Finding Our Way with the Power of Worship

Gilon Marts: 0:10

Hey guys, it's The Walking Wall Podcast. I'm your host, Gilon Marts. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening, thanks for showing up. We're in season seven and season seven is all about the wilderness, all about spaces that are dry, tough, difficult, uncomfortable. If there's anything that I know about the wilderness, I know how it can be a challenge to stay encouraged. It can be a challenge to keep the faith, to keep your head up, to stay in it, period. I just wanted to offer the tools and tips and skills that I've gained along the way that have been helpful. They haven't necessarily made the season end, but they've been really great at comforting me. That whole, my rod, my staff they comfort me. It's been kind of like that. We've talked about hope. We've talked about participating in our faith. We've talked about making peace of time. We've talked about a lot of things prayer. Today we're actually going to talk about worship.

Gilon Marts: 1:04

One of the things about the wilderness is that it can bring you to a place where you question a lot of things, where you feel like you're unraveling and you are. It feels like a melting down of the most difficult kind I know. For me, hitting this pocket, i was like what is true? Who is God? What is going on? What's up, what's down? Help me. There were a lot of things that I was like I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Is that still a thing? Is this real? Is this true? All that kind of stuff. It's been interesting. I feel like the Lord has walked me through this season, allowed me to have my questions and brought me back to center, where things needed to be realigned. He has definitely sold very much so in the process. I'm very much so in the process.

Gilon Marts: 1:53

But man worship is one of those things that it just has, kind of like your words, has this undeniable presence and importance and influence in a believer's life. We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about it. There are so many scriptures that talk about worship.

Gilon Marts: 2:10

In this context, i'm speaking kind of specifically around the act of singing songs, making melody hymns in your heart, even congregational spaces, because I think there is a part of you in the wilderness that can get really bitter, that can start to reflect your circumstances and get real dried up. You become really short on giving God praise. It's kind of like you ain't doing what you're supposed to be doing. I'm not going to praise you, like you out here, doing the thing more and more, and that is just the worst. It is the worst attitude to have, because worship, as much as it's God word, it does something to us, in us, for us, and so much, like so many of the things that so many aspects of our faith that God has put in place, is a benefit to us.

Gilon Marts: 3:09

Worship is so, so much for our own health as much as it is for the glory and magnification of the Lord. So the first reason to really stay up on your worship game and to prioritize worship is because it magnifies In wilderness spaces. Your attention is drawn to all the things that are broken, not working, not right, and that can become your focus. And it becomes your focus, it becomes a distraction, it becomes in a sense like an idol, because it sets a ceiling and a cap for your faith, for what can be, for where you can go, for what God is and is not going to do. And so worship helps kind of bring you back around to who actually is God, who actually is the author and finisher of your faith, who began a thing in you that promised that he would fulfill it, that he would finish that thing.

Gilon Marts: 3:58

And so worship, especially songs that are about who God is, really do help kind of highlight, like a magnifying glass, the aspects and in Nature of God in a way that you just really need to see it and need to be reminded of it. And so worship is about remembrance. It's about, like David said, oh, magnify the Lord with me, oh, my soul, magnify the Lord. Put a magnifying glass. You've not seen something right right now, right like, hey, this is who God is. It's, it's something that you need to pay attention to, and you may not be seeing it, your vision may be blocked by your discomfort, your pain, your disappointment, your discouragement, your exhaustion, but this is a key and core aspect of God that you need in this moment. You need to be reminded that he's a healer, you need to be reminded that he's a good father, you need to be reminded that he cares and, more than that, you need to sing that up out of your being. I often think like song is the soul's like, like one of the most pure forms of expression for your soul, and I think sometimes the songs that bubble up in us, especially when they are like hopeful, Encouraging, are kind of like our spirit man, nudging us in a direction.

Gilon Marts: 5:11

You know there's so many Maverick City music songs. There's so many, ooh back in the day, fred Hammond songs That are just ministry. I Was a fill of one in the hospital a week or so ago and There was a Trin-i-tee 5:7 song Which you got to be a real OG believer to know. Trin-i-tee 5-7-- I used to carry like-- I was-- okay. So I was that kid, i loved music, but I had cassette tapes that I wanted to carry around with me and my cassette player and you know They were chunky and so like I was that kid that had cassette tape stuffed in their little backpack. You know playing songs and stuff. But my mom was really intentional about surrounding me with music that reflected the word of God. And you know, now there is and even then there were a lot of people who ministered the word of God, a lot like David in the Psalms, like like I learned so many scriptures before I knew that they were scriptures because they were embedded in songs.

