12 Going Deeper [TN on Demand]

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the creative team talks podcast for Hillsong Creative. This week we have something extra special for you. We're bringing you a recent team night message from one of our team. We hope that it blesses you. [00:00:30] Speaker B: I'm just going to share really just more of a quick devotional thought tonight, and then we're going to keep worshipping. And I think one of the most important questions in life is to ask why? And having kids doesn't quite prepare you for how often they ask why. And I realize I don't know as much as I thought I knew, and I just don't know what my parents did without Google. But it's a good question to ask why. I think of. I'm sure you've heard the story about someone who was cooking a pot roast and their friend was, who said, yes. Oh, come on. You're me brother, Steve. Good pot roast. And they asked, why do you cut the ends off the roast? And she was like, oh. Cause that's what my mum did. And she was at a mom's house after that and asked, why do you cut the ends off the roast? And she was like, well, because my mum did. And the next week it goes that she went to the nursing home to visit her grandmother and asked the question, why do you cut the ends off the roast? And she was like, oh, because the pot we had was too small for the roast. And it's kind of funny, I remember hearing that story years ago and it really stuck with me to help me stay curious of why do I do what I do? Why do we do what we do? And especially being the getting the privilege of leading our creative team, it's something that I'd never want to get too far away from is remembering why I do what I do. And then in turn, for us as a team, asking, why do we do what we do? Why do we do it the way that we do it? And don't go questioning everything because we're on a journey. But the goal is that everything that we would do would be about glorifying God and helping people connect with him. Why did we go to a Wednesday night for team night? Annie can explain it later. She can clean up the mess. No, but to be honest, it started. We've been talking about it for years, practically. Wednesday nights tend to be a little bit easier. And we wanted to release you on your Thursday nights for those that work or want to go late night shopping, I've always got to do the shopping around my house. Good. Sure. And why do we worship? And we could camp here for a very long time. And I think ultimately it's because God is worthy of our worship and he deserves our praise. And it's our response to encountering his incredible gift of salvation and his love. But why do we lead our church in worship? And for those that are around on Sunday, we kind of have two mission Sundays now, a global one one and a local one. And I love Jesse Murray, our Hills campus pastor, was telling the story about having a chat with Joe Defina, who's a great man in our church, who called this place a big petrol station. And I love that. And that's part of the reason we do what I do. What we do. What we do is so that we can feel those that come along that might. May be dry, that may be hungry. And hopefully, as they go on the discipleship journey, we would realize that this isn't the only place to fill up. And it's actually a dangerous thing if this is the only place that we fill up. But it's biblical that we gather talks in Hebrews, that the reason we gather is to actually put courage into each other, to bring encouragement. And I don't know about you, but on a Sunday, when you turn up with your faith and with your worship, it encourages me. But why are we gathered here tonight? It's something that as long as I can remember, I've always. If I've been part of this team and we do these nights that we don't want to just do it because we think you're really bored. Especially after COVID, when we all learnt how good staying at home is, why we would ask you to come out on a night like this. And we do. I love that there's different things that we do on these nights. We can get creative, we can do training, we can we build community, gather around the word, talk about culture, worship. But I wanted tonight to remind us why we gather and why it's so important. And I had a few different ways. I was thinking, what can I go? What can I share? And I almost was going to share seven of my prayers that I have for this team. And if it was going to do that, I was going to talk about my prayers. That would be a family. Think about a family somewhere where you get covering shelter, a house, you receive food, but also you have to contribute being part of a family. I thought about talking about my prayers, that our team would be. Be marked by faithfulness. Faithfulness to God, to his word, and to serving people. Another prayer I was going to share is that we would be flawed. That we'd be real, authentic, honest, not experts. That we'd be fun. My prayer is that we would have a lot of fun along the way, as we say around here, that what we. We take what we do very seriously. We just don't take ourselves seriously. Then the fifth fucking prayer was that we'd be available. I couldn't think of. I don't know if you noticed, they were all f. But that one, I didn't. That would be expectant and attentive. But don't worry. I go back to the others lineup. The last two was that we'd be future focused, that would be creative, that would be innovative and look forward. And number seven, if I was going to share these, is that we'd be full of the spirit. That would be on fire. Maybe I can expand on them at a later date. But that last prayer that I shared, that is, it would be the biggest prayer for me. And I remember just when I'd recently started this role about six or so months ago of leading our team, it was Rachel and Sarah, actually. I remember they came to me in the office, and they were like, oh, what's one thing you want to see in our team? And I remember thinking, oh, wow, that's a big question. How do I impress these girls? Shout out to all my people, pleasers out there. But deep down, I knew the answer straight away. But I think I hesitated because it was so simple or yet I didn't have the words to articulate to make it sound any cooler. But I remember saying that my biggest prayer, the biggest desire, the one thing that if I could ask anything that this team would be, is that we'd be on fire for Jesus, that we would be full of his spirit, full of God's presence. And so two weeks ago, when Phil was talking about on mission Sunday that rather than expansion and incredible announcements, which is absolutely a place for, and I believe are in our future, he talked about going deeper into the presence of God. I don't know about you, but my heart leaped because I thought, what better thing that we can focus on by going to expecting a greater encounter