be in the book of Hebrews if
you'd like to turn there. I have a question for us this morning.
Hebrews chapter 11. I have a question for us. What is worship? What is worship? A Samaritan
woman talking to the Lord, the Lord came up to her and he said
to her, give me to drink. And she said, you have nothing
to draw with. He said, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask
to him and he'd give you living water. She said, sir, give me
this water. He said, go fetch your husband. She said, I don't
have a husband. He said, thou hast well spoken.
You've had five. And the one that you have right now isn't
yours. She said, oh, I perceive you're a prophet. We worship
in this mountain. Here's my religion. Here's my righteousness right
here. We worship in this mountain. But you say, Jerusalem's where
we ought to worship. That mountain was the mountain
that was blessed by Moses. And so they were carrying on
the tradition of that. Problem was, is what they were worshipping
was not God at all. They were worshipping Jehovah
in the form of a cat. They were worshipping Jehovah
in the form of a dog, the form of the sun, the form of the moon,
the form of a donkey. They weren't worshipping Jehovah. They just
put their titles, they put the title Jehovah on the gods that
they already had. That's what the Samaritans did. And they worshipped
in that mountain, because they said it was blessed. What did
the Lord tell her? He said, the time's coming and
now is where you won't worship in this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
But God is a spirit, and they that worship must worship in
spirit and in truth. And she said, well, when Messiah
comes, he'll straighten all this out. He'll tell you what for
and fix it. That's kind of her attitude, right? And he said,
I am. I am. And she left her water
pot behind. And she went into the city and
said, come see a man that told me all things ever I did. Is
this not the Christ? This is him. This is the Messiah I was
just talking about. That's him. The Lord gave her
faith to believe, didn't he? What is worship? Worship is taking
sides with God against yourself. Worship is believing. on the
Lord Jesus Christ as all your hope of salvation. Worship is
bowing in complete submission before the sovereignty of God. Worship is trusting Him, not
self, not self. We worship in the heart by faith,
never drawing attention to our flesh. There's a lot of places
and a lot of churches that talk about worship. and it's loud,
and it's boisterous, and men and women, they say a lot of
things during the preaching or during the singing, and they
do a lot of things that are loud and draws attention to themselves.
That's not worship. Worship's in the heart, by faith. Worship's in the heart. We worship
looking by faith. We don't draw attention to this
flesh. God's a spirit, and they that worship must worship in
spirit and truth. See, our flesh is not spiritual. Our flesh is
not spiritual. We worship God in the spirit,
his spirit, by his spirit. We rejoice in the heart. Now
let's read our text, Hebrews 11, verse 20. By faith, Isaac
blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob,
when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped.
Now that's where I got the title from, right there. He leaned
upon the top of his staff. But it says he blessed both the
sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of departing of
the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones.
We'll stop right there. Jacob blessed both the sons of
Joseph and worshiped. Now, how did he do that? How
did he do that? By looking to the promise of
the Lord. By looking to the promise that
God had given him that he would make him a great nation, that
there would be a Messiah to come, one that would save his people
from their sin. He worshiped looking to Christ.
How did he do that? Well, it's customary whenever
the man was on his deathbed to give the blessing unto the children.
And he has Manasseh here on one side, and he has Ephraim on the
other side. Now, Manasseh's the oldest, and Ephraim's the youngest.
Joseph knows what to do. He can't see very well. Jacob
can't see very well at this time. So he brings the two sons. He
puts Manasseh on his right, the oldest, puts Ephraim on his left,
the youngest. And that's customary for the oldest to have the birthright
for the right hand. Well, Jacob does something really
weird that's never recorded in any other part of scripture.
He crosses his hands, crosses his hands over. He puts his left
hand on the oldest, and he puts his right hand on the youngest. Why'd he do that? He was worshiping. He was worshiping. He said, the
elder shall serve the younger. He knew what his mother, Rebecca,
told him about him and Esau in the womb. She said, if it be
so, why am I thus? He said, because you have two
nations inside of you. Two nations are fighting. They hate each
other. One's chosen of God, and one's not. One's loved of God,
one's not. That's why they're fighting.
The elder shall serve the younger. It's a picture of the new nature,
isn't it? The elder served, this flesh serves that new nature. It has to, it bows to the new
nature. It's new nature's in charge.
