For our call to worship this
morning, turn with me, if you will, to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. We'll read the entire psalm, starting in verse one. The heavens
declare the glory of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork. Day into day uttereth speech,
and night into night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
or language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone
out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is which is
as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices as a
strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end
of the heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there
is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord
is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure. making wise the simple. The statutes
of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart, the commandment
of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord
is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than
gold, yea, than much fine gold. sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant
warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can
understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from
presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over
me, Then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from
the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my redeemer. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. O Lord, our God, we come to thee
this morning praising thee for who you are. Father, you are
the creator of all creation. You are the only God. Your creation
and all that you do is perfect. Your word and existence and deeds have gone out to all
the world. Your law and statutes and judgments
are perfect and right. The fear of you is pure. Give us that pure fear of the
Lord. Father, this morning we come
to Thee to worship Thee and praise Thee and meditate this day on
Thee. This day, O Lord, we pray that
our worship and our praise is acceptable unto thee. Else, O Lord, our attendance
here is all in vain. Father, we pray that you would
be with our brother Greg this morning. Father, that your spirit
would be upon him, that you would give him liberty in preaching
your word. that we may see Christ, that
we may see our Lord, and that we may hear from you. Give us,
O Lord, ears to hear. Father, show us Christ. Give
us eyes to see and ears to hear, O Lord. And Father, we pray the
same for all of your men as they step in their pulpits today as
they preach Christ. We ask these things in Christ's
precious name. Amen. The song on the back of your
bulletin. Let's stand together. The gospel trumpet sounds Christ
and free grace there in abound Free grace to such as sinners
be And if free grace, why not for me A Savior died and by His blood
brought rebel sinners home to God. He died to set the captives
free. Then why, my soul, why not for
me? Christ Jesus came the poor to
bless, to clothe them with His righteousness. The robe is spotless,
whole, and free. Then why, my soul, why not Eternal life by Christ is given,
and ruined sinners raised to heaven. Then sing of grace so
rich and free, and say, my soul, why not for thee? Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to 2 Samuel chapter 6. 2 Samuel chapter 6. Let's say happy Mother's Day to our
mothers. What a blessing they are to us. And the best moms I know are
sitting right here. I'm thankful for you all. all the powerful, influential
people that there are in the world, and yet no one has been
more influential, humanly speaking, than moms. It's a blessing. I've titled this message, When
the Old becomes new when the old becomes new. The story is found in 2 Samuel
chapter 6 where David takes the Ark of
the Covenant and puts it on a cart contrary to what the Lord had
clearly instructed. A man by the name of Uzzah The
oxen stumble, the road obviously is rough, the cart teeters and
the ark is about to fall off the cart and Uzzah walking along
besides raises his hand to settle the ark so it doesn't fall to
the ground. And God kills Uzzah right there
on the spot for having put his hand to the ark of God. And David fears God as a result
of that and Later, he transports the ark as it was supposed to
be moved, born on the shoulders of the priest and making blood
sacrifices all along the way. What I see in this passage of
scripture is a picture of worship. And I want to introduce this
message by asking you a question that I've asked myself. Is there
anything more important to you than worshiping God? Anything. Not talking about going to church,
although public worship is a culmination and a great time of participation when we are able
to gather and join our hearts in public worship, what a blessing
public worship is. I'm talking about a worship that
is done in the heart toward God, glorifying Him. You see, if Worshiping
God is not the most important thing in our lives. Then two
things are true. Number one, we have missed our
purpose in life. We have missed our purpose in
life if worshiping God is not the most important thing to us.
