There's once again an article
written by Pastor Gene Harmon. Pastor Harmon writes, every believer's
standing is in Christ, our blessed Redeemer, the perfect, exalted
Son of God. If our heavenly representative
is perfect, and He most certainly is, every believer is perfect
in Him. That's our standing, not our
state. As long as we are in this sinful
body of clay, that old sinful man continually plagues us with
sinful thoughts and sinful deeds. But Christ our Savior bore our
sins in His body on that tree when He laid down His life for
His elect. That's when the sins of His chosen
people were removed from God's sight forever. God our Father
sees us in Christ Jesus and sees us perfectly and wholly in Him
alone. Oh, my precious brothers and
sisters in Christ, hate sin as much as you hate the devil, but
don't let our weaknesses in the flesh cause us to fear death
or coming judgment. Our Heavenly Father loves His
blood-bought children with the same perfect love that He has
for His Son, Christ Jesus the Lord, His darling Son. And perfect
love casteth out fear is what we read in 1 John 4.18. And in
Romans 8.1 we read this, There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. Bow with me once again if you
would please. Father we do thank you and praise you for this knowledge,
this faith, this gift of faith that when we see your word we
believe it. Not a single one of your people
who have been opened by the Holy Spirit under the preaching of
your word have forgotten that pit of unbelief, the worst sin of all, the unbelief
that we had in Your Word. Remembering that unbelief, Father,
we see Your grace in calling us out of the darkness and shining
Your light of Your Son in our hearts. And we praise You and
thank You for it. Lord, help us. Help me, Lord,
Bring this message to your children. Bring this message to your people
today. I'm just a man as any other man is, saved by grace,
but just a man. A man in sinful flesh who looks
to my Lord and Savior for all things. And I ask, Lord, if today
be the day of your love and your power that you might call one
of your own out of darkness, one who has never heard this
gospel maybe, One who has never heard the truth of who You are,
the truth of what You have done, or the truth of what You are
doing right this moment. Lord, we just praise You and
thank You. And ask that You would be with us for Your Son's sake.
In His name we pray. Amen. We come to church, not to be saved, our salvation
is in the Lord. We don't get saved by doing anything. Many of the churches in the world try to convince people if you
make a decision for Jesus, He'll save you. If you'll just come
to the front of the aisle here and say a prayer with us, we'll
say a prayer and the Lord will save you. Or if you'll just get
into the baptismal and the Lord will save you. If you worship
on a Saturday, that's not what scripture teaches.
Scripture teaches us this, I have called you. I have sought you. You weren't
seeking Me. I'd like to turn once again to
Philippians chapter 3. And I want to bring another message
from verse 3. Last week we talked about verses
1 and 2 where Paul is warning the Philippian church, saints
and the Lord that he loves, Because their love for Christ, and they
were showing their love by loving Him back. We'll just leave it
at that. There's all kinds of ways to show your love for a
person. They were loving Him back. Being under house arrest. And in verses 1 and 2 he says,
Finally, brethren, rejoicing the Lord to write the same thing,
The same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for
you it is safe. To remind you of these very same
things is what he's saying. Then he goes on, beware of dogs,
beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Now, you don't need to turn there,
but allow me to read for you from John chapter 14. Our Lord, in using John, another
writer of one of the books in the Bible, inspired John to write
these words. Whosoever drinketh of the water
that I shall give him shall never thirst." Now, what's going on
here in John chapter 4 is there was a woman. There was a woman
that met our Lord at a well. She was a Samaritan. Samaritans were dogs to the Jews,
to Israel. They were the lowest of lowest.
They weren't even worthy to have somebody get their water for
them. Yet our Lord says in His Word, I must go through Samaria. Why? Because there was one of
His chosen children going to meet Him at a well. And after
the conversation, after they went through the conversation
of what happened at the well, and I'll save that for another
message, our Lord says under her. She was talking about where
they would worship. and that the fathers had worshipped
at the mountain. Jesus answered and said, Whosoever drinketh
of this water, speaking of the well, shall thirst again. But
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst. But the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of waters springing up into everlasting
life. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
And Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
And the woman answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus
said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for
thou hast had five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband, in that sayest thou truly. And the woman saith
unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. He was telling
her what she had not told him. He knew everything. You can't
hide anything from Jesus. You can't hide your thoughts
from God Almighty. He knows our thoughts before
we even ever thought of them. She says, Sir, I perceive that
thou art a prophet. Then she goes on, our Father
is worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship? And Jesus said unto
her, Woman, believeth me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither
in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. It doesn't matter where you go,
you're not going to worship the true Father. Ye worship ye know
not what? We know that we worship for salvation
is of the Jews, but the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshipers shall..." And this is our Lord's Word, folks.