with God in our services, in our lives, in our endeavors, and as a team. We've been planning for a while on these Sunday nights, kind of in between mission Sunday and Easter, to just to do something a bit different. And we kind of theming Sunday nights over this month to go deeper, and we want to go after the presence of God. I don't believe that Phil's message was a gimmick or a campaign that we jumped behind. I think it's something that you and I desire more than anything, that's to go deep into the presence of God. And so, to be honest, tonight is one big rehearsal. How we doing? I'm just kidding. Don't answer. It's. We were going to rehearse tomorrow night and then we were kind of just thought, you know, let's. We're talking. Okay, what are we going to do? What do we want to do when we gather? And I do love that traditionally, one of the main things, the reasons that we gather is to prepare for the weekend and prepare, prepare what God wants to do in our church. And I love that we'll normally bring new songs to our team first, and then we get to worship them in with our church. But my prayer is that on a night like this, and whether you're rostered on or not, whenever we turn up to church as our team, we're all contributing to bringing glory and worshipping God. But I just thought the best thing we could do was to just soak ourselves in the presence of God and not go through a program, but just get ready for what God wants to do next. And all jokes aside, it's not just a rehearsal. We've already rehearsed. You can tell so far, but maybe in the next set it'll become evident that we may have bit off more than we can chew. But who cares, because that's the reality. I desire more than anything to break out of the mold of being experts in putting on a worship service, or leading worship, or being musicians, or being incredible production and creative technologies crew and all the creatives that we have in our team. Don't get me wrong, I desire to bring the absolute best to God, but I never want it to become just about doing it because that's how we've always done it. And so part of over this next month and on Sunday nights, I'm just believing for a fresh. And Sunday mornings as well. By the way, Sunday nights are going to be fun because we're not going to stream them and we can just have a go off grid and not be just. I don't know about you, but I desire the real, authentic, raw presence of God in my life. And nights like this help us remember that in the midst of everything we're going through, that God is with us. That his presence is real and wants to fill each and every single one of us up. And there's one quick psalm I want to read and then we're going to just worship and let God do what he wants to do. That I couldn't get off my mind when I was thinking about what could. I encourage us because I want to stir our hearts for a desire to go deeper into the presence of God. And again, not just in worship, but my goodness, I pray that when we gather as a team and do what we do, whether you, again, it's not about the platform. We know all this stuff. But when we come together corporately to, like the Bible says, to encourage other believers, it would just be the absolute overflow of what God is doing, because we are committed to going deeper into his presence. In psalm 46, it's eleven verses, says, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with surging there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the most high dwells God is with her, she will not fail God will help her. At break of day nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall. He lifts his voice and the earth melts. How good is our God? Verse seven. The Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob, our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shield with fire. He says, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. And so three really quick things that I find in this chapter, psalm 46, that hopefully encourage us to go deeper. Why we go deeper. How we go deeper. And the first one is this is that God is ever close. Verse one says, and we know it quite well. It's a familiar psalm, I'm sure to most of us. It says, he's our very present help in time of need. By the way, my voice is, I went to my favorite band of all time, blink 182, on Friday night. I think that was the only artist here over the weekend, right? I didn't hear of any other concerts. Don't know about you. And I sung every word as loud as I can, so don't judge me. It says, number one, why did I say any of that? God is ever close. I think this helps us draw, to dig deeper into God's presence. When we realize that as the verse one says he is our every present help in time of need. And the thing about this psalm, which is pretty incredible, is it was with the research I did. It was written when King Hezekiah was king of Israel. And they were surrounded by the Assyrians. And the Assyrians were like the worst of the worst. They were like, think of any bad movie you've seen with the craziest army, multiply it by a million times. This is what the Assyrians would known for. And they were surrounded. And so the reality that this was their cry, this was their song. In the midst of being surrounded by an enemy, being surrounded by danger is so important because that's the truth. We have so many things that surround us. Just thinking about a few of them this afternoon. And what do you feel like could be surrounding you right now? Is it doubt? Is it doubting God? Or maybe doubt in people? Do you feel like you're surrounded by confusion or other people's opinions? Work a debt, writer's block, a lack of opportunity? There are plenty demands and things that can surround us, and they can happen from an early age. But I love that David writes in psalm 139 that I can never escape from your spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell above the farthest oceans, even there, your hand will guide me and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night. But even in darkness, I cannot hide from you. And I love that this speaks. And I want to encourage us to the fact that whenever you feel surrounded by things that can surround us in life, that we are also surrounded by God's presence. And digging deeper, it starts by knowing that God is near, that there's nowhere that we can escape his presence. And I pray tonight that we're reminded that God is near and that we can escape to him at any time we need. All we need to do is invite him. God is always present, so he stays close. Number two. There is joy in his presence. And I know we know this, but I love. In verse four it says, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. Psalm 1611 in your presence there is fullness of joy. And I love that our joy comes from our hope in God. And we find our hope in his