God created us to worship him. Secondly, if worshiping God is
not the most important thing to us, we're not fit for heaven. That's what heaven's going to
be. Unrestrained, glorious worship. I hear sometimes people talk
about someone in heaven looking down Generally, when you hear
that sort of comment, you know the person they're talking about
isn't in heaven, but if they were in heaven, why would they
want to look down? Why would they want to? They're
worshiping the Lord. I mean, they are completely without
sin in a perfect Place of glory and worship. Why would they want to be distracted
by peering down into this place? In God's order of things, everything
has a purpose. The Lord one time cursed a fig
tree because it bore no fruit. And that fig tree immediately
died. And then the Lord tells us in
John chapter 15, that he is the vine and his father is the husbandman
and that we are the branches. And that the only way that the
branch can bear fruit is to abide in the vine. And the fruit that
he's speaking of is worship. And those that do abide in the
vine, my father prunes that they might produce more fruit. So as the Lord performs his acts
of discipline and correction and growth in our lives. He's
doing it for the purpose that we might worship him more fully
and more truly as we ought. Turn with me to Psalm 2, Psalm
2. My brethren and my friends, you were made
to worship God. That is our purpose in life,
in this life. And our experience for all of
eternity will be worship. Listen to Revelation chapter
five, And they sung a new song, saying, thou art worthy to open
the book and the seals thereof, for thou
wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of
every kindred, tongue, people, and tribe. Now that's the church
in heaven gathered together, praising God and worshiping the
Lamb that redeemed them. In Psalm 2, we begin reading
in verse 6. Here's the father speaking of
his son. He says, I have set my king upon
my holy hill. I will declare the decree the
Lord hath sent unto me, thou art my son, this day I have begotten
thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possessions. Thou shalt break them with a
rod of iron and thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel. What a blessing it is when God sends the rod of his
spirit to break us of all our self-righteousness, to bring us to the feet of Christ
in worship. That's what he does. And if he
doesn't, we'll not worship him. Thou shalt dash them in pieces
like the potter's vessel. Verse 10, be wise now therefore,
O ye kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth, serve the
Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun. That's what worship is. It's kissing the sun. Worship is what a faithful dog
does when his master comes home. It's spent, its entire day in
anticipation of the return of its master. And when the master
comes in, it's in exaltation and joy in kissing the hand of
its master. And here we are. We come before the Lord with
singing and in worship. This worship must be done according
to God's prescribed methods of worship. Turn with me to Jeremiah
chapter six. Jeremiah chapter six. Look with me at verse 16. Thus
saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the
old paths where is the good way and walk therein and you shall
find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk
therein. We don't want the old ways. We
want the new ways. Our Lord said, no man having
drunk the old wine, desireth the new, for he saith the old
is better. The Lord's telling us if we're
to worship him, we must worship him according to the old paths,
the paths that he prescribed from the very beginning, that
we can't devise our own methods and means of worship. And that's
what our story and our text is about. We sing and perhaps we
can conclude the service this morning with tell me the old,
old story. Just tell me the old, old story
of Jesus and his love. Don't add anything to it, preacher.
Don't try to flower it up. For I know that if it's new,
it's not true. And if it's true, it's not new. But the natural man's not interested
in the old paths. The natural man says what these
Israelites said in Jeremiah, we will not walk that way. We
want something new. We want something exciting. How do we know if we've worshiped
God? Well, We cease from trying to establish our own righteousness
for the hope of our salvation. We look in faith to the Lord
Jesus Christ for all of our righteousness before God. We cease from glorying
in something that we've done either as the cause or the evidence
of our salvation and we glory in the finished work and the
glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We bow before him and
we give to him all the glory and all the praise. This is what
worship is. Man left to himself will not
do that. Man left to himself will not
walk in the old paths. Man left to himself will try
to find something new and something fresh. We find no rest, no comfort,
no peace, and no assurance outside of the precious shed blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he himself placed on the mercy seat
in heaven. And God said, Here I will meet
with you. David thought he could devise
a new means of worship. Go back with me to our text in
2 Samuel. Now we know that the Ark of the
Covenant, not Noah's Ark, but the Ark of the Covenant small
box. It was given very specific instructions
on how to build it, how to transport it, and where to keep it to Moses. And it was kept in the holies
of holies. It was kept in the most inner
sanctum of the tabernacle. And the high priest only once
a year went in to the holies of holies with a blood sacrifice.
And it was on the day of atonement that he put that blood on the
mercy seat of that Ark of the Covenant. And it was all symbolic. It was
all symbolic of what the Lord Jesus would do according to Hebrews
chapter nine, when he made himself an offering for sin to his heavenly
father. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
nine before we look at our text. Look with me at verse 11. of
Hebrews chapter 9, but Christ. Now he's comparing what the Lord
Jesus accomplished to the Old Testament types and pictures
concerning him. but Christ being come a high
priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this building,
neither by the blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood,
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. So this Old Testament picture
was a type of what the Lord Jesus would do in fulfilling the requirements
of that law and actually obtaining eternal redemption for his people. For if the blood of bulls and
goats and the ashes of heifers sprinkled the unclean sanctified
to the purifying of the flesh, how much more? If these Old Testament
types were sufficient through faith, to put away our
sins, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot, not to us, that's
what we hear in the world, the Lord Jesus Christ is making you
an offer of salvation, won't you accept his offer? No, when
the Lord Jesus went to the cross, he was offering himself without
spot to God. God was doing business with God.
