Opening:
The founder of the Salvation Army said to his fellow “soldiers”: “Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again—until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.”
In the New Testament we have this idea of grace versus works. So, we have James 2:14-17:
what use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
Then we have Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
But then we have Ephesians 2:10:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
Please read with me Galatians 2:19-20:
For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
I. All believers have been crucified with Christ.
a. To be a Christian means that I believe that Jesus died and rose again for me. I trust in Him for salvation, I confess my sins to Him and I commit to Him.
b. If you are a Christian you have been crucified, wow! That is a strong picture. I believe that Paul used this word picture for dramatic effect. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is entirely true, but there is a reason that Paul used a dramatic picture here. In a metaphorical way we have been crucified with Christ. We no longer live, but Jesus lives within us.
c. Let’s talk about Galatians. Paul writes to the churches of Galatia to counter these false apostles who have bewitched them (Gal. 3:1). The churches in Galatia have come to an error of works salvation. They have started believing that they had to live by the law. Paul is extremely assertive in this short New Testament letter. Look at Galatians 1:6-9: [Listen as I read]
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
d. So, Paul is writing about law versus grace and, you know what? I think we need the same message. We have similar issues. No, we don’t have issues with the Jewish Law. But as Christians we go two different ways.
1. We believe we have to earn our salvation.
a. We know this is not true. I read earlier, Eph. 2:8-9, we are saved by grace. Grace is unmerited favor. If you look at Gal. 2:21 Paul writes that if righteousness could come by the law, then Jesus died in vain. He died needlessly.
b. But, when we add legalistic standards for Christians we become a cult, and we make Jesus’ death on the cross in vain.
c. We do this if we practice Christianity religiously. Most in our churches are not guilty of this at all.
2. Or, we throw away any moral law. In this case the Christian’s life does not match his faith. This is a problem.
a. We do this when we do not preach what Jesus preached and what this verse is saying. Jesus said in Luke 9:23: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”
b. If Jesus taught that why don’t we preach this?
c. How can we preach this message without teaching/or showing that we work out our salvation? We were created for good works.
d. As a Christian, the Holy Spirit changes us. Think about the following:
I recently read a book which someone at my church recommended. The book tells the life of Louis Zamperini. Zamperini was in the 1936 Olympics held in Germany. He was famous for setting records for how fast he could run the mile.

Later he was planning to enter the next Olympic competition but it was canceled because of WWII. Zamperini entered the war and served on a B 24. He was shot down and spent 47 days at sea and then around three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. He was badly mistreated in the POW camps.

Following the war he dealt with post traumatic stress disorder. This caused him to plunge into alcoholism which brought on a host of other problem. He was married and had one child, but his marriage was being threatened with divorce. Every time he closed his eyes at night he was plagued with memories of his time as a POW. He was filled with hate and wanted to kill one particular guard (Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Finally in 1949 as the 31 year old Billy Graham was preaching an evangelical crusade in Los Angeles, Louis’ wife gave her life to Christ at the crusade. She eventually convinced Louis to also attend. Louis attended once and was convicted but left in anger during Graham’s invitation. Louis’ wife Cynthia convinced him to attend again. He did and started to leave again during the invitation. But he was convicted and went forward giving his life to Christ.
Following the conversion his life changed dramatically. He went home that night, and at the time when he would usually drink alcohol to excess, he dumped his alcohol down the drain. His hate was changed to forgiveness. His marriage lasted until his wife’s death. He never had nightmares of his time as a POW again. He later went back to Japan and spoke to the guards who were accused and convicted of war crimes. He forgave them. But the one guard who was the worst to Louis, Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), was thought dead and Louis never was able to talk to him. Later they found out he was alive and Louis was scheduled to meet with him and wrote the letter below. But he was not able to meet with him as Watanabe declined the invitation. Someone was supposed to take the letter to him, but no one knows if Watanabe received it.
e. I believe, when we really know Jesus, we really know Him. When we are saved we commit to Him, and in time, our life will show it.
e. Paul says in this verse that he has died to the law. How? He died with Christ to the law.
f. He has been crucified with Christ. I have to believe that people would have cringed when they heard him use the verb “crucified.” They would have known what crucifixion meant. Historians cannot tell us apart from the Bible much about crucifixion. People were afraid to write about it. Many times we can find extra Biblical evidence for many things, but not crucifixion. Scholars get much of what we know about crucifixion from the Bible. We are told a few things though. The Romans would crucify people publicly and they would crucify people at set times of the year in order to make a statement. They wanted their enemies to see crucifixion and think, “Don’t mess with us.” The Romans did not invent crucifixion. They copied it from the Greeks and maybe even another country.
g. People would have this image of crucifixion in their mind when Paul used that term.
h. But the point is that we died with Christ when we became a Christian. We died to our old self. We died to sin.
Galatians 3:27:
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Romans 6:4 (see also Colossians 2:12)
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? It means that when we became a Christian we died to our old self. We died to our sin nature. So, how do we live?
II. All believers are to live by the faith of the indwelling Christ (2:20b–21).
a. Paul says that he no longer lives, but Christ lives within him.
b. Does Christ live in you?
c. If you are a Christian the answer is yes. Yes, Yes, Amen.
d. The Holy Spirit indwells us.
e. How did Jesus do His miracles on earth? He laid aside His glory to become man. He had the Holy Spirit with Him. He was fully human and He is fully human, but the Holy Spirit was with Him. You know the Holy Spirit is with you as well. The Holy Spirit is in you. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul wrote that we are the Temple of God. He used the same word which would describe the part of the Temple where God resides. God resides in us. We have the Holy of Holies in Us. Amen!!!
f. So, as believers we do good works because Jesus dwells in us and He does those good works.
g. How did Louis Zamperini change his life? He didn’t. Jesus changed him. When he became a Christian Jesus said, “I am not having any of that.” Jesus said, “I am taking over this house and I have some cleaning up to do.”
What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
I think the evidence is overwhelming that when Paul talked about being crucified with Christ he was talking figuratively that he identified with Christ’s crucifixion in order to show that he had died to the law. Paul identified with Christ’s crucifixion in order to say that he lives by faith or in faith and not in the worldly ways. I believe that Romans 6 helped make the strong case that we die to our old self and then live “in Christ.” That is what Paul meant.
Now, I believe that as Christians we can sometimes push Jesus aside. He lives within us, but… We don’t want Him here. We do not make Him welcome. We just let our old self reign in us. So my challenge for you today is that you let Jesus live within you. Make Him feel at home. Let your worldly self die and by faith let Jesus live. Jesus lives within you. The Holy of Holies is in you!

