Sermon Transcript
Our scripture for this morning, it’s Psalm 34: I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What is— what man is there who desires life and loves many days? That he may see good. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and hear, and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate righteousness will be condemned. The Lord redeems the life of his servants, None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
As Mike said earlier, we’re continuing our summer series hearing from various of our ministry leaders how God has worked in their lives, and we’re showing that really God works in similar ways today to how he worked in the lives of the people that we find in Scripture. And today we will hear from Laura Perez, who is our Associate Director of Worship and Young Adult Ministries. She’s usually up here singing, but today, uh, you will hear her speak as well, and we’re grateful for all of her multiple gifts. But she’s going to talk about how much of her life can and does connect with Psalm 34. Before she comes up here, just an introductory comment on Psalm 34.
Depending on the version of the Bible that you read, you may see a little editorial note above the psalm indicating that it was written by David when he pretended to be insane, and he really did that in order that he could evade capture. You can find that full account in 1 Samuel 21, but the context is that David is on the run from Israel’s king named Saul because Saul has essentially become jealous of David and wanted David killed. If you’re not familiar with the Saul and David drama, they have what you might call an erratic relationship. David had killed Goliath, he saved Israel, at which point Saul was very happy and celebrated David. David had been best friends with Saul’s son Jonathan, he married Saul’s daughter.
At times David and Saul were very close, but at other times Saul believed David was a threat to his reign. And at this time when David wrote Psalm 34, Saul is trying to kill David. So David flees to one of the neighboring kingdoms, actually several of them. Right before this psalm, he’s in the kingdom of Gath, but the Gathians had heard about David’s military victories and they weren’t so sure that they should welcome him as a guest. They think maybe this David guy is a spy, maybe he was sent here to infiltrate, you know, us, and there he’s going to destroy us from within.
They are The Gathians are skeptical of him, and David sniffs out it’s not safe for him to stay there, so he acts like he lost his mind in hopes that they will let him go, which they do. And then he writes Psalm 34. The point is, at the time of writing this psalm, David’s life is very uncertain. He doesn’t even know where he’s going to sleep the next night. He’s on the run.
King Saul is trying to kill kill him. I mean, he had just, it seems like, escaped by the skin of his teeth from a place, Gath, that he thought was going to be safe, and then it wasn’t safe. Now he’s got to go somewhere else. It’s very unstable. But he writes this psalm essentially saying God is enough.
Knowing God, experiencing God is enough to give him a sense of peace and stability. Even though his circumstances are extremely unpeaceful and unstable. That’s Psalm 34, and that’s going to connect in a number of ways to Laura’s story. So let’s welcome Laura up here for today, and I’ll pray for you before you get started. Father, thanks so much for Laura.
We are so grateful for her and that she is part of our team, and we’re grateful for the story that you have written in her life, and today to see how it connects to Psalm 34 and some other places. Lord, we pray that you would speak through her, that we would be transformed by what she has to share, that we may look more like you and love you and others to a greater degree. We pray all those things in Jesus’ name, amen. Amen, thanks, Dan. If I could summarize my life into one long run-on sentence with a bunch of commas, it would sound It would sound a little something like this.
I was raised in a Christian home by faithful parents. I always tried my very best in school. I decided to go away to LA for college, moved back home to get a master’s degree and work, got married, had a baby, and now I’m here. But how did I get here? And what happened between all of those words and commas that I didn’t say to bring me to this point?
What has God done in my life? That’s what I have the privilege of sharing with you today. I wanna share with you the story of my life and what I like to call how God has saved me from myself. I’ll start with a brief overview of how I encountered God for the first time in this community, then go through some major struggles and experiences God has used to deepen my faith in him, and finally share some of my hope for what is to come. Dan likes to make a joke when we meet people for the first time together that I was literally born in this room.
And while that sounds pretty extreme, he’s actually not that far off. The first time I came here, I was 4 or 5 days old. My parents couldn’t wait to bring me here because so many people had prayed for me. I really can’t start this without thanking the people who are why I am here in the first place. Dean and Jane Bell, you are easily the re— biggest reason why I can share this story.
You created a life for me where I was exposed to Jesus at every turn. You brought me to this church, let me learn from you and others who would go on to teach me stories and songs. That would lead me to choose Jesus for myself, and in doing so, you have given me the best gift I could have ever asked for. I think it’s particularly special that I get to share this story with you, the church community that helped raise me. So many people here, and ones who were once here but have since left, had a profound impact on my life.
