time last night. We had 68 present last night and we praise God for that. I enjoyed myself. I hope you did. If you weren't able to come, I'm sorry you weren't able to make it. Ask some of the folks around you. They'll tell you about some of the things that we're doing and kind of our vision for the future. We desire to be serious about exactly what you see on the screen. Because that's what we're talking about. How do we make disciples of Jesus Christ? That has got to be our focus. And part of our presentation last night is we see some holes where we're doing a lot of good things, but not necessarily the thing we really should be doing. And we want to progress so that the priority really is right here. We want to make sure that we're assessing our ministries in terms of are we really accomplishing what God wants us to accomplish rather than just doing church. We don't want to just do church. Lots of people do church, but that's not what God calls us to do, is it? Did he call us to come in and sit down in uncomfortable chairs? No. And actually, your chairs are more comfortable. I was one of these places where they have these flat pews and you sit in for ten minutes and you go, oh man, no wonder they stayed awake for the sermon. They had a pain in their back keeping them awake. I've seen some of you fall asleep in these chairs, so I know these are more comfortable, okay? That's not what God calls us to do. This kind of meeting is only a means to an end. We have gathered here for several things, but our bottom goal in it is we want to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Now, part of that is, even in a service like this, there's going to be evangelistic messages where you're going to hear about Christ, what he did for you, who he is, salvation that comes only through faith in him. You're going to spend some time before or after the service talking with each other, hopefully with real fellowship. You're going to hear edification, we're going to talk about the Word of God and teaching, but all these things, as we've been talking about for several weeks, are part of how we do make disciples of Jesus Christ. Communicating new life in Christ, caring for new life in Christ, cultivating new life in Christ. We've talked about that for the last several weeks. Today is celebrating new life in Christ. Our purpose statement is glorifying God by making disciples of Jesus Christ. Our goal is to praise and honor his name. And that's what worship is about, and that's what we're going to talk about today. A.W. Tozer, and if you haven't read any of his works, they're wonderful books to be reading. He died quite some years ago. He used to write a column, and out of those columns came a series of books. He's one of those writers that knows how to get to the heart of an issue very succinctly. Really makes you think through things. One of his books was dealing with worship, and he said that worship is the crowning jewel in the purpose of the Church. I think that would be true even looking at our purpose statement, because the first thing is really glorifying God and how we carry it out. The final line is we're celebrating new life in Christ. This is worship of Him, the crowning jewel of our purposes. And yet, even with worship being so fundamental to our purposes, Worship is too often, as one writer, he actually wrote a whole book on this, is the missing jewel in the church, not the crowning jewel. Well, how can that be? How is it that we can miss this? Doesn't even the ancient catechism teach that our very purpose of existence is to know God and enjoy Him forever? That's why we exist. And yet, somehow, sometimes, too often, worship is the missing jewel. Well, I believe the major reason for this is substitutes. A few weeks ago, we talked about fellowship. Remember, we talked about true fellowship and the substitutes for it, and there's lots of substitutes. Remember, we end up with that acronym gossip or praise, but gossip often replaces praise. The same thing is true in a similar way when it comes to worship. There are too many things that are done that become substitutes for what is really worshipful of God. Let me give you just a couple of them. There are many more, but just a few of them. One is that the, and this happens to a lot of churches, but form replaces the substance. What enters in then is a cold liturgy. It's just kind of left with what you were doing because your parents did it and their parents did it and it traces back for a long time. Eventually, that will cause a church to die. In fact, we have been watching this happen in America since, well, the early 1920s. It has been a steady progression and it just keeps getting worse. So many of the mainline denominations cast away their foundation, the scriptures, and went to a man-centered theology and then continue to drift so that when you go there, there's nothing left of substance. All that is left is their liturgy and social work. That's it. That's all that's left and they're dying. You end up with this cold ritualism. Now, in other churches, other people, What is replaced in a church is a shallow facsimile of reality. There's a lot of hype, but nothing of substance. It's the other extreme. Some of you come from this background, but I'm going to pick on them, but there's other churches that do it. The large charismatic churches, some of these are broadcast on television. A lot of emotion, a lot of hype, it's really exciting, but what's left of substance there that was meat that you could grab onto is, I can live this throughout the week. there's this emotional roller coaster. Sunday's great, I'm charged up, I'm going and then Monday comes