Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Chroma Charge podcast.
[00:00:07] My name's Joel Barber and I am the worship pastor here. So I walked in, came into the auditorium, saw some of the band guys, thought, oh, let me grab them, they'll give me a word of encouragement, pat on the back.
[00:00:20] Two of them came up to me, stood in front of me, they said, joel, you're dressed like your dad's top half and a youth bottom half.
[00:00:28] Flip me, that's all you need.
[00:00:32] I love that, Singh. Hallelujah. The lion of Judah. I love it. I just, when I first heard it though, I was absolutely convinced we needed heirs to lead it. And I'm more convinced now being led by a lion singing about the lion.
[00:00:46] Why don't you guys stand?
[00:00:48] We're going to read a couple of. Well, we're going to read one passage, but we're going to read it three times in three different translations.
[00:00:56] We always stand and read the word of the Lord Here it's Mark 7, 6, 7.
[00:01:02] First time I'm reading it. In the new King James Version, says, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. In the Passion translation it puts it like this. These people honor me with their words whilst their hearts run far away from me. Their worship is nothing more than a charade for they continue to insist that their man made traditions are equal to the instructions of God. In the message it says, these people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn't in it. They act like they are worshipping me, but they don't mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy. Just ditching God's command and taking up the latest fads.
[00:01:59] You guys can take a seat.
[00:02:06] The way I read my Bible, I asked the Lord, I say, lord, what book would you like me to read?
[00:02:13] And normally he'll give me a book for a season. I'll sit in it for a long time. Normally a few months, sometimes six months. I'll sit for a long time in this book and every night I'll just read a little bit from this book and I will say, holy Spirit, would you show me Jesus? As I read this book? And I'll just read it again and again and the Lord will speak into my life. See, a long time ago, I used to find Bible reading really hard.
[00:02:38] I'm not academic at all, like not even remotely. I find study really challenging. So whenever I picked the Bible up, I always used to think it was a study tool and not an encounter with Jesus.
[00:02:51] And what I learned was that Jesus said he is the Word. And every time I open this book, he wants to encounter me personally. And when you read the Bible knowing that he wants to encounter you, it totally changes the way you read the Bible. Everything becomes relevant. You just live in a place where he is constantly talking to you. And I love this. I have lots of friends that do amazing Bible plans and have journals with colored post its and organizational structures that look phenomenal. It's just not me. And if it's not you, that might, might be a way you can read.
[00:03:26] So I was sat on the stage last week, pretty.
[00:03:30] But when we were doing the healing bit, I was just kind of sat in the corner and I knew I was preaching this week and I looked out and I felt the Lord say, I want you to talk on the heart of worship.
[00:03:39] And I looked out and I was like, okay. And I'd actually already made some notes about some other stuff. And I was like, lord, I have actually already made notes.
[00:03:47] He wasn't that bothered. And, and then this week as I was reading through Mark, I got to this bit in Mark 7 and I read this verse, I read this. People honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.
[00:04:09] And I read it and I was like, oh. It like hit me in the heart. Like I felt it. And I was like, oh Lord, let that not be me.
[00:04:18] Let my heart not be far from you. And please Lord, let my worship not be in vain. It like hit me. And I knew that the Lord wanted me to talk about the heart of worship. And I actually didn't really know what he was saying. I didn't have much of a plan. So I got my iPad out and I wrote a paragraph on what the heart of worship is. I wrote, a heart of worship is a heart totally devoted to Jesus, totally surrendered to the way, the truth and the life. A heart that is fiery and alive. A heart that is broken with compassion and overflowing with love. A heart from which the river of life flows through and flows from. And then I wrote, what does your heart look like?
[00:05:03] And so I took that little paragraph and I got chatgpt and I put the paragraph in ChatGPT, this is going back to my not academic thing. And I said, could you make me a diagram for this? Right?
[00:05:17] And I pressed go. And this is what it made.
[00:05:22] Yeah, it's powerful, isn't it? At the bottom left, it said, a heart that is broken. It didn't even say broken. It got it wrong.