As a child, I was challenged by leaders to memorize Scripture, share the gospel with my unbelieving friends at school, go on mission trips, and ultimately live a life for God. I like to think of this church as the ink or the pen that God has used to write my story. I cannot tell it without sharing about this church. I have always loved church, and I really have always loved worship music. I used to call this my favorite place in the world or the happiest place on earth.
Because I got to see my friends here, I got to sing songs about Jesus that I liked, and then I got to go out to lunch with my friends after church. If you couldn’t tell, Christianity was a big socialization experience for me. I probably really didn’t know the things that I was saying back to my Sunday school teachers or what they really meant. I just knew that they liked me when I said them, so I kept doing it. Even though it was just lip service, I know God was working in my heart all those years ago to woo me to Himself.
This changed for me for the first time when I attended Hume Lake Christian Camps at 14 years old. I was about to start high school, and the theme of our camp that year was called All In. We studied the story of David. I watched and I listened to these leaders tell me the story of David, the shepherd turned armor bearer turned king who had made some horrible life choices. But ultimately David lived for God so wholeheartedly that it earned him the designation a man after God’s own heart.
I hadn’t really thought about the story like that before. How could this be, I wondered, how could someone make so many mistakes yet be called a man after God’s own heart? The Holy Spirit convicted my heart in such a way that I could not live only for myself anymore. It was as if God gave me a glimpse into what my life would be like if I just kept saying the right answers, memorizing the verses, singing the songs, but living unchanged behind closed doors. I had to give God everything or nothing.
There was no in-between. I chose to commit every day of my life thereafter to living seriously and devotedly to the God who made me for Himself, and that decision to recommit or wholly commit has been the most defining moment of my entire life. After choosing to be all in for God, I continued to pursue him as much as I could in high school and beyond. However, this was not without failure, lack of devotion, and struggle on my part. When I think about seasons of growth and struggle, I think about high school, and as I’m sure is shocking, at this time I was heavily involved in any musical group I could get my hands on.
Marching band, jazz band, wind ensemble, and of course choir. I tried to take academics very seriously and work hard in all of my classes, but I was really there for the music. To me, music became an oasis where I could find rest away from the pressures of high academic performance that comes with living in the Bay Area. I’m not going to lie to you, growing up here, the pressure at times was unbearable to achieve. My addiction to achievement was in full force.
Little did I know God would continue to grow my love for music so much so that one day I would want to use it to praise Him. That one day I would live with the desire for His praise to continually be in my mouth. I had done very well in all my classes up until my junior year when I eventually started to struggle in my science class. Having some academic struggles as a person who consistently performed well in all other areas of school was like living through a daily identity crisis. I remember thinking, if I love God and I want to live for Him, how could my life ever be painful?
How could I ever not be the best at everything I put my mind to? And spoiler alert, it’s because God does not intend for us to say that we’re all in for Him and then really wrap our identity up in something other than Him. He does not intend to give us easy, comfortable, high-achieving lives, but rather He desires to give us more of Himself at every turn, which He chose to further reveal to me as I read and studied His Word in depth in the years to come. God gave me a wonderful passage to memorize at this time. It comes from James chapter 1, and we had been studying that book in our youth group that summer.
In fact, some of our friends, we would get together every week and just hang out at each other’s houses and read the Bible and sing worship songs. It was amazing, completely unprompted. And I remember opening that book of James to the first page and reading the words, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. This passage has stuck with me through so many difficult and trying times in my life. It’s almost like a banner for me, reminding me that I can have joy in pain.
I can press on through hardship knowing that I can and will experience testing as a Christian, but that it produces steadfastness. This is valuable, James goes on to say, because it will make me mature and complete Lacking in nothing. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? To not lack anything? I believe this is because when we approach our problems like this, it makes us run to God in whom we lack nothing at all.
Just like Psalm 34 says, those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. This is so different from what the world tells us to do and so different from what my friends were doing at the time. I’m challenged daily to continue to believe this.
However, during this time I also started to develop a major problem. I became even more consumed with the pressure to maintain not just a good academic image, but a good image in everything. This pervaded all areas of my life from academia to spirituality and even my body. I wanted to be a goody-two-shoes Christian at school. So much so that I would often refrain from things with a holier-than-thou mentality.