"...the true worshipers shall worship the Father in the Spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth." I wanted
to read that through to you to see that not only do we see those
words in Philippians, but we also see them again in John. There's several other places
that I could take you to, but for the sake of time, we'll only
spend on those two. I want to make this very clear.
You notice there's no band back here. Those of you who have been coming
here for a long period of time know exactly why, but I'm going
to say this for the sake of our visitors and those of you who
have been here for a short time. We do not come here to party. This is not an all good time
thing going on here. We come for one reason and that
is to worship our Lord and Savior for what He has done for His
people. That's how we worship right there.
You agree with that? Amen. My subject and my title for today's
message is Worshiping God. And I'd like to make three points.
Who it is that we worship. Why it is we worship. And how
it is that we worship. You might say, this is a Christian
church. To answer that first question,
who it is that we worship, well this is a Christian church. We
worship Christ, right? I can tell you here this very
day, there are many, many churches in the world who do not worship
the true and living God. Most worship another Jesus. You can read about that in 2
Corinthians 11. If you don't remember it later
on, I'll be happy to write that number down for you and show
you. There is another Jesus out there. One who's being preached
and he's been being preached since the very day the Lord died
on the cross. It's not something new to this
day. Those who have snuck into the
church and tried to do... They came into the church of
that day when Paul was around and they said, okay, you know,
the grace of God is great and yeah, but you've got to get circumcised. If you don't get circumcised,
you're not saved. Now you tell me that you don't hear that very
same kind of stuff from other churches out there. Oh yeah,
you can praise the Lord, you can do all this, but if you don't
do this, you're not saved. God's people know that we can't
do any of that. I fail at it all day long. And if you're a child of God,
you know you do too. Most worship another Jesus. You
see, no one comes into this world and just starts looking for a
true Jesus. A true God of Heaven. The God
of the Bible. No, we do not. You see, the fall
of Adam plunged all of mankind into death and condemnation. We are by nature dead in trespasses
and sin. That's our nature. Romans 3.11 reads it this way,
There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. If you don't believe that, then
you don't believe any of God's Word. You either believe all
of it, or you believe none of it. Many read this book and they
think that they are worshipping the true God, but in reality
they are worshipping something else. Something imagined. Something that fits their desire.
Something that makes them feel good about themselves. Something
that tickles the ears. Oh, I worshipped myself. I didn't
go to church anywhere, but I went to the church of John. It was
all about what made John feel good. I highly recommend that you sit
down with our dear brother Mike Loveless someday and listen to
him tell about his conversion. He worshipped darkness. True darkness. A Jesus that never
existed. And he was all caught up in that
darkness, weren't you brother? And it wasn't until the day the
Lord brought him into a church where he heard a true preacher
of God stand before the people and talk about the One who does
save. Not tries to, not wants to, not
is out there trying to convince you to, but the One who does
save. Our Lord tells us that there
is just a remnant. You know what that is? in the
Old Testament words, a remnant, is that little teeny piece that
they would sew in underneath the garment. You'd have these
skirts on that would go down. And they wore pretty big skirts
back then, and men did too. In fact, men's were probably
more dressier than women's even. But they would wear these skirts,
they'd go all the way down here, and that little teeny piece that
goes around the bottom of that skirt, that's called the remnant. That's the religious world around
us, folks. That's God's Word, not mine. Only a remnant. Just so you know that it's not
my word alone, in Romans 11, 5, our Lord says this, Even so,
then, at this present time, also there is a remnant, according
to the election of grace. People don't come of their own
free will unto the true and living God, but they are made willing
in the day of His power. In Psalms 110 verse 3 it says,
Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power. You see,
it takes a new heart. The Pope, as I said in Bible
study earlier, the Pope, can anybody disagree with me that
he probably knows more about Scripture than anyone else you
know of in the world? But he does not know God. Anyone who stands before people
and puts themselves above what they are and says, you've got
to do this. You've got to do that. If you
don't do that, you're not saved. And they're not preaching what's
said in the Scriptures. Because God says to us in Scriptures,
you weren't seeking me. I sought you. I chose you. People don't know who it is that
rules the universe. Who it is that truly moves all
things by His providential hand. These things must be revealed,
and no man can do that. Turn over to Matthew chapter
16, if you would, please. You might hold your place there
in Philippians. We'll come back to that, I think.