The Choir Anthem:
From heaven’s bright throne and courts filled with praise
King Jesus came humbly, a servant of grace.
Trading His glory for shadows and fears,
He washes the feet of the world with His tears.
And who is this King that lays aside His crown?
Who is the King that gently kneels down?
Who is this King that comes to the meek,
strengthens the weak?
Who is this King?
Think about what it means to NOT be believed. One declares a message of TRUTH but no one cares, no one believes you. Oftentimes we do not believe children, do we? Do you know how many times Mercedes has told me there is a bear in her room? How many times has there been a bear in her room? That’s right, there has never been a bear in her room. We have told it to go away. But sometimes Mercedes has shocked me. She’ll say something is in there and I am thinking, “no, no, not true.” Then I go in and look and sure enough, there is a bug or something in her room. We tend to doubt.
What does that feel like? What is it like when you know you are right and no one believes you?
When Meagan and I were in our second year of marriage I was at work at McDonalds as a manager. Meagan was at home. There was a stray cat that had been coming around our house and so we had been feeding it. A few days prior to this date the cat disappeared. While I was at work the cat came out. The cat had a broken leg and was a mess. The cat was drooling and acting funny. Meagan thought it had rabbis and so she called my dad to see if he could help take care of it. My dad came out to our house and you know what? The cat rolled away and tried to play and just act normal. Of course, Meagan was like, “There is something wrong with this cat.” Did not matter, so my dad left and the cat stayed. Later on I come home from work and the cat is acting terrible. I grab a box and we take it to a weekend veterinarian. She thought it had distemper and started treating it. Within a few days the cat died. The cat TRULY was sick.
Let’s read Isa. 53:1 and John 12:37-38:
Isaiah 53:1:
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
John 12:37-38:
Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:
“Lord, who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
I have a few applications:
1. Sometimes we will share the Gospel and people doubt, but they did not even believe Jesus.
2. We must worship Jesus, knowing what it is like to not be believed and knowing that He went through that humiliation.
3. We must be encouraged by God’s Word, prophesying this and then it comes about.