[00:05:30] And I looked at this diagram, right?
[00:05:33] And it was like I had a download from heaven. It was like I looked at the diagram, and I had a picture from heaven. I think the Lord looked at this and thought, that's not good enough. And I had this download from heaven, and I saw a picture of a cross with a heart on it.
[00:05:49] And it was like a really realistic heart. It kind of had veins and all kinds of stuff. You know, it looked like the real deal. That's my medical opinion. And, you know, like a heartbreak emoji. It was, like, torn. Like a heartbreak emoji. It had a crack in it, and then it had a river of water coming out of it onto the floor.
[00:06:09] I saw someone taking a picture of this one. Trust me, there's a better one coming. Wait for it.
[00:06:14] Emily is actually in Columbia. She does all her graphics. There's no planet she would have ever let me put this on the stage in front of you. So don't tell her. And so I had this picture. So I then went onto another bit of AI and I typed it all in, and I spent a little while, and I got this. Have you guys got the next one?
[00:06:36] Yeah, I know, I know.
[00:06:39] So. Oh, no. A clap. Wow. It's AI. I can't take credit.
[00:06:45] And so I got this picture, and that was what I kind of saw in my head. And I said to the Lord, I said, what is it you want me to see in this picture? And he showed me three things. He showed me the river of water.
[00:06:59] He showed me the crack, and he showed me the cross.
[00:07:04] And I feel like the Lord wants to talk to us this morning about a heart of worship. And I believe with all my heart that if we can get these three things right in our lives, we will be a people who have a heart of worship and who are worshipers. We will be the ones who. He does not say, your hearts are far from me, but he would say, your heart is my heart and you worship me, and I love it.
[00:07:30] So the first thing he showed me was the river.
[00:07:34] Now, if you've been in this church over the last few weeks, you will know we have talked a lot about rivers.
[00:07:41] Not intentionally. There's just been, like, prophetic word after prophetic word about rivers.
[00:07:47] There was a glory night maybe a month ago, and I had a picture of, like, a hole in the ceiling with water flowing down from the hole. It was like a river.
[00:07:56] And we had everyone Come and kind of worship under this river. It was this thing. And then when Paul Van Waren came a few weeks ago, we said, would you talk about glory? And he started talking about a river.
[00:08:08] And then Pastor Ricardo came and he got on stage and he started talking about a river. On Tuesday, I was at revival prayer, and this man came up to me, a man who I really respect, a great man. And he came up to me and he said, I have a word for you. And the Lord is saying, there is a river in your heart, and it's flowing out. And he unpacked it a few times. And I thought, okay, this is probably the Lord.
[00:08:31] And then when I saw this picture and I saw this river, and so I looked up the river in the Bible and in John 7, 38 and 39, Jesus said, He who believes in me, as scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
[00:08:51] But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
[00:09:04] So I had this understanding that this river was the Holy Spirit.
[00:09:10] And I thought about this river, and I thought about myself getting into a river.
[00:09:15] You know, you stand in a river and a river has a flow to it. It's going in a direction. And I could picture kind of water going all around me and splashing over me and going on my head. And the truth is, when you get into a river, you have one of two choices. You can kind of swim against the tide and probably drown, or you can swim down the river, or you can get out of the river.
[00:09:41] And I really do think our walk with the Holy Spirit is really exactly that.
[00:09:46] Three choices.
[00:09:48] Go against the Holy Spirit, go against what he's saying in your life.
[00:09:53] Go against his direction, go against the Word, kind of be in the presence, but don't partner with him.
[00:10:01] You can get out of the river. You just go, I don't want anything to do with this. Just leave it.
[00:10:06] Not for me.
[00:10:08] Or you can get in the river and flow with the river, which takes the least amount of work. You just are going with the flow.
[00:10:19] And I really believe that if we want hearts of worship, if we want the river of living water that runs from us, we must partner with the Holy Spirit. We must be a people who love the Holy Spirit. Do you know, being a Christian without loving and having relationship with the Holy Spirit is really difficult.