The new nature's in charge. So he crossed his arms. Now,
how was it that he was worshiping? Well, he wasn't looking at two
little boys. The man was, I said he was blind. He couldn't see
anyway. He couldn't see very well anyways. He was looking to Christ
and the promise given that a Messiah would come that a Messiah would
come. Joseph got a little bit upset.
He's like, it's not, it's not supposed to be that way, dad.
You're not supposed to do that. And he said, Oh yes, it is. Oh yes,
this is how it's going to be. This is how it's going to be.
The elder will serve the younger. Our nature that's given of God
looks to Christ alone by faith. Our nature given of God worships
him in spirit and in truth, constantly bowing to him, bowing to his
purpose, bowing to his will, honoring him, praising him, looking
to the same thing he was satisfied with, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob was looking to the promise
of God. Eternal life would come through Messiah. He was clinging
and hoping. He had already been touched by
the angel of the Lord, the Lord himself, who that was, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He'd already been touched in the hollow of his
thigh. He had to limp his entire life because the blessing was
more important to him than walking. He's like, I'm not letting go
till you bless me. He'd already received the promise.
He'd already received the blessing at this point of his life. He's
at the end of his life. And it says this glorious words
that I pray will be the word spoken of us. These all died
in faith. They lived in faith. They died
in faith because God gave them the faith and he's faithful.
That's why. He was clinging and hoping to
the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. That's what worship is. Looking
to the Lord as your everything. As your everything. Not just
a need for now. Not just, Lord it's me again,
I need a little bit of help again, I need a handout. No, we look
to him as everything. Everything pertaining to life.
Everything pertaining to salvation. Everything pertaining to time
and eternity. He's everything to his people. Even when nothing
makes sense, and boy, there's a lot of things that don't make
sense. A lot of things in my life don't make sense. A lot
of things in your life don't make sense, do they? Even when things don't
make sense and we can't figure things out, God's people believe
God and they worship Him. We're like We're like Peter. I used Peter at the first hour.
What did he do when he started sinking? He said, well, Lord, just give
me a second. I'm going to swim back to the boat. Yeah, I got this. Somebody
throw me a, maybe hollered for John, throw him a raft or something. He didn't know. Lord, save me.
You're my only hope. Now I have no confidence in my
flesh. I have no power, no ability. And what was that that he said
to the Lord? Lord, save me. He's worshiping him. He's begging
for him. Remember, all those that would
come to the Lord and says they would fall down on their face
and they would worship. See, worship is adoration for
the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the woman, the woman
that was married, who it was, came and broke the alabaster
box that had the sweet perfume in it. And I did the math on
that one time. That had been like a I think it was like a $900 bottle
of perfume. Judas was all been out of shape. He said, we could
have done this and this with this. And Judas wasn't worried about helping
the poor. He was worried about his pocketbook, wasn't he? He
said, she's done. She's worshiped. Why? Why was that considered worship?
She dried his feet with her tears, or she wet his feet with her
tears, washed them with her tears, and dried his feet with her hair.
broke the box upon him and gave him the smell. Why is that worship?
Oh, she adored him. He was her everything. And is
it not true that we sit here, and when we see the Lord's face,
we adore him. He's everything to us. We see
ourself as the unworthy sinner that he came to save, and we
adore him. We worship him. We fall flat
on our face before him, spiritually speaking. Truth, Lord, I am a
dog, but can I have a crumb off of your table? Can I just have
some crumbs off of your table? That's what we do, isn't it?
That's what we do. What is worship? Well, it's bowing
in the heart, begging by faith. Begging by faith. Looking unto
Jesus is everything. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you can't breathe, Christ is your air. When you can't breathe,
Christ is your air. That's what worship is, is realizing
the need of Him. You need to breathe Him in. I
need to see Him for sight. He's gonna have to give me strength
to walk. He's everything. He's my air. He's my life source. When you're in darkness, He's
the light. When you sin, we have an advocate with God the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. We have an advocate in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Worship is selfless. Did you
know that? Worship is not selfish. Worship doesn't point to you
and point to me. Worship points to Him. It points to Him, it's
selfless. We worship God by looking unto
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We don't look to ourself. We
don't draw attention to ourself or glory for ourself. Worship
is looking to Him in adoration alone. We desire to draw near to Him,
don't we? We desire, Lord's people desire
to worship Him, to worship Him. I understand something very important.
Worship is not obtaining. Worship is an offering. Worship
is an offering. What do we offer? Do we offer
our works? No. No, we offer the same thing God
was pleased with. We offer the faith that He's given us. We
look to Christ. That's what we offer. We don't have anything
to give Him. So it's not something that we do waving our hands around
and by, I've seen men run down aisle. I've seen men jump pews.