and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and by Saturday you're really dragging. That's not how God wants us to live. There's an appearance of life but it's a shadow of the reality that God has for us. Because emotion is what's being imploded instead of solid doctrine. And true worship is founded in solid doctrine. And don't be afraid of that word doctrine, solid truths that I can live on, I can believe these promises and know that it's going to change my life, not emotionalism where I'm feeling this way one moment and another way in a different moment and that's how my spiritual life is. Churches like that tend to be revolving doors because after a while emotional wear is thin and people are looking for something to fill that void in their life. A person needs something solid that's going to take them through the tough times of life and they come, don't they? There are also churches that have kept their foundation solid but they have reacted to what is bad in other churches. They don't want the ritualism, they don't want the reactions of emotionalism, they don't want to be part of what is currently a negative reaction going to the modern church growth movement, and so they try very hard to make sure that anybody who walks through the door knows they are not them, but of course now they don't know what they are. Who are we? What are we supposed to be doing? So busy saying we're not something else, we forget what we're supposed to be in serving Christ and worshiping him. The result, you had good theology, solid, but the heart is lost. It's not there anymore. Correct doctrine, but no enthusiasm about God. The joy of worship of him has been stripped out. And so people then say, well, we're supposed to be sober-minded, right? Never smile. We're Christians. Come on. We're Christians. God has sent his son. We've been redeemed. We have new life. We should be excited, shouldn't we? And yet, some look like they're ready for death because that's on their face already. And they think that's Christianity, and it's not. And so it's a replacement for true worship. My desire is that we see Grace Bible Church avoid all those various pitfalls and truly worship God. Now, we may not do it like other churches do it. And what my personal worship is like may be different than yours, but that's okay. The focus is God. Are we worshiping Him? And there are certain elements that mark off true worship, even if a different style from somebody else, as opposed to false worship or some substitute. Turn over to John chapter 4. We're going to be looking at verses 19 through 20, because the best way to find out what true worship is, is to see what Jesus says about it. and Jesus is very direct here in talking to a Samaritan woman who he met at a well. Now, this woman, being Samaritan, when there got to be a little bit more confrontation that she wanted, did what most people do when they don't really want to talk about the subject at hand, is they will switch the subject by bringing up some point of conflict and let's switch it, and she does. The Samaritans, if you know history from that time period, were a mixture of people. The Assyrians had deported Israel, and in place of them had brought people from other nations down. There were some Jews that were left in the land, the poorest of the poor. Well, these new people coming down, being pagans, thought, well, we have a new land, there must be gods that are of the mountain or the valley, and we've got to worship them. So who are the native people around here? Let's find out about the god of these mountains. And so you ended up with this mixture of religions. There was an idea of the true God and of worshipping him and some of those elements were in there, the sacrifice, but it was all mixed in with kind of a paganism mindset. So the Samaritans ended up thinking that, we know the true God, we have it right, you should worship in Samaria, that's the place to go. And so there's this conflict when the Jews said, no, it's in Jerusalem is where we're supposed to go to worship. And she brings this up. Now, Jesus had just revealed to her that he knew everything about her, having exposed that she had had five husbands, the man she was with now was not her husband. And her response is to this, because obviously that would be probably pretty uncomfortable, to be talking to someone who knows all the sins about you that you haven't in any way expressed. So she says, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Wise woman here, right? But now she brings up the conflict. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Now look at Jesus' response here. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. Now, he doesn't let the conflict go. He's very quick here to correct her. He says, you worship that which you do not know. We worship that which we know for salvation is from the Jews. But he doesn't leave it there. And boy, what he says here is so important for us this morning. But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people, the Father seeks to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So, Jesus points out to this woman four very important points about worship. First, the place is not the issue. It really isn't. And a lot of churches, it's like you can't worship if you're not in the church building. This is just a building. This is not the church. You're the church. Worship goes where you go because you're the ones that worship God. This building doesn't. In fact, this building leaks. That's why we've got this big trench here. We're going to try and stop it from leaking. The building can't do anything. It's just a building. You're the church. The place isn't the