Worship: Laying It All Down - 3TC Podcast - Stephanie Olson

Stephanie Olson dives deep into the meaning of worship—not just as singing or attending church, but as a full-life surrender to God. Drawing from Genesis 22, it explores the story of Abraham and Isaac, emphasizing the heart-wrenching obedience required to lay down what we love most. Through personal testimony and scriptural insights, the message challenges believers to move beyond routine religion and enter intimate, daily relationship with God. Worship isn’t just about Sundays—it’s about sacrifice, obedience, presence, and making the Giver the priority over the gift. True worship is rooted in Spirit and Truth and leads to deeper intimacy with the Father, even when it requires surrender.

Welcome to Three Timbers Church! We are so glad you found us online and encourage you to explore all there is to learn about our church located in beautiful Bennington, Nebraska. When you come to Three Timbers, you can come as you are to experience the love of Jesus through the people of God. ​

Whether young or old, single or married, new to church, or a lifelong attendee, there's a place for you here. We invite you to join us toward a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. Our goal is to share the passion, power, and presence of Jesus with others. We believe in supporting families through service, education, and loving one another as Jesus loves us, unconditionally.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  15:08  
me again. Amen, please be seated.

Stephanie Olson  15:20  
This is what I preach, right? Yeah, okay, trying to remember the order when you're doing more than one thing. Actually, I'm going to move this this way. Well, it is great to be here this morning. It's great to see all you had a little break in the heat for a while, so that was really, really nice, and we're going to talk today, pull it out, kids release. See, I knew there was something. And take, take that offering. Yes, yes, thank you, and that's why I need you all family who's next?

Stephanie Olson  16:11  
The knew I was missing something, because normally I'm playing during this time. That's what's happening. Awesome. Well, if I were to ask you what worship is today, I would just love to hear shout it out. What would some of you say? Praise? What else? Praise? Yellow, sacrifice. I love that that's good. And some of you might say singing in church, right? Some of you might say prayer, and some of you really may not know, and some of you might say it's going to church worship is being in the worship service at church. And yet I think that it's important that we get sometimes caught up in church things, so we come to church and we're really supposed to come to church to praise, to give to worship. But sometimes it's easy to come to church and say, Gosh, what should I be getting out of this? Right? How I don't like the carpets. I used to go to a church where the carpets were green. They were very green, and people would be like, we don't like the carpets. Change the color of carpets right on my backside, or that sermon just didn't really good with me, whatever it may be, and sometimes we forget that we come to church for us in the sense that we want to receive, but it's really to praise Him. Now it's important that things in church clip right? Who's going to tell you a couple church stories? When Eric and I were searching for a church. We had just moved to Omaha, and we left a church in Lincoln that we absolutely loved. And church search is hard. It is hard to find a church that you click with, that you love, the family, you're like this is home, and one of the first churches we called. I called just to find out a little bit about it was called Victory Church. And they answered the phone. Welcome to victory Community Church. And I hung up. Okay, that was, that was part of the search. Then I went to another church that actually lost my child. I went to this church put Tessa. No, I was in the kids area. She was three. Tessa was five months old. Put Tessa in the nursery. We had the beeper that you get. And when I went to collect Tessa, I walked up, handed my paper, and they brought me another child, actually a boy, and I said, That is not my child. Now here's the problem. Their response was, Are you sure? Pretty sure. I mean, I've only known her for five months, right? But I'm pretty sure that's not my kid. The final straw before we found a church that was home, we went to another Victory Church. So victory in church names for me, I just feel a little weary. So we went to this church, also called victory, and we walked in, and it was an extremely small, but very friendly. This might be good. We put Noel, okay, it was free. In the children's the Sunday school, and she was the only kid in there. We took Tessa, five months old, into the service, and we had the What the What are they called Cheerios. We had everything ready for her, because, you know, if you've had small children in church, it can be very challenging. So we had the Cheerios of all the things, and they started with worship, and it went on for about an hour. I know you would love to start implementing that here, but went on for about an hour, and finally, somebody came up to us and said, I just want you to know it's not typically like this, like, Okay, well, the pastor's wife had been leading worship, and she started with an altar call, and she's doing an altar call, if you don't know, and she Has southern accent, so I'm just going to if you don't know Jesus. Now is the time to come up and meet Jesus, and little bit longer. Now, remember, this is an extremely small church. We are the only visitors in the group, and so she is staring right at us. I said, if you

Speaker 1  21:23  
don't know Jesus, now is the time to come up and meet him.

