Bob Sorge “Take It Off the Wheels"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Today we're going to be hearing from one of Elam Fellowship's royalty, Bob Sorghe. Now, when Bob talks, everybody leans in and listens closely. It is not just because he's known as the Whispering Pastor, but it's because his messages are always full of life and how to live with greater intimacy with Jesus. I know my life has been deeply impacted by Bob's teaching and writing, and I know that you're going to enjoy this message from our prophetic and worship conferences here at Eland Fellowship. So lean in and enjoy this message. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Pastor Phil, thank you for calling us together like this. I enjoyed the time of worship this morning. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. And thank you to Christian and Alex and the team for leading us. And now is Christian and Alex and the team going to be ready to come back at the end of this message? Beautiful. Be ready. Perfect. John and Marianne Heiss in the house with us today. John had the delight of succeeding me after I was the worship director here at Elam. And by the way, I don't know if y' all know this, but Elam has had a significant impact in the worship community through my book, Exploring Worship. My book, Exploring Worship was actually formulated on this campus. I taught a class called Worship Leadership. And when I left the campus, the Lord directed me to take my teaching syllabus from my course at Elam and turn it into a book. And that book, Explorer and Worship, has gone all over the world. So God has exported the grace and worship on this hill to the whole world. And I just. I'm privileged to be a part of that. So I'm going to be sharing this morning from this book. Now, I'm sorry, I did not bring enough copies for this group. Okay, so it's available at Amazon, it's available in Kindle and Audible and so on. When you look at Next Wave worship in a new era, when you look at this book cover, can anybody pick up the imagery of surfing? That's what I was trying to communicate. Worship leaders are surfers. We're always trying to capture the waves of the Holy Spirit, harness the power, power of the Holy Spirit and take those waves all the way to the shore. I've been a surfer all my life. I've just never done it in the ocean. But I'm looking at a bunch of surfers in the room this morning. We want to capture the movements of God in corporate worship. So I find a lot of fascinating similarities between surfing and worship ministry. And so let me just say a couple things about it when the surfers are on the real big waves, they call it dancing with God. Surfers will talk about how spiritual surfing is. I was in a room one time with. With a couple brothers in California, and I picked up. They were both surfers. And I'm like, this is my chance. And so I said, talk to me about surfing. And they said to me, you don't know nothing about surfing until you get in the water. They said, you can watch all the YouTube tutorials, you can buy the best equipment. You can stand on the shore and watch them for hours. And you don't know nothing about surfing until you get in the water. And then they said, when you get in the water, you just blow it over and over and over. And I'm like, that's worship ministry. And they said, now get this. They said, surfers will spend so much time in the ocean that they actually begin to read the ocean. I said, what did you just say? Did you say read the ocean? They go, yeah, surfers will spend so much time in the ocean that they can begin to read what the ocean is going to do before it does it. So by the time that wave crests and becomes a surfable wave, they have already anticipated it, they have swung to it, and they are now in the sweet spot. Yeah, surfing waves have sweet spots. They're now in the sweet spot where they can capture that wave and take it all the way to the shore. This is what worship ministries do. We spend so much time in the ocean of the Holy Spirit that we begin to read the movements of the Holy Spirit and we begin to anticipate what God is wanting to do among his people. Surfing waves are formed by three primary factors. By wind, by tides, and now catch this one. By the contours of the ocean form, that one is actually very significant. You can't get surfable waves unless you're in a location where the shape of the ocean floor will actually form surfable waves. And I'm speaking now of the underlying values below the surface that undergird your worship ministry. The values they're not seeing, they're invisible. They're below the surface. But the value values you hold to in your worship ministry will actually determine if you have surfable waves in your church. There are some churches, I'm sorry to say this, some churches that because of the values of their worship ministry, they will never see a surfable wave. And so we want to adopt values in our worship ministries so that we can serve the movements of the Holy Spirit in corporate worship. We want to Harness the power of the Holy Spirit and take it all the way to the shore. I had the impression, I'm with some surfers today. I'm just getting the impression, stand with me as we pray. Surfers watch with their eyes, they balance with their hands and they feel with their feet. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I'm asking that there would be grace now on the preaching of the Word. But as we come to your word, Lord, let there come a fresh grace. I'm asking. I'm asking for the angels that stand in the house right now to minister to God's people. I'm asking for the Holy Spirit to flow through this realm today. Let tongues of fire come upon each of us just like on the day of Pentecost. Give us a fresh fire, give us a fresh grace. I'm asking for a fresh anointing in Jesus name. Amen. Our scripture is 2nd Samuel 6. I want you to have your Bible ready, paper, device, whatever. We're going to be in 2nd Samuel 6. And here's the background to our story. Israel has been defeated by the Philistines. And the Israelites are like, what are we going to do? And somebody has an idea, they go, let's get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it to the battle. Remember when Joshua did this and the walls came down, they said, let's go get the ark. And so, no, this was not God's idea. This was man's idea. They brought the Ark of the Covenant to the battleground. When the Ark entered the camp, the soldiers of Israel lifted a shout and the Philistines go, what was that? Somebody goes, God just entered their camp. And the Philistines are terrified. They're like, we're in big trouble. And the Philistines looked at each other and they said, you better fight. The Philistines went berserk, defeated Israel, and captured the Ark of the Covenant. One of the lowest moments in Israel's history. The Ark of the Covenant was in the land of Israel. Excuse me, land of the Philistines. Seven months. During those months, it didn't go so well for the Philistines. They began to break out in tumors and cancers, and they were dying. And the Philistines go, we can't live with this Ark. And so they decided to build a new cart. They attached two milk cows to the cart. They put the ark on this new cart and then watched while those two milk cows carried the ark straight back to Israel. It was in the land of Israel for approximately 40 years, in the home of a guy by the name of Abinadab until the time of David, when David became king of Israel. David goes, let's go get the ark out of Abinadab's house and let's bring the Ark to Zion. So we're going to read in 2nd Samuel 6 the story of the carrying of the Ark to Zion. Now, if you've ever read this story of the transporting of the Ark, the glory of God back to Zion, you know, there were two attempts at this. The first one didn't go so well. The second attempt went much better. And both attempts are going to be found in Second Samuel chapter six. We're going to begin our reading in verse three. So they set the Ark of God, God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart and they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill accompanying the Ark of God. And Ahiah went before for the ark. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord and all kinds of instruments, of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on systems and on cymbals. And when they came to nature's threshing floor, as put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it for the ark, oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah. And God struck him there for his error. And he died there by the Ark of God. The ark was the cradle of God's presence. It represented the worship of Israel. And when the ark was to be moved, God had specific instructions about this. He was particular about how he wanted the ark to be transported. And he had given his particular instructions and the law of Moses. But David did not consult the Scriptures, and instead he built a Philistine cart. The whole thing went bad. The oxen stumbled asa reached out his hand to steady the ark, and he was struck dead by God for his error. And we're over here asking the question, what was Uza's error? You're going to find the answer in Numbers 4:15. God had given instructions about the moving of the ark. And he said, when the Levites move the the ark, I want them to put it on poles and then put the poles on their shoulders. So it was two poles and four Levites. And the Lord said, if the Levites will put the ark on poles and then carry the pole poles on their shoulders, Lord Said they won't have to touch the ark lest they die. But David did not consult this scripture. Instead he built himself a philistine cart. And when the oxen stumbled and when Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the O Ark, he was struck dead for his error. And God actually held Uzzah accountable for what he didn't know, but should have known. It was his job to know. So I want to suggest that, that the transporting of the Ark Bible Levites in David's time is exactly what worship ministries still do today. We shoulder the movements of God in corporate worship. Corporate worship is a journey. In corporate worship, we're not just gathering to sing four songs back to back. In corporate worship, we're not just gathering to work our way through a set list. In corporate worship, we're gathering to go on a journey. We want to meet with God. We want to meet up with God in Zion. So the question is not do you know how to lead songs. The question is do you know how to lead the way to Zion? We don't lead songs. We laid people. We are shepherds of God's