That's not worship. That's drawing attention to the
flesh. Worship's done in here. It's done in the heart by faith. Oh, and we see his beauty and
his splendor. We see how amazing he is in salvation
for his people. We want to worship him. We want
to praise him. We want him to have all the glory.
All the glory. Look at what Abraham offered. You think about Abraham now.
He went three day journey. Lord said, I want you to take
Isaac, your only son, Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice unto me. And
scripture doesn't say he missed a beat. I mean, that's amazing,
isn't it? Lord gave him that much faith to know, okay, if
he's going to take him, if I'm going to sacrifice my son, I
know, and he tells us this in the same chapter, chapter 11,
God's going to raise him back up because he promised that that's
who the seed would come through and by. So I know if I slay him,
Lord will bring him back to life. He had faith to believe that.
I get there, Mount Moriah, three-day journey. He looks at the men
that he's with, and he says, wait here. I and the lad go yonder
to worship. I and the lad go yonder to worship. He went up there on the mountain,
and they worshiped God. And how do we worship God? Obedience,
looking to Christ, looking to Christ. He obeyed God. He was
going to sacrifice his son. The angel of the Lord said, harm
not thy son, the only son of Isaac. For now I know of surety. You
believe God. You believe God. And he turned
and there was a ram caught in the thicket. What a picture of
the Lord being our substitute. And what did Abraham offer? He
offered blood, didn't he? He offered blood. So do we offer
blood? We don't offer our blood. No,
we look to the one who did offer the perfect blood. We look to
the Lord Jesus Christ's blood. That's worship. Look to his sacrifice. Look to what honored God, the
Lord Jesus Christ honored God. That's what we look to. There's
a song that says, in my hand no price I bring, simply to the
cross I cling. I think it should probably say
to Christ I cling, but that'd be all right. That's what we
do. We don't come with anything in our hands, do we? We don't
come bearing any gifts of self or self-righteousness or merits.
We come desiring Him. We come completely naked. Completely naked, undone. Lord,
you're gonna have to save me. You're everything. You're everything. I want to worship you in spirit
and in truth. Look at what Christ offered.
You wanna see what worship looks like? Look at the cross. That's
worship. When the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed
himself, offered himself to the Father, when the Father made
his soul an offering for sin and he was satisfied, that's
worship. That's what worship is and that's what we come together
to hear about. That's what we come together
to profess and declare and confess as it's Christ's death, it's
Christ's burial, it's Christ's resurrection, it's Christ's blood
alone that's our righteousness and our hope. That's how we worship,
confessing him, confessing him. We never offer what we provide,
but we offer that which he has provided. Cain thought he could
offer God something he provided. Cain wanted to worship God, but
Cain wanted to worship God Cain's way, and that's the problem.
Most men don't wanna worship God God's way. And you won't
wanna worship God's way, and I won't either unless God gives
us a need to worship him God's way. Cain brought forth all the
works of his hands and thought, well, the Lord's gonna be pretty
satisfied with this. This is, boy, I've done a really
good job. And Lord said, unto Cain, and
to Cain's sacrifice, he had no respect. No respect. But to Abel, in Abel's sacrifice,
he had respect. Why? Because Abel wasn't looking
to what Abel had done. He was looking to the blood of
the lamb. He was worshiping. He was worshiping. That's how we worship. We look
to the blood. of the lamb. We don't look to self. We don't
weigh self and what we do and don't do. We look to Christ.
We look to Christ. We plead nothing but the blood
of the lamb. If we come to worship expecting
to receive, we're coming for the wrong reasons. If we come,
expecting to worship. If we come, it is good to come
prepared. Don't misunderstand what I'm
saying. Come prepared. Pray on the way over here. If the Lord binds
you to pray, pray for me. If you don't have anybody else
to pray for, pray for me. Pray for my family. My wife's
gotta put up with me, so I'd appreciate that too. Prepare
your mind and heart as best you can. Think on things of the Lord.
Pray on the way over here. Lord, send your spirit. Let us
worship you today. Let us worship you in spirit
and truth. Let us see your face today. I want to behold you in
your glory. I want to fall on my face before
you and praise you for everything that you've done. That's worship. That's what it is. We come expecting
to receive. We're coming for the wrong reason.
