It's been a week since we've
been together, but it sure was special last week. Let's open
this morning's service with hymn number 69 in your hardback timbrel. Number 69. And let's all stand
together. Safely through another week,
God has brought us on our way. Let us now a blessing seek, waiting
in His courts today. Day of all, the week, the best,
Emblem of eternal rest. Day of all, the week, the best,
Emblem of eternal rest. While we pray for pardoning grace,
through the dear Redeemer's name, show Thy reconciled face, take
away our sin and shame. From our worldly care set free,
may we rest this day in Thee. From our worldly care set free,
May we rest this day in Thee. Here we come, Thy name to praise,
Let us feel Thy presence near. May Thy glory meet our eyes,
While we in Thy house appear. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. May thy gospel's joyful sound
conquer sinners, comfort saints. May the fruits of grace abound,
bring relief for all complaints. ? Thus may all our Sabbaths prove
? Till we join the church above ? Thus may all our Sabbaths prove
? Till we join the church above Please be seated. Good morning. That was a very
appropriate hymn for us to sing. for the preparation of the message
the Lord has given me this morning from Psalm 63, if you'd like
to turn with me there in your Bibles. I just want to express
my appreciation for you and all the effort that you all made
during our meeting last weekend. I couldn't have been more proud
as your pastor for the the blessing that you were to
our guest and to one another. And I'm just extremely, extremely
thankful to the Lord for you and to you for all the work that
you did. Everybody seemed very encouraged.
Pastors were all just speaking so highly of their experience
here. They all got away this week.
We had a few days together after the meeting and enjoyed that
time. So thank you for that. Psalm 63, I've titled this message,
True Worship, True Worship. What could be more central to
faith than worship? And yet what is worship? We just
sang about it. May we feel thy presence near. a glimpse of thy glory show us. Let's bow together and ask the
Lord's blessings. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we confess to you that we bring into this experience of worship
our own flesh. Lord, it's difficult for us to
get out of our own way. Lord, we thank you for the perfect
worship that the Lord Jesus Christ offered to you and for the hope
of salvation that we have in his experience of worship. Lord, we do pray that you would
enable us by the power of your spirit to catch a glimpse of
your glory. Lord, that you would Crack the
windows of heaven, and that you would shine into our hearts,
the light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that you would cause us to bow as faithful dogs, offering
to you, Lord, our submission and our worship to thy glory. For we ask it in Christ's name,
amen. What is true worship? And I'll answer that question
by saying that we have not yet experienced it. We've not yet
experienced it. True worship is the worship that
the Lord Jesus Christ offered to the Father. True worship is
what is expressed in the book of Revelation when the twenty
and four elders bow before the throne and spend all of eternity
worshiping. Perfect. I should say not true
worship because we we do engage in true worship. I should call
this perfect worship. Perfect worship. For we are the
true circumcision which worship God in the spirit. Rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. When I read Psalm
63 verse 1 and when I read Psalm 63 verse
9, it concerns me that my worship is not sincere. Oh God, thou
art my God, early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee,
my flesh longeth for thee. Paul said, in me, that is in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. The problem with my worship and
the problem with your worship is that we bring our flesh into
our experience. And what I said in my prayer
I know is My experience, I can't get out of my own way. I want
to worship God in the spirit. I want to worship him in truth.
And yet our worship is so hindered by all the flesh that we bring
into this experience, isn't it? And so when David says, my flesh
longeth for thee, who is he speaking of? Look down at verse 9, but
those, I'm sorry, verse 8, my soul followeth hard after thee,
thy right hand upholdeth me. I read verses like that and I
think, well, my soul doesn't follow hard enough. I can remember
years ago reading biographies. I don't read them anymore. I
don't like biographies. Biographies generally are written
by the disciples of dead Christians who exaggerate their spiritual
experiences. And when I read biographies,
I think there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not saved. Maybe, you know, I need to be
getting up at 3.30 in the morning and spend the first five hours
of my day in submission and in prayer and in scripture reading.