Gilon Marts: 6:10

And I think there's something really potent and powerful about highlighting an aspect or a piece of God's character in song and your spirit bringing that up to the forefront for you to look at, to put in front of you, right to be like, hey, see this thing, i know your, your focus is over here and out there and there's a lot of noise, but I need you to come back and see this part of God. God is still God, God is still faithful, god is still a deliverer. And I even think there's one of my favorite verses Don't give me the line because y'all know, quoting, you know passages is not my thing for real, for real, but I think it's Psalms 32 where it says the Lord surrounds us with songs and shouts of deliverance. And you know, you think about the importance of music to the Lord. Like God is about music; the enemy was about music.

Gilon Marts: 6:57

Music is powerful, it's influential, it's a tool, you know, and so it has this really amazing ability to highlight something. People are in love, they're singing songs that are, you know, like reflecting their enamorment with their loved one. You know, people sing to babies and, like all you know, we learn through song. Song is so important. It highlights things, it magnifies things, and so you know, just being mindful that that can be a tool in this space, and it's in the time where you're feeling pressed and pressured, squeezed and dried out, worship can magnify a part of God's character, a part of God's covenant with us that we might not really be, you know, fully paying attention to or taking stock of. You know, like Phillipians 4:8 says, think on things that are lovely, just, pure, honest, worthy of praise, excellent, of a good report. I think sometimes music is a way for us to do that with our soul. And so not only does music and worship help us magnify an aspect of God that we might not really be seeing, for all that it's worth, it also allows us to make a declaration into a space.

Gilon Marts: 8:03

I told you guys in the last episode, Todd Galberth has a song I think it's called He's Been Good, but he says, like kind of in a break in the song, you know, I had to declare out of a hard, out of a hard place, God, you've still been better. And I think music worship can be warfare. It can be a useful tool, a useful aspect, like almost like a leverage that we have with our authority, that, like you, your soul can be. There's so many Psalms I think. Well, I think it's Psalm 40. It says my soul's in the miry clay right, or he picked me up by the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and all these things.

Gilon Marts: 8:41

He put a new song in my mouth, right? And there is something, just like-- I was, I love Dragon Ball Z too and I, just like- I like fight scenes. I don't know what it is about fight scenes- Black Panther, the fight scene in that first one, where it was not the one where he got beat up, because that was heartbreaking, but the one with Homeboy I can't think of his name right now, but the big dude, Winston Duke's character, um, i think there's something that gets kind of tit- for- tat with worship where, like, your circumstances can be pressing in. Um, you know, you could be like, Man this kid got on my nerves or like, My boss is tap dancing on my last nerve. Um, you can just be feeling the weight of all of your circumstances and there's something about putting on a worship song that's just like, Lord, you've been good, I'ma declare like you've been better to me.

Gilon Marts: 9:32

Oh gosh, like, I just-- Lord, you're worthy of my trust. I really don't know what's popping off in life right now, but you are still El Elyon, the most high God, like you are still Jehovah Rapha, you are still a healer. Like I-- I, I need to see that. But also I'm going to say that out of my being, because this is a moment where I'm assaulting the kingdom of darkness with my mouth and with song, which is crazy, because the enemy was a minister of music- for you to take music and turn it against him. We like that kind of stuff. Right there, that's that whole kingdom suffering violence, but the violent take it by force, that's what that is, right there. But I say all that to say, um, there's something powerful about taking the opposite of your circumstance and declaring it into the atmosphere, releasing it into the atmosphere. There's something about going

Gilon Marts: 10:21

I feel all of these things. I feel the negativity,I feel the worry, I feel the x, y and z. But I'm going to now just like highlight this bit about God. I'm going to just praise God. I'm going to take all this energy and all this influence and all this authority and throw it at the Master's feet, because he's worthy of my trust, he's worthy of my adoration. He actually has all of my attention, while all of these things are trying to steal it. I'm offering up to him as praise. It's a sacrifice of praise, right, and so it is warfare. Worship and, and praise are warfare and they're warfare in a way that-- you know he talks about, the scripture talks about you know, the weapons of our warfare aren't carnal, they're not like, you know, these tangible things, but they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

Gilon Marts: 11:06

And there's something about ministering to yourself in song, singing to yourselves and hymns and songs and spiritual songs. There's something super powerful about you freeing yourself with song. There's something that happens, I think, when you take a song like Man of your Word by Maverick. Hmm, Promises, Jireh, there's some anointing on, Rest on Us. I don't know, I Thank God, there is some anointing on I Thank God. Um, there's something about Exuberance, praise for real, for real, when you should be depressed, when, like hell is throwing all kinds of stuff against you, um, I think you, you break shackles off of yourself. Paul and Silas type stuff, um, and so it is that as well. Like Man, it is a-

Gilon Marts: 11:58

Worship is such a- it's a weapon, it's a tool, it's a skill, it's an investment in your spirit, it's all of those things. Um, and an investment in your spirit, it stirs you, like when you worship, you are stirring up your own faith, like-- the example that I think of is kind of like, and I don't know why they be doing this. Um, if you have-- I like dunkin donuts. Talking about all the things I like today, um, love dunkin donuts.

