Matthew chapter 15, we began looking last week at
counterfeits. The Bible teaches us, you know,
we were talking about counterfeits. anti-gospels, anti-grace preaching. The week before that, we learned
that the Bible warns of manipulating grace in two different
directions. One direction into license, lasciviousness,
licentiousness. One direction into legalism. And we're to, be a balance between
both of those, okay? We're not to go into licentiousness
and we're not to go into legality. The Bible teaches that grace
is a free gift that is given to us, but that grace also does
a work in us And it, as Larry said, it's something that takes
place in us, that we don't sin, that grace might abound, that
we don't go on doing these things, that we have a principle within
us now, by the Spirit of God, that causes us to walk in His
statutes, that causes us to desire the things of God. And so as
I mentioned last week, that got me thinking about all the different
things in the scripture, that it warns us about these counterfeits. And we looked last week, that
the Bible teaches that there are counterfeit Christ that we
should be aware of, that there are counterfeit apostles, ministers,
there are counterfeit Christians, and they're all over the place.
I mean, just about anybody you walk up to on the street will
say that they're a Christian. unless they're a Muslim or a
Jew or something like that, of another religion, most anybody
who is not of another religion will say, well, I'm a Christian
just by the virtue of I'm an American. Or I'm a Christian
by the virtue that I'm not this. And so there are counterfeit
Christians, counterfeit prophets and counterfeit teachers. We've
seen that last week. But today I mentioned that I
wanted to share with you that the Bible also warns us that
this This spirit of counterfeitness can also be applied to different
things Not just people but different things and probably the first
and foremost thing that kind of stuck out in my mind Besides
the gospel and I will get to the gospel but is counterfeit
worship If you look today on TV, on radio, on YouTube, whatever,
you will see all kinds of services that say worship, you know. And
whenever you look at that, a lot of times you kind of wonder,
am I watching worship service or am I watching some sort of
a musical or some sort of a theatrical show or am I watching some sort
of a concert rock concert you know whatever the case might
be and everybody has this and I tell you from the years in
ministry that I've had and and especially in pastoral work people
get very very touchy about this about worship Worship is a personal
thing, and it is a personal thing. Worship is a personal thing.
Whenever we talk about worship, the Bible speaks of personal
worship. We all have that whenever we study the word of God and
we pray and we meditate upon the words of God. and we extol
him and we look to him in our personal times, there is personal
worship that is there. Worship isn't something that
we go to on Sunday and then that's it, okay? A lot of times that's
the mentality of most people, where we're going to worship
and then after we're done worshiping, then that's it until next week.
No, there is personal worship, but there is, the Bible does
speak of a time where the saints of God gather together for a
corporate time of worship. When they come together as the
church, they come together in a corporate atmosphere or corporate
gathering to worship. And God has prescribed certain
ways that that is to be done. And we find that through scripture.
And one of these days, we'll look at that in the study on
those things. but that there is a worship that
God has given. Matter of fact, if we look through
the Old Testament, we'll see that God prescribed certain ways
that he was to be worshiped, to be remembered, or to be talked
about. There were certain rules that
God had given them and told them, this is how I want you to do
it. And if they didn't follow that, destruction came. In the
New Testament, we find that God has prescribed certain ways that
he is desired to be worshiped. And I don't mean to bring this
down to a humanistic blasphemy of God or anything like that,
but if you're a person and you would desire somebody to worship
you, but yet whenever they came to you, they did something that
was flagrantly offensive to you, but yet they were saying, I'm
doing this because I'm worshiping you, You would say, well, you're
not really worshiping me because that's not how I want to be worshiped.
Okay. I'm offended by that. That offends
me. If you want to worship me, try
this. Okay. Now again, I don't mean
to be blasphemous, but just put that in your mind, you know,
If you want somebody to be affectionate or endearing to you, you know,
if my wife came and wanted to show her love for me, by every
time she sees me, she just slaps me in the face and says, ah,
that's a slap of affection. You know, I would say, well,
please, don't show your affection anymore. You know, why? Because that's offensive, you
know. If you want to show your affection to me, just kiss me
on the cheek, not slap me on the cheek, okay? I want to be
endeared this way. Well, brethren, God has prescribed
in his word ways of being endearing to him, to showing your love
and your worship to him, not to get something from him, but
this is something that flows from a heart that has been born
again, a heart that has the Holy Spirit of God in there that is
pardon this term, energizing the man and woman of God to breathe
the things of God, to think the things of God, to long for the
things of God, to want the things of God, but also to extol God
for who he is. Now we've talked about this here
before and, uh, um, We've mentioned that a lot of
times people are always thankful to God, and it's only because
of what they find that God spreads out on His table for me. He prepares
the table, okay? Or He leads me to the still waters. We're thankful for that. We should
be. We should be thankful for those
things. Paul tells us that we should in all things be thankful.