Worship is about offering thanksgiving and praise unto the Lord, offering
Him, saying glory to God in the heart, bowing to Him, bowing
to Him in the heart. We rejoice in Christ alone and
have no confidence in this flesh, no confidence in the flesh. Worship
is about looking to Christ through faith, the heart of faith that
he's given. If we are enabled, if we are
enabled to worship, we will be satisfied. with the one that
God was satisfied with. If we're able to worship, if
the Lord enables us to worship, we will be pleased with what
the Lord's pleased with. If we are unable to worship,
we will be thankful for what the Lord has given. We will glorify
God for what he has given. We sing these hymns, that's part
of worship, do you know that? That's offering. praise and thanksgiving
unto the Lord. We're declaring his finished
work in these songs. We're singing the gospel is what
we're doing. We're ministering one to another when we do that.
We're worshiping him. He's getting all the glory for it, all the
glory. Abel offered blood, so God demands
blood. So how do you and I offer blood?
We don't. We look to the one who offered his blood, the Lord
Jesus Christ, offered his blood on his people's behalf. You notice it doesn't say anything
about Esau here in Hebrews chapter 11. Esau wasn't chosen of the
Lord, it talks about Jacob. And Jacob here believed God and
Esau did not. Being able to worship is a blood-bought
privilege of the Lord's people. It's a gift from God to his people. If you have been enabled to worship
him, it's precious. It's precious. Jacob worshiped. Remember the picture of Jacob,
whenever Jacob got the birthright, Father Isaac's eyes had grown
dim, he couldn't see. told Esau to go kill, go get
some venison. He liked venison. And he said,
go make me some venison. I'll eat that, and I'll bless
you. Well, Jacob's mom overheard it. Jacob went. His mother said,
come with me. And she cooked the meat that
the father would like. And she put the goat skin upon
Jacob's arms so he would be hairy like his brother. And it was
his smell that he was wearing as well. He had some clothing
that was Esau, so he even smelled like him. So he goes into the
room with his father, And he said, who are you? And he says,
it's me, your son Esau. And he said, come closer. He
touched his arm. He smelt him, he says. He says,
my ears are telling me that you're Jacob, but you feel like Esau,
and you smell like Esau. That's a picture of substitution,
isn't it? That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did for his people.
He's robed us in his righteousness. So when the father sees us, he
sees his son. That's why we worship. Because
of substitution. That's our only hope is the substitution.
What happened? Jacob got the blessing. And you
and I get the blessing. What is the blessing? Christ
is the blessing. All the goodness of God is found
in Christ. That's the blessing. Men talk
about wanting physical blessings. No, I want Christ. Give me Christ
lest I die. Jacob got the blessing. He spent
his entire life Jacob spent his entire life looking
to God. He went down and worked for Laban
for 14 years and got two wives. He went down, they were in Canaan.
Do you see him? He was a trickster, he was a
supplanter, he was a liar. But God gave him faith to believe. And I love that all these men
that we're seeing here, I can tell you every example of every
single one of them that did something repulsive. Repulsive. Things
Abraham did. People talk, so you need more
faith like Abraham. We need faith. There's no doubt about that.
But Abraham's not who we're trying to be like. We want to be like
Christ. I want to be like him. Only reason Abraham pleased God
is because God gave him faith to believe God. That's why he
was found in Christ. The glory is part of our gospel.
And the reason that we worship the Lord is because we see ourselves
just as bad or worse than these men and these women and the things
that they did. We don't see ourselves as better than them, we see ourselves
as worse. And we say, how can it be that the Lord would save
a wretch like me? And he says, by grace are you
saved through faith in that not of yourselves, it's the gift
of God. What does that make you wanna do? It makes you wanna
worship, doesn't it? It makes you wanna fall on your
face before him in the heart of faith. Say truth, Lord. That's the only way I can be
saved is by your grace. If it wasn't for grace, nobody'd
be saved. You know that. Nobody. Grace is the only way that anybody
can be saved. We gotta, must come to Christ. We must be pleading him alone
before the Father. We gotta smell just like him.
We gotta look just like him. And that's what he did on the
cross of Calvary. He's the only one who pleased the Father completely.