And the Lord Jesus was accomplishing the salvation of his people and
satisfying the demands of God's holy law. And so he made himself
without spot to God. And by his death, our conscience
are purged from our dead works. What are
dead works? A dead work is any work that
you and I perform with the hopes of it giving us favor with God. That's a dead work. Any work
that we do that think that, and we do it with the thought that
it's going to make us acceptable to God, God says that's a dead
work. And only when God gives us faith to look to the Lord
Jesus, who went into that tabernacle, not the one on the earth made
with hands, but went into the tabernacle in heaven and put
his blood on that mercy seat, was God satisfied. And only through
faith and looking to him is our conscience set free from dead
works. Because before that, what are
we doing? What are we doing? We're trying
to work our way to heaven. That's what we're doing. But
our conscience is never satisfied. And so we run to and fro and
we think, well, if I just do a little more, if I try a little
harder, if I start doing this and stop doing that, somehow
I can perform enough good works to satisfy the demands of God's
holy law. And God says, no. That's what
I came to do. That's what I came to do. So
this Old Testament, go back with me now to our text. This ark is clearly, from what we just
read and all that the Lord's given us in his word, a glorious
picture, perhaps in all the types and pictures of Christ in the
Old Testament, the clearest picture of the Lord Jesus, who is in
the holies of holies, in the very presence of God. He is the
high priest. He did on the day of atonement,
atone for the sins of his people by putting his precious blood,
we are bought not with the blood of bulls and goats. We are redeemed
not with corruptible things such as silver and gold." Isn't it
interesting how the Lord, you know, we find gold that's been
in the bottom of the sea for centuries and clean it up and
it's not decayed. Why? Because it's precious metal.
We call it incorruptible. God says we are not redeemed
with corruptible things such as silver and gold. God says
silver and gold is corruptible, but with the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The only thing that's not corruptible
in the sight of God is the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He put his blood on that mercy seat. It's the old path. The old path
that goes all the way back before time ever was to the covenant
of grace. When the Lord Jesus Christ entered
that covenant promise with his father as the lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. That's the old path. That's how
we worship God. We worship God by the old path. Abel knew what that path was.
God had taught Adam in the garden, the old path is the shedding
of the lamb's blood. And Adam had to be clothed with
skins of animals. He had to be clothed with the
lamb. He had to have a righteousness
outside of himself to cover his nakedness before God. All of
the attempts to sew fig leaves together were futile. And all that time, from the Passover
to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1500 years, day after
day and year after year, the lambs were shed and then the
Lord Jesus comes. He's the fulfillment of that
ark. The ark not only had a golden mercy seat where the blood was
to be applied, but the ark also was covered in gold. a picture
of the pure gold, a picture of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ,
his perfect righteousness, his attributes of deity, the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. And then the Ark was made of
Shittim wood, a wood that resists decay. a wood that resisted rot and the decay of bugs. And it
is a picture of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then inside the ark, what do we have in the ark? We have the
ofar of manna, the little bays of manna that had been collected
in the wilderness, put in the ark. The Lord Jesus Christ as
the bread of life, the prophet of God who brought himself as
the Word of God into this world. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. I am that manna which came down
from heaven. What else was in the ark? Aaron's rod that had
budded. Who was Aaron? Aaron was the
high priest, the first high priest. Aaron was the intercessor, the
one who offered to the father the gifts that God required. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
our great high priest, who as we've already seen has gone into
the heavens and interceded on our behalf. What else was in
the ark? The tablets of stone. The 10
commandments, they were in the Ark. And what do they represent? They represent the Lord Jesus
as the manna did, as Him as the prophet, as the rod of Aaron
did, as Him as the priest, and now the commandments of God as
the King, the one who establishes the law and the only one who
can fulfill the law. Everything about that Ark pictured
Christ. Everything about it. and it was
to be carried, there was rings on the side of the ark and there
were staves that went through those rings and the priests were
to bear that ark whenever it was moved on their shoulders.