But brethren, we should worship God for who He is alone. and not because of what he gives
to us. I've got a little, if there's
still some more out there in the magazine rack, I wrote a
little thing about worship of God alone out there several years
ago. Matter of fact, I haven't looked
over it in a while. I might not do that before you
take a look. There might be some changes in
my theology since then. Anyway, I wrote a thing about
worship of God alone and how we use devices and means to bring
us to worship God, and if we don't have those just right,
then we can't... I've heard this before, and I continue to hear
this from people that I'm connected with and everything like that,
that, you know, if the music isn't this way, then it just
don't bring me into worship. You know, if the preacher doesn't
preach this way, I just can't get into worship. You know, if
there's only this many people here, you know, you know, usually
whenever we're here, most of the time, it's just a small little
group here. Well, some people come into that
and they, you know, well, we just can't worship when it's
so small. I mean, it's kind of uneasy because,
you know, there ain't very many people. We kind of like to get
lost in the crowd, you know, and I've been there before. I've
been there. I've gone on vacations, and I've
wanted to find churches that are big churches because I'm
the new guy. Nobody knows me, and whenever
I go there, I don't want to stick out like a sore thumb and everybody's
attention be drawn to me. So I find a big, large church
to get lost in the crowd, okay? Okay, so we have all this dynamic.
I can't worship because of this. I can't worship because of that.
That's idolatry. That's idolatry. To say that
I cannot come into worship or I cannot worship unless everything
is just right or something is just right means that we have
to have something of earth or creation or self to motivate
us to worship God that he is not sufficient enough for who
he is to be worshiped. that we must have a catalyst
to make us worship Him. Otherwise, I just can't do that. If I can't worship God unless
we sing worship music, and when I say worship music, I mean the
kind you hear on the radio that is dubbed worship music, you
know, the guy with the acoustic guitar and the skinny jeans and
the, you know, the sock hat that goes down half his head. playing
the worship music. If it ain't that, then I can't
worship. Well, then you're worshiping the music leader or the music
itself. If it's not the preacher who
has great oratory skills, whose grammar is perfect, whose dictation
is perfect, who has alliteration, who has his outline just all
great. If it's not that and you can't worship if it ain't like
that, it's too, I've honestly, I've had men come to me whenever
I've preached and told me, you know, you have some good content.
And whenever people come and tell this, it's almost like a
bless your heart moment. Oh, bless your heart. They've
come and they've told me, you know, you've got good content,
brother, but you really, if you want to really speak to people,
you need to really work on your pronunciation. You need to work
on your grammar. Your grammar is just horrible.
Well, you're not telling me anything. I'm the one who had to go through
grammar and about failed it. Okay. I'm horrible at grammar.
I know that, but God didn't call a grammar teacher. God didn't
call a science teacher. He called Mike Smith to preach. He called me to pastor. And it
don't take an English degree to do that. It takes a voice
to proclaim. And it may not be the most precise
way of proclaiming, but I proclaim in the way that I can. And so
if it's that, if you gotta find a preacher, and I've been told
you can't minister to people when you're distracting them
because your grammar, because your uhs, and listen, I know,
I've listened back to some of our recordings and I'm almost
as bad as Obama about the uh business. Uh, uh, uh, okay? That's just who I am. That's
because I'm talking. I'm talking. Not somebody else talking. I'm
talking. And I say uh. And stuff. I say and stuff. Uh
and stuff. If you can't worship unless the
preacher is just right, you're worshiping the preacher. Or you're
worshiping the mode of preaching and not God. If you can't come
into worship because of that, then you're not worshiping God.
You're worshiping something else. You're worshiping things. Now
that doesn't mean that whenever we come together and somebody
shares an encouraging word that that doesn't make my heart swell
to worship God. That's the dynamic of the fellowship,
of the assemblies of God wherever they meet. That's the dynamic
of that. It's called edification. part
of worship part of the the result of edifying each other building
each other up in the most holy faith is there is a overflow
of worship larry just did it this morning if you didn't catch
it look larry did it this morning He was able to fellowship and
worship this weekend and heard preaching and the ministry of
the word and the fellowship of the brethren caused him to thank
God and to be appreciative of those things. He overflowed in
worship because of the edifying of the saints. That's why we
meet together. That's why the Bible Admonishes
us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together is because
God has Yes, does he work over here with me in my house when
I'm studying? Absolutely but he has also decreed
and provided a Assembly for us to come together where we corporately
worship. So we have personal worship.