So, let’s talk about these:
I. Sometimes we will share the Gospel and people doubt, but they did not even believe Jesus.
a. So, it is easy for us to think, “Why should I share Jesus with people, they are not going to believe me.
b. But we must keep sharing Jesus even when not believed. Jesus came with Truth. Jesus knew people would not believe but He came with Truth. The other thought with that comment is that no one will believe. Some did believe Jesus and some will believe us.
c. By the way, we are commanded to share Jesus whether someone will believe or not and if we think it is Truth we will not be able to stop sharing Jesus.
d. There is important context to this passage:
i. In John 12:37-38, or rather 36-40, John writes about people not believing the message even though Jesus did many signs and miracles.
ii. Starting in John 12:27: Jesus is praying and asks the Lord to glorify His (the Father’s) name.
iii. There was then a voice out of Heaven saying “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.
1. Okay, if I am with someone, or rather a crowd and I hear a voice out of heaven, I may believe something that person is saying.
iv. Verse 29: the crowd around them heard it as well and some said that it had thundered and others said that an angel had spoken.
v. Verse 30-31: Jesus said that the voice was for their sake, not Him. Judgment was coming, the ruler of the world has been cast out. That would be the devil and the cross conquered the devil.
vi. Verse 32: Jesus says that He will be lifted up and if He is lifted up He will draw all men to Himself.
vii. Verse 33 John makes a note that Jesus was stating this to mean the type of death He was to die.
viii. Verse 34: The people ask who the Son of Man is stating that they have heard out of the law that the Christ is to remain forever. They are confused.
ix. Verses 35-36: Jesus talks about the Light being among them for a little while and Jesus asks them to walk in the Light.
x. Verse 37 tells us that He performed many signs among them, yet they were not believing in Him.
xi. Verses 38ff are quotes from Isaiah 53:1 and 6:10:
xii. God has blinded their eyes.
xiii. God has hardened their hearts.
xiv. So that…
xv. They would not see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts, and be converted and God would heal them.
1. This is comparing the Israelites to idols who have ears but cannot hear, eyes but cannot see.
2. Now, this seems extreme. God kept them from believing.
3. Only God cam empower one to believe.
4. But also understand that this passage was a quote from the Old Testament and in Isaiah 6:10, the context is that the people would make idols and the idols have ears to hear and eyes to see but they really cannot hear or see. God was comparing the Hebrew people to idols. The people rejected God, so He turned them over to their ways. God made them like idols. I think the same is true in John’s Gospel, God turns them over to their ways. They hardened their hearts, so He hardened their hearts.
xvi. Verse 41: Isaiah said this because He saw the Lord’s glory and spoke of it.
xvii. Verse 42-43: Some believed but would not share it because the people loved the approval of men, not the approval of God.
e. But understand that some believed Jesus. Interesting that in Isaiah 6:9 Isaiah is told that he will preach but they will not believe. However, in Isaiah 6:13 God says that a tenth will remain and believe.
f. Again, I will understand that only God can empower one to believe.
g. So, what do we do, be encouraged, the people did not believe Jesus, the people did not believe Isaiah. The people heard a voice from Heaven and did not believe Jesus. In the previous chapter Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and they did not believe Jesus. I believe it is safe to say most will not believe us.
h. HOWEVER, some will and we do not know who the some are. So, keep sharing Jesus with people.
II. We must worship Jesus, knowing what it is like to not be believed and knowing that He went through that humiliation.
a. As we read these passages about the suffering servant does that call us to worship Jesus more?
b. Does this draw us closer to Him?
c. How do we respond?
d. We all know what it is like to not be believed. Right?
e. We know what it is like when people doubt us, isn’t that what it is like to have teenagers in the home? They never believe you and you don’t know anything?
f. Jesus, the creator, Jesus, the one true God, Jesus, our Lord, He became one of us, in order to save us, and He was rejected.
g. He was here for us anyways, but most did not believe Him.
John Stott on How the Cross Speaks to Injustice and Suffering
How does the cross of Jesus speak to a world of pain, poverty, and injustice? After explaining the full range of biblical ideas of the atonement, Stott concludes his book with a chapter entitled “Suffering and glory.” He describes the miserable conditions of millions of people who live in shanty towns of Africa and Asia, thebarriadas of Latin American and the favelas of Brazil.
Then he tells a story about an imaginary poor man from the slums of Brazil who climbs 2,310 feet up the mountain to the colossal statue of Christ that towers above Rio de Janeiro—”The Christ of Corcovado.” (For an image of the statue click here.) After the difficult climb, the poor man finally reaches Jesus and says,
I have climbed up to meet you, Christ, from the filthy, confined quarters down there … to put before you, most respectfully, these considerations: there are 900,000 of us down there in the slums of that splendid city … And you … do you remain here at Corcovado surrounded by divine glory? Go down there to the favelas … Don’t stay away from us; live among us and give us new faith in you and in the Father. Amen.
Stott asks, “What would Christ say in response to such an entreaty? Would he not say ‘[in the suffering of the cross] I did come down to live among you, and I live among you still'”?
Then Stott adds,
We have to learn to climb the hill called Calvary, and from that vantage-ground survey all life’s tragedies. The cross does not solve the problem of suffering, but it supplies the essential perspective from which to look at it … . Sometimes we picture [God] lounging, perhaps dozing, in some celestial deck-chair, while the hungry millions starve to death … . It is this terrible caricature of God which the cross smashes to smithereens.
John Stott, The Cross of Christ (InterVarsity Press, 2006), pp. 320, 333

h. So, worship our Savior.
i. So, love our Savior.
III. We must be encouraged by God’s Word, prophesying this and then it comes about.
a. The last application is the connection in the Scriptures. This is once again a case where the Scriptures match up. This is 700 years prior to Jesus and it came to pass.
b. Be encouraged, we can trust the Bible.
Closing:
Master Violinist Goes Unrecognized
Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript—a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play.
For the next 45 minutes, in the D.C. Metro on January 12, 2007, Bell played Mozart and Schubert as over 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly taking notice. If they had paid attention, they might have recognized the young man for the world-renowned violinist he is. They also might have noted the violin he played—a rare Stradivarius worth over $3 million. It was all part of a project arranged by The Washington Post—”an experiment in context, perception, and priorities—as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste. In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”
Just three days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100. In the subway, Bell garnered about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation.

1. Sometimes we will share the Gospel and people doubt, but they did not even believe Jesus.
2. We must worship Jesus, knowing what it is like to not be believed and knowing that He went through that humiliation.
3. We must be encouraged by God’s Word, prophesying this and then it comes about.