[00:10:40] You can try as hard as you want to get your life right, to live the right way, to be super holy, to just Be a good Christian, and you might manage one or two things, but honestly, you'll end up just not managing. You'll end up crashing. You'll end up drowning.
[00:10:59] And yet, when we get into the river and we partner with the Holy Spirit and we say, yes, and we love him, you will find all of those things in your life. Start to change everything.
[00:11:10] The addictions you couldn't break, the habits you couldn't get rid of. People will start to compliment you on things you didn't even know you were working on, because you are with the river. You're in the river.
[00:11:23] I don't know if any of you guys have ever been to Center Parks. You really can't go the wrong way up the river. You get into a lot of trouble. There's, like, people with whistles, they get really cross. Not that I'd know.
[00:11:35] But you can go down the river, and with the river, it's a way better way of living. And sometimes, as Christians, I really do think we just get a bit. We get a bit confused, and we don't just sit and go, holy Spirit, what would you love?
[00:11:49] When I went to Columbia, years and years ago, it might have been four or five years ago, I remember I got on the plane and I flew, and we landed there. And I remember getting out of the plane, and I remember feeling like, oh, the Lord is here. Like, I knew he was here. And we went to this revival church called Aviva Miento, where Pastor Ricardo and Patricia came from. Wonderful people in this wonderful church. And the Lord was there.
[00:12:17] I don't have better language for it. The Lord was there. His presence was there.
[00:12:22] I remember going through the whole weekend, and I had a really nice time. I really enjoyed it. Everyone was really lovely, but I didn't have any kind of radical power encounter with the Holy Spirit. I didn't really fall over. I wasn't shaking, you know, that wasn't me.
[00:12:41] I loved it. I really enjoyed the time, and the people were wonderful, and lots of people prayed for me. And I thought, oh, this is great. But the honest truth is, I got back on the plane and I thought, God, I'm just kind of. I must be just so holy that. Didn't need any of that, you know, I'm all good, and I land and I get off the plane. And I noticed over the next month that things in my life that used to be issues were gone.
[00:13:05] Addictions were broken, there was sin gone. Just. I was just nicer. I was just a nicer person.
[00:13:12] I wanted to be more generous. I Just felt more like someone that had spent time with Jesus.
[00:13:17] And I remember being like, whoa, that's cool. Like, I went to this place where the Lord was. I got in the river. I didn't really even do anything. I was just there, and I came home, and I was different.
[00:13:32] So often with Christianity, we make it so complicated. You know, it's not complicated. It's hard, but it's not complicated.
[00:13:41] There's two ways I'd suggest we get into the river.
[00:13:47] Number one is spending time with the Holy Spirit. Every day, I go to bed at night, and when I'm in bed, I pray and I go, holy Spirit, would you wake me up in the morning? Would you pull on my heart and would you pull me to you?
[00:14:03] And then I wake up in the morning, and I need to be real with you. This doesn't happen every morning in the same way. But. But a lot of the time, I will wake up and I will feel the Lord pressing on my heart. I will feel this, like, pressure, and I will go, good morning, Holy Spirit.
[00:14:19] And I just go, holy Spirit, I love you. Now, I am not a morning person, okay? So sometimes the conversation's more than that. A lot of the time, it's, I love you, Holy Spirit. And that's kind of like, you know, I'm kind of there. And then I get out of bed, and I go for a walk with the Lord. And what I do is I get my phone. I have a playlist on my phone, and there's a Ruth Hefling quote. It's really cool. She says, you praise until the worship comes. You worship until the glory comes, and then you sit in the glory.
[00:14:50] So what I do when I go for a walk is I have a playlist on my phone, and I start the worship going, and I just walk and worship until I feel the Lord come.
[00:15:00] And when I feel him come, I worship for a little more. And then I spend time talking to him.
[00:15:06] That simple. I just spend time. I just go, lord, this is what's going on today. This is what's going on in my life. This is what I need.