We have a corporate worship and God has in both of those Instructed
his people on how he desires to be worshipped And so we see,
if you look with me in Matthew chapter 15, and we're going to
start in verse 1. It says, Then came to Jesus scribes
and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy
disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Now, you notice
he didn't say, Why does your disciples transgress the law
of Moses? Now at this point, excuse me,
back to 12 years old. At this point, at this point, the law of Moses was something
that they were still adhering to. The law had not been fulfilled
yet. And Christ had not abolished
those things. But yet the Pharisees said, why
do thy disciples transgress the tradition of elders? There are
a lot of churches that you go to, they want to know why don't
you do things the way we do it? And it isn't found in scripture
at all, whatsoever. He says, for they wash not their
hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto
them, why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your
traditions? You notice the total opposite,
how Jesus went about the total. They were worried about the transgression
of the tradition of men. Jesus said, you're transgressing
the commandment of God by your traditions. He said, for God
commandeth, saying, honor thy father and thy mother, and he
that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye
say, whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, it is a
gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honor
not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye
made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. okay now i'm not going to get
into what all he's talking about right there at this point and
everything but just so you'll know that they took what god
had commanded and laid a tradition over the top and they were worried
about the people keeping the traditional part and wasn't worried
about this jesus also in other places remember when they said
you know that we've given all our ties of this and this and
then jesus said hey that's great i'm glad you did you you should
have kept doing that because that was what was commanded of
you guys to do but yet this is what you like. You missed the
whole thing in this. And so you should have kept doing
that. Well, he's saying here, this tradition you've laid on
and you're more worried about them keeping your man's added
on tradition than you are about the spirit of the commandment
that God give you that underlies it. And so he calls them in verse
seven, you hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying,
and here's what I wanted to get to. this people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips but
their heart is far from me but in vain do they worship me now
brethren i tell you what as a preacher as a pastor whenever i stand
here and preach, or we gather together for fellowship, we open
up and sing, whatever we do as a corporate body together, I
pray that it doesn't come to in vain do they worship me. How horrible it would be to live
a life, whether it be 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 80 years,
however long, of honoring God with your lips,
honoring God with your mouth, and in vain worshiping Him, never
to have drawn nigh to Him, never to have actually honored Him
with your lips and your heart. never for there to really be
something there. It's a tradition, it's a social thing, it's a do
something for gang, whatever it might be, that we, for however
many years, we gather together, we struggle together, we serve
together in whatever adventures we go upon, but at the end of
the day, Jesus says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity,
I never knew you. And how horrible that would be
to be that. Well, there are those who are
in this world who are meeting this morning, right now, at this
time, across the country, across the world, in their time zones,
wherever they meet. And they're found right here.
They draw nigh unto me with their mouth. They honor me with their
lips. But really, that's all there
is. It's just lip service. their
hearts have not been changed to really love the worship of
God. And so I asked this morning,
you know, me as well as everybody here, are you here because I
say I'm a Christian and I know that Christians are supposed
to go to church? Are you here because, well, I've been doing
this my whole entire life and it's just become my habit of
every Sunday I go to meet with the people of God. Are you here
because, well, there ain't nothing on
TV till about 1230. So, you know, I might as well go get some free
donuts. And are you here because of something
else? Are you dry, drawing nigh to
God by you sing the songs, you read the words, you say hello
and shake the hands, but is your heart there? Is your heart here? Is this where
God has gathered you because your heart longs for the fellowship
of God's people and the lifting of praise to one that you esteem
more than any other? See, that's what worship is all
about. Worship is us lifting our heart towards God, not lifting
just our mouth towards God. Many people will say, Lord, Lord,
we can lift our mouth to the Lord all day long. Matter of
fact, Jesus gives the illustration, he says, and he called the multitude
and said unto them, hear and understand, Not that which goeth
into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of
the man, this defileth a man." And right here, these men just
spoke the very truth. They were worried about the traditions
of man and not the commandments of God. See, their mouth spoke
adherence to legalism and to law, but it was of their own. of their thoughts, what they
think, not God himself. They were more worried about
transgressing what man had put up and not what God had said,
what God had done, what God required. But in vain do they worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Brethren, there is a
counterfeit worship that's out there. There's a counterfeit
worship where people are gathering in the name of Jesus. They're
opening Bibles, and they may even be King James Bibles. They
are opening hymn books and singing songs. They are giving money
to help with the ministry of the gospel. They are given time. They may cook a meal in the kitchen
to provide for everybody to eat. They may wash the windows, mop
the floors. They may go out and visit when
someone's sick. They may do all these things
and they have a lip service, but yet their heart is far from
Him. their heart is in other things.