I'm not real sure about that. Depends on time. Matthew chapter 16. Talking about the One who rules
the universe according to His providential will. We use the
word sovereign. Yes, a word that's not in Scripture,
but it's definitely described throughout the Bible. God created. That's sovereignty. That's the
Lord God Almighty who created everything according to His purpose,
according to His will. Look with you, if you would,
at Matthew 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, these very men
who had been walking with Him for some time, whom do men say
that I, the Son of Man, am? Who do you say Jesus is? Oh,
listen to what happens next. And they said, some say that
thou art John the Baptist. Some say Elijah's, and others
say Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. He's, you know, Jesus
is, he's one of the men. He's one of the guys. He's one
of the humans. They don't describe him as the
perfect human. You see, Jesus is not just blood
and bones, flesh and blood as we are. He's God Almighty in
the flesh. 100% God, 100% man. He had to
be 100% God to do what He did perfectly because no man from
the seed of Adam can do anything perfectly. And sin had to be
put away perfectly for us to be in the presence of God Almighty.
And no man can do that but Jesus Christ the Lord. He had to be
God in the flesh because it had to be done perfectly. And He
had to be man because only man can die. They said, some John the Baptist,
some Elijah's, others Jeremiah's, and one of the prophets. And
then in verse 15, our Lord says, And he saith unto them, But whom
say ye? What do you say he is? Who is
Jesus Christ to you? And Simon Peter answered and
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus
answered and said to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven." How did Simon, how did Peter know that this
one standing before him was God Almighty in the flesh? It wasn't
by anything a preacher did, by standing in front of him and
telling him no, it was by God Almighty taking His Word and
applying it to the heart of a dead, lost sinner. And that's exactly
what happens to each and every one of God's people. They come
under the preaching, the true preaching of Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, and He cuts away that stony heart. That stony
heart that said, I will not have this one to rule over me. And
that's what Israel did. He claimed himself to be Jesus
Christ, God Almighty in the flesh, and they said, you're not going
to rule over us, you're just flesh. And they crucified him
and killed him, and I would be right there with them if it wasn't
for the grace of God. I can speak to you till my face
turns blue. I have no idea where that saying
came from. And it won't do your souls a bit of good. Folks, if
the Spirit of God does not move in your heart, if it does not
move in the heart of one that is hearing, they are lost forever. And you and I would have been
lost forever if it wasn't for the grace of God working in our
hearts under the preaching of His Word, telling people who
He is. Our Lord says, you must be born
again. He said it to a religious Pharisee.
And then the Pharisee's like, what do you mean by that? The
Lord said, well, you know what I mean. Don't worry about that. It's just as hard for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle. Oh, how all things are possible
through God the Creator. You know, he made a donkey speak.
He made a man eat grass for seven years like an animal. And then
brought him back. He made the seas stand straight
up on each side. He brought a flood that wiped
out the whole earth. Have you ever been in an airplane
at 40,000 feet between Sacramento and Fort Worth, Dallas? You can
see the results of the flood going from the Rocky Mountains
all the way out through the Grand Canyon. If you've never seen
it, go get in an airplane and fly it just so you can. By the
way, look, it is the coolest thing. God's work right there. It's very cool. The Lord does not move in the
heart of one who is hearing, where he says, you must be born
again. As he said to the religious Pharisee,
he said this to a man who was zealous for God. Not just the
true and living God, though. No, I'm sorry, I didn't say that
correctly. I wrote and I said it wrong. He was a man who was
zealous for God, he just was not zealous for the true and
living God. Paul was zealous for a God. Paul had more to brag about when
it comes to religion than anybody else that ever walked this earth.
He thought he was doing God's work, chasing around the people
and persecuting the church. He was zealous for a God. He
just wasn't zealous for the God. Until the Lord came to him on
the road to Damascus and blinded him with the light of Jesus Christ. Our Lord says, I am the light.
And that light blinded him for three days. Some of you here today may have
been one of these very ones who were zealous for a God. You see, the one who is to be
worshipped is the one to whom every knee shall bow. His name is called Emmanuel,
God with us. He is called Jesus for this very
reason. He shall save his people. Now if you would go back to our
text in Philippians. This time I'd like to look at
chapter 2 again. Who is it that we worship? Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who being, verse 6, in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a
name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in the earth,
and things under the earth. And that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. Who is it that we worship? We worship the God-man. We don't
worship what we do. We don't worship what others
have done. We worship what He has done. We worship God in the flesh,
the sovereign potentate. Do you see the importance of
this in the power of what He did? There's a saying that's
going around the country right now. It goes like this, if your
God is trying, then your preacher is lying. Think about that. If your God is trying, then the
one who is preaching that God to you is lying through his teeth.