people. We put it on our shoulders and we lead them on a journey into the heart of God. In corporate worship there is a sense of launch, there is a sense of journey and then there is a sense by the grace of God of the destination. We are headed for Zion. We want to meet with God. Our destination is not the presence of God. You got his presence when you showed up where two or three are gathered. He's in the midst of our destination is the glory of God. We want to meet with God in his glory. We want a face to face encounter with the glory of God. And his presence is our escort into the glory. Now why did David put the ark on a cart? The Bible doesn't tell us. But the answer seems to be that's how the Philistines did it. Remember what the Philistines did? They built that new cart, they attached two mil cows, they put the ark on that sweet new cart and they watched while the cows took the ark straight back to Israel. And David's like, if it ain't broke. So David just goes with the philistine carp. It worked back then. God blessed it back then. I guess God will bless it again. And instead of consulting with God, God, he put it on a cart. The cart was a philistine invention and the whole thing goes bad. Uzzah reaches out his hand to steady the cart and steady the ark. And when flesh took hold of glory, Azzawa Constructed because flesh and glory are a volatile mixture. God was after the mixture. God does not want mixture in worship. He does not want his glory getting mixed up with your father flesh. And we have a way in the church today to manhandle the glory of God. And I think God wants to bring his glory to our churches, but I think sometimes the Lord's like this. If I was to send my glory, you would just lay hold of it the way you always lay hold of your services. And I'm not going to send and my glory to a context where you're gonna use your natural strength to manipulate the thing and manage the thing and control the thing and keep it stable and smooth. You're guiding it, you're maintaining it, you're touching it. And the worship service has your fingerprints all over it. And why should, should I send my glory to a place where you've got your fingerprints all over the thing when the glory of God comes. Get your hands off. We don't pastor the glory. We don't steward the glory. We don't manage the glory. We trust tremble before the glory. We bow before the glory and we surrender to the glory. Now what does the fellow stink, by the way? The spirit of God is in the house today, and if you don't catch it, you will be robbed of something. I invite you now to open your spirit up and say, holy Spirit, I want you to give me whatever you've got for me today. Open your heart, because there's a grace of God that I'm sensing in my spirit, that God wants to touch every person in this room. So just soak it in and let it touch your heart today. What does the Philistine cart represent? I'm going to suggest it represents human models for corporate worship. Every, every group in church history has done this. Every group has built carts. For 2,000 years, the church has been building worship carts. Here's what we do. We find a way of worship that fits for us, that's comfortable for us. Then we perfect the model, and then we begin to use that model. And every meeting defaults to our cart. And when you use a cart over and over every week, carts develop ruts. I think we're stuck. And if we can understand, understand it, I think it'll help us to move forward. Are you with me? [00:25:57] Speaker B: Cool. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Number one. I think we're stuck on a YouTube playlist model. Has anybody ever gone to YouTube and punched in? Give me a worship set list and it'll give you a worship playlist on your YouTube. It's him 1, him 2, him 3, him 4. And now our churches I'm speaking is a guy who travels the world. Everywhere I go in every nation I go to all of our churches and our rare exception, all of our churches are singing YouTube playlists on Sunday morning. We're doing hymn one, hymn two, hymn three, hymn four. We're back to the 60s, except we just don't have the hymn numbers on the wall. But we're doing it all over again and we're singing in our churches YouTube playlists. And it really doesn't matter when you're doing us YouTube playlist, whether you're in the house or watching online, because the people online are having the same experience as the people in the house. Number two, we're a little bit stuck on him only. The YouTube model is a hymns only model. But I would like to remind you that our model is not just one kind of song. Our model is three kinds of song. This is Ephesians, Galatians 5, 19, Colossians 3, 16 Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. And I'm just going to identify the distinctives so that we can understand the distinctives of each. Psalms. Psalms is the singing of scripture. When you take a psalm and put it in front of you and just sing a song psalm to Jesus, you are doing what I think Paul meant when he said singing psalms. It's a beautiful thing to do, just take a psalm and sing it to Jesus. But I don't think you have to limit yourself to just the book of psalms. There happens to be 65 other books you can choose as well. We've got a 66 book option for us, ladies and gentlemen, that you can sing any