Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble, and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. Let's pray together. O Lord God, we thank you for your holy word for its perfection and its pronouncement and its command over all of our lives. We thank you, O God, for this word of rebuke and yet of attentiveness and mercy. We pray, O God, that we would be attentive to what your word has to say in return, that our hearts would be undivided this evening to revere your name. O Lord, lead me and guide me as I preach it. You be with those by the power of your spirit who need spiritual renewal in our midst to honor you. And may you also convert the hearts of those who do not know you. Abide with us, strengthen us, and may we enjoy you and glorify you forever this night as a result of this night. In Jesus' name, we do pray. Amen. Please be seated. Some of you may know a little bit about Adoniram Judson and his ministry in Southeast Asia, Burma, 1815. One of his first converts, I had trouble pronouncing the name when I read it, but he said when he heard the word of the Lord, he said in his native language as best as he could, broken English, that it felt like a knife going into his liver. And in hearing the word of the Lord, it was pain, and then it brought him joy. Such describes the nature when many of us heard the Word, we experienced the conviction of sin. It pained us. It twisted within us that we had offended such a holy God. And yet, it was like sweetness as the Holy Spirit enabled us to embrace Christ as He's offered in the Gospel. A great joy coming to know the Lord. A great exuberance. A great zealous fire. But as time wore on, the book of Revelation gives in our lives, it's pertinent to our lives, a rebuke that you have abandoned your first love. Sometimes that happens. Our love wanes. We are inconsistent in the faith. The kindling that we once had is now down to an ember and it needs strengthening and revival. Our scripture text this week, is a warning and a reminder both. It's a warning of what happens when our devotion becomes lax, when our hearts do not beat as passionately as they once did to the name of the Lord, and we become hollowed. Not only have we left our first love, but there's a hollowness, there's an emptiness. But it's also an exhortation given to us as to what to do to reclaim that fullness that the Lord God has given to us. And that, leads us to the main theme of our text this morning. When we succumb to that negative state, God has a response and He moves us in return as to what to do. And what does He do? The main theme of our text is this, is that God ignores hollow worship, but He regards the worship of those who come to Him with humble and contrite hearts and who tremble at His Word. God ignores hollow worship, but He regards the worship of those who come to Him with humble and contrite hearts and who tremble at His Word. We're going to see this in a couple of made-sub points. First of all, that God ignores hollow worship, verse 1 and 2a. And then we're going to see that God regards the worship of those who worship Him with humble hearts, first of all, in verse 2b. Then we're going to see that God regards the worship of those who worship Him with contrite hearts, verse 2b. And then also we're gonna see in verse, the fourth made-sub point is that God regards the worship of those who tremble at His word. also in 2B. So let's go back to the beginning, verse 1 of 66. God says, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? You may know that the context of this passage is that Judah has been exiled in Babylon. God has promised them, comfort, O comfort ye my people, that he will restore them to the promised land, take them back to the land of their ancestors. And yet also with a look to the millennium, the enjoyment of the saints for all eternity, both things are in view here. But here immediately in this particular context is the attitude of the people's hearts as they approach coming back into the promised land. And what is the nature of their hearts? Well, the nature of their hearts is that they have been hollowed out. God has given them such a wonderful, wonderful promise of comfort, O comfort ye my people. God has promised that as they wait on Him, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary and walk and not faint, that after their period of punishment being over, that they're going to enjoy such a fullness of God, spiritually renewed prosperity in the land. And yet, one regard, if I said earlier in Revelation that they experience God's comfort, yet His people very, very quickly forget all the goodness that God has done and come with no recollection of His promises, no matter how much He has put that bountiful table before them of mercy and renewal and restoration. They give him something with empty hearts. They fall into a place of forgetting the sovereignty of the Lord, first of all. And, second of all, they get to a point of thinking that they can appease God by what they build, by the works of their hands. You know, if it was said before the exile, they succumb to the heresy of saying, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. while all the while not really giving heartfelt regard to his