Stephanie Olson  21:30  
We just sit there. She said, it a third time. Eric finally looked at me and I think she's talking to us. I'm like, Yeah, I think she is. But we know Jesus. I know she doesn't know that. So then the guy comes up and he said, Well, I just want you to know I'm pretty sure that the pastor is going to start preaching soon. So how long does he typically preach? Oh, not long, like an hour, hour and a half, Max. Now my final goal, at the time, is getting a little frustrated, and so we slowly start to pick her up and get all the Cheerios, and we start to leave, because we're thinking, this is probably not our home, and we get out now it's clear we are going to have. I mean, everybody realizes that, because now we're leaving, we go to get Noel, and I grabbed all the stuff, and I looked around and I realized, oh my, I don't I don't have my jacket. I have never seen Eric grab a baby so fast. Go get it. So I had to sneak in to go get my jacket. Thank you. I know I'm going to have to get it, and ran out. So churches are challenging, but here's the good news. I mean, we we have a great church, we have a great family, we have a great pastor. But the good news is, it's not about us, right? We're human. We're going to mess up a church. If you ever go to a church that has a problem, it's because there's people that are involved in that. And we're going to read in the Scripture today, in Genesis 22 now this is the time where Abraham is going with Isaac to sacrifice. Of course, Isaac doesn't do that, and that is what's happening this effort. Can you turn that down? I don't know where we are, but it's, it's, it's it's, it's, it's sound block, doesn't it? I'm not a quiet person between Garrett and I think you can hear us, but this is the first place that we actually see the word worship in the Bible. It's not the first place worship happened, but it's the first place we see it. So let's read here. Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. Then he said, Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you so, Abraham rose early in the morning and sat at his donkey and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and he split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then, on the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place of this young man in here with the donkey in the lab. And I will yawn. Order and worship, and we will come back to you. So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took the fire in his hand in a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, My father. And he said, Here I am, my son. And then he said, Look, who's fire in the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering. So the two of them went together, and then they came to the place in which God had told him, and Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order. And he bound by saving son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out Sam and took the knife to slay a son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. And said, Abraham. Abraham, so he said, Here I am. And he said, Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and there he liked him. Was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went to the RAM and offered it up for a burnt offering. Instead of,

Stephanie Olson  26:42  
I love that I always go back to that scripture for so many things. Has God ever asked you to put something on the altar and not, not even something difficult or something hard, or, you know, an addiction or something like that, but something you loved, something that seemed good, something that you thought this is something that you've promised me, and now you're asking me to lay it on the altar, because God ever asked that of you, he did me once, and I'm going to share that story, because it's easy to put certain things on the altar. God came to me and said, Stephanie, I want you to stop doing laundry for the rest of your life and be like, Okay, God, no more cleaning. Well, I guess if I can't clean, I'm going to be obedient to you. But that it's never like that, right? It's never the stuff that we would easily put on the altar. It's the hard stuff. And imagine hearing in verse two, take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall die. Imagine that, take your son, and Abraham doesn't say, Are you kidding me? God, Abraham doesn't say. Maybe some other day, he doesn't and he travels a three day journey to do that. I had a ministry years ago, and loved it. I loved it, and God asked us, our team, to put it on the altar. This is the time I'm just going to ask you, are you willing to give this up, this thing you love? And so we decided, called a couple of our prayer warriors, and decided we're going to take three days, the same three day journey that Abraham took, and we're going to take three days to pray and fast over this and figure out what it was that God you wanted us to do, because we knew we were putting it on the altar. And we know the end of the story with Abraham. God saved his hand. He didn't have to kill his son, Isaac, but we didn't know. Okay, God, are you going to allow us to continue this ministry, or do we need to actually lay it on the altar and allow it to die? We didn't know. The Father knows what it's like to sacrifice something he loves. He knows what it is like to lay it on the altar, and so when he asks us to do that, he's not asking us out of out of just I have no idea he's asking us sacrifice is like now. Imagine taking that three day journey, knowing the entire time you were going to sacrifice your only son to God. Imagine going there. I'm sure they had conversations, and I'm sure they were talking and having a great time as father and son. And then imagine Isaac turning to Abraham saying,

Unknown Speaker  30:33  
where's our lamb?