There's no other substitute. He appeared as a man to put away
our sin. And he appeared before God as
our eternal intercessor, our mediator, and our advocate. He
appears in time to each of his sheep. This is why we worship
him, because he chose to appear. And one day he's gonna appear
in the clouds to receive his people unto himself. One day
he's gonna appear in the clouds. What is worship? Well, worship
is to confess him. confess Him. We take two ordinances
here. We take the Lord's table as He's
commanded us to do. As often as you do this do it
in remembrance of me. We take the wine and we take
the bread representing the blood and the body of Christ. And when
we do that we are worshiping. We are confessing the Lord's
body and the Lord's blood is our only hope. That's what that
represents. That's part of worship. Second ordinance that we do is
baptism. After someone believes that they've heard the gospel,
they want to confess Christ. That's how they do that, is they
get submerged in a tub. If we're not confessing Christ,
all we're doing is going swimming. It's not doing anything. But
the purpose of the baptism is not to put away sin. It's to
confess Christ hath put away your sin. Purpose of baptism
is to confess if it's not his death, burial, and resurrection
that saved me, I'm not going to be saved. It's not the water
that washes us away. We were cleansed by the washing
of water by the word. That's what we're confessing.
It's part of worship. It's part of worship. We confess
him. Preaching the gospel has the
same focal point. It's his blood alone that saves
us. It's part of worship. So baptism,
Lord's table, and preaching the gospel has one singular focal
point, the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work. Doesn't
point to you and I. Doesn't draw attention to us.
Doesn't make us feel good about ourselves. I've been to churches
before. People were talking about what a good service it was. But
all that the man kept telling them is, boy, you're just doing
a good job. Just keep on keeping on. And that ain't good news
to me. First of all, I don't feel like
I'm doing a good job. Second of all, I need to hear about
the man that put away my sin. I need to hear about the blood
that covered my sin and put away my iniquity. I need to know that
my sins are forgiven before God. Otherwise I'm gonna die without
him. There's nothing I can do to get him. There's nothing I
can do to save myself. I want to hear about him. And then hearing
about him and giving us the faith to believe we worship him in
spirit and in truth. To worship Him is to completely
and utterly, completely, utterly, desperately cling to Him. Cling
to Him. Cling to His righteousness. Looking
to His sacrifice, not ours. But you know, you cannot worship
God looking to self. You cannot worship God. I cannot
worship God looking to self. If I'm looking to self, I'm not
worshiping him. If I'm examining myself, I'm not looking to him.
When Paul said examine yourself to see if you be in the faith,
what he meant by that was examine yourself to see if there be any
self-righteousness in you whatsoever. If there be anything in you that
you are clinging to as your own righteousness. Because if it
is, you're not of the faith. That's what he's saying. No,
we don't examine ourself in worship. We look to him. We look to Christ
alone. in worship. We plead for him
alone in worship. You've heard me say this before,
and it doesn't make any sense to the flesh, but the believers
will know exactly what I mean by this. Come to Christ, but don't
move a muscle. Come to Christ, don't move a
muscle. That's how we worship. We come to Christ without moving
a muscle. We come to Christ without moving a muscle. We believe his
gospel Doesn't mean we understand it, that we can articulate every
detail. Doesn't mean I've memorized all of scripture. It just means
we believe God's gospel. We believe what thus saith the
Lord about who he is and about what I am and about what he's
done for sinners. We believe that. We believe that. Let's read this again here in
closing. Hebrews 11, 20. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob
and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he
was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning
upon the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when he died,
made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and
gave commandment concerning his bones. light of what everything
else has been said, we heard the first hour how that they
were strangers in Pilgrim seeking a different country. Joseph is
on his deathbed and he says, whenever you leave here dig up
my bones and take them with you. Don't leave me in Egypt. I don't
want to be in Egypt. That's a place of bondage you
see. That's a place of death. He wanted to be with God's people.
He wanted to be in the promised land. He wanted to be found with
the Lord's people. He was worshiping. He Don't leave
me in Egypt. Don't leave me in bondage. Dig
up my bones and take them with you. Don't leave me here. Isn't
it not true that you and I, when we see the Lord, we say, Lord,
don't leave us to ourselves. Don't leave us here in this bondage.
Save me from myself. Give me a new nature that looks
to Christ. That's exactly what he does, one that worships him.
Worship is being made to know Egypt has nothing for you. Egypt
has nothing for you anymore. Yeah, the children of Israel,
they grumbled and complained and murmured because they didn't
have garlic and onions anymore. They're going through the wilderness.
All they had was manna and quail and water. And they got tired
of it. We loathed this light bread, they said. They wanted
garlic and onions again. You know what garlic and onions
do? They give you bad breath, don't they? They sure do. But
they wanted that bad breath back. They wanted to stink like the
Egyptians did. They wanted to go back to bondage. That's what
they were saying. And that's what returning to the law is. It stinks. It
doesn't do any good. It produces death, nothing more.