scripture from any book that you want to. And it's my opinion that when Paul said sang psalms, he meant sing scripture. When you have a verse in front of you and you're just singing the verse to Jesus, you are doing what Paul meant when he said sing songs. So I have a practical suggestion for how you can bring psalms into your church. The singing of scripture. Do you want a practical suggestion? Here it is. Choose a verse for each service and put that verse in the lower thirds of your screen so that for the entirety of the worship service, that verse is on the screen for the whole thing. So whatever song is, is being sung, whatever lyrics are being switched out, that verse on the lower thirds stays on the screen. And then the singers on the worship team will sing that verse and they'll spontaneously, between songs, just sing a line from the verse and incorporate that scripture through singing into the worship service. Train your people to sing scripture. That's where it's going. Psalms, secondly, hymns. Hymns. Okay, I'm going to define hymns in a very crude way. A hymn is anything. The screen. If they have the lyrics on the screen, you are singing a hymn. A hymn is a song of human composition. We know what the lyrics are, we know what the melody is, we know what the chords are. We got the thing, it's all set up. You could put it on a staff. You could put a score to it. They've got the lyrics on. On the screen. If it's on the screen, you are singing a hymn. If you go to YouTube, that's all they're going to spit out. They just churn out the hymns. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And the world is all singing hymns in worship today. Beautiful. I love hymns. But they're not the only form of biblical worship. The third kind of word of a biblical form of a song song is spiritual song. Spiritual song is songs of the moment, spontaneous songs. It's a song you've never sung before. It's a song you'll probably never sing again. It's how you feel about Jesus right now. I appreciated that the worship team this morning, they snuck a little bit of spiritual song between the hymns. How many picked up on it this morning? They just kind of fit it in there. I'm telling you, the source is on the spiritual songs. And so let the spiritual songs flow. Those spontaneous songs of your soul, of your spirit in the moment to Jesus. It's a beautiful thing to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. So I believe. How can I say this properly? Lord, I'm going to prophesy. God is going to give to his church a greater equal distribution between psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. We are no longer going to become so hymn dependent. Don't toss out the hymns. I love the hymns. We need the hymns. The whole congregation galvanized together, singing the same thing at the same time and bashing on the gates of hell together. I love the hymns and the spirit spiritual songs. Elam has a fantastic heritage in spiritual song. Fantastic. If I could transport you back to the 1970s when I came to Elam. Elam was a drawing place from the entire North East. They came from hundreds of miles to Elam because of spiritual songs. It wasn't the singing of scripture, it wasn't the hymns, it was the spiritual songs. In the 70s, it was on a one chord, one sustained chord, like a heavenly choir. The room would be filled with the one chord and the age along came, along came chords and, and, and, and rhythms and, and became like a, like a, a. A rift that would be circular and, and that moved into the 80s and 90s. But Elam has a heritage and spiritual song, and I'm calling on Elam to dig up the wells. Let' lose singing in the spirit. Spiritual song. It's part of our heritage and we're going to take it with us going forward. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So we're a little bit stuck on hymns right now. We're a little bit stuck in the body of Christ in a concert culture. Just a little bit. In some of our churches. And I'm gonna paint the extreme right now just so you can laugh. Okay. In some of our churches, we get our latte in the lobby and we bring it into the sanctuary and we sip on our latte while the platform burns. And we warm our hands to the bonfire on the platform while we sip on our latte. We enjoy it so much that we leave our tithe on the way out. I'm glad that you're laughing. Thank you. We have churches full of watchers now. Don't get me wrong, I love it when the watchers come to our churches. I just want the watchers to become worshipers. Culture. Culture. When their song is over, their song is over. We have no song. Can I overstate it? The body of Christ has no song today. That's an overstatement. I'm trying to make a point. The platforms have a song. The studios have a song. The songwriters have a song. The bands have a song. But when their song is finished, they. Their song is finished, and the people have no song. We have lost the song of the people in 2026. And I'm going to tell you what's going to get it back. Are you ready? A fresh revival of the Holy Spirit. Every revival of history. History has had an awakening of the song of the people. I got a whole thing on this. I can't take time for it right now. But God, I'm saying, Jesus, would you send a fresh wave of your Holy Spirit across the world, across America, and awake. Because