temple. If it said in Isaiah 29 that these people worship me with their lips and yet their hearts are far from me, they've done that again here after these great promises. God says in Isaiah 23 that you have been weary of me, O Israel. And what's happening is they're seeking to go through the bare rudiments of worship. They may seem to be zealous, but they're not. They want to build God a temple. And, of course, that was, of course, in God's commandments as evidenced by Cyrus instructing them in the book of Ezra to come and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. That much was at play. But the difficulty is they did it in such a way as to look at the works of their hands. We're going to do this for God. Look at what we did. And yet at the same time, they had no real devotion for sacrifices, preparing their hearts for worship. They thought they could give God something, yet really they had nothing within, and only God could give them the ability to will and to work, to engage in a worship that was pleasing in His sight. What does the Lord say in Micah 6, 8? He doesn't need burnt offerings and calves that are a year old. But the Lord requires that we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God because as God says in this passage, all these things my hand have made and so they came into being, declares the Lord. God doesn't need sacrifices. He doesn't need the elements to build a temple. He made them. He can fashion them. And so if we claim that we can do something for God without devotion on the inside, we can't. We can't erect an edifice where there's dead man's bones. Jesus described the Pharisees as whitewashed tombs, filth on the inside, and yet they look pretty on the outside, but nothing was within. That cannot be the nature of what we do. That cannot be the nature of true and spiritual worship. And also they said, what is this house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest, God's Word said. Looking at that, they thought that in building a temple, They were inviting God, they did not. God condescended to live among them in the scheme of redemption. He chose to put His name on that temple that He might draw near to them. And He left just as quickly due to their sin as He left on a chariot in the book of Ezekiel, coming out. We do not command that God go anywhere. God commands us. And He commands us not to be hollow, but to worship in spirit and truth. And that being said, do you boast in what your hands have made? Do you think that you can come through here in this sanctuary and go through the motions and sing all the right hymns, pray the formulaic prayers, while yet you haven't prepared your heart before God, you haven't longed for His courts, you haven't longed for His temple? Do you claim that? If so, you're in spiritual danger. Do you claim that you can just write a check and do something, donate money to the church and yet not really have your heart engage with the needs of the poor, with the needs of the God of Israel who commands that you give offerings to His house, to give your devotions first of all to Him and second of all by implication to others? If you claim that, your heart's in trouble. It's hollow. Your heart is not on fire for God. If you're unregenerate, you can be like the rich young ruler. You can check all the right boxes, and yet your heart can be filled with idolatry and with greed, and checking boxes is as if you're building an empty checkbox temple. That much can be in view here. But what happens often is we who are regenerate, has the Word of God lost its luster for you? become a bore? Do you watch the clock? Do you wish that you were somewhere else? Oh, you can recall a day when you once were excited about it, to hear it. But have you slid down that slope of being half-hearted? If so, you need the Lord for renewal. And the danger here, by implication, if it says in verse 2, The one to whom I will look who is humble and contrite and who trembles at my word. It follows that he ignores those who do not do what we're about to discover next. He ignores those who are hollow, who claim they can offer him something when they cannot. Even though it's building a godly edifice, my friends, it's like building the Tower of Babel. You know, to claim that we do something for God, to claim that we can go through the motions. God will ignore it. He will abominate it. He will hate it. And that we've got to be aware of. And ultimately, if we do not know the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, if truly all of our worship has been hollow and a hypocritical farce, then we will be destroyed. Not just ignored, but destroyed. We need to keep that in mind. It's dangerous. We look to Christ. And so in looking to Christ, we come to our second main sub-point. If it follows that God ignores hollow worshipers, we see that God regards those who have humble spirits. And so God says, but this is the one to whom I will look, who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. First of all, this is the one to whom I will look. If he ignores those who are hollow, he looks to those who have regard for him in their humility. The word look in the Hebrew there, it means in the sense of giving grace to, grace