Gilon Marts: 12:24

Iced coffee Um. They do a weird thing, though, where you know, they go like, hey, do you want this sweetened? and you'll be like, yeah, pull up to the window because I don't like to wait in line in real you know places and if I can drive through my drive through. Um, pull up to the window, they hand you your drink and there's this nice little bit of sugar sitting at the bottom and your cold drink, um, it's not going. It's not going to dissolve in a cold drink. I've thought many times to write dunkin and be like I think you need to add this to your training manual. But who am I but a humble iced coffee drinker? Anyway? um, so one of the things that you have to do when that happens, in the hopes of getting it to melt, is to stir it. Right, you're like, all right, we got to. We have to move this, because the sugar sitting at the bottom It's not going to melt. Even in a hot drink, hot teas. You still stir the sugar, it'll settle at the bottom and you get all this sweetness at the end, and that's not really what you're trying to do, right, like what you need is for it to permeate throughout. But if I let it sit and settle it's almost like there's no sweetness in the drink at all.

Gilon Marts: 13:21

And our faith can be the same way, especially in hard seasons where it's dormant. It's like I got faith, yeah, sort of kind of yes there, but It's just sitting at the bottom because I'm feeling the pressure of the discomfort, the discouragement, the disappointment, the feeling of lostness. It's just sitting at the bottom And I think worship is one of those ways that we can be intentional about stirring up our own faith, because the words will ignite something. Being in a corporate setting with other believers who are just lifting God's name up and praising Him, despite the stuff they got going on, that energy alone. It reminds you and it puts you in remembrance, just like we talked about magnifying. It puts you in remembrance But it brings that faith back up and it's like wait a minute, you know, is it Jude? It might be John.

Gilon Marts: 14:09

It talks about praying in the spirit and building yourself up so that you rise like an edifice, higher and higher. Obviously you can praise and worship in the spirit, and tongues and all that kind of stuff, but it does build you up. You are being built up when you're praising God, when you're worshiping, when you've got music going and you just laid out, you know, not really knowing what you're saying, you just in that whole Romans 8, my spirit is groaning. Okay, i just need you, lord, to interpret that. You know what that means, jesus.

Gilon Marts: 14:35

But worship stirs up our faith, it activates it. You know we're put in remembrance, we are using our authority, we're saying something, we're speaking something, we're praying the word, singing the word, what have you? And we're engaged. You know our spirit. Man is like awakened and believing the things that we're saying. They believe, therefore, they speak right, and so our faith gets stirred up, it gets built up. We get built up when we're worshiping. We're reminded of who God is, we're reminded of our covenant with him, we're reminded that we have the Holy Spirit, we're reminded of who we are in God And that just kind of helps you sit up right and be like hold on a second. We are the aggressor, not the surrender, in this fight. Homie, wait a minute. You know you have me back on my heels. That's not who I am. You have me down God. That's not who he is. So let me tighten up real quick. We're built up, we're encouraged, our faith is being matured in that space.

Gilon Marts: 15:33

Worship is one of those things that it's like. It's almost like the spirit of God is actively like needing into us Christ likeness, it's needing into us maturity. It's like we are on the potter's wheel for real when we're worshiping, and it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing And like, if you've had the experience, you know what it's like to go into a worship experience and come out different. I don't know how God does it. He is God, so he be doing what he be doing, but it's transformative. Like when you're in the presence of God via worship or you know, you just sit in, whatever. When God's presence is in a place, it's just different. It's different And it's like that whole thing about how no flesh can glory in his presence. But there's something that God does just with his being, you know, and worship is one of those ways that we can engage the spirit of God in a really beautiful way to be changed, to be transformed, to be reminded.