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)
Pray

Introduction
Let’s read the Bible passage first:
I want to read Isaiah 52:13-53:12: listen to the connection to the crucifixion of our Savior:
See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
When I was in seminary I was given an image of Scripture as a rose. Actually, this image is for Scripture and all of God’s revelation to us. Now, the revelation is developed. In the Scriptures the revelation was developing. You see, today we view the Scriptures looking backwards. We view the Scriptures complete. In addition to that we have close to two thousand years of Theology built on the Scriptures. As the rose grows and forms people are realizing more about who God is and His plan of salvation.
So, if we imagine a rose:
• The roots of the rose would be the only Scripture or Revelation from God that Adam and Eve might have understood.
• The stem of the rose would be Abraham- Moses.
• We would see the early leaves developing and those are the prophets.
• We would see another few leaves being the intertestamental period. There was a lot that happened then.
• We would see another leaf being Jesus’ death and resurrection.
o As this is happening the people are realizing more about who God is and God’s plan of salvation.
• Then there are some more leaves and those are the Apostles.
• Finally we have the Rose start to bud and would the New Testament canon, the Trinity, the church Fathers.
o As all of this happened the people really began to understand more about the character of God and His plan of salvation.
• Now we finally have the flow.
We can look back and we view the Scriptures with this understanding. We view the Scriptures with the understanding of what God has done for our salvation. We view the Scriptures with the doctrine of the Trinity complete. They did not understand that in the Old Testament. But when we read the Old Testament we do so with an understanding of the cross.
So, that brings us to such an important passage as Isaiah 53. We view the passage looking backwards. I read the passage, now listen to Romans 5:6-8 showing how Jesus fulfilled this passage.
Romans 5:6-8:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This passage is such an awesome passage and so begins a series on our awesome salvation. This passage was prophesied 700 years before Christ. We will focus on Isaiah 53:5 today.
As talk about the passage and its fulfillment there are three responses:
1. Be encouraged
2. Accept the message
3. Respond to the message in commitment
Sheldon Vanauken was a student of the English professor and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis in the early 1950s. He recounts in his book A Severe Mercy the story of his last meeting with his mentor when Vanauken was leaving Oxford for the United States. Over one final lunch together at a pub, they had spent time wondering aloud about the nature of life after death. When they had finished eating, they stood outside of the pub, talked for a few more minutes, and just before parting ways, Lewis said to Vanauken, “I shan’t say goodbye. We’ll meet again.” The great apologist then plunged into the traffic to cross the street while Vanuaken watched his friend walk away. When Lewis got to the other side of the street, he turned around, anticipating that his friend would still be standing there. With a grin on his face, Lewis shouted over the great roar of cars, “Besides—Christians never say goodbye.” [Eternity]
Let’s look at verse 5 of Isaiah 53.
I. As I look at this verse, I will be encouraged by Isaiah 53:5 and Romans 5:6-8.
a. This passage is encouraging becomes it shows our great salvation. But alongside that, this passage is encouraging in my faith.
b. I am sure that many of you are like me and have doubts in your faith occasionally. Anytime I have doubts I am reminded of passages like this. Can you believe the passage was written over 700 years prior to Jesus while the Northern Kingdom of Israel was following apart. Yet, this is striking about the Messiah.
c. The passage is even written in the past tense. Starting in chapter 52:14 Isaiah switched from the future tense to the past tense.
d. This, to me, comes off as God knowing what was to happen. This comes off as God knowing that His plan of salvation was in place.
e. Listen we sinned, we messed up, we missed God’s perfect standard, but as devastating as God’s plan was on Jesus, it was planned to fulfill God’s purpose. It was taken care of. There was no emergency in Heaven. This did not catch God by surprise. Amen? This is awesome.
f. We worship God as He is Worthy, He was slain for us, Amen?
g. Here long before the event, God speaks to Isaiah and Isaiah writes this as if it were already done, complete.
h. So, be encouraged because God had a perfect plan and it was laid out 700 years prior to the plan.
i. Then be encouraged by God’s grace. I did nothing for my salvation and I could not do anything for my salvation. That is what this is showing.
j. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we are saved by grace and not by works so that no one can boast. This passage says nothing at all about what we must do for salvation, there is nothing that we can do.
k. Verse 5 says: He was pierced for our transgression.
i. Transgression is one word for sin. It means to cross a moral or Divine law.
ii. Pierced, this is the idea that Jesus was pierced in multiple ways on the cross.
l. Verse 5 continues: He was crushed for our iniquities.
i. An iniquity is a gross behavior.
ii. Jesus was crushed for our iniquities.
iii. I can think of multiple ways. One is the suffering on the cross and another is the suffering from God the Father as Jesus took the wrath of God upon Himself.
m. Verse 5: We needed punished for peace [between us and God] but that punishment went on Jesus.
n. Verse 5: We are healed by His wounds. Amen!
o. Be encouraged because the salvation is taken care of by Him.
I read the following: [set up, I once heard]
In May 2009, my family was in Azusa, California, because one of our kids was graduating from Azusa Pacific University. My wife, Nancy, was going to speak at the commencement ceremonies, so she and I were invited to a special gathering of about 50 people—people from the graduating class of 50 years ago and a few faculty members. During the gathering, John Wallace, the president of APU, brought out three students who were graduating that year and told us that for the next two years, they were going to serve the poorest of the poor in India.
These three students thought they were there just to be commissioned and sent out with a blessing—which they were. But then something happened that they did not know was coming. John turned to them and said, “I have a piece of news for you. There’s somebody you do not know—an anonymous donor—who is so moved by what you’re doing that he has given a gift to this university in your name, on your behalf.”
John turned to the first student and said, “You are forgiven your debt of $105,000.” The kid immediately starts to cry. John turns to the next student: “You’re forgiven your debt of $70,000.” He then turns to the third student: “You are forgiven your debt of $130,000.” All three students had no idea this was coming. They were just ambushed by grace—blown away that somebody they don’t even know would pay their debt. The whole room was in tears.
II. As I read this I realize that I must accept the message.
a. This message is different.
b. I cannot earn salvation but I must believe the message. I must trust.
c. John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting live.
d. Best way to illustrate this is with an example that I heard about.
When I was five-years-old, I first fully understood the message of these words:
He sees you when you’re sleeping,
He knows if you’re awake,
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness’ sake!