[00:15:13] Sometimes I feel prompted to pray for people, and I want to pray for this person, Lord. You know, I just do. I do that for a little bit every morning. It has totally transformed my life. I've become so much more aware of him. I've fallen so much more in love with him. I am so much nicer as a person when I do that. I promise you, I get really irritated with people when I skip a morning or it's like a real thing. I remember. I think it's John Wesley said that I have a really hard day today, so I must get up four hours early to pray.
[00:15:45] It's such a different way of living. The other way we can get into the river is by coming to places where the Holy Spirit is.
[00:15:54] Come to church.
[00:15:56] Come every week, come sit in the worship. I promise you, I have kind of the best seat in the house. Often I'm leading worship and I get to look out. And what you get to see from here is that people that come every week, it's like they just are slowly transformed in his presence. They're not always doing anything. They don't always take steps. But you watch as the Holy Spirit encounters people and they start to change. We have people walk down. There'll be an opportunity today, people to walk down the front and give their lives to Jesus. And. And you watch as the Holy Spirit encounters them, and then you watch as they come back week after week. And it's like everything in them changes. They look different.
[00:16:35] Do you know if you're a bride, you wear a wedding dress and you got makeup and you get into the river, you're gonna look really different when you get out of the river.
[00:16:43] When you come down the front or when you come to church, you just sit in the worship. And sometimes people say to me, what should I do? This, this, and this is going on in my life. I'm like, just come.
[00:16:53] Just show up.
[00:16:54] You know, if you can hold your hands up, take a step, but show up and watch him meet you. Come to revival prayer. Come on a Sunday. Do you know you won't get any better pastoral advice than come into his presence and spend time there. It's the best advice anyone will ever give you. There is no problem in your life where that is not the first answer.
[00:17:17] Second thing I noticed in the heart was the crack, the broken bit. I said, lord, what is the crack? And I felt like he said, that is my love, and that is your love that you give out to other people. And I was like, lord, what do you want to say about love?
[00:17:32] And as I went through my Bible, he highlighted a couple of verses to me. I'm going to go through them nice and quickly.
[00:17:38] First One is John 14:21. Whoever has my commands and keeps them in is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I, too, will love them and show myself to them.
[00:17:53] 1 Samuel 13:14. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a Man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people because you have not kept the lord's commands. Acts 13:22. After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him. I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do.
[00:18:24] Do you want to know how? You have a heart filled with the love of God?
[00:18:29] Do what he says.
[00:18:32] It's not a popular message nowadays. It's really not. I go to so many places, oh, God loves you because he loves you. Don't worry about anything else. I'm like, that's true. He does love you because he loves you. But also, like, don't do stupid stuff.
[00:18:46] And if you do what he says, you will draw closer to him.
[00:18:50] Anyone know that when you have that friend who just always does stupid stuff, it's kind of funny. But you only want to hang out with them a little bit.
[00:18:57] You don't want to have them around all the time. You don't.
[00:19:00] You definitely don't invite them to meet your parents. And you just. They're the kind of wacky one. And what you find is, as everyone else grows up, that friend tends to be the one that gets left alone.
[00:19:12] So often we live in this place where we know that the love of God is unconditional. So we don't feel like we need to do what he says. But when we do what he says, we come closer to him and he comes closer to us. And he will lead you to good places. You want a heart that looks like that, you have to do what he says.
[00:19:31] I have asked for permission to tell this story. I have two very treasured friends, and they are married. They have the kind of marriage that I just love. I look at them and I go, if I could have a marriage like that, one day, I would want a marriage like that. They're amazing, amazing people and very, very fun people. And one of the things I love about them is they are ridiculously fun.
[00:19:54] So this couple and a whole group from church all went on holiday. I don't know where. They went somewhere. They rented a villa. They got a pool in the garden.
[00:20:04] And one of the things you need to know about the man in this story is he's. He's really sweet, unassuming, just lovely dude. But if a bunch of lads get around him and say, I dare you, he will do it.
[00:20:20] And we. We don't say, I dare you. We'll go. If you're bad, I'm saying we. I wasn't there. Remember that I'm saying we. But we will say, if you're bad, you'll do it. And it's like a little smile comes on his face, like a little.