That's what the biographies say about some some of the dead Christians. And I think maybe my soul doesn't
thirst for the Lord as it ought. Maybe when I come to worship,
I don't worship as I ought. And the truth is, I don't. I don't. I thought all week about
the statement that Chris Cunningham made last Saturday morning, I
think it was, when he was preaching. about those disciples whom the
Lord said, could you not pray with me for one hour? Could you
not? No. Truth is that you've not
been able to give your undivided attention in worship for one
hour. For one hour. How distracted
we are by our flesh. When David says, my flesh longeth
for thee, and when he says in verse eight, my soul followeth
hard after thee, he's speaking prophetically of the Lord Jesus
Christ. These Psalms can only be understood
in the light of Christ. His flesh wasn't like our flesh. He was not born of the seed of
Adam. His flesh was perfect flesh. When he went before the Father
in worship, he didn't have the hindrances and the limitations
that you and I have when we worship and when we pray. We have so
many distractions. We've got so much flesh involved
in our worship, don't we? But here's your hope, brethren.
The hope of our salvation is not based on the sincerity of
our worship. It's based on the perfection
of His. It's based on the perfection
of His. Now, I love the fact that the scriptures
don't exaggerate the believer's life. The scriptures paint the people of God just
like they were. And so we have Peter with his
shameful denial of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have Abraham shamefully
denying his own wife, Sarah, before Pharaoh. We have Sarah
laughing at the promises of God. We have Jacob as the supplanter. We have Thomas doubting the testimony
of the believers. This is unlike any other religious
book. Most religious books would be
like those biographies. They would exalt the characters
of their religion to where they are without fault. But the truth
is that all of God's people are filled with faults. In our worship, though sincere
and though true, I was thinking about what the Lord said to those
disciples when he called them fools and slow of heart to believe. Job justified himself before
God. How oftentimes you and I justify
ourselves. And yet these were the people
of God who were saved through faith. by grace. Notice how the scriptures refer
to the means by which we're saved. We're not saved by faith, we're
saved through faith by grace. The first two times that worship
is mentioned in the scriptures. The first one is in Genesis chapter
22. You remember when God told Abraham, take thy son, thine
only son, the son whom thou lovest, and take him up on Mount Moriah
and sacrifice him. And Abraham takes Isaac and he
says to his servants at the foot of the mountain, he says to his
servants, he says, you stay here. Me and the lad are going to worship,
to worship and we will return. Now Abraham didn't have any idea
how that was gonna work out. But we know how it worked out. There was a ram caught in a thicket.
The substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, was caught in the thicket
of our sin, whom God sacrificed in our stead. And Abraham and
Isaac came back after Abraham said, God, will provide himself
a sacrifice. There's no worship without the
sacrifice. There's no worship without the
lamb. And so when we come to worship, our worship is true
and sincere, but it's not perfect. It's not perfect. When we come to worship, we worship
through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to his
worship, looking to the sincerity and the perfection of his worship as
the hope of our salvation. Turn with me to Exodus Chapter
22, I'm sorry, Exodus Chapter 24. This is the second reference
to the word worship in the scriptures. The first one is in Genesis Chapter
22. And the second one is found here
in Exodus chapter 24, verse one. And he said unto Moses, come
up unto the Lord thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the
elders of Israel and worship ye afar off. One day, one day, perfect worship. will be experienced when we are
sitting in his presence, offering him worship near unto him. Right now, we worship afar off,
don't we? Look at verse two. And Moses
alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come nigh,
neither shall the people go up with him. So the 70 elders, Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, were to worship from afar
off and only Moses. Now what does the Lord tell us
about Moses? I will send to you a prophet
like unto him. So Moses here represents the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who comes perfectly
into the presence of God. And there is a very real sense
in which you and I worship God. We worship Him in truth. We worship
Him in spirit, but we worship Him from afar off, don't we?
The purpose of this message, brethren, is to encourage you,
encourage you to know that our worship is far from perfect.