and favor, regarding. God to regard you. If He ignores hollowness, He regards and graciously gives ear towards those who look to Him, who abase themselves. And that's the first part of humility. If God looks and gives His grace and favor And we see that when we first came to believe the Lord, did we not? He, of course, by His grace, enabled us to embrace Christ as He was offered in the gospel. But we, in turn, trembled, looked to Him, and He showed us favor as we trusted Him and received Him by faith. It was an humbling moment to recognize that we were empty in and of ourselves and needed a Savior. And the Christian life requires a continued posture of being empty of ourselves and to seek the fullness of the Savior to walk in the Spirit. And so, the Hebrew word ani, meaning humble, refers to being poor in spirit and meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit, Jesus says. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." In other words, when we recognize that we bring nothing to God, much less a temple, but even nothing in our hearts, and we need Him to fill us, my friends, when we recognize that very thing, that means it's an invitation for God to fill us, for us to be filled with Him so that we might worship Him truly. When we are poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven, its blessings and benefits are ours. When we are meek, we inherit God's blessings. And also, too, if it says, apart from Christ, we can do nothing, in John 15, 5, if we abide in Him and recognize that we are nothing apart from Him, we will bear much fruit. That much is at stake here. That much is said. Also, to be poor in spirit is to be like one who in the book of Lamentations sits in silence before God. Like in Psalm 25, for you I wait all the day, I wait expectantly. Because we know that if we sit in the dust, and if we know our hearts truly, we know that they're broken. And that even in Christ we have some remaining corruption, that we have to stay humble. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, the Scriptures say. And it also follows humility that we don't pursue the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, but recognize that is empty nourishment, junk food. Cast that aside. Instead, seek the marrow of His Word. And so now, I have to ask you, looking at these things that characterize humility, Do you come into this worship? We used to read it all the time. Luke 1, verse 53. It says this, listen together. God has filled the hungry with good things, yet the rich He has sent away empty-handed, or empty. And then we said, what will you be taking home from worship today? You know, I miss us reading that passage. Because I think it helped frame a good response. I know Elder Wayne always read it faithfully. He always read it like clockwork. But I think sometimes we forget that. We think, well, everything is going good. I may have had a good week walking with the Lord, better than usual. But we forget that even our best performances are but rags. Our best performances, unless actuated by God, coming from His Spirit. Unless that be the case, Our best performance is or is nothing. We all depend on grace from first to last. We all must acknowledge our waveredness and our need for continual renewal in being humble. And do, when you come into worship in your humility, do you also ask for God to open your lips that the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart might be acceptable to Him? Do you do that? That's important to do as well. And also, in 3rd Maid, some point, God regards the worship of contrite spirits. The Hebrew word nekeh, it means smitten or brokenness over your sins." It means that it's like, if I gave that illustration earlier about Adoniram Judson's first conversion that his liver was pierced through, it means that due to the nature of our sin that it's been laid bare. It's been transparent, broken open, and just on the pavement, that sort of thing. It's as if it's been flayed open. That's the nature of what it means to have a contrite heart, to be flayed open, to have compunction. It's like Psalm 38, 1 and 2, where it says, your arrows have stuck in me. It's like, you know, David said, my sins outweigh the number of hairs on my head. It's like that. And that is a painful place to be if you've ever been there. I've gone astray like a lost sheep. And so there's an element of brokenness there, yet there's also an element of sadness. It's as if in contrition, if you're flayed open, there's going to be pain where it's, you know, you beat your breast and don't dare look to heaven like the publican who said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. There's that aspect of it as well. And also, my eyes fail with tears. like the prodigal in Luke 15, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. We feel that way before God. We feel that way. And it's often difficult and painful. But it's not a worldly grief contrition here that brings sorrow. It's a godly grief that leads to life and salvation. Godly grief produces repentance not to be repented of. In other words, we come with contrition knowing the depths of our sin, our waverness, but we come with a hope knowing that God will forgive, a gospel hope