issue. Second, you cannot worship what you do not know. That is why the Bible is so important to us because we cannot know God without knowing what he has revealed to us about himself. I can go out in nature and I can say God is a God of wonders, look how beautiful it is, but that tells me nothing about how to deal with my sin. I can say God is a good God because, look, He provides food for me, but that tells me nothing about what it means to be right with Him and have a walking relationship with Him. I can say God cares about me, He puts people in my life that love me, but that tells me nothing about how I can be with God in eternity in heaven, does it? Neither does it tell me about a lot of His other attributes, including the things like His eternal nature. Can't know that. We must have the Bible. You can't worship what you do not know. And so we seek to proclaim him, proclaim him as attributes, as character, so that we can worship him properly. Third thing Jesus says here is the nature of God is spirit. He is different from us. And yet so often, even we as Christians end up trying to formulate an idea of God that really isn't this. We start making him sort of like we are, some kind of a human, just greater and bigger and more magnificent. But he's not. He is different than us, and that's important. Very different from us. He does not need the things that you have. He doesn't care about the things you offer him, thinking that's going to buy him off. Your money? He owns it all. When you give, it's simply an act of worship. It does nothing for God. When you serve him and give of your time, you've added nothing to God. He's the Eternal in nature. What is time to Him? It is an act on your part of giving to Him. He is spirit. And then Jesus says finally, our response, true worship is in spirit and in truth. That part of you which is not material must be involved in the worship of God. What really makes you who you are must be involved and it must be involved in truth. Now, this last point, spirit and truth, is the essential aspect of worship because you cannot do it any other way. Well, let's examine both of these and then we're going to add some other elements the Scriptures bring up about what true worship is. First of all, true worship is regenerated in the spirit. Now, the text is not talking about any spirit. It's talking about our spirit reacting to the working of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2, 12-14, Paul talks about the nature of what we are, and that our spirit must react to His. True worship is regenerated in the Holy Spirit. God created man to worship Him, but the relationship was broken by sin, right? We have offended Him. We can't approach Him the way, the same if your children have disobeyed you, they don't want to come to you. You still love them, but they don't want to come because they're guilty. sin breaks that relationship. And what is necessary, because the consequence of sin for us is death, physical death eventually, but immediately there is spiritual death. Paul says we are born dead in our trespass in sin, there's no relationship with God. Something has to happen and what happens is the Holy Spirit regenerates, that means He makes us alive. That's Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5. He makes us alive with Christ. We were dead, we're now alive. And so we can't have a relationship with God. Now, a person who does not have a personal relationship with God cannot worship Him. In fact, Scripture says the opposite of what happens. The same passage, 1 Corinthians 2, 12-14, talks about the natural man and says his own perception of spiritual realities is that they're foolishness to him. They're nonsense. Why would he want to be involved? He has no comprehension. It's the Holy Spirit that intercedes on our behalf with God because the Holy Spirit knows the Father and our hearts. That's Romans 8, 26 and 27. And those times when we don't know how to pray because we're so overwhelmed or confused, we don't know what we should pray, the Holy Spirit actually intercedes for us, knowing our heart and the Father's. We also find in John 16, 7, the Holy Spirit is sent to us to be our helper and we need the help. We find that He is the one, John 16, 7 through 13, that convicts us. He convicts us of sin and righteousness. And yes, as Christians, we need conviction of sin too, not just the non-Christian. In fact, we desire it where the non-Christian may not. We want to know, have we offended you, God? We want to get that cleared up and be walking with Him in holiness. We find also the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ and reveals Him to us, John 16, 14. The Holy Spirit is the first essential element in worship because without Him, we could not fulfill the second requirement of worshiping in truth. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is specifically even given the title of the Spirit of Truth and the One who reveals truth, John 14, 17, and 16, 13. So the Holy Spirit is extremely important to us. We must worship in spirit, our spirit responding to God's spirit in the worship of the Father. Well, true worship is also regained in truth. Regained in truth. Consider again Jesus' words to this woman there in John 4, specifically verses 21 and 24. He tells them, you worship what you do not know. It's ignorance. You don't know. And then he says, true worshipers must worship the Father and Spirit and in truth. Ignorant worship is false worship. You may mean the best, you may have a sincere heart, but doing the wrong thing is still going to get you in trouble. The heart must be right and the actions need to be in obedience to what God says