how heavy the burden of the word
of the Lord is in trying to minister to the souls of men, in trying
to preach the gospel to you, and lead this assembly in the
worship of God, not only as we meet together, but as we labor
together in the cause of Christ for the furtherance of the gospel
around the world. Our God, in his matchless free
grace, has granted us eternal life in Jesus Christ the Lord. He washed away our sins in the
blood of his dear son, robed us in his righteousness, called
us by his grace. Oh, how we ought to long to worship
him, to worship him. And I want to talk to you this
evening about It's a difficult thing to talk
about. Most every religious order calls its regular meetings worship
services. We do, Papists do, Campbellites
do, Mormons do. When men and women go to church,
they say they are going to worship, or go worship. But is religious
activity and worship synonymous? Not hardly. Let me see if I can
illustrate what is typical in churches. I go to a lot of places. I normally, if I'm going to a
place I'm not familiar with, I deliberately avoid going to
the Sunday school classes because it's a Mickey Mouse joke. It's
pitiful. It's pitiful. In fact, if it
wasn't just the fact of coming in late, I'd probably not come
in time to preach, rather than be disturbed by what goes on
beforehand. Come Sunday morning and the crowd
gathers in the church building for their regular weekly worship
service. And they have a song or two and
the preacher takes the floor, it's time to welcome the visitors.
We're so glad to see you back, Sister Longtongue. We'd surely
missed Deacon Hurt Feelings while he was away. And Brother Nowhere
Else to Go, we're so happy you could be with us today. And after
several minutes of pandering to the flesh, He reads a few
verses of Scripture, not too many unless people get bored
with the Word of God, and goes through the motions of prayer
in his weekly pastoral prayer, followed by another hymn and
some announcements. Monday the Boy Scouts meet. Tuesday
the Ladies' Missionary Society will have a luncheon. Wednesday
we'll have prayer meeting. Attendance has been down a little
now. Let's all turn out Wednesday night. Thursday's visitation
night be sure to come to visitation when we when we go they come
Friday the deacon bore to me and Saturday we clean the church.
Oh, yes. Don't forget next Sunday everyone
bring one and when all else is done the preacher finally gets
around to giving a little sermon at and Usually has nothing to
do with the gospel, has nothing to do with any kind of doctrine
that might possibly offend men, but rather is little more, if
even as much as, a pep talk of morality. Everyone's looking
at the clock, wondering how long is this going to take. The roast
is in the oven. All the good restaurants are
getting lines backed up to the door. Ball game's coming on at
one o'clock. Doesn't he know when to quit? And so it's time
to go home. And this is what men call worship.
What nonsense. Worship is, at least in part,
the act of paying honor to God. Did you get that? At least in
part, it is the act of paying honor to God. But who's honored
in most religious activities? and what men call worship services.
Men. Men, women, their children, their
mothers, their fathers have special days for every occasion to give
men honor for everything they even think about doing. There's
nothing at all, absolutely nothing in the average church service
that even remotely comes close to paying honor to God. In the
typical worship service of the modern church, Everything is
done designed to promote and exalt the flesh, to pamper human
pride, and to recognize and praise men. We greet men and, you know,
you greet them when you come in the door, be sure you greet
them now. You know, got to be sure you greet everybody or they
might think you're stuck up. Be sure you do. And that's good. Do be nice and friendly to folks.
And then after you do that, we'll sing a few verses now. Let's
have an old-fashioned handshake. We want everybody to know they're
welcome. And so you spend a little time pampering folks again. So
glad you're here. In actuality, in general, churches
and preachers do everything possible to bow and scrape before sinful
human flesh as though man were God and God Almighty were a beggar
groveling before sinful worms that he might get a little attention
from them. Today we praise men and women for blessing us with
their presence in the house of God. I recall several years ago
Brother Jack Shakes wrote a brief article I thought was so good.
