I should say I've been sentenced to a life of being a Cubs fan. And I know for me, when I had my own response like this, I remember thinking, and you can pick up on this, that this is not about a leather ball, and this is not about a bat, and this is not about scoring more runs than the other team. If you're a Cubs fan, you know this is about a century of curse. And this is about a century of being lovable losers, right? This represents something way more than baseball, right? That would be the argument for anybody watching that response, it's not about a game at this point, right? 

And that's fair, and just what I would want to remind you of is that last time I checked, this isn't actually about singing at all. This is about a broken, fallen world living under a curse. A curse that's been lifted by a God who knows us, and loves us, and called us by name. 

One who cleansed us from all our sins and our deepest regrets and has prepared for us an eternity in the new heavens and the new earth. So it's fitting to shout. It's fitting to be clamorously foolish. It's fitting to extend our hands. 

It's a right response to what he's done. The second thing that I often hear from people, really quickly, I just want to say this. Again, I would want to say to the person who's like, I'm not like this, that I would say that what's prescribed in Scripture is more important than your personality. God, of course, made you and has your personality and mind, but ultimately what's prescribed, what's commanded in Scripture is more important than your comfort, right? Because I could easily stand up here and say, I'm not really one of those guys who likes to bless those who curse me. I'm not really... God didn't wire me to be forgiving. It's not really my thing. I'm more into bitterness and hatred, you know? 

And you would be like, hey, come on, like what in the world? That's not what God's called you to, right? So listen, His commands over your comfort and what He's prescribed over your personality. He's not wired me to be a selfless person. I mean, I feel that most days. 

I'm like, I've been wired to be selfish. It's no excuse to say this is what we do, right? Hey, secondly, I hear people say all the time, I don't want to be a distraction. 

I don't want to be a distraction to those around me. And I think this is a really valid question. We come together to be together. We come together to serve one another. And I don't think it's a bad thing to be mindful of the person that you're sitting next to and the experience that they're having. I really don't. 

I just think that there's better questions. Let me explain this to you. This is negative definition. And negative definition is always easier than positive definition. Most of us know what we don't want to do and then don't know what we do want to do. Does that make sense? Well, I don't want to have my parents' marriage. Okay, cool. 

What kind of marriage do you want to have? I don't know. Never thought about that. And it's like, well, maybe you should stew on that for a little bit. You know, it's really easy, right? 

So you come in here and you're like, I don't want to be a distraction. That's a great question. You know what's a better question? What do you want to be? Do you want to build up and inspire the worship of the person next to you? 

Then jump in. Because it's inspiring to be caught up in a moment of praise with the people you're around. Worship, baguette's worship. You see people engaging it and you want to engage. So if you want to be a blessing, I get it. 

You don't want to be a distraction. But a better question is what do you want to do? You want to hear a better question than that one? What does God want? I'm sorry, is it for us? 

Are we here to bless His name? What does He prescribe? Not even what does your neighbor want, but what does He want? And so go ahead, ask the question. You know, I don't want to be a distraction. It's not a question actually. But go ahead and say that. I don't want to be a distraction, but then trump that with what do you want to do for the neighbor sitting next to you? 

And then more importantly, what does God want you to do in this moment of worship? Does that make sense? Okay. Worship team, would you guys come? I've got two more objections to deal with, but... One of them, which I think no one would have the guts to say to my face, but is real, is that I don't like being told what to do. No one's actually said this to me. I can just see it on your face. That I'm like, let's lift our voices. And you were like, I was going to do it, but now that you said it, I'm not going to do it. 

Let's dance. Yeah, probably not. And I understand this. Like this is, it's not valid, but it's understandable. 

That's what I would say. Like the more people want me to watch a movie, the less I want to watch it. And they're like, you have to see this. 

And I'm like, yep, not gonna. You know, you start to feel that pressure and it starts to feel like fake, right? Like when your wife's like, it'd be really good if you get me flowers. Coming home with flowers isn't it when she says that, right? 

So then the worship leader is like, let's praise, let's stand, you know, and there's something in probably the men in particular that just digs their heels in. And I'm not going to do what you tell me to do. You know what the other word for this is? Pride. And I just want to ask you, because I know you lead a home, you may lead people at work, you may lead a team. I just want to ask you, how does it go in the family when people are like, the more you want me to do it, the less I want to do it? And how does it go with the team that I'm coaching for everyone to go like, yeah, I'm sorry that you want me at practice on Tuesday. 

I wanted to do something else. The same things you would experience at work or in your family, the same grief that comes, that's sort of, that comes here in the church. When people are like, yeah, the more you want me to do it, the less likely I am to do that or to engage in that. It's hurtful. And, okay, this is the last one. I'm not feeling it. Yeah, I'm just, I don't, I don't have a lion in my lungs. 

I don't. Turns out a lion's devouring me, my family, and my finances. And that's what the lion is doing. And he's not in me. He's after me. 

And I don't have that, right? And I just want to ask you, what else in other areas of your life, what do you do when you're not feeling it? Like your diet. Not feeling it today. Feeling some pizza. At work, what do you do when you're not feeling it? And your relationships, what do you do when you're not feeling it? 

With your devotional, your Bible reading. No one's felt Leviticus in a really long time, right? No one's feeling it, right? 

No, right? It's a decision that you make. You exercise your will in hopes that it'll become easier to make. And that is what happens when we decide to do anything that's difficult or requires risk. It's a choice. 

And I want to leave you with this. In our love for authenticity, being authentic is not doing what you feel. Being authentic is doing what you believe. You can exercise authenticity by doing what you believe and not just what you feel. 

And so when we push past our feelings and do what we believe is right, we're being authentic to heck with your feelings, right? And so we're here and we're like, I don't feel worthy to put my hands up. And then we're like, wait a second, but Christ says I'm worthy and that I can come boldly. And so being authentic to what we believe, we throw up our hands. And we say, I don't feel this way, but you say this about me. 

So here I am. And when we don't feel necessarily desperate, we remind ourselves, no, this is the air we breathe. We don't take a single breath without it being given from him. And we are more dependent than we'd like to think. And when we don't feel excited, we're like, I should be excited because I've got a bright future and a hope and a home in him. 

And when you don't feel connected with him, you say, Jesus, you paid a dear price for me to be united with you and united with the people around me. And I'm going to push through this. And I know some of you are like, Trav, are you encouraging us to fake it, to make it? 

No. I'm encouraging you that you made it. You made it. And it's not a felt reality for you, but I'm inviting you to engage it. 

And when we get to this place and praise where we're not feeling it, this is where we get invited into worship. What is the wadiest thing in your life? What will you make sacrifices for? 

Who or what is most weighty or worth it in your life? Would you stand with me? Again, if someone's asking you to do something that's unbiblical, I think you have grounds to keep your hands in your pocket. 

But if someone's inviting you to do what's prescribed in Scripture or to follow commands and not your comfort, then I would say, get into it. Let's read this Psalm one more time together. Clap your hands, all you nations. 

Shout to God with cries of joy. Oh, yeah, all right. For the Lord most high is awesome, the great King over all the earth. He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet. 

He chose our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loved. God has ascended amid shouts of joy. We don't have any trumpets, so you're going to have to do your best trumpet impersonation. The Lord amid sounding of trumpets. Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth, sing to him a Psalm of praise. As we exalt him together, there'll be a prayer team up here who's willing to pray for you if you're really wanting breakthrough in this area of your life. 

Let's exalt him.

*Transcripts are generated using AI. Please notify us if you find any errors.