Their heart may even be in the fact that they like to do all
those things because it makes them feel good about themselves
and makes them look good to other people to whom they're serving. If worship doesn't stem from
a heart that has been motivated by who God is and God alone,
then our worship, brethren, is idolatry. That worship is idolatry. Jesus says, look down in verse
12, it said, then came his disciples and said unto him, knowest thou
that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying?
I mean, the disciples said, hey, What you just said, did you realize
that you offended the Pharisees? You think Jesus was worried about
that? And you know, to be honest, and
I don't mean to say this in a, you know, cavalier way or a rude
way, but I'm kind of the same way. I don't care. I don't care
if the truth, now I don't want to be offensive by how I portray
God or how I speak or how I engage in a conversation. I don't want
to be offensive that way, but if the truth that I speak is
offensive, if I'm speaking the truth of God and it's offensive
and someone gets offended at that, that does not bother me. That's good. It's good for two
things. It's either going to be a saver of life or a saver
of death. If it's a saver of life, that
person might get offended but go away and that's stirring and
be like salt in the wound until they had adhered to the truth
and say, hey, that's right. You know, there's been times
that brothers have shared truth with me and at the forefront,
I've got offended at that. But whenever I went home, got
my Bible out, started pondering, meditating on those things, thinking
about that, searching things out, I thought, you know what? That was right. You know, I've
told you the story about me and brother JC and how, uh, you know,
he met me out at that bookstore that one time we'd only known
each other very briefly, didn't know each other. And you know,
he said something whenever he said that right in front of that
other guy, you know, that kind of, I went home and stewed on
that a little bit. But you know what? It was like
salt in the wound. What he said drove me to study.
And I had to call him back and say, you know, you're right about
that. See, if it offends them, it's
gonna either offend them because they're the children of grace
who don't know the truth and the Holy Spirit will take that
and teach them the truth by that. Because all of God's truth is
by nature irritating to the flesh okay the spiritual things of
god and the fleshly natures of man they they got friction there's
friction there Paul told us that the spirit always lusts against
the flesh and the flesh against the spirit. These things are
always going to war at each other. God has desired for that to take
place in the child of grace. Like Larry said a while ago,
there are going to be valleys, there are going to be ups, there
are going to be downs, there are going to be times of hardships and trials that
God has intended that for the life of the believer. Why? It
keeps our eyes on Him. It always reminds us of our inadequacy,
always keeps us looking at His sufficiency. We worship God and
we say, therefore, there is now no condemnation. And so whenever
Jesus said these words, it offended. But you didn't see Jesus running
after him saying, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Come back, come back, let me explain. Now he didn't change his message
either. I mean, Jesus knew that this was going to offend them,
but he didn't change his message. A lot of people say, you know,
yeah, kind of soften that message a little bit so that don't offend
people. I mean, you gotta, you know,
I don't know how many people have come and visited here and
I, At least mentally, I try not to. I'm a human and that tendency
may arise to want to, I better watch my words here because they
don't understand and might not understand and run them off before
we even have a chance to talk to them much. But I try to just
preach what I preach and let the Lord do the work. It's not my job to put the seed
in. It's not my job to water. It's
not my job to reap the harvest. The Lord of the harvest is the
one who does all that. The husbandry is the one who
does all that. Okay? So, I'm just, whatever part it
is that he has me doing, whether it's the seed or whether it's
the water, whether it's the, it's all of him. The people draw nigh
with their mouth They honor me with their lip, but their heart
is far from me." And so Jesus said, you know, I know this offended
them, but he answered and said, every plant which my heavenly
father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone,
they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead
the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Then answered Peter
and said unto him, declare us, unto us this parable. And Jesus
said, are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye understand
that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly
and is cast out into the drop? But those things which proceed
out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the
man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. These are the things which defile
a man. But to eat with unwashing hands defileth not a man.' Then
Jesus went then and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon."