He said, isn't it time That somebody stood up in a worship service
and said to the visitors, now you visitors, you ought to stand
up here and thank every man and woman here who regularly maintains
this place so you can come have a place to sit and worship God.
You're privileged to be in our midst. And that's in reality
the way it is. But we bow and scrape before
men as though our God has to grovel before men. In the Bible,
when men and women gathered together, they gathered together for the
worship of God, both in the Old Testament and in the New. Most
worship services today are just pep rallies, religious pep rallies
designed specifically to get more people to come, give a little
bit more money, perform more baptisms, build bigger buildings
than the church down the road, and be a little more impressive.
Oh, that men would worship God. Can a church have a true worship
service? Is it possible in this day and
age for men and women to come together and truly worship God? Yes, sir. I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to know a great
deal about this business of worship. But I have some things that I
think will help. I know they'll help. Some things that will at
least move us in the direction of worshiping God. And I say
this to this congregation because I want you to understand the
reason why we do things as we do them here. Make every service,
the entire service, a worship service. How are you going to
worship service? You can't have, it's impossible
to have both religious promotions and divine worship. We can't
both entertain men and worship God. It's impossible for our
motive to both be the honor of man and the glory of God. So
let God's glory be the theme of everything, the motive behind
everything, from the first hymn sung to the last amen. Let's
come together deliberately to honor God. When we walk through
these doors seeking by the grace of God to honor Him, praise Him,
extol Him, lift Him high, maybe, just maybe, Bob, If we seek the
glory of God, he might let us see his glory. Just maybe. Just maybe. If we seek to lift
him high, he might allow us to see him. And eliminate all excess
baggage. Everything. Anything that interferes
with the worship of God, throw it away. You might say, well,
how will people know when to meet if we don't have announcements?
I write bulletins for that reason. And I would think it would be
an insult to your intelligence for me to stand up here and read
what I've written to you. Just forget that. Worship God. How
will visitors know they're welcome if we don't recognize them? Have
them raise their hand, turn around and shake hands with them, give
them a card to fill out, drop it in the offering plate. How
will they know they're welcome? They'll know a long time before
you get to that. They'll know a long time before you get to
that. But preacher, if we don't keep folks pumped up and primed
If we don't promote our programs, the enthusiasm will die. The
church will fall off. We'll have folks lose interest
in what's going on. Well, that's the way it is in
the world. And if we were here building a business, I'd promote
it. Man, if I were a businessman, I'd advertise the best way possible.
If I were a businessman, I'd do everything I could to get
folks to come bring some business my way. If I were groveling for
you to get your money and your time and your attention, that's
what I'd do. But this is the house of God. We're not groveling
before men. We're not trying, we're not competing
with all the things that go on trying to get men to pay us attention.
We've come to worship God. In the house of God, spiritual
enthusiasm, if you'll permit me to use such a term, is inspired
by God. It's found and maintained in
the gospel of Christ. It's derived from the knowledge
of God, from the knowledge of His grace, from the experience
of His mercy, from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So throw
away everything. except prayer, preaching, and
praise. You throw everything else out.
There's no room in the house of God for anything else. There's
no room in the house of God for anything except prayer, preaching,
and praise. We come to read his word, to
worship him, to hear his voice, to honor him, to be instructed
by him in his way, in his word, in his will. Stick to the gospel. Stick to the gospel. Heresy is
horrible, no matter where you find it. If you find a word in
a verse of a hymn that promotes freewillism, that talks about
the love of God sort of being general and ambiguous toward
everybody, talks about the mercy of God and the grace of God being
something he kind of wants everybody to get in on, either just throw
the hymn away or strike out the verse or change it. We're not
going to sing it. Heresy in the song is just as bad as heresy
in the pulpit. We sing what we preach. Everything must be regulated
by the gospel of God's free grace in Christ. Oh, that we might
worship Him. We ought to deliberately do regularly
what Hilkiah the priest did in the days of Josiah the king in
Israel. You remember he was in the house
of God. It had been in disarray for years.