He wants to have done. We're not exactly sure all the reasons that Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons, did what they did in Leviticus 10, but they ended up, they offered strange incense before the Lord, offered to him what was not required, not what he wanted, and the result was they died. God takes it seriously. We must know the truth. At the very best, ignorant worship is religion, and religion is man's attempt somehow to fill that God-shaped vacuum in their heart. Somehow they know he's there, somehow I must appease him. And so we develop religions. But true Christianity is not a religion. It is not a religion. It is a relationship with God, brought about by God. I didn't do it. He did it. He's the one who did all the work. He brought me to Himself. The woman thought she knew what she was doing. She thought she was truly worshiping God, but she was actually lost in ignorance. And so it is with many. But their ignorance in how they worship ends up, because they don't know the true God, they worship something other than God. It's true of paganism, it's true of the pantheistic religions, they're worshipping trees and rocks and all sorts of stuff. And yes, that's happening here. There's a whole movement that's part of the ecology thing that's been taken over by these kind of pagans. They worship trees and rocks and hills and everything else, and that's why if you say you've got a timber company who wants to come and cut some down to make furniture for you, they don't want you to do it because you're cutting down their God. What kind of God would you want that you can cut down with a chainsaw? My word, I don't want a God like that. My God's more powerful. He created the tree. The New Age religions are the same. All cultic religions are sex. Sincere sometimes, really wanting to worship God, but because of ignorance, they worship something other than God. Even many that would be under the umbrella of Christianity often worship in ignorance. They try to worship God by ritual rather than reality. Now, sometimes as a conservative, fundamental, evangelical church say, well, we don't do that. Well, the truth is it doesn't take long for anything done by any group for a long period of time to become, quote-unquote, sacred. That's why I said last night, You've got a sacred cow, slaughter that thing and sacrifice. It's not ritual. And yes, conservative, evangelical, fundamental churches, they've got their rituals too. Always got to do things a certain way. And don't you dare change it because if you do, why, God installed that and we've got to think about that. Sacred things to churches. I'll give you some of the things that pastors talk about. You go to a meeting and they want to know, well, how many people attend your Sunday morning service? That tells you how successful you are in the community. How many attend your Wednesday night prayer service? Because that tells you how successful you are in really worshipping God. The committed people come out Wednesday night and pray. And then Sunday night, how many have gone there? Because those are the people that love you, pastor. Well, you know why Sunday night services were started? Gas lamps. When gas lamps were created, churches found if I turn on a light at night, people flock because, wow, there's light. They were amazed by it. They came in to look at the lights. Well, if there's all these people here, let's preach the gospel to them. It's an evangelistic effort. Nobody here is thrilled by our lights. I mean, they're nice lights. I mean, they've got a pretty decor, but no one comes in and goes, wow, did you go over to Grace Bible Church and see their lights? It doesn't work that way. You know, Wednesday night, it's great to have a Wednesday night prayer service, anything else, but that's not the only way to pray, is it? We don't want that. It's in spirit and in truth. Where is the heart at? Are you really thinking through, I'm here to worship God, not fulfill pleasing the pastor by saying, yeah, I love you, I came out Wednesday night. What you did was really boring, but I came for you. Don't come then, right? Come because you want to worship God. He's on your heart. Tonight's a prayer meeting. Don't come because you want to please me. Come because you really want to share your heart with other people as you corporately worship God together in prayer. That's the only reason to come tonight. If that's not what you want to do, frankly, don't come. Because that's worship. And so many people worship in ignorance, even in fundamental churches. But true worship is regained in truth, and truth requires sound doctrine, proper teaching. And that is why, over in Acts 2.42, As you look at the early church, we find that they placed a premium on doctrine. What does it say there? The early church was continually devoting themselves to, the first thing listed, apostles' teaching. That's doctrine. And to fellowship, the breaking of bread, that is referring there to communion, and to prayer. Doctrine was central to them because they needed to do it according to truth. Because without the truth, you are worshipping something other than God. Well, what are some of the other elements of worship? Now, coming directly out of this foundation of worshipping Him in spirit and truth, we find that true worship is reverent in heart. One of the Greek words used for worship in the New Testament, symbiomai, is used in the sense of feeling of awe or devotion. And here, for example, Acts 6.14, Lydia, she says she was characterized by this devotion. She was called, and the word here, she was a worshiper of God. You could tell when she was coming before him, there's this awe, devotion that she had for him. Same thing was for Titius Justus, Acts 18.7, same word used of him, a worshiper of God. In fact, without the heart, worship is false. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the scribes because they had gone so far over into doctrine, they forgot what the doctrine was to teach them. Matthew 15, 8 through 9, Jesus rebuked them strongly. He says, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the precepts of men. They end up twisting the word of God to make it fit with what they wanted to say. That's vain worship. It does you no good. Now, let me caution you in dealing with this that don't let feelings be what directs you towards worship of God. When Jesus is talking about here the heart, their heart is far away, he's not talking about your feelings. He's talking about the direction of your heart. In Scripture, when it mentions the heart, it's talking about that which signifies, which is the center of your life. Your emotions are something that will come out of that, but the center of who you are, what you are, That's your heart. It included what you think, your will, as well as your emotion. We're going to see as we go on that many aspects of worship can be and should be carried out regardless of your emotion. It's not about how you feel. It's about your heart, what makes you really what you are. Feelings are to follow action, not lead them. Does that make sense? But so often people put the feelings in front. You got the facts, we'll make that the engine. You got faith, you believe God, we'll make that the coal car. And you got feelings, that's a caboose. And a lot of people are running around with the train being run by the caboose. It's not a good way to go. It only goes downhill. It can't go uphill. The truth is what we need. If your heart is set correctly on following God and you begin to worship, I can guarantee the feelings will come into your heart and mind as that and your will all agree on the wonderful character of our Lord. Think through a lot of the Psalms that David writes. He starts off despondent. Why are you cast down, O my soul? He starts off that way. He begins recounting the nature of God, his character and what God has done. By the time he's done, David's pretty excited about God and he's now joyful. We have to do the same thing. Don't let feelings run your life. Let truth run your life. Let the feelings follow. It is also respectful in action. The root meaning of the main words for worship in both the Old Testament and the New Testament describe the respectful action of the worshipper. For example, in the Old Testament, shahah means to bow down or prostrate oneself. It refers to the Oriental custom of bowing to someone as a sign of respect. The person would bow down in reverence to the deity he worshipped. It was true of idol worship as it was for the true worshippers of our Creator God. For example, in Exodus 20, verse 5, and also 34, 14, 20, verse 5 is one of 10 commandments. It says that we're not to make any idols and we're not to bow down, that's the word, to worship them. And this commandment, again, stressed in Exodus 34, 14. No bowing down, no worship of idols. That's one reason why we do not put up statues and quote, unquote, venerate them. That happens in churches. They have these different statues. They don't want to say it's worship, so they say it's venerating, but they bow down to it, don't they? They genuflect to it. We're giving honor to this saint and we're doing it. Scripture's clear, we don't bow down to these things. Deuteronomy 6.13, Moses emphasizes this very strongly, just as the people are getting ready to go on the promised land, he says, you shall fear only the Lord, your God, you shall worship, and here's this word again, bow down Him. That's the only one you bow down to, the Lord God. Now, our worship of God should include the humble, respectful action of bowing down. In Psalm 95, 6, it calls us to worship God and says, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our maker. Now, one of the tragedies that's often happened in the Protestant churches is because we wanted to get away from the liturgy of Catholicism, the kneelers were removed from the pews. Now, we don't have pews, and I've never figured out how to put a kneeler moveable, stackable chair like that, but we took them out. And yet there is something about kneeling down before the presence of the Lord, that humility, that action of bringing your own heart really in a humility before Him. It's a sign of respect. It's a good way to pray. In fact, you can look through Scripture, you'll find all sorts of ways to pray. You can find people that are praying down prostrate, face on the ground, arms out. You will find people who are praying kneeling, You will find people who are praying standing up, some with their arms up, looking up to God like this, but I haven't yet found a place where someone's praying sitting, and yet that's our most common pose, isn't it? There's something of when you make the action of humility that helps bring the heart along. The main Greek word translated as worship, proskuneo, literally means toward to kiss, It's an act of obeisance and reverence. We might think of the ancient custom of a person coming before a king, they would bow down and kiss the king's feet. And that actually is seen in Psalm 212, the nations are told to come and kiss the son lest he be angry or give homage to the son. An act of respect to the king is the same kind of respect we find done for Jesus. Luke 7.45, we find the woman, Jesus at the home of the Pharisee, they didn't do anything for him, but this woman comes in and she's kissing his feet and crying