Now, what comes out of the heart? That's what Jesus said, what
comes out of the heart. Now, there's a lot of people
today, they're gathered around in places all over the world,
and they're saying, we're coming and it's coming out of my mouth,
so it must be coming out of my heart.
Well, that's not true either. See, Jesus didn't mean just that
whatever the words is that you say, because remember, With your
mouth you make confession. With your mouth, here he says,
you draw near to me, but your heart is far from me. So it isn't
just the fact that there are religious things coming out of
my mouth proving that my heart is there. No, my heart is gonna
tell what my mouth is to say. Now if you follow and watch close
enough, On Sunday, Jesus, Jesus, cross, Christ, worship, spirit,
all that. But then we leave and then it's
this, this, this, this, this. So only on Sunday is the mouth
speaking the things of God. The Bible says that a broken
and contrite heart is what God desires. That's the worship that
God desires. Not a proud, boastful spirit. You know, I listen to a lot of
these worship music things here and there. When you listen to
the radio, you can't help but hear them. And most of the time, you can't
tell whether this is a song being sung to God or a song being sung
to some man's wife. It could easily interchange.
And it's speaking in such terms that sometimes may be a little
uneasy, bringing God down to such a level as that. There's sometimes you listen
to these songs and it's all about me, me, me, me. And they're called worship songs.
So are you worshiping you, you, you, you? Now, I'm not against worship
songs that have to do with experiential things. I think those are very
edifying. As long as those experiential
things are bringing forth the fact that God is at the root
of all that. but whenever it's all about me
and how I have been blessed and how I have done this and done
that and done this and done that and done this, and I will be,
you know, I will be your hands, I will be your feet, I will be
this, I will be that, I'm going to go to this and I'm going to
hold on and I'm going to be strong and I'm going to, whatever they
are, you know, Brethren, you're really nothing
without the Lord there. People talk about, and I see
especially within the Christian t-shirts and hats and boots and
all this kind of stuff, that God has deemed us Christian,
and so now we pick up this sword and we go out like, the Catholics
on crusade. We're knights in armor. We go
out and we're fighting the good fight, and we're battling the
battle for the Lord, and we're winning people to Jesus, and
we're vanquishing the foe, and we're doing all these things.
How does the Bible say that we've overcome the world? By picking
up swords, by being valiant in battle, by casting out the devil, No, it says you've overcome the
world by faith, right? By trusting what Christ has done. By faith, we have overcome the
world. By faith, we have become victorious. We sing the
song, faith is the victory. Oh, Lord's victory that overcomes
the world. It isn't picking up battle swords and going out and
attacking the enemy. All these people on TV that are
out there trying to attack the devil and
cast the devil out and rebuking the devil for this and rebuking
the devil for this and telling him to get out of here and do
the, you know, they really don't know that they're just fueling
the fire. But they themselves are probably
controlled by the devil. The very things they say, the
very things they do, the very worship that they adhere to is
all from the father of lies, who
is a counterfeit. See, there's a counterfeit worship,
brethren. There's a counterfeit way of worshiping God, and we
should be very mindful of that. Jesus said, you know, you can
say it with your lips, But if you don't have that heart of
worship, if it's all about things, and that brings forth lip service,
but yet that's not the desire of your heart, and I can't tell
that, I don't know that. Whenever we're here today, you
know, and same with you, with me, I mean, all you can see is
lip service, right? It's hard to see the heart. Now,
over the course of years, you can kind of see that because
you see how we act, we react, you can see what we're involved
in doing, things like that. But, brethren, don't let that
be your source of assurance or your source of, aha, he's a Christian,
because a lot of times the flesh can mimic. My grandpa used to
say, the flesh will do anything to get its way, even being religious. It'll live a life. The flesh
will live a life of religious servitude just to get its way. But one thing the flesh cannot
do, it cannot restore the soul. It cannot control the heart.
See, the flesh can't control that for the child of grace.