God Almighty doesn't try anything. He accomplishes it. Plain and
simple. The Christ Jesus of Scripture
did not and is not trying to do anything. He accomplishes
His will. He finishes what He began. All
power in heaven and earth are His to wield as He sees fit. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh
and nothing nor anyone can stay His hand. And you and I come
into this world hating Him. Loving ourselves. Loving the
darkness that we walk in. Loving the false power that we
think we have. Oh, he's such a good little boy.
Or well, okay, so he went astray, but he can come back. He can
come back. I've been down there in the valley
all week and the smoke's got me all tore up. We come into this world hating
the Lord Jesus Christ just as the Jews did when they said,
crucify Him, crucify Him. Our Lord says we love the darkness
that we walk in. Loving the false power that we
think we have. When we say, I, For instance, I made a decision,
or I got baptized, or I worship on Sunday, or I worship on Saturday,
or I have walked the aisle, or I have prayed the prayer, and
we have made ourselves to be God. When you say it's your decision,
When you say you have power over God, then you have made yourself
as the devil has tried to make himself over the Most High. That's the problem with all the
Jesuses and religions in the world today. They're preaching
about somebody who doesn't have ultimate power. And Scriptures
declare Jesus to have all power. Power over John. I'll try not to take that out
of your time. You see, the path of all who
walk this earth is the path to hell. A place that we all deserve,
a place that God is justified in sending us, for we have all
sinned and come short of the glory of God. If a man says he
does not have sin, then he lies and he calls God a liar. Yet by the grace of God, some
are called unto salvation. Not all will go to hell. Not
all will spend eternity in the pit of fire. Why do we worship
Him? My second point, why do we worship
the true and living God? The Son that is revealed in Scriptures.
Turn over to Hebrews for just a moment if you would, please.
Hebrews chapter 10. Why do we worship Him? Why do
we come out of the world to this little building and rescue where
the Lord has provided us a place to worship Him? This is what
this is. Worship. Praising Him, not with
our tongue, but with our hearts. God said in the days of old,
pictures of the One who would save His elect, His loved ones,
His chosen, His people, the nation Israel was a very small nation
in that day. Among the nations of this world,
they were chosen, they were a chosen nature to picture, to be a picture
of God's elect. No other nation at that time
had God's favor. They were a picture, a type.
And the animal sacrifices that they were performed were also
pictures. Pictures pointing the people
of God to the one who would be their salvation. You see, God's
justice must be met. The price of sin is death. When
Adam sinned, everything in the world died. Our Lord said, Cursed
is the ground that you walk on. Blood must be shed. Our Lord
shed the first blood by killing an animal and clothing Adam and
Eve, showing them that He must provide salvation and Him alone. They tried to do it on their
own, didn't they? Isn't that what they did? They took fig
leaves or some kind of a big leaf and tried to cover their
nakedness? That didn't work. Well, neither does the works
of any man. And your decision is a work. We either rest in
Christ, or we're doomed to hell. God's justice must be met, blood
must be shed, and it must be made, and it must be met perfectly. For God is perfect in all of
His ways. He is holy. And all those sacrifices
did nothing more than picture the perfect One who would lay
down His life for His sheep. Are you with me in Hebrews chapter
10? Look at verses 1-4. For the law,
having a shadow of good things to come. You see that? The law
was the law of sacrifices. It was nothing more than a shadow.
This is God's Word. It was nothing more than a shadow.
It never did any good of things to come. And not every image
of the things can ever, with these sacrifices which they offered
year by year continually to make the comers there unto perfect,
they did nothing. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged
should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices
there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." They
were supposed to do it every year. And it reminded them that
they were never free from sin. And here's why, verse 4, for
it is not possible. that the blood of bulls and goats
should take away sins. Now, go over to verse 9 with
me, if you would. Then said He, speaking of Scriptures,
Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
He may establish the second. By the witch will, we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for
all. And every priest, speaking of those in the old days, standeth
daily ministering and offering sometimes the same sacrifices
which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified." In John 10-11 we read this, our Lord
says, I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. That's what our Lord did, and
he only did it once. Because it was perfect, and it
accomplished exactly what He was meant to do. It was to bury
the sins of His people, so God would never see the sins of those
people again. That's hard to believe, but right
now, if you belong to the Lord God Almighty, He has never seen
one of your sins. Because He sees the blood of
His Son, and He has seen that blood from before the world was.