when Jesus visits you in fresh grace and glory, he puts a song inside of you that nobody can stop. And when they're finished, they're not finished because they've got a song in their heart. Jesus is doing something fresh in their heart. Another way that we're a little bit stuck right now. I think we're a little bit stuck on smooth. We have such smooth worship services in our churches that it's a little bit saccharine. Sweet. Three times in our text, the scripture says Abinadab's house was on a hill. The Bible wants us to see this. The Bible wants you to envision when they put that ark on the cart and attached the two oxen. It was on a hill and the thing was a downhill progression. And the oxen started like this. And the thing got rolling. And ladies and gentlemen, they had momentum. A leader's best friend and yes, I'm being a little bit sarcastic right now. They got the thing moving and the oxen stumbled, reached out his hand to steady it. He struck for his error. And we have got our worship services back on wheels. And the thing is smelled and the thing just moves along and we know how to get to our destination faster. And if you have a good philistine cart in your church, you can take your 25 minute worship service and trim it back to 20 and still deliver the same punch. And if you have a real good philistine card, you can take a 20 minute service, pair it back to 17 minutes and still deliver this same punch. And if you got a real good card with all the bells and whistles, you can take that 17 minute worship card, you can take that 17 minutes and trim it back to 15 minutes and get that thing real slick. And the faster your cart goes, the faster you can get to your destination. It was smooth for David. It was smooth for Israel. It was smooth for the Levites. It was smooth for everybody except one person. It wasn't smooth for God. And that which is smooth for us is rough to God. And what's rough to us, Smooth to God. How can we keep Moving forward in 20, 26? Bob, do you have a suggestion for us? Well, let me have a beginning suggestion. Let me just start with something. Take it off the wheel. Take your worship service off that YouTube card. I hope you don't hear me being critical. I actually have a happy heart today. I'm in a good mood. My message is let's keep moving forward. Actually, I think we may have needed those wheels. You know how you'll put training wheels on a bicycle to help that kid kind of get going? Maybe we needed those wheels to train us in the body of Christ to get to 2026. But now that we're here, let me ask a question. Is it time to take it off the wheels to pick it up again and put it on our shoulders? God wanted, excuse me, God wanted the Levites to carry it on their shoulders. Shoulders represent responsibility, responsibility and leading worship is a weighty responsibility leading worship. The way you steward a worship service will actually determine how people connect with God. It's a sobering, fearful responsibility that we have to steward the glory of God, Excuse me, moment. People come to our churches making eternal decisions. They're having conversations with God that are determining their eternal destiny. And how I steward that moment can make an eternal difference in somebody's life in the house. The call of our worship team is not, let's go out there and have fun. The call of our worship team is, let's go out there and change eternity for somebody. Let's tremble under the weight, under the sobriety of the holy calling that God has given to us. When the Levites carried it on their shoulders, they watched with their eyes. They balanced with their hands and they felt with their feet. When surfers are surfing, they're watching with their eyes. They're balancing with their hands and they're feeling with their feet. And when you lead worship, you are watching with your eyes. You are balancing with your hands, and you are feeling with your feet or watching the room or reading the ocean or alert. What is God doing? What is God saying? How is he moving? Where are the people at? What is God wanting to do? And we're watching with our eyes. We're balancing with our hands and watch. We're feeling it with our feet. When you put the worship service on your shoulders and walk it with your feet, you can feel what you've got on the meeting. Glory is likened unto weightiness in scripture, very similar idea. When the glory comes, it comes with weightiness. And if you have your worship service on a Philistine cart, when the glory comes, you can't tell. You got the service on a cart and you just keep on with your set list and you move right past the glory. The glory came and you just kept on trucking. And you didn't even know it because you had it on a cartoon. You've got your service on a cart. That thing is rolling along, and you're saying to yourself, we got a pretty good meeting here. We got some sweet momentum. This thing is really rolling. And the Lord goes, there ain't nothing on that meeting. And you don't even know it because you've got the meeting on a cart. But when you put it on your shoulders, now you know what you've got. Jesus just walked in the room. And when the glory comes, you can feel it and you can walk it and you can respond. I believe my fellow Levites, it's time to take it off. The wheels and put it on our shoulders