And the government shall, those priests were Christ, the government
shall be upon his shoulders. And he bore on his shoulders
the sins of his people when he went to the cross. Oh, what? The ark was never to be touched. All of that to say that in our
story, David gets the idea that we're gonna transport the Ark
on a new cart, a new cart. You have your Bibles open to
2 Samuel 6, verse one, and David gathered together all the chosen
men of Israel, 30,000, and David rose and went with all the people
that were with him from Balai of Judah to bring up from thence
the ark of God, whose name is called the name of the Lord of
hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. And they set the ark
of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab
that was in Gibeah and Uzzah. And Ahilo, the sons of Abinadab,
drave the new cart and they brought it out of the house of Abinadab,
which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God. And Ahio went
before the ark and David and all the house of Israel played
before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood
and from the harp and from psaltery. and timbrel and on the cornet
and on cymbals. And when they came to Nathan's
threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark and took
hold of it for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Uzzah and God smote him there for his error. And there he died by the ark
of God. And David was displeased because
the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah and he called the name
of the place Perez-Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of
the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come
to me? So David would not remove the
ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David, but David
carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite, and
the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom, the
Gittite, three months. And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom
and all his household. And it was told the king, David,
saying, the Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all
that pertaineth unto him because of the ark of God. So David went
and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into
the city of David with gladness. And it was so that when they
bear the Ark of the Lord, and this time they carried it properly, and they had gone six paces,
the number of a man, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings
every six steps along the way. However far this was from Obed-Edom's
house all the way to Jerusalem, The ark was going to be carried
and every six steps they stopped and they shed blood and they
worshiped God in the old path. Where did David get the idea
of putting the ark on a cart? Well, the Bible doesn't say specifically
but I think we can surmise that he got it from the Philistines
in 1st Samuel chapter six there was a battle between Israel and
the Philistines and Israel lost that battle and the Philistines
took the ark and they put it in the in the temple of Dagon
and God cursed the Philistines as a result of them possessing
the ark And they tried moving it around, and every place they
took it, more curses came from God toward the Philistines. Then
the Philistines finally said, we got to get rid of this thing.
And they put it on a cart laden with golden gifts. And they attached
to that cart a cow. And they took the calf of that
cow and pinned it up in the camp of the Philistines. And they
said, if the cow takes that cart back to Israel, then we'll know
that we're not supposed to have this thing, that the God of Israel
is supposed to have it. And the scripture says that that
cow went a-lowing all the way back to Israel, carrying the
Ark of the Covenant on a cart that was laden with golden gifts.
That cow, against its own will, hearing the the cries of its
calf in the pen, but not able to go back and care for its calf,
under the hand of God, took that cart, took that ark all the way
back to Israel, lowing all the way. And the Israelites saw that. And they thought, David must
have thought, I can imagine what this Philistine cart looked like.
You know, you've seen these demonstrations that the Hindus do over in India
with all the flowers and flags and golden things and, you know,
all the gaudy displays in an attempt to honor God. That cart must have been something.
Maybe it looked like that chariot that that they carry the royals
around in England on special occasions. You know, that thing's
pretty over the top. I can imagine what this cart
looked like. And David would have thought,
let's do that. That's appealing to the flesh. Brethren, if you and I are to
worship God in spirit, and in truth. And in John chapter four,
the Lord told that woman at the well, he said, you Jews say that
we should worship in Jerusalem, but my father said that we should
worship here on Mount Gerizim, which is it? And the Lord said,
it's not the place that you worship, it's the manner in which you
worship. You worship God in spirit and in truth. For such the father
seeketh after. Now don't misunderstand, well
if I can figure out a way to worship God in the power of his
spirit and according to the truth of his word, then God will seek
me. No, no the meaning of what the
Lord said there in John chapter 4 is that if we are to worship
God in the power of his spirit and according to the truth of
the old path, the blood of Christ, that the Lord's gonna have to
seek us and enable us to worship Him in that way. Worship is a
work of grace that God does in the heart through the preaching
of the gospel, by the power of His Spirit, in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I renew my first
question, is there anything more important to us than worshiping
God? If there is, we've missed our
purpose in life and we're not fit for heaven. If there's anything,
anything more important than that. As we saw in the previous hour,
what God commands and what God requires, God must provide. Lord,
I wanna worship you. I wanna know you. I want to experience by your
grace what it is to worship you in spirit and in truth. I don't
want to do what David did. I don't want to do what we see
in religion today. Is this not an apt picture of
religious worship today? with all the bells and whistles
and whether it be the high worship of formal religion with their
robes and stained glass windows and smoking mirrors and chants
and all these other things, or whether it be the low form of
entertainment that we see in so many churches today, just
an appeal to the flesh, it's a new cart. It's a new cart,
it's a way to, they that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh. You know, we want to attract
people to church, we want to fill the church up. Did you know that the modern
day megachurch movement started just outside of Chicago
in 1974? There's mega churches all over
America now. I mean, you come and you get
entertained and you get all your needs met in one place. And that
started in 1974. A man by the name of Bill Heibels
was a youth director at a church there outside of Chicago. He
took his youth group and he went door to door throughout the community.