See, I chose, He says, a people. They were chosen in the Father.
The Father gave the Son a people. And the Son agreed in that covenant
before anything was made that He would come to this world and
pay their sins in full perfectly. So God the Father has never seen
any of my sins. He's seen me in His Son, the
Lord Jesus. That's tough for me to understand.
And it's going to be tough for anyone else to understand because
our puny brains just can't figure that out. It's like the three
in one. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. I know
it's three distinct persons, absolutely, yet one God. How can you explain that, John?
I can't. Any man who says he can is a fool liar. God's ways are not our ways.
Stop trying to make God according to your way. Look at His way
right here in Scripture. This is His word to us to tell
us what His way is. He says in verse 15 of that same
book of John chapter 10, As the Father knoweth me, even so know
I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. We worship
Him, for He has loved us from the foundation of all creation.
Before the world was, God chose a people to save them from their
sins, and when He comes to us, as He did with the woman at the
well, and gives life to a dead, lost sinner, revealing our Savior
to a new God-given heart, new ears that hear, new eyes that
see, we worship Him. We love Him because He first
loved us. That's what it says in John chapter 4 verse 19. When
the truth of what we are and what we deserve is revealed to
a lost sinner by the Spirit. You see, what does the Lord tell
us? He tells us you must worship
Me in Spirit and in truth. We fall to our knees. We see what we deserve, but we see the grace that God
has in not leaving us to what we deserve. We fall to our knees,
we fall to our face, we bow our souls to His Lordship, we give
ourselves with a new willing heart to His sovereign rule. Remember, we worship in spirit
and in truth. We have no confidence in the
flesh, is what it said in our text back in Philippians. You see, the flesh profiteth
nothing. And this brings me to my last point, and I'll try to
be quick. How do we worship Him? Turn to
the 18th chapter of Luke, if you would please. You may know the story of Moses
and the burning bush. Our Lord called Moses' attention
to a bush that burned on a mountaintop. A bush that burned and the fire
did not consume it. And when Moses was drawn to that
bush, When the Lord called him to that bush, he went up the
mountain to it, and the Lord said, take off thy sandals, for you stand on holy ground.
And what did Moses do? He took off his sandals and he
got down on his face. He didn't stand up and hoopla
and party it up and have a good time with it. No. We worship
with reverence. How can I say this? Reverence. Respect. Honor. We worship with order. We come
to this building that God has provided us to worship Him. To
hear about our Lord and Savior. There's plenty of time after
services to say, you know, this affected me this way, or you
know, John, I had a problem with that, or this or that or that
or this. Plenty of time for that. There's
only an hour on Sunday mornings that we spend Friday nights a
little bit, Sunday mornings a little bit, worshiping. Public worship. Moses got down on his face. He stood before God, and He fell
on His face and humbled Himself. Folks, this is what we're doing
this very moment. We come into His house to worship Him. We
come before the mighty, the holy, the perfect God of all creation,
seeking not, demanding, but seeking His mercy and His grace upon
us. We don't come with pompous. We
don't come loudly. We don't come as the ones who
pray aloud in the marketplace bringing attention to themselves.
All that does is say, see how religious I am? In the Psalms, in the 134th Psalm,
we read this, you don't need to turn there because we're getting
close on time, so I want to get through this. Behold, bless ye
the Lord, it says, all ye servants of the Lord which by night stand
in the house of the Lord, lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and bless the Lord. Did you notice that? The world around us has taken
verses like that and similar to that and said, stand up, praise
the Lord, clap your hands, make a noise. That's not what it means. You know what the sanctuary is?
It's the temple. This is not a temple. This is
not a sanctuary. My heart where my Lord dwells
is the temple of God. He dwells in a temple made without
hands. That's the sanctuary. The world has taken that and
turned it into something that man can do to prove his salvation. That's what coming down into
the front of the aisle... Folks, I call you to the altar of God. There is an altar call. That's
what I've been doing since I started preaching almost an hour ago.
But it's not to come down here. This is not the altar. The altar
is in your heart. If God dwells in you, He's the
altar. He's the sacrifice on that altar.