Nobody paid any attention to the worship of God. Nobody paid
any attention to the law of God. Nobody paid any attention to
the oracles of God. And you know, Kyle was in there cleaning up
the house. It kind of looked like my garage,
you know, just a shambles. And he was cleaning that thing
up. And he found something. He said, what's this? Oh my soul,
this is the Word of God. He dusted it off, started to
read it. He said, Josiah went to the king. He said, look what I found in
God's house. Look what I found. Josiah said, go inquire of the
Lord, tell me what God says to do. And he did. And he cleaned
ass. He took everything except this,
threw it in the garbage dump. Everything else. And that's exactly
what we ought to do continually in the house of God. Now with
those things in mind, I want to talk to you about worship.
But worship is something that's never defined in Scripture. You
can't find a definition given. There are definitions given of
the gospel, definitions given of the incarnation of Christ,
definitions given of the virgin birth. You can't find a definition
of worship. But there are a number of words
used in both the Old Testament and the New which give us an
indication of what worship is. The different words translating
worship in the Bible mean to bow down with reverence, with
awe, to do obeisance. like a servant before a king
who is unworthy to approach the king. It has the idea of a kissing
the master's hand like a loyal dog will lick his master's hand.
All he has to do is just stick it out, the dog will just lick
it. He'll just lick it, because he's his dog. Worship has the
idea of prostrating oneself before the Lord to supplicate the throne
of God, but it's more than an act. Worship is not just a Sunday
morning, Sunday night, or Tuesday night activity. Worship is the
life of faith. We worship God calling on His
name. We worship God as we walk before
Him in servitude, gladly doing His will, seeking His grace.
Now let me make three or four statements concerning this thing
of worship. I'm going to be working my way toward Luke chapter 6
again. First understand this, the greatest
privilege men and women have this side of eternity is the
privilege of worshiping God just like we are right now in the
assembly of his saints. The greatest privilege on this
earth. James Jordan, you'll never have a greater privilege in this
world than what you have right now. No wonder David said, I
was glad. I was glad when they said to
me, let's go to the house of the Lord. We've got a place to
go. God has called us to go, and
thank God he's given us an inclination to go. I was glad when they said,
let's go to the house of the Lord. Turn to Psalm 5, Psalm
5 verse 7. The sweet singer of Israel says
here, but as for me, as for me, it doesn't matter what my sons
do or my in-laws do, and my mama and daddy do. As for me, it doesn't
matter what my neighbor does or doesn't do. As for me, I speak
now for me. As for me, this is what I'll
do. I'll come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy. What a way to speak. I'm coming
to your house, Lord God, in the multitude of your mercy. It's
by your mercy I come, and for your mercy that I come. And in
thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple." You see that?
Psalm 5, 7. In your reverence, I worship
toward your temple. Now we come here, but this building
is not a sanctuary. This building is not a temple.
This building is not a church. This is just a place where the
Church of God meets to worship toward His holy temple. To set
our hearts toward the throne of God in heaven. Multitudes
these days who profess to be believers, who profess to be
Christians, who profess to love God, who profess to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, to promote righteousness in the gospel of
God's grace, willfully absent themselves from the house of
God and despise the privilege of public worship. And they justify
their actions by, well, whatever way they want to. It doesn't
take much justification to get a fellow to do what he wants
to do. But in Nehemiah's day, the children of Israel, who had
long been without the privilege of worshiping God. They had been
a long time, David, away from God's house. It had been a long
time since they'd heard a prophet speak for God. It had been a
long time since they'd heard anyone read the oracles of God.
It had been a long time since they'd been to the place, the
mercy seat, where God promised he'd meet with men and make himself
known. And they now were allowed to come to the house of God,
and when they did, they made a covenant. And they took an
oath, and this was it. They said, we will not forsake
the house of our God. Ain't gonna happen. Oh no, if
God is pleased to establish us again in this place, we will
not forsake His house. The Shunammite woman in 2 Kings
4 rode a donkey every Sabbath day to go hear God's prophet
preach. Every Sabbath day. And she did
so even when her husband objected to it. He said, why go today?