[00:20:33] And so, first day of this holiday, he gets to the pool and all the boys go, if you're bad, you'll dive into the pool.
[00:20:43] So he dives into the pool and he hits his face on the floor of the pool, like cracks his nose, like it's cut. And you know, he looks pretty worse for where he comes out. His wife is not pleased.
[00:20:56] She's like, what is wrong with you? Right? So they have this thing, he's like, you know, whatever. Got this little kind of tape thing on.
[00:21:04] That's not the worst bit. Two or three days later, I don't know quite how long later, they go to the beach, all of them together.
[00:21:13] And at the beach is a diving board 20 meters high.
[00:21:19] Okay? It stretches out over, I think it stretched out like over one of the pools by the sea. It was kind of a cool. I've only watched the video, remember, I wasn't there. I'm not responsible. And he went. And so they all sat by the seat.
[00:21:33] And the boys go, yo, if you're bad, you'll go up that diving board and jump off.
[00:21:42] And he's like, oh. And his wife is like, no, absolutely not. Don't even think about it. She looks at him, she knows. Wives always know. She knows.
[00:21:54] She's like, absolutely not. But then she makes a fatal mistake.
[00:21:58] She gets up and goes to the toilet.
[00:22:02] And while she's gone, these boys filled with the holy spirit look at said man and say, if you're bad.
[00:22:16] So him and this the guy and another guy go to go up the diving boards. And there's two diving boards, there's a 10 meter and a 20 meter. My brother with the mashed up nose is on the 20 meter diving board.
[00:22:28] The other guy who convinced him to do it wasn't brave enough. So he went off the 10 meter. He stood on the 10 meter. And his wife comes walking back to see her husband stood at the top of the 20 meter diving board.
[00:22:43] My brother jumps off, doesn't dive, jumps, arms flailing, hits the water. His arms are like bang on the water. Obviously he's got a little nose plaster, but not a lot. That's straight off, hits the water, goes straight under, he comes out, all of the underside of his arms are bruised, like his face mashed up. And she is not pleased. I mean, she's annoyed. And he comes back and he walks back up and he looks like he's been through a war.
[00:23:17] Here's my point to this story. So much of the time, our walk with Jesus looks a little bit like that.
[00:23:25] We know that he loves us.
[00:23:27] We know that he's good with us. We know he's got us.
[00:23:30] So we go, I could just jump off the diving board. And then we come walking in covered in bruises, covered in cuts, and we can barely stand.
[00:23:42] And we're looking around going, lord, where are you? And although he is there, do you know if you spend every day doing that, a, you're probably going to die.
[00:23:52] Secondly, it's very, very hard to stay close to these people. Do you see what I'm saying? We have to do what the Lord says. Not because he's mean, not because he's a bully, because maybe the Creator of the universe knows better than you. And okay, last point. And I'm done. The last thing I saw was the cross.
[00:24:16] And I said, lord, what is this? And I felt the Lord said, this is the surrender you must have.
[00:24:22] And I was reminded of a passage in Acts. This is Acts 16:23. This is honestly one of my favorite passages. It says, and when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
[00:24:45] But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.
[00:24:51] And the prisoners were listening to them.
[00:24:55] Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were loosed.
[00:25:06] So if you deep this that they. It says, and when they had laid many stripes on them, so they had whipped them, there would have been bare blood, skin, it would be all open on their back. Then they throw them into prison, they lock up their feet. And those two men, Paul and Silas, do you know what they do? They worship the Lord.
[00:25:26] They start singing and the prisoners are listening. And I'm not surprised. Prisoners are probably looking through the kind of prison vents, seeing blood running down their backs. And what is wrong with these people?
[00:25:41] Do you know? I think you know how surrendered you are to the Lord. Not in the good times, but in the hard times.
[00:25:48] My dad said to me earlier on this week, he said, you don't know a man in the good times. You know a man in the hard times.
[00:25:57] It is when the times get tough that you find out what you're made of on the inside. And as the times got tough for the disciples in the Bible we find them again and again in places of prayer and worship. I want to encourage you if you want to be surrendered to the Lord when the times get tough, find yourself in prayer and worship. Find yourself in his presence. It's not always going to be the thing you necessarily want. It might not always be what you think is the most sensible thing to do, but it is always the right thing.