and wiping his dirty feet with her hair from the waters coming down as she's crying. This reverent respect could be demonstrated in other ways than just a kiss. We find the wise men, Matthew 2.11, they came to the baby Jesus and said they fell down and they worshipped him. There was an action that was involved with it. The leper who came to Jesus for healing, he did the same thing, Acts 8.2. Also, the Canaanite woman with the demon-possessed daughter, Matthew 15, 22. And then after the resurrection, we find Matthew 28, 9, the disciples, it says, took hold of his feet and worshiped him. But again, we need to be careful that in worship, our respectful actions toward God come from a reverent heart. You can do the actions, but if the heart's not there, it's not worship. Who you really are need to be part of it. We don't do things because we're worried about what other people think. We don't do them because they just become road action. We do them from the heart in worship of our God. True worship is also rendered in service. Now, this idea comes out from two other biblical words translated as worship. In the Old Testament, we find that service for God was part of worship. If you look up numbers, and these are just a couple of passages, Numbers 3, 7 and 8, 4, 19, Look up all the sections that deal with what the Levites had to do and the priests had to do in the worship of God. There's a lot of stuff they had to do, but all of it was part of their ritual service for the Lord. It was work that was part of worship. In fact, over in Exodus chapter three, verse 12, we find that the reason God called Israel out of Egypt was so that they might go to a place that he would designate We are to worship Him, worship Him. Same word is used there, serve Him. And thus we're told in Psalm 211 that we are to worship, and it can be translated, serve the Lord with reverence. Our service is part of our worship. Same thing is true in the New Testament. La treuo is translated in several places as worship or service of worship. We are the true circumcision, that is, we're the ones who are truly following God, who worship, here's our word, in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no glory in the flesh. That's what we're doing. It's an act of service. Same idea, Romans 12, verse 1. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Literally, you could translate this logical service of worship. True liturgy would be this. So when you're using your spiritual gifts, whatever they are, could be a helping gift, teaching gifts, exhorting gifts, giving, leadership, mercy, whatever your spiritual gifts are, in that service, that's worship. That is your service of worship. And we need to keep that in mind. When you're using your spiritual gift, it's just not about doing something. It's about worshiping the God who created us and gifted you. That's why we glorify God by making disciples of Christ. We want to glorify Him in all of our actions. True worship is also radiated in proclamation. Whenever we proclaim the character of God, speak of His works, tell of His mercy, His kindness, we are worshiping God. Now, that idea comes out very strongly in the Psalms. Consider some of these. Psalm 8 describes the Lord's glory. It's worship of God. Psalm 19 tells the work and works of God. Psalm 34 tells the Lord's provision and His deliverance for us. Psalm 50 tells of God's judgment. Psalm 68 tells of God's character. Psalm 77 and 78 tells of God's dealing with the nation of Israel. Psalm 91 tells of God's security and protection of those that belong to Him. Psalm 139 tells of God's omniscience and His omnipresence. All these are part of worship of God. Psalm 145 tells of His goodness. And in just recounting those Psalms, we're worshiping God. Add to these things the centrality of teaching ministry in both the ancient Judaism and in the early church, and we see the importance in proclaiming the proclamation of the truth of God in the worship of God. Now let me add that confession of sin is also part of the proclamation. That's one of those things we don't like doing. It's one of the one-anothers that puts the end of the list. Confess your sins to one another. But you know confession is part of this proclamation of worship of God. Confession is openly agreeing, God is right and I'm wrong and I need his forgiveness for what I just did or didn't do, right? That's confession. He's right, I'm wrong. That's an act of worship. If you recall the story of Achan, Joshua chapter 6 and 7, you'll see this. Joshua and the children of Israel just defeated Jericho. Great victory. God had placed a ban on the spoils. They go up to a little place called Ai, a little bitty village. Joshua doesn't send the whole army, just sees a little contention. Go out, take it out. And they get utterly wiped. It's bad to feed. How can this happen? I mean, we just took out Jericho by walking around it and shouting. And now we can't send and take this little village? Well, it's because Achan had taken some of the BAM and God was punishing them because of it. They had sinned against God. Well, through the process, Achan is discovered. He is the one that says, yes, this is the one who's guilty. Now, here's what Joshua says to him. Joshua 7, verse 19. My son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give praise to him, and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. He's asked Achan to confess, and he's calling this giving glory to God and praise to his name by confessing his sin. And Achan confessed his sin in verse 20 based on the fact that he needed to give glory God, he needed to praise God, and there's no bargaining for a lesser sentence in it. Boy, try