and carry it again in the presence of God. Now let me ask you a question. What does it mean to take six paces and stop your scriptures in front of you? 2nd Samuel 6, 13. I don't know if they've got it for our screen. I'm not sure if the media knows God to them. 2nd Samuel 6, 13. Now this one is about the second attempt when they attempted to move the ark a second time. It goes like this. And so it was when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces that he sacrificed oxen and fed sheep. They went six paces, stop, sacrifice, six paces, stop, sacrifice,. Six paces, stop, sacrifice, Six paces and stop. What does that mean? I do not know. But I know what it doesn't mean. It's the opposite of wheels. It's the opposite of smooth. It's the opposite of momentum. It's her key jerky. Stop and go. Stop and go. It's awkward, it's uncomfortable. I don't enjoy it. I don't like. I prefer smooth. I don't like this. Stop and go. Six paces and stop. It surfaces all my insecurities. It doesn't make me look very effective as a worship leader. And I really would just rather get something smooth going. But my friends, I don't know if you can pick up on this, but I am declaring war on smooth worship services. I am finished with smooth worship services that just roll right past the glory of God. God. I'm like, how about six paces and stop? Jesus, would you deliver Elam from smooth worship services? Jesus, would you deliver the body of Christ in upstate New York from smooth worship services that just roll along and go through the set list and are never stuck stopped by the glory of God? Would you arrest us? Would you stop us? Would you visit us? I'm asking in your grace. The philistine cart went further, faster, and it never even got to Zion once. Six paces and stop. Six paces and stop. 6 paces and stop. Stop. And they got to Zion. Now, if you know what you're doing, put your worship service on a good fellow stink ark and roll. I mean, you've got this. But if you don't know what you're doing, if you feel helpless, if you feel like Jesus, I'm longing for you as a deer pants for the water. So my soul longs for you. I don't know how to touch you right now. I don't know what you're thinking. What are you feeling? What are you wanting to do right now I feel helpless in Your presence. If you're trembling on the inside, if you're desperate, if you feel like you're blind and wretched and miserable and needy and longing for Jesus, then all I know to suggest is take six paces and stop. Jesus, we've come for you. We want to meet with you. We want to see you, we want to know you. Take six paces and stop. I want you to look at Ephesians 6:15. I think we have a problem with our media notes today. Can you you find Ephesians 6:15 on the screen? It's the new King James version, is what I use. I don't know if you can find it or not. Ephesians 6:15. Our media media notes didn't quite get going today. That's okay. So if you can find it in your Bible, I want you to look at a station 6:15 with me carefully. Having shot your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, look at the verse, the shoes are not shoes of peace. The shoes are not shoes of the gospel. Ephesians 6:15. Look at the verse, the shoes are shoes of preparation. Your preparation is your shoes. If you go to a worship service unprepared, you are a warrior going to battle with no shoes on. Get your shoes on, get prepared. So I'm saying to every worship ministry within the sound of my voice, practice, have a rehearsal. And by the way, it, I don't think it should be 20 minutes before the start of the service. I think the Levites should gather on some other night of the week and have a bona fide rehearsal where you pray together, intercede together, practice your music and get prepared. I see it all the time. Worship teams that using the last 15 minutes before service time to have their preparation time, get your shoes on. Come to the service with a set list. Get your team tight, get the chords down, get the lyrics down, get the the syncopation right. But. When you step into glory, you can take your shoes off. And yes, you can take your physical shoes off, but I'm talking about even more than that. You can take off your preparation. Your preparation. That's what your shoes are. And when you get in the glory, you may as well take your shoes off of because your preparation is not going to help you in the glory. There is no preparation for glory. You can't prepare for it. You can't have a presence set list and a glory set list. You can't prepare for glory. When the glory comes, nobody knows what to do. Nobody knows what to do. I don't care if your name IS President Phil McNeil. When the glory comes, nobody knows what to do. We all just go, I don't know what to do right now. Lord, you cannot prepare for glory. You can't fast and pray your way in. You can fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights and prepare the perfect set list. You are not ready for glory. There is no preparation for glory. Because when the glory comes, all of us are babes that are leveled on the carpet and go, we have no idea what to do right now. We've been coming after you, Jesus, in this church for 35 years, and you just walked in the door, and we have no idea what to do right now. When the glory comes, the only suggestion I can