The heart is in the Lord's hands. He turns it whether so he wills. He has taken the heart of stone
out and put in a heart of flesh and causes us to walk in his
statue. Who controls the heart of the
child of grace? It's the king. And so whenever
the child of grace has a new heart, that new heart will abound
in worship, genuine worship for his king. But for those with a stony heart,
there may be a lip service, but there's not a heart service there. If you'll remember in the Old
Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was included in a lot of the
worship of God. I mean, pomp and circumstance
with the Ark of the Covenant. I mean, God give exact details
on how to make that Ark. God give exact details how to
carry the Ark, the kind of wood to go through the ringlets. It
had to be a certain kind of wood. The ones who carried that Ark
had to be certain men of a certain age to carry that Ark. No one was to touch the Ark. There was only certain days and
certain men who could go in and offer sacrifices on that ark. And God was very strict about
that. You remember Uzzah? Uzzah had good intent, didn't
he? If it wasn't for David ordering
the ark to be brought back the wrong way, remember God said,
carry it this way. And David, instead of inquiring
what the word of God said about how to carry that ark, throw
that booger in the back of the wagon and let's get going, let's
get her back to Jerusalem. And as that thing was going,
it was about to fall over and Uzzah put his hand to the ark
to steady the ark. Good intentions. A lot of people
out here, good intentions this morning. But when Uzzah put his
hand to the ark, God killed him. because he said, nobody's gonna
do it that way. This is something that I've placed
as a sign and a symbol, and it's not gonna be done another way.
And today God is telling us, there is a way to worship me,
and I'm not gonna be worshiped another way. Now, is he killing
people off like Uzzah? Well, no. He might be, I don't
know, I don't know all the places, but he might be, but I don't
know. But obviously he's not because
I know because I've come here before and my heart has not been
in worship. And he's been, his goodness and
mercy has followed me all those days of my life as well. But
he had a particular way of doing that. Because it all pictured Christ.
and extol Christ. And so our worship is here for
us to picture Christ and to extol Christ as well. So we should
be mindful of those things. All right, anybody got any questions
or anything that you'd like to add to that? We have a few more. I want us to look, I'm gonna
look at the gospel, but there's also some other counterfeits
that the scripture tells us about as far as counterfeit miracles
and, counterfeit knowledge, those things like that. So we'll
look at those Lord willing in the days ahead of us. So if nobody
has anything else to add, then let's have a word of prayer.
Our gracious Heavenly Father, again, we thank you. We thank
you for Christ. We thank you for his word. We thank you, Father, for the
gathering of the brethren here today. We're thankful for the
safety that you've given to all of us in our travels over the
last few days. We're grateful for Louise and
for Brother Ed both being able to be here with us today. And
we pray that there'll be safe travels and them going back home.
Lord, we're just so grateful that you have blessed us with
a fellowship here together, together around your word. Thank you for
Brother Larry and the message that you gave for him this morning,
Lord, and the words that he shared and the encouragement and the
just a picture of love and grace and shepherding that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the care that He gives to His people.
And Father, we are so unworthy of that, and we know that we
are unworthy of that, but we're so grateful and thankful for
the grace that's been given to us to be recipients of the love
of God and to not be as Esau and hated and despised and reprobated. And so Father, we don't rise
up in proud boasting because of what grace has been given
to us, but we do extol from our hearts and lift the rooftops
off of this building saying thank you for the marvelous, wonderful
grace of Jesus. And Father, Lord, I just pray
that all that's been said here today in the singing, the preaching,
and the fellowship together, the time around the table together,
and even this evening, Lord, as we gather together again down
at Brother Larry's and his family's place, Lord, I pray that it's
all pleasing to you. I pray that the worship is from
the heart. I pray, Lord, that we are edified, that your people
are built up in the holy faith. That Lord that you just might
supply as each gift that has been given works its gift. And so Father, I just thank you.
I thank you for these things that are unseen, that we cannot
picture, that we cannot control, but by your spirit, you work
among us. And Father, sometimes it's just
amazing. knowing that even when we come
in and our hearts are not set right, our minds are scattered
in a thousand ways, how by your spirit you can bring us together,
that you can set us aright in our spirit, and that we can worship
from the heart truly, and give you praise and glory and honor.
And Lord, we do it all, not because we want to be a show, not because
of duty, not because of some legal requirement, but Father,
we do it because we love you and we honor you and want to
give you the praise that you're worthy of and that you are due. And so, Father, I just thank
you again that you've given these vessels of clay something within
to rise above the matters of men and the things of the flesh,
that rise above the things of this world and look to heavenly
things, to look away from this place as not our home, but look
towards the things that are laid aside in heaven for us, waiting.
And so, Father, we pray, come quickly to receive us unto yourself
and remove us, Lord, from this place of cursing, this body of
flesh. And, Lord, that we might be together
with you forever, that we might know you, Father, like we've
never known before, and that we might be able to praise and
worship you, unfettered by our sin, unfettered by this flesh,
and that we might be able to be with you forever. And it's
in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.