It was very judgmental, and I think it made a lot of my friends disinterested in my faith, and I’m really ashamed of that. I had a very unhealthy view of my body and began to think very disorderly about it. I developed eating and exercise patterns that were not healthy. These things affected me deeply in my teens and early 20s. I found myself focusing way too much on how I looked, how good of a musician I was, or how smart I was.
All of these factors would affect me on a daily basis. Basically, I had a lot of internal struggle and I was dealing with a lot of sin. And I can see looking back now that the crux of this problem was that I was struggling with taking my eyes off of God and putting them on myself. I needed my mind and heart reoriented to the commitment I made to God to be all in for him. I see some of a connection between my experiences and David’s as he was writing the Psalm that Dan read earlier.
You see, as Dan mentioned, David had been trying to flee a situation he faced, and in order to do so, he ended acting— ended up acting insane in order to escape the hand of the king. God protected him, but the situation wasn’t completely solved. David was running for his life. But keep in mind also at this time, David had already fought Goliath and won. He had already evaded the hands of Saul so many times.
In other words, he had a history with God, one where God had been so abundantly good to him, yet he still lived with a lot of uncertainty. Like David, I had experience with God being good, yet I was frustrated that my life was the way that it was. Why was this happening? Why is everything hard? I had struggled, seen God work, yet still had trouble.
This pattern seems to repeat itself for all of us in some way. We may feel uncertain, lost, or blinded by our own sin. Sin, yet God in His faithfulness allows us to keep finding Him. I can see now just how much God desired to deliver me from this. The eyes of the Lord were on me during this time, and I know His ear was toward my cry to help me out of this pit that I had dug for myself.
He wanted me to boast in Him, just like the Psalm says, and not in my own success. God’s plan to help me do this would involve something I didn’t expect or really even want at the time. It meant I would end up attending a tiny Christian school in Southern California that no one at my public Bay Area high school had really ever heard of before, Biola University.
To be honest, when I got to Biola, I felt really out of my element. It felt weird to go somewhere where everyone was a Christian. I felt somewhat lost as this was not my original plan for school or thought of where I would be for college, and it was the first time I’d ever moved away from here. Once I started taking classes and adjusted to college life, the whole experience shifted for me. I like to think of it as, as if I had this switch inside of me that was connected to academia, ministry, and the knowledge of God’s Word that all needed to get connected in order to be flipped on.
I remember thinking, this is the best place I could be. It was even better than church. The Bible classes were my favorite thing and my communication courses were a close second. To give you a glimpse into how big of a nerd I am, my 7 AM theology final felt like Christmas morning to me. College was my niche.
I told my friends this and it still rings true today. If I could be in college forever, I would. As a student, a teacher, anything. I enjoyed the classes more than I could have dreamed, and beyond that, I began to deeply fall in love with the study of God’s Word. I especially loved the Psalms.
To me, reading the Psalms feels like David and the other authors went into my soul, looked around a little bit at my feelings about God, and pulled those things out of me and put them on paper. These songs penned thousands of years ago about God are still stirring up worship in the hearts of believers today. During my first semester at Biola, I signed up for any and all ministry opportunities I could get my hands on, but one really stood out to me. It was a nonprofit parachurch organization that at the time was called the California School Project. The way they described their ministry model was that they used college students to coach high school students to reach their campuses for Christ, and I thought this was a great thing to be a part of because I had just been a high schooler and I really needed that kick in the pants to pursue evangelism.
This ministry had more in store for me than I could have prepared for. Little did I know they were looking to expand their ministry that next week into the most unchurched area of our nation. Where I had grown up, the Bay Area. And later that week, I attended an info night to learn more about the details of the ministry, which my future husband also chose to attend.
I struggled in ministry for a number of reasons, but I ultimately grew so much because of it. It was difficult to coach students who were up here in the Bay while still attending school in Los Angeles. And I dealt with interpersonal conflict and of course exhaustion for the sake of the gospel that obviously weighed on me at times. But the biggest lesson God taught me through my time with CSP in college was that He desires for us to live our lives with Him, not merely for Him. Growing up in church, I had kind of pictured God as this guy up there with a clipboard and I was down here working super hard for Him.
And as a high achiever, that worked for me. I had always known that Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us, that he came to earth as a baby, lived a perfect life, rose conquering sin and death forever, ascended, and is seated at the right hand of God interceding for us. He was with the disciples, with those he ministered to, and he’s with the Father now. However, I had never really grappled with the fact That God was Emmanuel with us right now. With me as I walked to class, with me as I mentored high school students, with me as I fought against my pride every single day.