Our worship, like everything else we do, is filled with flesh. And yet, the hope of our salvation,
the hope of our salvation is not determined by the perfection
of our worship. It's determined by the perfection
of His. He's the only one that could
say, my flesh, my flesh longeth for thee. Truth is that my flesh
and your flesh has never longed after God. It's the very thing
that gets in the way of us drawing near unto his presence. Moses
was allowed into the presence of God. The rest of them had to worship
from afar off. Acts chapter 24, when the Jews
brought Paul, the apostle, before Felix and accused him of stirring up trouble in Jerusalem
and making riots. Paul defends himself by saying,
the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers,
believing all things that are written in the law and in the
prophets. There's no worship of God without
faith. Faith is believing everything that is written in the law and
the prophets. And so, when we think about our worship, we're
asking ourselves, do I believe everything that God has said?
Do I believe everything he said? There's no worship apart from
that. Yes. Yes. I believe everything that
God has said. And I long for that day. when
I will worship him perfectly. When this flesh, this mortality
will be made immortal, this body of death will be made into a
resurrected body and no longer will it get in my way of being
able to worship God. I'll be able to, as the, that's
what the scripture means. We'll be without sin, without
sin. That's where our, that's where
our sin is. Our sin is in our flesh. And, and to know that
we're going to see him as he is and be made like him, we're
going to have a sinless body. And we're gonna be able to worship
Him in perfection. Right now, we worship Him from
afar off. We worship Him the same way Abraham
and Isaac worshiped God, through a blood sacrifice. And we worship
Him through the gift of faith, believing everything that's written
in the law and the prophets. If they speak not according to
the law and the testimony, it's because there's no light in them. We have the light of the gospel
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We come into the presence
of God and we seek to worship Him. That's who, well, when the
woman at the well in John chapter 4, when she wanted to debate
with our Lord about where one was to worship. Your fathers
say that we should worship in Jerusalem. Our fathers say that
we should worship here on Mount Gerizim. And the Lord said, matters
not where you worship. rather, how you worship. For
the Father seeketh after them who worship Him in spirit and
in truth. We're completely dependent upon
the Spirit of God to enable us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
that blood sacrifice, and to believe God in order to enter
into His presence. Though we worship from afar off,
we do worship Him in spirit and in truth. The word worship translated means
to kiss like a dog. Caleb name translated means a
faithful dog. Joshua, Joshua and Caleb were
the only two that survived the wilderness and entered into the
promised land. Joshua Meaning Jehovah saves
Joshua being the same name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Caleb
picturing the church following faithfully after his Joshua across
the river of death. That's what the word Jordan means
into the promised land. And so it is with every worshiper. Now you show me a dog that is
threatened and beaten and I'll show you a scared dog that'll
bite you. But you show me a dog, you show
me a dog that's fed, a dog that's loved, a dog that's shown affection,
and I'll show you a dog that will worship its master. You
see, the truth is that God doesn't beat his dogs. He doesn't beat
them. He loves them and he feeds them.
And like a faithful dog, they bow in worship to him. You remember the Syrophoenician
woman when the Lord said, it's not right that I should take
the children's bread and give it to dogs. And what'd she say? Truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. And the scripture says, and she
worshiped him. She saw herself as a dog. And
you contrast her experience to Goliath. And what did Goliath
say when he came out and blasphemed the God of Israel? He said, and
David came out, didn't have any armor on, all he had was a sling.