knowing that He will be merciful, that a broken and contrite heart you will not despise. That's true in Psalm 51. David knew that though he had sinned grievously, He knew that there was help, renewal, and hope. And I think many times we forget that part of contrition. We forget that though we as Christians come before the throne of grace with boldness, there is a place for pouring out our hearts, for weeping and wailing, for feeling sorrow that God might fill us with a greater measure of joy in return. And so I now have to ask you, do you truly have a daily practice of contrition? And not just a practice, but if you know your heart and you know how to use modern parlance, how messed up it is, if you know that, we need to take to mind the words of John, 1 John Chapter 1, verse 8, if we claim we do not have sin, He is not with us. If we have not sinned, His Word is not in us, that is. We need to keep that in mind. We need to also keep that in mind that though we do the very thing we do not want, per Romans 7, there is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If it is said that God looks, regards, and gives grace to the contrite, That's what we need to keep an eye, too. So as we freely confess, as we are dejected inwardly, as we have godly sorrow, we know that we can find mercy. We can find the look of His eye. That's what we can find. Not His ignoring, but His look, my friends. That's the good thing. And also, too, that if there is contrition and a pouring out of the corruption within us, If your sins have separated you from God, as Isaiah also says, that there might not be an interruption of fellowship. Confession clears the way for good fellowship. It clears the way for closeness and intimacy with God that we might be filled. We might not construct an empty edifice, but that we might be filled with Him in return. And so, do you practice confession and contrition? And do you flay yourself out before God and tell Him to search me and know me? Do you do that for Him? Search me and know me and lead me in the way everlasting. Do you do that before Him, that is? If not, you need to seek the Lord for renewal to do that. Because chances are, as we see in Psalm 19, forgive my unknown faults. That's the nature of our lives. We have so many unknown faults. We wake up every day and sometimes I've heard it said, particularly among the Reformed, that as the years go by, we realize we had more sins than we thought we had. That's because we've become acquainted with the nuances of our hearts, and it may be that if you are not feeling a sense of God's nearness in worship. I've had some of you, and I'll just lay this out on the table, I've had some of you tell me that, and it seems to be a phenomenon that some people just report feeling down lately in the church. Some people have just said, one person said, I just feel sad and I don't know why. Well, it could be one of those two things. It could be that there is some unknown sin. It could be that there is not contrition. It could be that there is not humility. It could be any number of things. And one person reported, it just feels that, even in preaching, I just feel edgy. Some of you in here know who you are. There has been a bit of a weight, I sense. It just seems to be, they said, it's just not seeming to register. I feel like I want to go at times. Any one of these things. Maybe we're not humble. Maybe we're not longing. Maybe we're not contrite. I say this all to help us all, as it seems many are in this season right now, where we need to find renewal of our devotion. Also, let's take a look at this. We see in our fourthmaid, some point, that God regards the worship of spirits that tremble at His Word. That tremble at His Word. The Hebrew word there, harad, it means like a reverent beholding, a willingness to bow the knee in a filial fear of God. We see what He has to say to our hearts. And like the hymn, let all mortal flesh keep silent, we want to be in His presence. We hear what He says and we would gladly listen with respect. But yet also there is a measure of even though we can come before the throne of grace with boldness, even though we have this liberty as believers where God is still a consuming fire, if Isaiah as a believer in beholding the throne room of God, and the cherubs there said, behold, I'm a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, and he was scared and trembled. We have a holy boldness that we have to remember that side of God too. We have to remember that to see Him, if we were to see Him as He is, we can't see Him face to face, we would die. But if we would behold His throne room in this flesh, we would be, you know, undone. Yes, in Christ, He will embrace us as we behold Him in heaven. But we have to remember that part of God. The Lord is King indeed, yet nations quake with fear. As they heard the Word of God, for people who are unregenerate, when they heard the Word of God, as I'd allude to, it says they were cut to the heart. What must we do, brothers, to be saved? What must we do? Our confession says that on the nature of saving faith, that it's yielding obedience, trembling at the threatenings and embracing the promises of God. Saving faith sees these things in