presence. I love that we know on the journey that this joy isn't just to the emotion of happiness and how we feel. It's so much deeper than that, and we find it in God's presence. James one, two. It says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. Says, for we know that when you're. We know that your faith is being tested and your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete leading nothing. And I believe that we lack nothing when we find ourselves in God's presence, because we find our hope in him. And that leads to joy, regardless of our circumstance, just to finish it off really quickly. The third thing, and really, I believe, is the main thing that God has been stirring in my heart, is that for us to dig deeper, we need to be still. Says like we've all heard before in verse ten, to be still and know that I'm God. And this is the key. And why is this so important? It's because it's very hard to keep still. And those who have kids know that when they are awake and they're still, that it's a miracle. And if anyone has tried to keep a toddler still on a plane, then you know what I'm talking about. It's very common on a flight when there's young kids that they don't sit still and that they make a lot of noise. And it can be frustrating when you're on a plane and there's a kid that's making a lot of noise or moving around until you've taken a kid on a plane and then it switches, you're like, don't worry about it. You're encouraging the parent, you're saying, it's all good. I remember one time when Lauren and I, we only had Indy, our eldest daughter, she was around two at the time and were flying back from the States. And I think we were in Nashville or somewhere, and we had, like, three flights to get home. And my wife, being the incredible prepared woman and mother that she is, had read something about how if you take, like, a toy or an activity for every single hour, then that will help you. You got a better chance of keeping your child still or entertained on the flight. And so I think we worked it out. It was 18 hours of flying, totally. And so we had a whole duffel bag, a carry on just for toys and things to keep her entertained. And so it was my job to, you know, we had our suitcases and all that stuff, and it was my job to, I had my carry on in the toy bag, and that was my thing to carry on. And so we checked in, and then we. We got on the flight, and about 20 minutes into the flight, Lauren was like, can you get the toy bag out of the overhead? And so I did that. I stood up only to realize I checked in the toy bag, and I definitely learned, why am I getting applauded for that issue? Lauren still hasn't forgiven me. Like, that's why I'm standing over here. And let's just say it was an interesting journey trying to keep. Keep her still. But the truth is, just because we grow older doesn't mean we automatically learn how to be still. It's an intentional practice. And why is it so hard? I think it's because the world and culture is doing everything possible to speed things up and to get us in a rush. I don't know if anyone else, like the headlines on books that get me is, like, six quick steps to do this. We want to do everything quicker. Technology is trying to make life easier by doing things quickly, quicker. Between AI and Siri, we can pretty much get most things done these days, right? But we can't rely on AI and Siri in encountering God's presence and our relationship with him. We actually start encountering God's presence by being still. Notice that it says, be still and know that I am God. This whole thought of being still actually relates to striving, saying, stop striving. Know that I am God. Which was funny. I was telling Lauren as I was, you know, researching and writing what I could say tonight that I was striving, even just putting together a message about not striving. And. But I feel like we can read that backwards, is know that I am God. And that helps us to be still, because instead of striving, we're called to be still. But being still requires us to surrender. And I shared this final scripture, and then we're gonna just take a little more longer and just let God just dig deep into God's presence. I shared this with some of our vocals this week on a fun little text chat that we're on during this lent season leading up to Easter. And it's Matthew 1925, and Jesus is just. The rich young ruler has just walked away. Jesus says to his disciples, it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through an eye of a needle. And the disciples, it says here in verse 25, the disciples were staggered then who has any chance at all? And Jesus looked hard at them and said, no chance at all. If you think you can pull it off yourself. But every chance in the world, if you trust God to do it. And I love that as we enter, as we dig deeper into God's presence, and I want to remind and encourage us to remember that God is always close and that that's where we find our joy. But it all starts by being still and ceasing to strive. And there are demands in life, and there are things that there's a journey that we're all on. But the good news is that, and I believe God is saying to us today, tonight, to be still and to remember, to know that I am God. Because it's when we start to think that we're God, that we're in control, that we start to strive and we start to stress. But as Jesus says to his disciples, when they're saying, how on earth are we going to enter your kingdom and experience it and live it out here on earth that you keep telling us about? And he just simply says, no chance at all if you think you can do it on your own, but every chance, if you trust me to do it, so can we stand in this place. And so, again, why are we gathered tonight? It's to remember. It's to be still. It's to seek God and his presence and learn to dig deeper. And like I said, it's not. Not just for a Wednesday night or a Sunday, but God is drawing. God wants to draw near to each and every single one of us. And I love that all we have to do is just draw near to him. Maybe it's a physical step. Maybe it's in your schedule. I don't know what it is. But if we just close our eyes in this place instead of striving, would we find ourselves being still? Would the posture of our hearts be surrendered to God and his will and his ways and not our ways? Can we be committed to watching the faithfulness of God unfold in our lives, even when we don't understand it, even when we don't see it? God is moving. He is working. His presence surrounds us. There's nowhere we can go to escape him. And again, my prayer for us and a team is that we would be committed, that our greatest desire would be that we'd be full of his spirit, full of his presence, full of his joy, full of the hope that we have in him. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.