There's nothing special about today. She said, oh, get one
of the young men to saddle the ass. I'm going to preach it.
I'm going to go see if God will speak to me. In David's time,
the saints of God were told, pastor of the valley of Baca,
to worship God at Zion. In Daniel's day, the children
of God ran to and fro to increase knowledge, that is to know more
of the Lord God. Zechariah tells us that in his
days the inhabitants of one city went to another saying, let us
go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of
hosts. Our Lord and his disciples went
to considerable trouble. They went to considerable inconvenience
to put themselves together in the house of worship so that
they might worship God together. That Ethiopian eunuch made a
long, hard, costly journey. all the way from Ethiopia to
Jerusalem, and he didn't even know God. He just wanted to.
He just wanted to. He made a long, hard, costly
journey going up to the place where God had established his
name and his worship, because I want to know him of whom the
prophet speaks. And on his way home he found
out who he was. You can call it fanaticism if you will, but
I say without fear of contradiction that anyone who talks about being
a Christian, anyone who talks about worshiping God, anyone
who talks about being a believer and yet willfully neglects the
house of God, the worship of God, the people of God, ought
to blush with shame for his hypocrisy, for all his religion is lip service. That's all. That's all. All who
know God and the experience of his grace delight to worship
him. Alright, now secondly, having said that, the worship of God
is the duty of all men. There's no question about that.
It's the duty of all men to praise God. It's the duty of all men
to give thanks to God. It's the duty of all men to celebrate
God's attributes. It's the duty of all men to trust
Him. It's the duty of all men to trust
Him and confess their faith in Him. It's the duty of all to
worship God. It's our duty as believers to
meet together in the house of God to encourage one another,
to strengthen one another, to comfort one another, to edify
one another. It's our duty to maintain the
worship of God and spreading the gospel around the world.
But I'm going to tell you something. Duty is a poor, poor motivator. Duty is a poor reason to do anything.
It's my duty to love my wife. It's my duty to provide for her.
It's my duty to take care of her. But I'll tell you what.
I've been living with that gal for 31 years. If she thought
I did anything I do because it's my duty to do it, She wouldn't
like it. Nor would I. Nor would you. And we don't come to the house
of God and worship Him because it's our duty to do so. If that's
all that motivates us, we have no motive at all. The fact is,
though it is our duty to worship God, no one can worship the Holy
God who doesn't worship Him freely. Got to worship God freely, or
you can't worship Him. Got to worship Him freely. Folks
wonder sometimes, why don't you browbeat folks and threaten them
and do this and do that and coerce them? Well, there's a good reason. There's a good reason. If you
want to be here, we want you. If you don't, that's all right. It's a good reason. If you want
to worship God, worship Him. If you don't, well, that's your
loss. If you want to serve God, serve
him. If you don't, that's your problem. But my caressing and
my arm-twisting and my pressuring won't do a thing to get you to
worship God. It won't happen. Turn to Ezra
chapter 2. In this place, there's only one
circumstance. There's only one situation. in
which we like the word free will. And that's free will worship,
free will offerings, free will service to God. Here in Ezra
chapter 2 verse 68, some of the chief of the fathers, when they
came to the house of the Lord, which is at Jerusalem, offered
freely. Offered freely. They didn't pay
a tithe, they offered freedom. But the law said tithe, well
sure it does, but those who offer freedom do a heapsight more than
that. They offered free men. How come? For the house of God.
Not to build up the denomination, not to put coffers for the church,
for the house of God to maintain it, to set it up in his place. Verse 69, they gave after their
abimony. That's what folks who worship
freely do. They give after their ability. Those who have much,
give much. Those who have little, give what
they can. They give after their ability. You see, as the grace
of God operating toward us is free, so the grace of God operating
in us is free, always. God does what he does for us
in grace, just because he wants to. He doesn't need anything
from us. He wouldn't lose anything if
he didn't give it to us. He does it just because he'll be gracious.