And he said to the people that didn't go to church, essentially,
we're thinking about starting a new church. What would we have
to offer you to entice you to come? And after 10,000 answers to that question, they
put together the 10 things that people are looking for in a church
and they built Willow Creek Community Church, the first big mega church
in America, designed after those 10 felt needs that men wanted
to get them to come to church. And the mega church movement
got started. That church grew to 24,000. And other churches
followed suit. What were they doing? They're
trying to package the gospel on a new cart They're trying
to appeal to the flesh, trying to give men what they want in
order to get them to come. And that's all religion. That's
what David was doing. He was patterning not what God
had commanded to be done in worship after what the Lord had clearly
prescribed, but he was pattering it after this display that he
saw the Philistines do when they sent the ark back on a cart. Oh, may God spare us from attempting
to approach God on any other means than the old path. May God cause us to say, Lord,
that's the path I wanna be on that path. Lord, how is it that
you would have me to worship you? One simple answer, the blood,
the blood. You see, all these other displays
of man-made religion will cause us to end up just like Uzzah.
because essentially what these man-made religions are is man
putting his hand to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's man sewing together fig leaves. It's man saying, what
can I do in order to make what he did work for me? What contribution
can I make in order to be able to worship God? None. Bow. Believe. Look. Rest. Glory in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He did it all. He did it all. And we put our hand to that ark. We defile the ark. And the ark kills us, it kills
us. David feared God after the death
of Uzzah and David said, we've got to go back to the old paths.
I want the blessing that Obed-Edom has. I want the pouring out of
God's Spirit on my house and on the house of Israel like he's
poured out his Spirit on this man that the ark was taken to
his home. David heard about the blessings
that God had given to that house that had the ark. David said,
let's worship God in the Spirit. Let's worship God according to
the truth of what he's revealed from the very beginning. And
let's not try to dress it up. And let's not try to add our
works to it. Let's glory in Christ. Let him that glorieth glory in
the Lord. That's what worship is. That's
what worship is. It's kissing the sun. It's glorying
in Christ, it's giving to him all the praise and all the glory
and all the honor for having done all the work and done it
all by himself. Our Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for revealing to us
in your word the worship that honors you and the worship that
you're pleased to bless. Lord, enable us to worship you
to that end. Enable us to give us your spirit,
reveal to us the glory of Christ and give us the faith and the
grace to bow to him. That we might not only experience
our true purpose in this world, but that we also might be made
fit for heaven. For it's in Christ's name we
ask it, amen. 229, let's stand together, 229. The old, old story of unseen
things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. Tell me the story simply As to
a little child For I am weak and weary And helpless and defiled
Tell me the old, old story Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and his love. Tell me the story slowly, that
I may take it in. That wonderful redemption, God's
remedy for sin. Tell me the story often, for
I forget so soon. The early dew of morning has
passed away at noon. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and his love. Tell me the story softly With
earnest tones and praise Remember I'm the sinner Whom Jesus came
to save Tell me the story always If you would truly be ? In any
time of trouble ? A comforter to be ? Tell me the old, old
story ? Tell me the old, old story ? Tell me the old, old
story ? Of Jesus and His blood Tell me the same old story When
you have cause to fear That this world's empty glory Is costingly
too dear Yes, and when that world's glory Is dawning on my soul ?
Tell me the old, old story ? Christ Jesus makes the whole ? Tell
me the old, old story ? Tell me the old, old story ? Tell
me the old, old story ? Of Jesus and his blood