And Goliath said, what, am I a dog that you come against me with
stones and staves? I mean, what? Yeah, you just
don't know it. You don't know it. Dogs, God's
dogs are loved. Dogs are fed and God's dogs worship. They worship him. Now, all men
knowing that there is a God with whom they must do have devised
a million ways to worship him. Lots of different roads. The
road is broad, isn't it? Todd brought that message Sunday
morning. The road is broad that leadeth to destruction. And, That's what Paul experienced
when he went to Athens in Acts chapter 17, and he spent a few
days just, I can just see Paul walking around Athens and asking
the Lord for an opportunity to preach the gospel. And he was
given that opportunity. He was called to Mars Hill and
had an opportunity to preach to the philosophers of Athens,
Greece, and what did he say? I've been walking around your
city and I've noticed you all are very religious. You're very
superstitious. You've got a lot of different
statues here. And you've got one statue that I noticed the
subscription on it said to the unknown God. That's the God I'm
going to preach to you. The one you don't know. You've
got lots of different gods. The one you don't know. Men by
nature don't know the true living God. And yet we worship Him according
to the scriptures. We worship Him. in spirit and in truth. Let me read Psalm 115. Psalm
115. Our worship is far from perfect. Our worship is far from perfect
because we bring our flesh into our worship. How would you like
to offer to God the experiences that you've had in the last 20
minutes as the hope of your salvation? I mean, you came to this place
to worship, didn't you? I read a, I was telling the men
this morning in the study that I read a website, some folks
that were here for the conference, and I read the whole website
to find out what kind of church they were coming from. And you
could summarize their website by saying that the purpose of
our church is for you to be happy and learn how to live a better
life. And that's pretty much the purpose of every religious
organization, for you to be happy and learn how to live a better
life. And folks flock to those sorts of churches. What is the
purpose of the church? It's to glorify God. is to glorify
God. You can find happiness down at
Disney World. You can learn to live a better
life by following the 12 steps or getting some self-help books.
You can live a better life. Lots of folks that aren't believers
are living good moral lives. What is the purpose of the church?
What reason do you come? What reason do you come? for
social networking, to be happy, learn how to live a better life?
No, I know why you come. You come for the salvation of
your soul. You come to glorify God, to worship Him, that He
might be pleased to show mercy upon you and save you. That's your purpose. That's our
purpose here. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 115. not unto us oh lord this isn't
about you it's not about me it's not about about being happy and
living a better life not unto us oh lord not unto us but unto
thy name be give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake
lord i need mercy and i just want to know the truth For this
cause came I into the world. For this reason was I born, to
bear witness unto the truth." And Pilate said, truth? Truth? What is truth? What is truth? There's no such thing as truth.
Don't you know everything's relative? And the child of God says, I
want to know the truth. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the way and I am the truth. And if the Son makes you free,
you're free indeed. And where the Spirit of God is,
there is liberty. I want to know Christ. I know
so little of Him. I've got so much of myself that
I can't get out of the way of. Lord, I need to know the truth.
It's not about me. Not unto us. Wherefore should
the heathen say, where is their God? You say, well, I want to see
some practical application of your God in your life. I want
to see how you're a happier person now and where you're doing better
and you're getting better and you're treating other folks better.
Where's your God? Let me see it. Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done. Notice the verb tense. He hath
done. It's already finished. He hath
accomplished whatsoever He hath pleased. Our God is sovereign. Our God is omnipotent. Our God
is immutable. Our God's in the heavens. Their idols are nothing but silver
and gold. The work of men's hands. They
have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but
they smell not, they have hands but they handle not, feet have
they but they walk not, neither speak they through their throats,
they that make them are like them. Now that's a perfect description
of idolatry. You thought that I was altogether
such a one as thyself. That's the error of man, isn't
it? Men create idols, they worship
their idols, and in fact, there's a little article in your bulletin
where I said that the very people that would say that Christ died
for everybody would also tell you that 90% of the people that
Christ died for aren't saved and won't be saved. The majority
of folks that Christ died for are going to hell. I said, those
folks wouldn't take their car to a mechanic that only was successful
10% of the time. And I know you wouldn't put your
life in the hands of a surgeon who lost 90% of his patients.
Why would you worship a God who is a failure? Why would you do
that? The truth is they're not worshiping
God. They're worshiping themselves.
You see, for them, it's not the sacrifice that saves, it's their
acceptance of the sacrifice that saves. So that's why God says,
they make these gods, but they make them to be like themselves
so that they can put themselves on the throne of God. Men are
not worshiping Christ, they're worshiping themselves. They're
worshiping the decision that they made, or the works that
they're performing, or the evidence of the salvation that they're
able to boast of in their lives as the proof of their salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
offered himself on Calvary's cross, was not making an offer
to us. He was making an offer to the
Father. The Father accepted that offer. The father saw the travail of
his soul. The father was satisfied and the sins of God's people
were put away. Our God is in the heavens. He
has no needs. Certainly doesn't have needs
from sinful men. He is himself self-existent. He had no beginning, no end. He's independent. He's immutable.