[00:26:30] You will always find yourself changed. And you know, as you start to do it a little bit, it changes the whole way you live. Because suddenly times of trial don't become times of uncomfort, they become times where you spend with Jesus.
[00:26:44] You know, I treasure some of the hardest moments in my life because it is when I was the closest to him.
[00:26:49] It changes everything.
[00:26:52] I remember they used to say, I heard a story about Heidi Baker. She went to a conference, I can't actually remember where it was, with another dude. And they went and they stood in the conference and the worship started. And the band were rubbish, like really rough. The singers were all over the place and it was just awful. And the guy standing with her is like, oh my goodness. I don't even think I can like fake my hands out. Like he was, he was just not having it. And Heidi is on her knees weeping before the Lord. And he's looking at her and he's like, are you not hearing this? Like, you know, he's just so confused. And he asked her afterwards and she said that my worship is in my heart, not about what's outside. I always can find that place of worship with the Lord.
[00:27:35] I remember when I went out to Bethel, I think it was the second time. Bethel Church in Reading. Amazing place. And at the time when I went, I was going through a really hard season. My family were going through a really hard season. We honestly felt very attacked. We felt like we wanted to defend ourselves but didn't. And we didn't really know what to do. And to be honest with you, a lot of the counsel was, do this, defend yourself, do this. And what my dad said is, no, no, no, we will just, we will just stay in the presence of God. We will worship the Lord and he will defend us. Which is amazing in theory.
[00:28:13] So I go out to Reading, which is like, I don't know, a 13 hour flight away. I'm thinking I could probably escape my problems there.
[00:28:22] So I fly out, I walk into the foyer of the building and I look across and I see two people who are involved in all of the stuff that's going on with me and my Family.
[00:28:32] I'm like, why are you here?
[00:28:35] Here?
[00:28:36] And, and, and my parents aren't there. So all their wisdom about God being the defender is all well and good when they're there. And it's their problem, it's my problem now.
[00:28:45] So I'm stood and I'm looking and I'm with another bloke, Dan, who's a friend here. And he's, he's out with me. But he just doesn't really get it. He just thinks I'm being weird. I'm just kind of like this, I'm just kind of like head in.
[00:28:56] And so I put my head down, I'm whatever. And another dude comes up to me, me that I knew from the past. And he's like, hey, it's good to see you. And I'm like, great. Someone to talk to. That's not these people. So I chat to him and he takes me through into the auditorium, takes me right up to the front and he sits me at the quite far forward. And I'm sat with him and his in laws. There's like his mother in law and his father in law and we're just small talk. The people in the foyer come right to the front. They find me, they stand me up and they start talking.
[00:29:29] They were lovely. Not like doing anything, but I was like, I, I don't, I have nothing to say. I feel, I felt cornered. I didn't know what to do. And I was like, I just came here to worship. I came to do the thing I'm talking about. I didn't come for any of this. And as they stood me up, this guy who I was with, his in laws get up, come over the bloke puts his arm around one of the people who have come and he just starts talking to him in the most uncomfortable way possible. He just made everything so awkward to the point where they left.
[00:30:01] It was just so uncomfortable. He wasn't mean, didn't do anything nasty, just kind of, you know, did this thing. And they just went away. And I'm like.
[00:30:09] And then I go and I sit down and the first worship song is called Defender.
[00:30:15] It's Hallelujah, you have saved me. It's always better your way.
[00:30:20] And that for me was a lesson in how I posture my life. Come to the Lord. Come to his presence. He will defend you always.
[00:30:30] You want a heart that looks like this. You want a heart that worships the Lord.
[00:30:35] This is it. This is the posture. To spend time with the Holy Spirit, to love him, to spend time with him. Every day to do the things he says and to find yourself surrendered to him so that in the good times you love him, but more importantly, in the bad times you love him.
[00:30:53] Thanks for listening to the Como Charge Podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