And the believer, the believer does what he does for Christ,
just because he wants to. Just because he wants to. That's
all. Not to get anything, not for fear of losing anything.
As we have freely received the grace of God, so we freely proclaim
the gospel of God's grace to all men. Paul said, I preach
to you the gospel of God, free me. God's servants do. How can I say this and be understood? God's servants are worthy of
their hire. Our Lord states that plainly.
Every faithful gospel preacher, every faithful gospel preacher
is worthy of being maintained in his livelihood by those to
whom he preaches. But God's servants are not hirelings,
what you read about a little bit ago. Not one of them. Nothing
insults me more. I've had it happen a few times.
Word gets out. If you respond firm enough, you
don't have to respond often. Somebody called me up and said,
well, how many people would we have to have to get you to come
preach to us? That's the wrong thing to ask. What would it take
to get you to come? Nothing. Nothing. Came to talk
to me about pastoring here. Subject to salary and provision
was never discussed. Never discussed. How come? God
take care of my needs. He always has. I don't look like
I've lost too many meals. God supplies the needs of His
servants. And they don't go groveling and begging. God's servants serve
Him freely. And God's people do as well.
God's saints worship Him freely. David said, I will freely sacrifice
unto thee. I will praise the name of the
Lord. because it's just good. It's good. Sinners who've been
saved by the grace of God give freely their selves and of their
means to promote the worship of God. The Apostle Paul puts
it this way when he talks about giving. He says, Every man as
he purposeth in his heart, so let him give. Let me stretch that a little
bit, all right? Every one of you, every one of you, as you
purpose in your heart, do whatever you want to for the cause of
Christ and the glory of God. Every man, every woman, whatever
it is you want to do for the glory of God. Not grudgingly. So I'm going
to do it, but don't want to. I'm going to give it, but I'd
rather keep it. I'm going to, yeah, I'll do it, but no, just
don't. Just don't. Or of necessity,
don't do it because you feel like you're going to take a licking
if you don't. For God loves a cheerful giver. God loves folks who are just
tickled, plumbed to death for the privilege of serving him.
Oh my, what an honor I have. I get to preach the gospel of
God's free grace. to sinners like myself. What
an honor I have, I get to give myself to this blessed work. Oh, my soul. Sometimes I get
a little weary, and I get a little down in the mouth. Now, I try
not to show it, but I just get tired. And sometimes I even think about
kind of cutting back a little. Oh, how dare I? How could I even dare think such
a thing? God's given me this blessed privilege. Bob, God's
given us the privilege, worshiping him, serving him in the totality
of our beings. Thirdly, if we would worship
God, we must worship him in spirit and in truth. Paul said, we're
the circumcision which worship God in spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We worship him
spiritually, in our spirits, by the direction of his spirit.
We worship him in truth, rejoicing in Christ, who is the truth.
You can't worship God if you don't know who he is, and you
can't know who he is if he doesn't make himself known to you in
his Son. Trust in Christ alone, renouncing
all confidence in the flesh. All right, what's absolutely
essential, what's absolutely vital to worship? Turn to Luke
chapter 6. I'm not going to be able to do
any more than I did last time we got here, but I want to show
you seven things here that are absolutely essential. Verse 12,
It came to pass in those days that the Lord Jesus went out
into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer
to God. If we would worship God, we must
have a priest. at the throne of God in this
long night of our pilgrimage here. And the Lord Jesus has
gone up into Mount Zion, and he constantly makes intercession
for us. And when he came down, he called
his disciples, and of those twelve, of those disciples he chose twelve
whom he named apostles, messengers. That's the second thing. At last, David, if you would
worship God, there shall be in silence. If you would worship
God, you can't do it unless God sends you a man with a message. Not just standing up here beating
his drum theologically, not just standing here reciting doctrine,
not just standing here telling truth. Oh man, the message. I'll let you in on a little private urge in my soul. I don't think I've preached a
message. I don't think I've preached a sermon in the last 32, 33 years
without earnestly crying out to God, Lord God speak through
me or don't let me speak. If I don't have a message from
God for you, I'm just beating the air. Oh, but if God will
send you a message through his messenger, then maybe you'll
hear him. We must have the Lord's manifest
presence. Look at verse 17. And he came down with them, stood
in the plain, in the company of his disciples.