He is the all in all. Salvation is of the Lord from
the beginning to the end. Remember what we read in our
text. We worship in spirit. Well, I got a little bit ahead
of myself. Worshipping in spirit is sitting
right where we are right now. There was a time, and we'll get
off on another one, aren't we? Yep, here goes. When the Lord
called me to this position, a man came to me and he said, I am more leery of any man who sits in the church
and says amen loudly than I am of anything else. He said the
men who say amen the loudest are usually the shallowest. Very
rarely do they have the Lord in them. I thought about that. You've heard me say this. Man,
that was so good, I just wanted to get up and clap. And I do. I do. I do. But there's others around me.
There's others in this church who are here to worship and hear
the Word of God also. Our Lord tells us in 1 Timothy,
The woman should be silent in the congregation. Folks, did
you realize that we are the women? Do you know we're the bride of
Christ? God's preacher, God's messenger
is standing before you speaking about the Word of God. We say
Amen, but we need to say it in a small form. Ever since that
man said that to me, I've tried to back off from being so excited
about it. I have for most parts. Occasionally
I slip out a big Amen, but not often. People were here to worship.
And when you see the grace of God in your heart, you can't
help but holler out, Amen. Praise the Lord, but we do it
in spirit. The spirit is in our hearts.
You see, this whole thing is a heart matter. If you're trying
to do it in the flesh, you're making a mistake. You're misleading
yourself. It's in the heart. We either
believe God or we don't. Where was I? It says in God's Word, that salvation
is not of works, lest any man should boast. Faith is a gift of God. How do
we worship the true and living God? Are you with me in Matthew
chapter 18? Did I write down the wrong one? I
think I did. Hang on just a moment. Yes I did. One moment. Okay, here we go. Look at verse 10. Sorry about that. Matthew 18
verse 10. Two men. Now remember, the question
of this is, how do we worship? That's where we're at. Did I say Matthew again? This is
what happens when you get old. Okay? For you that are younger
than me, just understand, the day is coming. Luke 18, verse 10. Two men went up into the temple
to pray. We're talking about how do we worship. We've already
looked at who it is we worship. We looked at why we worship Him. Now let's look at how He shows
us to worship Him. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one, the Pharisee, the other, a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself. He stood up. He stood up in front
of everybody. Look at me. God, I thank thee,
he says, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
and adulterers, and even as this publican. Look at how good I
am. Look at how religious I am. I fast twice a week. I give tithes
for all that I possess." Verse 12 and 13 it says, and the publican
standing where? Where's the publican at? Far
off. Down over here in the corner,
quiet as can be, hardly even noticeable. And he would not lift up so much
as his eyes. unto heaven, but smote upon his
breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And our Lord
says, what next? Right next in verse 14, I tell
you, our Lord speaking to each and everyone here this morning,
I tell you, He says, This man went down to his house justified
rather than the other, for everyone that exalted himself shall be
abased, and he that humbled himself shall be exalted." Now look over at verse 18, and
I'll close with this. And a certain ruler asked him,
speaking to our Lord, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus said unto him, Why
callest thou me good? None is good save one, that is
God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not
kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false
witness. Honor thy mother and thy father.
A certain ruler said this, and he said, all these have I kept
from my youth up. And our Lord went on, and now
when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, yet lackest
thou one thing, sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come,
follow me. And when he had heard this, this
certain ruler had heard this, he was very sorrowful. You see,
the things of the world were more important to him than his
soul. He was very sorrowful, for he
was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was
very sorrowful, he said, how hardly shall they that have riches
enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel
to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God. Folks, it's not talking about
the wealth that we have of this world. We're talking about spiritual
things. If you belong to God, your spirit
has everything. All things. We were talking about
this Friday night. We're reading the book, Going
Home, from Don Fortner in our Friday night study. When we get
to heaven, folks, we have glory. The same glory that our Lord
and Savior has. And if He has everything, what
is it that we could not have? And they that heard it said,
verse 26, who then can be saved? And here's what I want you to
see. And He, our Lord, said this, the things which are impossible
with men. You see, I've been describing
to you this whole time how impossible it is for you to help our Lord
in salvation. That's all I've been doing. Some
think that I'm beating up on what's called free will religion.
I'm just telling you there's no such thing. I'm telling you
that God has to do the saving from beginning to end. It's impossible for man to save
himself. There is nothing we can do. If
we add anything to it, we have diminished and made the word
grace something common, unworthy. Things which are impossible with
men are possible with God. I tell you here this morning,
and I'll close with this, we are left to ourselves. If we
are left to ourselves, we will follow the path of destruction.
But if we belong to Him, if our God laid down His life for us,
nothing can nor nothing will ever keep us from him. In Romans 8 we read this, he
that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Amen.