He dwelled inside of me and because of that I was never once alone. He was with me when I felt drained mentally and spiritually, and He alone could restore restore my soul. This fundamentally changed my prayer life because I believed God was always with me so I could always talk to Him. I think I finally got a glimpse into what Paul was saying when he wrote, pray without ceasing. I experienced a radiance looking at God in His nearness that I had truly never found elsewhere.
God worked so hard to get me to learn this lesson that when I went to move into my apartment my junior year, we were just looking at the room, there was nothing in it, and I walked toward the fridge and I saw one tiny magnet sitting there. It had the word with on it. I kept that magnet and I have it in a notebook now. Understanding more of God’s heart for His people enabled me to taste and see how good He is in a tangible way. Now earlier I briefly mentioned that Roy, my husband, and I met working in ministry together, but what I didn’t mention is that I was actively trying to not meet my spouse at Biola.
If you’re not familiar with the Christian college dating scene, consider yourself blessed. Basically, if you attend Christian school, it’s kind of understood that you might be there to find a spouse. But for me, all I wanted to do was attend school, get really good grades, get a job, make a little money, get glowing recommendations for a grad program, and get out of there. There was no ring by spring on my list. I even resorted to telling people that I was fasting from dating just so I didn’t have to deal with the distractions.
God reminded me that I’m not in charge of my life. He gets to call the shots, and I’m so glad that He does, because in doing so He brought me a husband who is steadfast, sacrificial, has a knowledge of the Word of God, and whose friendship with me was based upon years of serving in ministry together. I guess if I had to find my spouse at Biola, Roy was the very best of the best.
I chose to work with what would later be known as the National School Project for all 4 years of my time at Biola, and I believe it was within this ministry context where I fell in love with the idea of serving in vocational ministry. Now simultaneously while all this was happening, I would get to come home quite a bit to meet with students, meet with pastors, and lead teams of people up here to do mini mission trips to the Bay Area. On the occasion I was home, I would stop by and sing with my favorite worship team. And for a while I thought this was just for fun, but after my first year at Biola, I approached Nate and I said, hey, need an intern? Which I guess he did, but I also wanted to pad my resume a bit, so I approached Jason Garvey too.
‘Cause his job had the word communication in it and I thought that would look good on my resume. I said, hey, need an intern? And I really don’t think he did because the first thing he had me do was get him an Americano and clean his filing cabinets. I told him, Jason, I have more for you. It was in these summers serving here that I found myself being more receptive to the idea of serving in worship ministry in a larger capacity.
Nate challenged and mentored me to think deeply about why we worship as a church body, how to craft services that provide people from all walks of life with a space to connect with God, and he gave me the opportunity to learn what it means to actually lead in worship, not just sing songs. So when college was ending and I had 2 job offers on the table, I went with this one, not just because it was near my parents and I had gotten into grad school nearby, but because I believed God was working in this church, and I was grateful to get to serve Him in a place that had served me so abundantly for all my life. Getting to work with the college and young adults in this community is a gift I feel so unworthy of receiving. And when I listen to you all sing week after week, I am overwhelmed with gratitude at the fact that we get to do what I call call practicing for heaven, and we do exactly what the Psalms command us to do, exalt the name of Jesus together. Roy and I made it 2 months after graduation from Biola before he moved here to be close to me, and last year we welcomed our next greatest adventure, our daughter Eliana.
She just turned 1.
She’s so beautiful. I am filled with hope for the fact that God is worthy of our praise. As I look to the future, I’m encouraged and uplifted by the fact that God is with me and that by seeking Him, I will lack no good thing. Though I now know just how true verse 19 from Psalm 34 is, that the afflictions of the righteous are many, I’m reminded that even if we don’t experience it right away, the Lord delivers him out of them all. I have experience now with the Holy Spirit helping me push back my sinful desires of focusing only on self to see Jesus as the only image worth beholding.
I am thankful that the truth that I know is based on something as solid as the Word of God and not my feelings or what I alone am capable of achieving. Like David has taught me, I can rest in the fact that no matter how much uncertainty I face, God is faithful to reveal himself to me as I look to him. Because of the foundation of my faith, I am certain of this: God is worth living for. He’s worth worshipping when you feel like it, when you don’t, and when you don’t even know what to do next. Next, to illustrate this, I’ll leave you with a story from a couple of years ago.