Until that moment, I had lived in this childhood bliss, in which Christmas was the best day of the year. I had always believed that the gifts at Christmastime were there because Christmas always came with gifts. You could count on them. But now I painfully understood that if I wanted any gifts at Christmas, I had to be good. It was all riding on me. There was this all-seeing, all-knowing Santa, and if there was going to be any gifts, I had better shape up.
But then I thought, How good is “good”? Can a person be “pretty good”? Does Santa understand that I have a twin brother, so I have more reasons to be provoked than other kids? It was all so worrisome to me.
I grew up a little more and went on to elementary school. In the fourth grade, when I was 9, I continued to learn that all the good stuff in life depends on my effort. We had a reading program called SRA. Here’s how it worked: There was a giant box of color-coded cards on the side of the classroom. You went and got one of the cards in the front of the box, read what was on it, and then answered questions about what you’d read. If you got most of the answers right, you moved up to the next highest color—red, yellow, blue, and if you were good enough and worked hard enough, you reached exotic colors, like magenta.
Moving up in SRA was all we cared about, because if you were still on one of the lower-level colors—red or yellow—you were a loser. Everybody’s goal was to move up—to work really hard and reach the ultimate pinnacle of fourth-grade glory: aquamarine. But if you wanted the glory, you had to hustle. We would literally run from our desks to the box. No pain, no gain! You had to be good enough, to work hard enough.
I grew up a little more. I was 14-years-old, and a friend invited me to a meeting after school called Campus Life. There was a guy there who had a beard, which automatically made him cool. He also had a guitar, which made him even cooler. He started saying stuff I’d never heard before. He said that if you wanted the good stuff from God—stuff like peace and forgiveness and the Holy Spirit—it didn’t work like Santa, where you had to be good or you got nothing but coal in your Christmas stocking. He pointed out that it didn’t work like SRA, where it all depended on your being smart enough and good enough and hustling enough. He said there was a thing called grace. God had decided to take all my sin, all my screw-ups, and forgive me. Grace had something to do with Jesus dying on the cross for me, and all I had to do was believe.
This man read from the Bible, which I hadn’t really ever read. He read that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.” This message was different from anything I’d heard before. It was not what I expected. It wasn’t all on me. It was all on him—on Jesus. That message was so freeing, that as I took it in, I almost started to cry. But I was a 14-year-old guy, and we didn’t do stuff like that. The next week, I thought, I better not go to that meeting again, because I almost started to cry last week, and I cannot be humiliated by breaking down in front of my friends. But I did go. And I did hear the message. And I did believe. And I experienced “amazing grace.”
III. Lastly, as I read this passage, I will commit to Christ, responding with Romans 12:1-2
a. Think about it. When we are faced with the amazing suffering of Christ, because of the amazing grace of Christ, is there any other response than commitment. We respond with Romans 12:1-2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
I read the following:
In his best-selling book The Reason for God, Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, shares the story of a woman in his congregation who was learning how the grace extended to us through Christ’s work on the cross can actually be more challenging than religion. He writes:
Some years ago I met with a woman who began coming to church at Redeemer and had never before heard a distinction drawn between the gospel and religion [i.e. the distinction between grace and what is often a works-based righteousness]. She had always heard that God accepts us only if we are good enough. She said that the new message was scary. I asked why it was scary and she replied: If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with “rights”—I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace—then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.”
She understood the dynamic of grace and gratitude. If when you have lost all fear of punishment you also lose all incentive to live a good, unselfish life, then the only incentive you ever had to live a decent life was fear. This woman could see immediately that the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace had an edge to it. She knew that if she was a sinner saved by grace, she was (if anything) more subject to the sovereign Lordship of God. She knew that if Jesus really had done all this for her, she would not be her own. She would joyfully, gratefully belong to Jesus, who provided all this for her at infinite cost to himself.
In his book The Jesus Creed , Scot McKnight shares the moving story of Margaret Ault. When Margaret was just about to complete her Ph.D. at Duke, something unexpected—but quite welcomed—happened: she fell in love. She went on a date with a man named Hyung Goo Kim, and the proverbial sparks flew. But almost as quickly as the sparks became a fire, they were doused with water. Hyung Goo informed Margaret that he was HIV positive. Needless to say, Margaret was devastated. In her own words, “I’d just met someone I liked, and we were definitely not going to live happily ever after. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut by the biggest boot in the world.”
Still, she and Hyung Goo were married. In his book McKnight asks the question many of us would ask: “Why would anyone invite into the core of their being so much pain?” He then goes on to share that the answer unfolds in the rest of Margaret and Hyung Goo’s story. He writes:
When Margaret was in graduate school at Duke, she and Hyung Goo loved to walk in the Duke gardens, and so knowledgeable did they become of its plants that they “supervised construction” of a new project. They walked through each part of the garden routinely and had names for some of the ducks. In their last spring together, the garden seemed especially beautiful [to them].
Hyung Goo died in the fall and Margaret returned to the gardens in the spring where a memorial garden of roses was being constructed in his honor.
McKnight then points the reader to a series of quotations from Margaret’s book Sing Me to Heaven, where she reflects on the days she returned to the gardens. She writes:
Where peonies were promised, there were only the dead stumps of last year’s stalks; where day lilies were promised, there were unprepossessing tufts of foliage; where hostas were promised, there was nothing at all. And yet I know what lushness lay below the surface; those beds that were so brown and empty and, to the unknowing eye, so umpromising, would be full to bursting in a matter of months.
Is the whole world like this? Is this what it might be like to live in expectation, real expectation, of the resurrection?
Was not Hyung Goo’s and my life together like this? Empty and sere, and yet a seedbed of fullness and life for both of us. He died, and I was widowed; yet in his dying, we both were made alive.
After quoting Margaret’s words, McKnight concludes:
Where does she find strength to grip such faith and such hope? It is found in [her question]: Is the whole world like this?
The answer, “Yes, the whole world is like this: the whole world offers us tokens of new life beyond death and disasters.” It offers the promise of new life beyond the grave, a life of renewed love in the presence of God. Why? Because Jesus was raised from the dead.
1. Be encouraged
2. Accept the message
3. Respond to the message in commitment