So while the Lord is always with us, and people kind of poke fun
at earnest desires of believers Because they think the language
is not correct, say, Lord, give us your presence. But the Lord
said, where two or three are gathered together, there am I with you.
Just presume his presence is there. But the fact of his presence
and the manifestation of his presence are two different things. We've met together a few times
over the years and thankful for the fact of his presence. But
we come in and go out without the manifestation of his presence. And it's weary business. Oh,
but if he will show his face through the lattices, if he will
cause his face to shine in the assembly of his saints, now then,
maybe we can worship him. If we would worship the Lord
God, we must be like these multitudes who are described in verse 17
as those who came to hear him. I read a story years ago, I forgot
where I read it, it was Spurgeon told the story, I don't know
whether it was in a sermon or in his autobiography or in his lecture, but he was
preaching at the tavern after one Sunday morning and this little
boy was sitting right down on the front little seven or eight year old
boy sitting right down in front of him and he was leaning forward
and he had his ears, hands cupped behind his ears like that and
Spurgeon met him at the door and he said, son are you having
trouble hearing me? He said, oh no, Mr. Spurgeon. He said, well I noticed you sitting
with your hands cupped like that leaning forward, I thought maybe
you couldn't hear me. He said, oh no. He said, mama told me
that if God speaks to me, he'll speak to me through you. And
if God speaks, I don't want to miss His voice. Oh, to hear Him. Last week, one night, I
was tossing and turning in my mind, some things giving me burden
and considerations, trying to seek God's will, trying to seek
God's direction, up most of the night, reading, studying, trying
to pray. Next morning I went to services.
Brother Bruce Crabtree was preaching. And God spoke so plainly. You
would have thought that I had gone and said, now this is what
I need to hear today. And he didn't have any idea what
was going on. Spoke so plainly. And I thought, well, I said,
oh, how I thank God. He still speaks to this sinner's
heart through His Word. Come to hear Him. Come to hear
Him. If you come to hear me, that's
what you'll get. Come to hear Lindsay, that's
what you'll get. Come to hear Ron and Larry, that's what you'll
get. Oh, but come to hear Him. I suspect that's what you'll
get. come to hear him, and fifthly,
if you would worship God, you've got to come through those
doors with a need that only Christ
can meet. They came to be healed. They had a need. Nobody could
meet but the Son of God, and they came to him to have their
need met. Let me ask you something. Did you bring any need with you
tonight? I promise you. I promise you. You're going to leave with just
what you came seeking. Read this book and tell me that's
not so. You're going to leave with just what you came seeking.
Either that, or God's not in this place. One of the two. One
of the two. Sixthly, if you're going to worship Christ,
you're going to worship God, come to the house of God, seeking
to touch him. Well, I come for the fellowship.
Ain't much of that. Ain't much to it. Ain't much
to it. Unless we all touch him. Oh,
but if we all touch him, then we've all come to the rallying
point. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you. It's the fellowship.
And there's got to be one other thing. Absolutely vital to worship. Absolutely vital. As it's described in verse 19,
we're told virtue went out of him. Power went out of him. Power
went out of him. Oh, Son of God, cause the power of your grace
to flow out to our needy souls. and meet the needs of our hearts
and lives that only you can meet for the glory of your name. Amen. Now that's the best I know about
worship. Let's seek to worship our God. Alright, you come lead us in
the hymn. The deacons will serve the Lord's table.