He's the creator and sustainer of all of life. And he hath done
whatsoever he had pleased. And we bow as a faithful dog
in worship to him. When our Lord was driven by the spirit of God
into the wilderness right after his baptism. The scripture says
that after 40 days of fasting, he was tempted of the devil.
And the last of those temptations, the devil said, bow down and
worship me and all this shall be thine. And the Lord said,
get thee behind me for Satan, for it is written, thou shall
worship the Lord thy God and him only shall thy serve. We only have one God. He only
is my rock and my salvation. We can't worship anyone else.
He has shut us up to himself. Sometimes people speak of the
doctrines quote of grace. We used to say that. Until I
discovered that everywhere the word doctrines, plural, is used
in the scripture, it's always used of the doctrines of men
or the doctrines of devils. There's only one doctrine of
grace. All those five points that we
believe all fall, stand or fall together. You can't divide up
the doctrines. And here's what the Lord said.
In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men. Teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men. In vain they do worship me. Oh, Lord, I don't want to worship
you in vain. I fear because I've got so much
flesh involved in my worship, I fear, Lord, that my worship
is so insincere and so incomplete and so imperfect, it causes us
to keep looking to the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't
it? He's the only one that could
say, my flesh longeth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee. That which is of our flesh is
flesh. And our flesh profiteth nothing. The flesh lusteth against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary
one to the other. You and I are a contradiction
to ourselves, aren't we? We've got two natures. And when
the new man has a has a desire to worship God,
he can't help but to bring that old man with him. Our worship is not perfect, brethren,
but it is true. It is according to the scriptures.
We worship God in the power of the Spirit of God. We look to
that sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though we worship like
Aaron and the 70 elders from afar off, we have one like Moses
who has gone to the top of the mountain of the law and he has
satisfied the demands of God's law and he worshiped God in his
flesh, in his flesh. Now here's our hope, here's our
hope, Ephesians chapter 5, we are part of his body and of his
flesh. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
bore in his flesh, in his body, the sins of his people, and he
suffered in the flesh, we were in him. And God accepts his worship
for our worship. God's satisfied with his perfect
worship as our worship. The scripture says all our flesh
is of Ephesians chapter 5 verse 30, we are members of his body
and of his flesh and of his bones. And then in Hebrews chapter 10,
we had that beautiful picture of the veil being rent. And the scripture says, which
is his flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ had to be born of a woman,
born under the law, in order to present to God a perfect man,
in order for him to die a death in the flesh. But his flesh is
not like our flesh. He's the only one that can say,
my flesh longeth after thee. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
1. Colossians chapter 1. Verse 19, for it pleased the
Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. He is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, God incarnate, God in flesh. God was made flesh
and dwelt among us. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that could pray in Psalm 63. my flesh longeth for thee."
Look at verse 20, and having made peace through the blood
of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him
I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven
and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unprovable in
His sight." So our worship before God, because it's done like Abraham
and Isaac's worship was, looking to the cross, is perfect. It's not perfect
in our experience. but it's perfect in our substitute. So that God says you're unblameable,
you're unreprovable, you're perfect in God's sight by the worship
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness God was manifested in the flesh,
in the flesh. He sought after God with every
ounce of his being, body, soul, and spirit. He worshiped God
with every breath and every moment of his existence. That's what
God requires. We can go back and read those
biographies and we can we can be intimidated
by them and we can think well my my worship is not as it ought,
no it's not as it ought, but his was. His was. He worshipped
God in the flesh. His flesh longed after God. Our flesh is the very thing that
gets in our way isn't it? One day this carnal This carnal
flesh is going to be made new like Him. And we'll know then
for the first time in our experience what perfect worship is. All
right, let's take a break.