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)
Pray

Intro:

We have talked about why we worship and the answer is Jesus was slain for us. We have also talked about worship because God is worthy. Is He worthy of our worship? We have looked at worship in prayer and we have looked at worship in the Scriptures, specifically the Psalms. Today, we go back to the book of Revelation to look at worship in the throne room of God, once again. Today, we will look specifically at martyrs worshipping the Lord in Heaven.

Persecuted Nigerian Pastor Praises God
The Nigerian city of Jos sits on Africa’s great fault line between the Muslim north and Christian, and thus has faced terrible things in recent years. A Nigerian Baptist church was attacked by Muslim extremists who burnt the church building and the house of the church’s leader, Pastor Sunday Gomna. On the second Sunday after the violent outbreak, when the people of that Baptist church returned for worship, they gathered in a little mud wall community center about one kilometer from the burnt church.
Pastor Gomna stood up and offered some beautiful words of gratitude. He said, ‘First, I am grateful that no one in my church killed anyone.” Apparently, during the chaos of the attacks, Pastor Sunday had gone around the community and some of the Muslim people said, “Pastor, thank you for the way you taught your people. ‘Your people helped to protect us.'” So Pastor Sunday was proud that his people did not kill any Muslims.
“Second,” he said, “I am grateful that they did not burn my church.” Everyone looked at Pastor Sunday with disbelief. After all, everyone was meeting in a small, uncomfortable Mud hut had been burnt to the ground. But Pastor Sunday continued: “Inasmuch as no church member died during this crisis, they did not burn our church. They only burned the building. We can rebuild the building but we could not bring back to life any of our members. So I am grateful that they did not burn my church.”
He continued, “Third, I am grateful that they burned my house as well. If they had burned your house and not my house, how would I have known how to serve you as pastor? However, because they burned my house and all my possessions, I know what you are experiencing and I will be able to be a better pastor to you. So I am grateful that they burned my house as well.”

Wow! That is all I can say to that story. But you know what? I have read other stories that were similar.