Death stinks, doesn't it? That's what going back to Egypt
does. You and I, we know, we worship God and know Egypt has
nothing for us anymore. The law has nothing for us anymore.
We're not running to the law for salvation anymore. There's
no salvation in the law. There's salvation in one, the
Lord Jesus Christ. We desire a city God prepared,
one that we did not contribute to, one that we did not touch,
one that we didn't put a single rock in that city, did we? No,
I didn't set a single stone. I didn't mix up a single bit
of mud. I didn't touch it. That's what makes it so glorious.
That's what makes it so perfect. I didn't touch it, so I can't
mess it up. He built it. That's the city we're looking
for. That's what Joseph's picture of coming out of Egypt is. That's
what the picture of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt
is. They wanted a place to worship God. That's what Moses kept telling
Pharaoh. God said, let my people go, that
they may go in the wilderness and worship me. Pharaoh said,
no, I ain't gonna let you do it. Yes, you will. God's gonna
make sure of it. And he did, because God will
have his worship. He will be glorified. He will
be praised. He will be praised. By every single person that has
ever been or ever will be, they will praise him one day. They will glorify him one day.
As the Lord Jesus Christ, they will confess he is God. He is
God. Lord, you know, Moses could have
said, Lord, can you take me up and show me the promised land
since I can't go in? I really just want to look at
the promised land. He said, Lord, let me see your glory. He didn't
ask to see. He was more concerned with the
Lord's glory than he was trees and valleys and rivers or whatever
else you might have saw. Lord, show me your glory. He
said, I want to see your face. He said, no man can look up on
my face and live, but there's a place nigh unto me, Moses.
I put you in that cleft of the rock, hiding place for you. I'll let you see my hinder parts,
the goodness and mercy that'll follow you all the days of your
life. What I've done already, grace and mercy I've already given
you. I'll let you see that. And Moses worshiped. What is
worship? Worship's being put in the cleft
of the rock and seeing the glory of God. Rejoicing in it, glorifying
him for it, praising him for it. Thank you, Lord, for not
leaving us to ourself. Have mercy on me, the sinner. He said, I
will. You're saved. What do you say to that? Thank
you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Worshiping the holy God is precious. It is precious. The last thing
I want to tell us is it should be taken more seriously than
funerals. more seriously than weddings. We come to worship
should be taken seriously because this is God's worship. This is
God's worship. This is where he said, I will
meet with you. This is where he said, I will
reveal my face with you. He didn't say do that at weddings
or funerals. Sometimes he does. And we're thankful for that.
This is where he said, I will meet with you. And the gospel
goes forth. I will meet with you there. You can worship me
there. Worship is the blood bought privilege
God's chosen people. Worship is coming into his presence
with thanksgiving and to his courts with praise. That's what
Psalm 100 said. Worship is honoring the Son,
not self. What is worship? Looking to Christ as everything.
Looking to Christ as everything in salvation and confessing he
is all. You know, if you don't like worshiping God here, you'll
hate heaven. Because that's exactly what heaven
is, is eternal worship, eternal praise for God. That's what we're
going to do. We're going to cry, holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty, which was, which is, which is to come. Worthy
is the Lamb. That's what's going to be sung.
Been redeemed by the blood. He's going to get all the glory
forever and ever and ever and ever. When I was a kid, I thought
that sounded terrible because kids don't think like that. A
believer thinks now, I think it sounds wonderful now, to be
in a peaceful presence of joy and tranquility just in his presence
forever, never having to worry about anything, no fears, no
doubts, no concerns, feasting on the lamb forever and just
praising him. And some of us can't sing as
good as the other ones. Well, guess what? The Lord's
gonna give you a glorified body and you're gonna be able to sing
and you're gonna sing beautifully. And it's gonna be a song that
the angels can't sing. We'll be able to worship Him
perfectly there one day, Al. We'll be able to worship Him
perfectly with a new body. With a new body. We don't need
faith anymore. He'll be right there. We'll worship Him perfectly,
like He deserves to be worshiped. Because we'll be made like Him.
We'll be made like Him. We'll worship Him forever and
ever and ever. That word's called ceaseless.
It'll be ceaseless worship. I look forward to that day. Let's
pray. Father, we pray that you'd bless
this, our understanding for your glory. Cause us to worship you, in Christ's
name, amen.