I found myself at Hume Lake once again. Often when you go to a place like Hume or maybe places like Mount Hermon, retreat centers, you expect to have a spiritually high, enriching experience. Maybe you expect to be refreshed and find rest for your soul away in the mountains of with God with limited technology. But a few years ago, I was sitting next to Roy looking at the lake, and I felt an intense amount of dissonance within me because I was feeling sad, low, and confused. You see, Roy and I were kind of at a crossroads in our life where we didn’t really see financially how it would make sense for us to remain in the Bay Area, and I didn’t really know where I was going in my journey with ministry.
I had felt stagnant because of my own shortcomings, and I was so frustrated that I couldn’t even pray. Maybe you’ve felt this way before. I remember looking out at the water and not being able to muster up one word to God, which is not normal for me. I thought to myself at that moment, there is one thing that I know I can do. I can return to the thing that has been constant in my life when everything else has failed me, and that’s the Word of God.
So I turned in my Bible to none other than what had been a safe space for me for so many years. I found myself in the Psalms. I looked at the words that David had penned and I realized I can write these words down. If I don’t have any words of my own, I can take the truth about God and write those things down in my notebook, so I started to do that. I finally got the courage to ask God the question, what do you want from me?
What is next for us? Maybe you’ve had one of these fits, I like to call it I was having a fit with God. I looked down and I read the familiar words from Psalm 96 that say, oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name.
Tell of his salvation. Salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples. I realized I had been so consumed by the logistical details of my life that I hadn’t remembered my first and primary calling. It was something I had known about since I was a small child.
It’s what I was made for, worship. I didn’t need to be so consumed by every single detail in that moment. I needed to acknowledge the God who had made me. Because when we fix our eyes on Jesus and take them off of ourselves, we are reminded of what really matters, and we can face what is in front of us because our hearts are surrendered to the one who is in control of every single detail. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.
And I want you to know I say this from a place of knowing that worshipping anything other than God will not satisfy you. I’m not trying to say this in the sense of just worship and everything will be fine, or just sing a song and all your problems will go away. What I’m trying to say is that I have done this so wrong before. My soul has made its boast in things other than Jesus. I have worshipped at the altars of high achievement, comfortability, and pleasing others, and none of that has ever satisfied me.
We can know that when we say it, we can think it makes sense when someone else says it, but it’s something different to experience it. I have tasted and seen the emptiness of what the world or even my flesh tells me to pursue, and I have tasted and seen the goodness of our God. Like one of my favorite songs says, I could gain the world and more, it’s all nothing next to Him. David’s words about adoring God should compel us to give Him our all, not just in ministry or at church, but in everything we do. We shouldn’t just be people who follow Jesus on the side or make Jesus something about us, but He should be our entire life.
Life. These words penned thousands of years ago have impacted every aspect of my life, not just in the sense of being up on a stage and leading a song, but that my entire life and the posture of my heart can continually be yielded to Him as an act of thanks, that truly His praise can always be in my mouth. This can be through singing, Lamenting, dancing, repeating Scripture back to God, or even a reluctant, angry prayer on a mountaintop.
So, when I’m feeling unsure in ministry and not confident about what to do next, I will praise Him. When I struggle as a parent with how to lead my daughter to Jesus and I inevitably fail her, I will praise Him. When I have been hurt by people or my friends walk away from me or the faith, I will praise Him. When my pride and desire to achieve cloud my vision and I am tempted to think only of myself, I will praise Him. When I don’t feel like worshiping, when I don’t feel like singing another note or I’m tired of singing the same song over and over again, I will praise Him.
I will find a new song. When things come that threaten to distract me or shake my faith, I will praise him. Just like we sang earlier, this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long, not because it is easy or because we feel like it, but because he is worth it. Not because we have to, but because we get to. Not because it will change our immediate circumstances or solve our problems, but because we have tasted and seen His goodness, and there is no other response than to praise.
And really, truly, at the end of the day, my story is not at all about me, it’s about Him. Let’s pray.
Father in heaven, I thank you for its, for your word and its power to change our lives. I thank you for the ways in which you use seasons of uncertainty or hardship to bring us back to you. I pray that we would all leave behind the things that threaten to distract us from denying ourselves and following you wholeheartedly. Would you use your word and the stories of people like David to help us remember your goodness? Remind us of how worthy you are of worship.
Make us people after your own heart who are more concerned with living for you than living for ourselves. Would we experience the radiance that can only be found in looking to you? In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen, amen.