Today, I want us to turn to Revelation 7:9-17 and let’s look at a passage giving us a picture of worship in Heaven. I have one theme and that is Worship in Heaven. I have two applications:
1) Worship God in humility and unity as we see in this picture of Heaven, we may be there.
2) Be encouraged, God does not forget what we do for Him (also Hebrews 6:10), we see in this passage martyrs rewarded by being being given the opportunity to serve in God’s throne room for eternity.
Turn with me to Rev. 7:9-17:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen! Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
I answered,“Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
“they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
‘Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them,’
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd;
‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

I. Worship God in humility and unity as we see in this picture of Heaven, we may be there. I notice this from verses 9-12.
a. First let’s notice unity.
b. Here we see a picture of worship in Heaven. This is sometime during the end times. This is likely before the New Jerusalem comes down out of Heaven.
c. Verse 9 begins to describe a great crown. No one was able to count this crowd.
d. Someone joked that John could not count this large crowd but if a Baptist evangelist was there he would find a way.
e. The text says it is a large crowd.
f. Every nation, tribe, people and tongue are in this crowd. This is John’s way of saying that every people group from the world is in this crowd.
g. Unity: what is uniting them? Worshipping our Savior is uniting them, we’ll get to that.
h. So, one day Martin Luther King Jr. shared the following words:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed – we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
i. I believe we have come a long way, but I speak only from one point of view, the point of view of a suburban white male. But we have not gone far enough.
j. We see in this passage that Jesus can bring us together.

John Ortberg Considers the Ongoing Battle with Racism
Psychologists have found an intriguing way to study what it is that we really like and dislike. It’s called “affective priming.” They print a word over a bouncing dot on a computer screen. If people’s response is positive, they push any key with their left hand; if negative—any key with their right.
Too discover our deeper responses, researchers will use subliminal stimulation. They’ll print a negative word (like “fear” or “storm”) subliminally, below your level of awareness. Your intuitive system is so fast it reads those words and responds to them before you are aware. So if they show a negative word subliminally, then a positive word slowly, it takes you longer to move toward a positive response.
Sometimes they will flash a subliminal picture instead of a word. When it is a picture of an African American, “Americans of all ages, classes, and political affiliations react with a flash of negativity.” Including people who report they have no prejudice at all.
Mark Noll has written a fascinating little book called The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. He notes that all the wrangling between North and South over the Bible and slavery overlooked one huge difference between slavery in ancient Mesopotamia and slavery in 19th-century America—the latter was race-based, race-soaked, racist. The deepest evil over slavery was not just the economics of it, it was the racism of it. Even northern Christians, who were opposed to slavery as an institution, were much slower to oppose racism.
Noll also notes that, over the long haul, Christian theology always tends to have a radicalizing effect on society because of one belief: that all human beings come from the same ancestor, that all human beings bear the image of God.
I thought about these stories, and many others, when I watched the nation respond to the presidential election results. I wondered what my grandfather would have thought about a man, who could not have spent the night in his town, now governing his country. I imagined the response of the retired Louisiana colonel. Quite apart from party preference or position on any number of political issues, I cannot imagine living through that moment without hoping that there might be healing for wounds that go deep and raw.
I thought about how Paul said there was a time when the dividing wall of hostility that separated the “us” group from the “them” group came down. I thought about the Azusa Street Revival and how, for a few years, black people and white people defied all polite society and worshiped together, and then when the fervor cooled and things got respectable, they stopped and mirrored the rest of society.
I thought of how when God sits in front of his computer—whatever face gets flashed on a screen—the only button he pushes is marked love. Love. Love.
I wonder about the church…
Condensed from our sister publication Leadership Journal, © 2008 Christianity Today International. For more articles like this, visit Leadershipjournal.net.
k. So, God loves all and tribe, tongues and nationalities, all of them will be in Heaven. It is not the color of our skin, but our great Savior. All these groups are worshipping the Savior together.
l. Now, notice humility: they cry out with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to the Lord sitting on the throne and to the Lamb.
m. Then we see in verse 12: the angels, all of them, the elders, the four living creatures bow down, faces down before the throne.
n. There is great humility in worship.
o. They said:
i. Praise
ii. Glory
iii. Wisdom
iv. Thanks
v. Honor
vi. Power
vii. And strength belong to the eternal God.
p. They give God the glory due His name.
Let’s now break for Revelation Song
II. But I also talked about these martyrs.
a. As we look at the next few verses we see that John is asked who those in the white robes are.
b. The elder explains to John that they are martyrs. They died in the great tribulation because of the testimony of Jesus Christ.
c. There robes are washed in the blood of the Lamb, in Jesus’ blood.
d. Notice verses 15-17:
Therefore,“they are before the throne of God
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will shelter them with his presence.
‘Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them,’
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd;
‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

e. God does not forget what we go through for Him. In this case these people were martyred in the great tribulation and God rewarded them.
f. What was the reward?
g. The reward was worship.
h. They went through death, martyrdom for God and He rewards them with worship. Now, some of us may not think that is so awesome. Think about this.
i. They are given the privilege to worship God day and night. That is something I must get excited about.
j. But, more than that: they are given the privilege to serve in God’s Temple.
k. That is what this passage says: they are able to witness the awesome presence of God and the Lamb, Jesus, next to the throne. They are able to worship alongside the angels, the elders, the four beasts. They are able to be in the throne room of God.
l. Historically, it has always been a privilege to serve in the presence of a king, so what about the King of Kings.
m. There was a movie made a year ago about a Butler. It was a good movie, called “The Butler.” The movie was about an African American man who served presidents in the Whitehouse. I want to say that he served from Johnson to George W. Bush. What a privilege that would be.
n. These martyrs are remembered by God and God places them in His throne room to worship.
o. I think this has to be too exciting to imagine.