that in modern courts. I'm going to confess my sins not to get a lesser punishment. We'll bargain this to get a lesser crime that I didn't do because I did something worse. Achan had to take on the full punishment, which in his case was he and his family were stoned to death. But the last act of his life was giving praise to God and glory to his name by confessing his sin. Worship is given when we proclaim either the truth about God or the truth about something in relationship to him. And by proclaiming him, we radiate his glory, and that is worship. Related to this is that worship is resounded in praise. To praise is to commend, to glorify, to express approval of something or someone. That's central to worship, isn't it? We commend God to others, we glorify God by telling others We love about Him. We express our approval of all that He has done and all that He is. Psalm 96 speaks of singing to the Lord, telling of His greatness and ascribing to Him glory. That's the worship of praise. But you know, praise isn't always easy to do. Sometimes it's difficult. Remember Hebrews 13.15? He talks about through Him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. Do you ever think about praise as being sacrifice? Well, what is required in this sacrifice of praise? Several things. First of all, to praise God takes your time. You've got to sacrifice your time, don't you? You could be doing something else, you sacrifice your time. You sacrifice your time to be here. You could be like the heathen out there and out doing some kind of fun sport or something like that, right? You sacrifice your time to come and give praise to God. And that's worship. You also have to sacrifice your thoughts because you've got to turn your thoughts from whatever it is that's been on your mind and refocus them on God. Isn't that what Jim prayed in our opening invocation? God, help us set aside all that stuff that we're dealing with every day and help me focus in on God. Even in a sermon, I know you tune in and tune out. I can see it in your face. I can see who's watching and really intent and I can see who's, oh boy, what's outside? You tune in, you tune out. It takes hard work to keep focused, doesn't it? Well, that in itself is a sacrifice given as part of worship of God. I am going to sacrifice what I could be thinking about to make sure I'm actually thinking about God and what's related to Him. In order to give thanks, I have to recognize that God provides everything for my life and I need Him. I have to sacrifice my pride because it's no longer up to me. In order to continually offer up praise, I have to learn to see everything from God's perspective and not my own. That means I have to sacrifice my self-centeredness and my self-pity. All the things have got to go if I'm going to really give a sacrifice of praise to God. Now, praise is best when it comes from a heart that's already full of the joy of the Lord. But there are times we have to start off with praising God as a sacrifice. It's work. I've got to get my mind set on that subject, just like David did. as I mentioned earlier in the Psalms. Who is my God? What is he like? What has he done? And the more I focus on that, then the joy can come. Don't let your emotions tell you whether you can praise God or not. Just be glad that you haven't been asked to praise God as Achan was, right? Now the amazing thing is when we start praising God, quickly joy returns. So praise is an aspect of the worship that it echoes back and forth. It's one of the things that's neat about when we have praise time in a morning service or an evening service. One person praises God, and that sparks something in the other person. Well, yeah, you know what? God did something similar. And then you go, I praise God because of this. Yeah, you know what God did here? And then someone in the back says, yeah, and God did this too. And it resounds back and forth. And that's why it's resounding in praise. But worship that resounds in praise also responds in prayer. When a man or a woman has the right heart with the Lord, They're being controlled by the Spirit of God. They're serving Him. They're telling others about Him. So it's only natural that they're also going to respond in prayer. They personally want to communicate to the God that they are serving and praising. A lot of times we tend to think of prayer as, I'm going to bring my wish list to God. God, here's all the things I need you to do. Here's all the people I know that are hurting. Take care of them. Here's my needs list. Take care of the needs. But prayer is much more than that. Prayer is an intimate fellowship with God. It is your personal communion with the Lord. It's talking to Him, letting Him know personally your love for Him, the things in your heart. True prayer begins with adoration of God and confession of sins. Both of those are acts of worship. And that needs to occur before you bring any request before Him. They need to come first. And then finally, true worship is reflected both as individuals and as a congregation. because it's the time we all come together as a manifestation of the local body of Christ to worship our Lord. However, whatever occurs in this building as we have gathered together corporately is only going to be a reflection of what has occurred in our hearts individually throughout the whole week. It cannot be any better than that. And so each of us need to prepare ourselves for when we do come together that we might enhance the total worship of everybody. Tell me how much do you feel like worshipping God if you come here rushed from your activities in the morning? You're getting the kids ready. I know what it's like