Stephanie Olson  30:35  
What are we sacrificing? And Abraham knowing that entire time. It's useless. But just say the Lord will provide. I can't imagine that. And sometimes I think we read Scripture and we know the end of the story. I love talking about the end of the story. I am I am not a person who reads books who turns to the end to see what's happening so I can read again. But when we know these Bible stories, when we know what happens in the Word of God, we know that God stays the hand of Abraham, we know it's good ending. We don't know that in our own life, do we? And sometimes that's really, really challenging. So Abraham says, My son, God, will provide for Himself a lamb, and he did both times, because we had the Lamb of God on wood on a cross to die for us, and he provided that lamb for us too. So on that third day, after we prayed and we fasted, we were trying to figure out, Okay, God, what is it that you are going to do. God did stare yet, and he said, You do not have to kill that ministry. You can keep it going, and we're going to move in a different direction. But I had to be obedient in that moment, because it was God asking, and I had to ask, which did I want?

Unknown Speaker  32:32  
The promise

Stephanie Olson  32:35  
or the one who promised? I heard a sermon about this with Abraham, this topic, and he said that Abraham had to choose the same thing. He had to choose the promise, because he was promised, I will make you a father of descendants as big as the stars. I mean, think about Abraham when we look back at what was going on with Abraham. Abraham was told early on that I'm going to make you a father of many, that your descendants will be as many as the stars in heaven. And Abraham thought, Okay, God, let's do this thing. And it didn't happen and it didn't happen and it didn't happen. And finally, he starts to get a little nervous, and so does his wife, Sarah, and she says, I love account of how many women would do this one. But here, take my maid servant, right, and let's make a baby with her. Any of you open to Yeah, because I'm not. I am not, but that's what she did. And she said, let's do this ourselves. A lot of times when we want something so desperately, we are willing to go through those motions to get it to happen. That's not always God. And so they did that, and it was not God, and Abraham was 100 years old. Well, let's think about that. Probably not the best at conceiving at this point in life, but God did a miracle and gave you Isaac. That's a miracle. And then God says, Now, with this miracle, now I want you to put him on the altar and sacrifice him. That's hard.

Stephanie Olson  34:47  
Sometimes God asks us things that make no sense whatsoever,

Unknown Speaker  34:56  
things that we think God

Stephanie Olson  34:58  
is not is. Something that I can imagine doing, but when we are obedient to those things, he opens doors that we can't even imagine. And that's worship. That is worship. I think about the words that said, Abraham looked up and there was ram caught in the thickets. He looked up, which means, and if you think about this, God's taking me in, don't kill your son. Who was he? He was on his face, worshiping. He was worshiping because he knew that God just did something miraculous.