make, take six paces and stop. Jesus. This is why we've been coming here for the last 35 years. We want you. We want to meet with you. We want to see you. We want the tangible presence of God. We want angels, we want miracles. We want signs and wonders. And you have come now, and you are moving in our midst. We've been looking for this. We've been waiting for this. And all we know to do right now is just take six paces and stop. Because, Jesus, we're in it for you. New York learned how to put your shoes on. And then learn when it's time to take your shoes off. YouTube will teach you how to put your shoes on. YouTube's not going to teach you how to take your shoes off. Gotta go to the school of the spirit for that. That's what highest call is all about. We know how to put our shoes on. We're just trying to learn how to take our shoes off at the right moment. So if you want a dance with the. Anybody want to dance with the Creator? Look how he created the thing. He took six pieces and stopped. You have an inheritance, my friends, to walk among angels. Jesus comes to Joshua, the high priest in Zechariah, chapter three, and he says, if you will consecrate yourself, I will give you places to walk among those that stand here. And he's talking about angels, my friends, we have angels in the room this morning, and they are standing around us in this room. And you and I have a Glory is calling. To walk among angels, to walk in the Spirit. To take six pieces and stop. I'm going to tell a story. I invite everyone to get your phone out or your Bible. Get your phone or your Bible and turn. Turn to Zechariah 4, verse 6. Just get it on your screen. Get it in your Bible. I'm Going to ask if Christian and Alex and the team. You got time for a potty break, bro? You can do a potty break? [01:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:25] Speaker A: I'm going to ask if the worship team would come on up and just. I'm going to ask if they would just come and. And get ready. Don't start any music, but just get yourself ready here, take your battle positions. Alex, I'm going to be a little while, so if it's easier for you carrying the little one, you don't have to come up. Whatever. Whatever's easy. I'm just inviting you to get ready. I'm going to tell a story. It's 2021. Anybody remember 2021? Covid hit in 2020. It's 2021 and the whole world is frozen. Churches aren't even meeting in some places. I get a call from a friend. His name is Brian. And Brian goes. He goes, bob, when you feel led of the spirit to hold a worship conference this May 2021, I'm like, Bro. He goes, I know it's politically incorrect, but we just feel from the Lord to hold a worship conference. And it's just going to be whoever wants to come. He says, do you want to come? I was like, this is bold, Brian. Yes, I'm coming. So I went to this worship conference in Colorado Springs right in the middle of the whole Covid thing. And the part of the story I love most, John, I got Covid at the conference. I just love that part of the story. So I'm at this conference in Colorado Springs. I got the full dose. I got the two week version. So I'm at this conference in Colorado Springs and we are having a time because for two years we haven't been able to meet. And. And I haven't been to a conference in two years. And everybody's at this conference like kids in a candy shop. Like we're breaking the rules and we're having fun. And so There was about 450 people in the room. And we're having a time. And the worship leaders are a couple by the name of Paul and Hannah McClure. Does anybody have name recognition on Paul and Hannah McCour? They're out of Bethel Bethel Music. And so on this particular night, Paul is standing here with the guitar. Hannah is standing here. She doesn't have a baby, but she's standing here with the microphone and she's singing. And we're on this song, Sarah McMillan's hymn, King of My Heart. You'll never let me down. You'll never let me Down. You are good. And we're singing this hymn. And has anybody in the room ever tried to measure the water level of a worship service? Have you ever done that? I think right now we're ankle deep. I think right now we're knee deep. Or we. Has anybody ever done that kind of thing? Like, I do it all the time. [01:04:05] Speaker B: Time. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, we're ankle deep. Right now. We're knee deep. So I had us right around waist deep. It was good. The presence of Jesus was strong in the conference. The smile of Jesus was on us. We were having a good time. And we're singing this song. You are good. You are good. And in the midst of middle of Sarah McMillan's hymn, Hannah throws in a psalm. We should have had the psalm police there, but she got away with it. And she threw in a psalm. And she starts to sing Psalm 23. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear no evil. And she's singing Psalm 23. It's the same ly. It's the same melody, the same rhythm. Everything about the song excepting she's just now singing Psalm 23. And then they go back, Paul, then you are good. You are good. You'll never let me down. And then they started to pivot back and forth between the psalm and the hymn. And every time that Hannah would sing Psalm 23, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Every time she sang the psalm, you could feel the water level was just the sauce was on the psalm. My friend Brian, who's hosting the thing, gets up, he grabs a mic and shots the whole thing down. And I'm like, bro, we are waist deep right now and the waters are mighty fine. What are you doing? He grabs a mic and stopped the whole thing. And he goes like this. If you have been diagnosed with a life threatening condition, I invite you to come forward and sing Psalm 23. Sing Hannah's song on my microphone. About 20, 30 people from around the room filtered forward, indicating they had some kind of a life threatening condition. The first gal to come forward, Brian goes, sing Psalm 23. She's not going to sing Psalm 23. Sing Psalm 23. No, I can't sing. Brian's like, I don't care. Sing Psalm 23. And he jams the mic in her mouth and will not leave her alone. This gal opens her mouth to sing Psalm 23. When she began to sing, the whole room goes, you're right, you can't sing. This gal was not flat she was not sharp. She was on another planet. It was nothing remotely resembling a tune. It was a guttural, grunting incantation. She basically just talked, grunted her way through. And I'm giving you my testimony. When this gal that couldn't carry a tune grunted and talked Psalm 23 into her microphone, a wave of the Holy Spirit crashed into that room and the whole room was instantly in swimming depth waters. Ezekiel 47. And you're like, man, why did God honor that moment? Why did a wave of the Spirit flood through that meeting? I mean, it was. It was a spear of faith just swept through the house. A brother said to me afterwards, he said, I saw 600 angels enter the room in that moment. I did not see 600 angels, but I believe it. Something happened in the room. Because a gal that couldn't even carry a tune said in the middle of her terminal illness. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And the glory of God visited us on that occasion. Why is it possible? Because we took six pieces and stopped. It's time for an altar call today. I'm enjoying the fruit freedom. Thank you, Pastor Phil, for giving me freedom with the clock today, because I'm enjoying the freedom that he's given me. And we are going to have a time of responding to the Lord. And so from this point on, anytime you want to come to this altar and give yourself to Jesus, you're welcome to do it. The altars are now open. I. I want to remind you what they did to that Philistine court when they built that Philistine. When the Philistines built it, they put two milk cows, they put the ark on it, and they carried the ark straight back to Zion. I want to remind you. First Samuel 6, verse 14. If, if you can find it for the screen, I'll accept it. 1st Samuel 6, 14. Listen to this carefully. So they split the wood of the ark and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. My friends. They didn't just take it off the wheels, they smashed the wheels. They took an ax to that cart and they smashed it to pieces and offered a sacrifice to God. And I'm wondering if God is going to give somebody in this room a spirit of violence today. Because the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Cannot you say something? You've been a little bit too sweet and kind in your worship ministry. Somebody needs to get a little bit violent with something and get out an ax and obey the Holy Spirit. What is God giving you? What is he telling you? What is it in your life that is a Philistine cart. What is he speaking to? It might be in your business, it might be in your marriage, it might be in your family, it might be in your ministry. And he might be speaking to somebody today and say it's time to get out an axe and hack the cart to pieces. Because I want to suggest, my friends, that we are not going to get into the glory of God by rolling our way in. We're going to get get into the glory of God by putting it on our shoulders and walking our way a step at a time. And there's somebody in the house today that is saying, I'm taking an ax to that cart and I'm putting it again on my shoulders. And I have a scripture that I want to declare over this house right now. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. There is liberty in this room today for anything that God gives you. So I'm speaking to the whole room right now from this moment on until we have lunch break. Obey the Holy Spirit. In this section right here, Obey the Holy Spirit. This section right here, Obey the Holy Spirit. This section right here, Obey the Holy Spirit. This section right here, Obey the Holy Spirit, Christian and Alex and the team. Obey the Holy Spirit. From this moment on, whatever he tells you to do, do it. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Thank you for watching. We have so many more amazing episodes to share with you both upcoming and on our website. So make sure you check them out wherever you get your podcasts. For even more amazing content, go to elamfellowship.org and check out the Hub. Not only are all the well podcasts there, but there is so much more content for you. And if this message was meaningful to you, please show your support by liking, subscribing and subscribe sharing this channel and drop your thoughts down below. It really does make a big difference for us. So until next time, I'm Thomas and we will see you around the well.