with kids, especially when they're young. You're ready to go out the door and something happens like, alright, let's go back in and change the baby's diaper and now you're rushed because you're going to be late and you're supposed to be there and you're trying to not do what you should be doing as a Christian but you're zipping in and out of traffic and probably cut some people off Who cares what it looks like? We just got to get there, and you get there, and I'm here, but do you feel like worshipping God? I don't when that happens, and I only have to walk across the parking lot. I don't like that. What it would be so much better if we prepared beforehand, because to worship well on Sunday morning, you prepare throughout the week. It's what happens on Monday that is going to affect what you're going to do the next Sunday together, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and all the things that you're doing. Get in the habit of spending time daily in individual worship, reading your Bible, responding to what he says and praise to him, praying to him, singing to him, giving thanks to him throughout the whole week. And then for Sunday, you need to prepare on Saturday night. You've got to be careful in what you do. Be careful how late you stay up. I know people were dragging this morning. I kept you up too late last night. Okay? It's harder to do that. Decide what you're going to wear Saturday night instead of Sunday morning when you're bleary-eyed and it's too dark in your room anyways and you can't see what color matches. Put it out Saturday night. Do that with your kids. There's no hassle. We're ready, let's go. Leave five minutes earlier than you would have normally and just enjoy the drive. You can have five extra minutes to fellowship with other people that are here. Say, hey kids, look, did you see the deer? Do you see the ducks over there? Hey, look over that pond. Man, what a beautiful day today. Look at the color of the trees this morning. Praise God all the way to here. When you're here, then, you're ready for worship. And that then spills over into the rest of the congregation. Make your worship experience much more meaningful. Let me close by a quote that's been attributed to several different men, but regardless, it is thought-provoking. Some have felt that coming to a church service is similar to going to a theater. The platform is a stage upon which the preacher, the musicians, the scripture readers are all performing before the congregation. The congregation is the audience that can then show their approval by how much they leave in the offering plate. In truth, however, the preacher, the musicians, the scripture readers, et cetera, are simply the prompters of the congregation who are the ones that are on stage. Because as I have up here, God himself is the audience. You are the performers. Is he pleased with your performance? Because that's true worship. Folks, true worship takes work. It is not a passive activity. It's extremely active. You're not here to be entertained. You're here to work hard at giving all of who you are, all of your very best to God. And perhaps that's really the final thought. True worship demands rigorous work. It really does. It does take work to set aside the thoughts and emotions of daily existence to focus your minds on the Scriptures. It takes work to prepare your heart to praise Him. It takes work to pray thoughtfully. It takes work to sing to God's glory. So true worship is regenerated in the Spirit. It's regained in truth. It's reverent in heart. It's respectful in action. It's rendered in service, radiated in proclamation, resounded in praise, responds in prayer, It's reflected both as individuals and as a congregation, and it is rigorous work. But isn't our God worth it? The one who created us and loved us and saved us, redeemed us? I pray that today and every day that God will find our worship, both as individuals and as a congregation, acceptable to him. Father, we are grateful for your word. Father, how would we know you without it? How would we know how to worship you without your word? The revelation of Yourself and Your will for us. Father, forgive us for how often our worship really is so shallow. And we do tend to think of it more about ourselves than about You. We come to a service thinking about, I wonder what I'll get today. I wonder if the music will be good. I hope the preacher is interesting and not boring this morning. Father, those things are all wrong. We need to come with a heart of giving. Father, we want to give our very best to You. We want to work hard at making sure we're praising You. Father, even if a singer hits a wrong note, we praise you for someone who's willing to help motivate us to worship, who will pick out songs that will reflect our own hearts or cause us to start thinking about you the way we need to. Father, for what your word says and whoever's proclaiming it, as we think through that this isn't his opinion, it's what you've revealed of yourself. Father, we then take seriously changing as a result of that because that is true worship. All begins with your spirit, and so we ask your spirit, Father, to continue, not just this morning but throughout the week, prod us to a true understanding of you that we might worship you in spirit and in truth. Father, not in cold ritualism, not in a legalism where there's lots of doctrine but the heart is gone, and Father, not in emotionalism which forgets about the truth. Father, thank you that though we know that in our frail, failing human state. There's no way we could do what is proper, befitting of you, yet you're willing and you desire our worship. In Jesus' name, Amen.