Stephanie Olson  35:56  
This person said, Did Abraham want a blessing, or did he want the blessed word? He wanted the blessed word. You know, sometimes he he asks us to just sit on his feet and just worship him. Just praise Him. Read his word, I say sometimes, actually all the time, that's what we're called, what we're called to do. But that takes a lot. I want to read one more thing to you here, and we're going to read Luke 1038, 42 i Two, and it says this. Now it happened as they went, that he entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet, but Martha was distracted with web serving, and she approaches that or do you not care that my sister has left me so low, therefore tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Martha has married, has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. Imagine that. Imagine you've got 13 hungry guys in your house, and they come in and you start cooking a meal, you start being that hospitable person that you are, you're serving, you're feeding. They're all sitting in the living room because they're your guests, and your sister is sitting with them, not helping at all. I mean, picture that you're doing all this stuff. You've got one person in the house who should be helping, and she is sitting at the feet of Jesus, doing nothing. Our response would probably be the same thing Jesus. I mean, I don't know how to suffer you. She's sitting at your feet, can you please tell her to give up and help? And Jesus said one thing is needed, that she is exactly where she should be. And I think sometimes when we when we are doing life, whether it's work, whether it's ministry, whether it's caring for our kiddos, we get really distracted in the day we can be doing ministry. I remember I was I was going to school, and I was going to school at the time for for Biblical Studies. And I was, I was reading the Bible all of the time for school I was doing, but we had forgotten that I also needed to spend time reading the Bible so that I understood reading the Bible in prayer and worship. It is so easy to get distracted by some of those things. And I've heard people say things like, yeah, I pray all the time. I go to church, I sing, but I don't read the Bible very often, this is not always easy. We have a lot of things going on, but let me tell you that is essential to our body. We're not in the Word. We can't. Hear him as well. And here's the big thing, deception comes very easily, and there's a lot of deception out there, isn't it? So if we're not spending time in his word, just to spend time with him, worshiping Him, we can move her focus queen from him. My mom is a massive prayer warrior. Prayer was always really tough for me. And I would pray, and I'd be like, Okay, that's That's enough. Well, I remember we went to this conference, and we were in this room with this prayer time, and everybody was praying, and everybody was kind of popcorn praying. And I thought, oh my gosh, we have been here for like an hour. And I looked at my watch five minutes, like, Okay, I'm just going to slip out and pray on my own. So one day when will had gone off to kindergarten, the Lord asked me, I want you to spend an entire day just with me. I thought, Whoa, that okay. So the next day, I was like, Okay, I've got my coffee, I've got my Bible, I've got my journal, and I am just going to spend a day with the Lord. Three o'clock, I have to pick up my kids. I was spending day with the Lord, so I started reading my Bible. I started to pray. And I thought, Okay, this is going really well. And I looked at my watch, and it had been 10 minutes, 10 minutes. That's not much of a day. And I started to pray again, and I heard the Lord say, in my spirit, I want you go on a walk with me. I can't go on a walk with you. God, I'm spending some time with you right now. So I'm very busy. No, I want you to go on a walk with me. So I did, and I went on a walk and spent time in his creation. Spent time just worshiping Him. God, you are good. Look at it was the most amazing walk I'd ever been on in my life. But one of the things that did was shake all of that legalism that I had in my brain that okay, now I need to sit down and read this many verses, and now I need to pray for this long, and this is what it looks like, and if I'm not doing it right here, not doing it right here, that I'm not doing it right but God showed me, no, I just want to spend time with you. Yes, I want you to be in my word. Yes, I want you to pray about certain things, but I just want you to worship. And that can look

Unknown Speaker  42:43  
different for all of us.

Stephanie Olson  42:47  
It all has to focus on him, but how we worship him, what that looks like doesn't have to be a song. Has to be focused on him. That became one of the most favorite days that I had at that time, and I cherish those times. I've heard people compare our hunger with hunger from the Lord, like we get hungry for food, it's like hunger from the Lord. But the reality is, when we get hungry for food and we eat food, what happens? We get satisfied, and then we don't have to eat for a while. But when we satisfy our hunger with the Lord, with his word, with prayer, with time, with him, the actual opposite happens. We want more and we want more and

Unknown Speaker  43:37  
we want more. You it and read

Stephanie Olson  43:42  
one more. So let's go back to that Genesis story. Years ago, I was I was reading this passage, and I was thinking about, I just had my my firstborn, Noel, and I thought, I can't even imagine what it would be like to sacrifice your child. I don't know if I would be able to do something like that, even if God asked me, but I was thinking through it with you. I thought it's all about that obedience, that focus on him, and a few years later, my kids and I went to this great place. We had a lake, we had a pool, it had all the things, and we had spent the day there with a friend of mine and her kids, and it was fun, and it was awesome. My kids were little, and as we were going home, we were all walking, kind of like a little March, and I looked down and Tessa, my middle was gone. She was completely gigantic. Couldn't find her anywhere. And. So I'm looking in the lake. I'm looking in the pool. I mean, it was packed, and I went up to the woman who was sitting at her desk, and I said, I need your help. I need you to help me find my child. And she looked at me like I don't know, like I didn't know what I was talking about. And in my very mom driving scream, I said, I need you to help me right now. And she got everybody, everybody was looking for her, and it was a terrifying moment. All of a sudden, I look over and there's this woman walking from the parking lot, holding Tessa. Tessa's crying. This woman is smiling. And I, I said, Oh my gosh. And she said, is this? Is this your This was actually a great baby. Somebody was giving me finally, and they gave me Tessa. And I just melted and said, Oh my gosh, Tessa, don't ever do that to me again. What we found out was that as she was walking, she wasn't paying attention to us. Her focus was anywhere but us, and she knew we were leaving, and so she went to the parking lot to find us. So I always told my kids this after that happened, if you can't see me when we're out, we're already lost. If you cannot see me, you are already lost.