Gilon Marts: 16:24

And then, lastly, which I think is the biggest thing, not the biggest thing is, one of my favorite things is that worship shifts the atmosphere, because worship is a force, and when I think about this, i think about two instances in the Bible. I think about the walls of Jericho falling, you know, because they were supposed to shout and do all that kind of stuff. And I think about Paul and Silas being in prison and, just despite their circumstances, magnifying the Lord, giving glory to God, entrusting themselves into his care And the jail cells opening and angels delivering them. You know, and I think, obviously, like worship can shift an atmosphere, but it can also shift circumstances, if not, you know also circumstances, and a lot of times, circumstances are going to be what they're going to be or it'll take the time for them to work themselves out. That, you know, is the appointed time, but if we can know how to have composure in that space, know how to carry ourselves in that space, know how to be, you know, god's representatives in the earth when those things are going on, i think that's what the scripture means in Romans 8, where it talks about the earth is growing long for the sons and daughters of God to be made manifest, like the earth is like. Where are they at, though? Like? where are these people that are supposed to look like, like a creator. And so, atmospherically, worship has this pull, this drive. It really does, i think, in a sense, bring heaven to earth, bring heaven awareness to earth, really Have it like a God consciousness to us And, and that's a powerful thing It's a powerful thing, like I was talking about earlier, to be in the presence of God and to be, be changed.

Gilon Marts: 18:15

I think there are times when God is speaking something and there are times when God is doing something right And and they're think they are not word. There are no words for when God is doing something. But you know, like I've been Chemically altered at the atomic level. I am, i came in one way, i am leaving out another way, and when you think about Jesus's ministry, everybody that encountered the Lord Was, they were just not the same. They were just not the same.

Gilon Marts: 18:43

And I think worship has this ability to bring us to God and not like God ain't with us That's not even what I'm saying Like I think worship sometimes I Don't know, i don't even know how to really say this It's like worship has the ability to heighten our spiritual senses so that that the God that is always with us, that we don't always perceive, is finally being perceived at at higher levels. You know, you know, make me more aware of your presence, lord. Like I Think worship does that. Worship in the ways that we can be callous, worship works on those calluses so that we can have a sensitivity to God again, we can feel, perceive, be aware of the presence of God again, and, and in that way the atmosphere is shifted and that way it's like oh wait, my mindset is shifted, the way that I'm perceiving my circumstances is shifted. I know I'm not alone. God is with me, god has my back, god's got me, and so, even though the circumstances when I walk out of that space, the circumstances may not have changed, i have been changed and I carry the glory with me. I carry that presence with me, and my awareness of that changes everything. It just shifts everything, and, and so worship is this massive tool. It's a gift, it's a skill, is weaponry, and it's something you should content, you should contend for.

Gilon Marts: 20:14

In desert places, it can feel like the world is shaken up and you're not quite sure what still stands, what remains, what's worth holding on to or what's worth fighting for. Worship is that thing. She is that girl like contend for worship. I've gotten to the place for my default, because it's like in the wilderness You really can't depend and rely on if and Connect too deeply with your feelings because they just think, mmm, they're not giving what they need to give A lot of the time. not that they're not important, not that you ignore them or suppress them, but you kind of also have to have an another way that you plug in something else that you plug into because your emotions Up down, raging all over the place, and that's just where they are at this time of weight Maybe for you or me.

Gilon Marts: 21:04

But to plug into, i'm gonna set the atmosphere, i'm gonna set my focus, i'm gonna highlight spotlight, the faithfulness of God, the goodness of God, the loving kindness of God. I'm gonna stir up this faith. That's it made. That's like sleeping, like a giant on the inside. I'm I'm going to be intentional about using my authority to declare a thing to wage war on darkness, on depression, on strife, on stress, on heaviness. Because I think, you know, i think one of one of the Major tools of the enemy in this season, right now, is heaviness, just that weary feeling, and worship will fix that, worship will address that, worship is a good way to treat that.

Gilon Marts: 21:52

And so my encouragement to you this week your homework, worship and worship like set, such as the time, like a time where to like maybe not a timer, just worship. I'll let you be spirit-led in that. You know you mature and you'll faith in stuff, purpose to worship, purpose to on your commute, on a walk, when you get up in the morning to just worship, to open your mouth, to engage your spirit, to stir yourself up and to put yourself in remembrance, to make war on the kingdom of darkness. I'm a worship, you know, and so I just hope you do that. I would love to know what your experience is with that. What feels different, what feels new, what feels meh, i don't know, it's an experiment, it's all a grand experiment.

Gilon Marts: 22:34

Shout out to Queen Charlotte. Not really, i don't know, don't judge me, it's all an experiment, it's all an experiment. And so I think God's delight is in us extending ourselves to experience Him more deeply, to know Him more thoroughly, to encounter aspects of the nature and character of God that we may not have really encountered before or at a deep level. So that's fun, it's an adventure. So anyway, love you guys, have an amazing week, make it an amazing week. Talk to you next week. Bye, look out, wisdom is ours.