God, trembles, embraces, rejoices, whatever it's called for. But what does this trembling involve also? David said at times he was afraid. He trembled at God's judgments. We tremble at God's discipline. There are times when we sin, and we have broken God's commandments, and we face some consequences, and we see His fatherly hand on our lives. We see His rebuke. That should cause us to tremble. But also, there is a much more everyday, even when we're not being disciplined, that reverence for God when His word is preached, trembling, yes, when we're convicted, but to have an expectation of trembling, that we are about to hear the Word of God, to say this is what it is, to come before the throne room of God, to come into His house and say, do we really think about what we're about to hear? Do we really think about that's what it is? Do we think that in… this is like a dress rehearsal for the courts of the Lord, that the Lord is with us spiritually here. And do we come and kneel before Him as before a king? The whole sermon this morning was about that in Revelation. Do we come ready to hear the edicts of our King? Do we also search out the Word of God like the Bereans? Do we seek to know its truths? Do we meditate on God's Word, treasure it, and hide it in our hearts? You know, the Puritans often say without meditation there can be Little growth. Do we do that? And do we also, do we linger like what happens in Acts chapter 20? You know, that Paul preached so long that yet it was timeless. They wanted to keep hearing. It was well past midnight. When was the last time that that's described our lives? Your life. My life. When were we willing to stay that long? Yes, I know to some degree we have to get the kids to bed on a routine basis, but on an occasional basis, have we ever been willing to extend the time, to savor, like a juicy steak, God's Word? I think many of us can spend more time making our marinades for our earthly steaks, saying, how long has it been marinating in the refrigerator than spending time with God? We're so earthly. We're so earthy and so sensual. But if we're saved, we have a greater taste. God's Word makes us appetized, increases our appetite. We're ready to partake of that feast. We're ready to spend time with Him. And if you've never had that, then my friends, you were never saved if you've never had a longing, if you've never had a desire to sup with God. But in this, whatever you want to call it, this apathy, a period of lukewarmness, if that characterizes you, God says this in Revelation, He stands at the door and knocks. Jesus says this, that He invites us to sup with Him, and it's a clear call to renewal, to tremble at His Word afresh. That is what's going on here. And so, my friends, in conclusion, We see that God regards those who respect His Word with humility, contrition, and trembling, and He turns His head towards those who ignore it. And now, thinking about God's regard, do you know what it's like to be lost and undone, perhaps to have no desire to hear the Word of God. If what I mentioned earlier is true of you, that everything is hollow, that church for you is just a going through the motions, it's about getting it done, if you've never had a real joy for being here, well, I'm here to announce to you good news. The Lord Jesus Christ in your hollowness promises that as we trust in Him by faith, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Turn from your sins, turn to Him, turn from your hollowness and turn to Him who can give you life and life abundant. He says, come to me all ye who are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. You know, one of the reasons that we get so restless, jotting and dashing after one thing to the next is that we have no true rest of soul. We have no true filling of the Holy Spirit to be able to praise God warmly. And believing in the Lord Jesus Christ who will save you, you will have that ability to praise God lovingly because you will be saved, you will be transformed and out of gratitude in your heart to God. Not out of appeasing Him or building an empty structure, just seeking to keep Him at bay, but there will be a sincere willingness to acknowledge Him. as He has acknowledged you, to love Him as He has first loved you. You will know comfort, O comfort ye my people, because He has comforted you, and you will long more and more for His comfort, to be like a weaned child with its mother." If you're hearing this invitation today, Know that if you refuse it, there is but further emptiness and gnawing and hollowness in this life and hell in the next. But if you are believing what I'm saying and not ignoring, and if you're believing this call of God that He will look to you when you're humble and contrite in spirit and tremble at His Word, then these promises of His favor and blessing in Jesus Christ are yours. And it will be. a fullness in your humility, a peace and lifting up in your contrition, and a banquet as you long for His Word. May this be true of us each and every day. It may be true of you for the first time as you were saved, but each and every day, may this characterize more of our lives. May God restore us and renew us and make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us. Amen.