Speaker 1  46:22  
And God showed me that is what we are like with him sometimes, that if we turn our focus off of him, he'll be lost.

Stephanie Olson  46:35  
That if we're not pressing into him, if we're not praying, if we're not reading His word, if we're not following Him, we are upper lost. He can be our Savior. But is your Lord? Are you obeying Him? Are you following Him? Second Samuel 611, through 22 talks about David dancing before the Lord, and it actually says that he was leaping and whirling around, and he was doing all these crazy things. And his his wife, Michael, came to him and said, Oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. I'm completely embarrassed by you. How could you do something like this. And I often think about people in sports and their dancing and whirling around and the craziness that they display, and sometimes they look a little bit like this. Do we have a picture? Yeah,

Speaker 1  47:45  
look crazy. But that's a sports team. I've actually seen stuff like that done with the Huskers. They're not even winning, right? I know it's sad. Imagine. Imagine, if we allow this for the God that actually died for us, that actually sacrificed his life for us, that is the God of miracles, you can take that off the screen. Nobody wants to see that anymore.

Unknown Speaker  48:22  
So see that anymore, because

Stephanie Olson  48:28  
that we're not seeking what he does, but we are seeking Him, not what he can do. But please imagine if we let loose in worshiping Him because He is a winning guy, not on our time, and it doesn't always look like what we wanted to but I guarantee you, when God says no to something, or when it seems like it's not going your way, there is a bigger mess around. I eventually had to lay that ministry back on the altar, and this time, God didn't stand my hand. He made me kill him, but it was because there was something so much greater around the corner that he had for me. I couldn't see her, and it took years before I saw it. But when he says no or closes a door, it just means there's a bigger yes around the corner, and that is something to worship, regardless of our circumstances. Psalm 95, six. Says that we're supposed to worship God alone. It makes it very clear that it's only God that's to be worshiped in Hebrews 12. Psalm 29 two says that it's in. Important to approach him with reference, because He's holy Romans 12 one urges us to present our own bodies as a living sacrifice, highlighting that worship isn't just a Sunday thing. It's a life. It's a way of life for us, but we can't truly see this without spending time in his presence, without worshiping Him and laying it all down and saying, You take it. You take it. True worship is about Jesus, and it's not a ritual, but we're told to worship in spirit and truth, and that it's a genuine, heartfelt connection from God. And I'm not even saying that you're always going to feel that wonderfulness. There are times when we go through a time of dryness, and sometimes we are grieving something so hard that we can't even pray, and sometimes that worship just looks like I can't do

Speaker 1  51:21  
this, but we have a God that intercede

Unknown Speaker  51:25  
for

Unknown Speaker  51:27  
us. That's worship doesn't have to look a certain way.

Stephanie Olson  51:38  
So my challenge to you this week, this homework for you and going forward spend time with the Lord Paul says, Pray without ceasing us, literally doesn't seem possible to constantly be praying without ceasing, right? But what that means is that our whole heart attitude that we are always lifting it up to him, because he is the one who is worthy. And I think remembering this is not our home. This is not where we're going to stay. It is, it is when we are with him, that eternal home. I remember the first time I realized that the God of the universe, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the God of the universe, loved him. Universe, loved me. I was literally on your face in tears. And when we understand that we have a God that created the heavens, created the earth, created the universe and he loves you. There is nothing you can do to make him love you more. There is nothing you can

Unknown Speaker  53:11  
do He loves you that is

Stephanie Olson  53:13  
worth worshiping. Father, God, we, thank you that you are a God that loves us. We, thank you that you are a God worthy of our

Speaker 1  53:32  
worship. We, thank you. Thank you. Oh God, that despite how our circumstances look, you are always with us,

Stephanie Olson  53:41  
going before us, every step of Lord you help us to present Lord, I pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we read your word, so we can understand it, so We can ask questions.

Unknown Speaker  54:00  
Give us the ability to worship you, and then in that, show us your glory, show us who you are. All pass God in Jesus name. Would You stand

Speaker 2  54:18  
with us as we close you?

Speaker 4  54:59  
Amen