Close:
Worship, is your desire to worship God? As I look at these passages I must apply them and ask God to fix my attitude and make me desire Him more.

So, what is your focus on life? Remember the story I told at the beginning of this message? I told the story of a Nigerian Pastor who had his church and house burned down, yet praised God in church. That is a different focus on life than say the following:

You Can’t Just Sit There
Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective.
He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought 42 used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 16,000 feet into the sky–smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. He had just begun shooting the balloons when he lost his grip on his pellet gun, and it dropped from his hands. He stayed airborne for more than two hours.
Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:
“Were you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Would you do it again?”
“No.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because,” he said, “you can’t just sit there.”
His answer caught my interest. I pondered that story and its implications for several months. Then, as I was preparing a sermon, “The Crisis Called Christmas,” my thoughts came together.
I used the Walters story in the introduction to set the stage for the idea that each of the birth narratives called for a response–or reaction–from its participants. When it comes to God’s intervention in our lives, we can’t just sit there.

So, again, where are you at? Are you bored spiritually? Look at this Bible passage of worship in eternity and tell me as a Christ follower how this whole idea cannot not pump you up and get you excited about worship.

1) Worship God in humility and unity as we see in this picture of Heaven, we may be there.
2) Be encouraged, God does not forget what we do for Him (also Hebrews 6:10), we see in this passage martyrs rewarded by being given the opportunity to serve in God’s throne room for eternity.

These people, too many to count, went to their graves for Jesus. Then on the other side of death, here they are worshipping the Lord.
Jesus is worthy, He was slain for us, the Bible models worship for now and eternity. Worship Him today and this week.

Choir Anthem:

Do you know Jesus?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)
Pray

Intro:
We have looked at worship in God’s throne room and that was an awesome passage. We have looked at worshipping the Lord because He was slain for us. Praise God, our great Savior! We have looked at adoring and worshipping the Lord in prayer. So, now let’s talk about the Bible in worship. I wish to look at worship in the Psalms.
To talk about worship in the Psalms, what Psalm should we turn to? Without looking at your bulletin, take a guess? Anyone, just call out a Psalm that expressed worship.
Let’s turn to Psalm 100:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
That is a Psalm to look at when talking about worship. When the Psalms turned over to 100 they did so calling us to SHOUT for joy to the Lord. How about another short Psalm, Psalm 150. Turn there:
Psalm 150:
Praise the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
The Psalms end on a high note. They end talking about praise, don’t they?
However, that is not the route I am going.
I once came across a powerful quote by Daniel Webster that illustrates this topic. In the presence of Professor Sanborn of Dartmouth College, Mr. Webster laid his hand on a copy of the Scriptures as he said, “This is the Book. I have read through the entire Bible many times. I now make it a practice to go through it once a year. It is the Book of all others for lawyers as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought, and of rules for his conduct. It fits man for life—it prepares him for death.” ,
With that in mind, turn back a few pages to Psalm 119. I read the following:
The anonymous psalmist who wrote this longest psalm sought refuge from his persecutors and found strength by meditating on the Word of God. This psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible, is largely a collection or anthology of prayers and thoughts about God’s Word. C. S. Lewis compared it to a piece of embroidery, done stitch by stitch in the quiet hours for the love of the subject and for the delight in leisurely, disciplined craftsmanship.
This psalm contains a reference to God’s Word in almost every verse (except verses 84, 90, 121, 122, and 132). (The Jews claimed that only one verse did not refer directly to God’s Word: verse 122.756) The psalmist used at least eight synonyms for the Word of God, each of which conveys a slightly different emphasis. However, sometimes it appears that the writer chose a synonym simply to avoid repetition.”Way” and “ways” (Heb. derek) describes the pattern of life God’s revelation marks out. It occurs 13 times in the psalm (vv. 1, 3, 5, 14, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 59, 168).
I had trouble narrowing down, but let’s read verses 9-16 because the Hebrew Bible would consider that a section, the Beth section.
The application for today is this:
We are not ready for worship without the Word of God, the Bible. The Bible is our base in worship; the Bible is our guide in worship. The Bible is Truth, how can we worship without the truths of who God is? We cannot. So, meditate on God’s Word and then we have Truth to worship God with.
Psalm 119:9-16:
How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.
Think about what this passage says, Hide the Word in our heart:
“The act of ‘hiding’ God’s word is not to be limited to the memorization of individual texts or even whole passages but extends to a holistic living in devotion to the Lord (cf. Deut 6:4-9; 30:14; Jer 31:33).”
Other responses to God’s Word that the writer mentioned and that occur first in this section are “rejoicing” (vv. 14, 74, 162), “meditating” (vv. 15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148), and “delighting” (vv. 16, 24, 35, 47, 70, 77, 92, 143, 174).
I. This is the longest chapter in the Bible and it is all about God’s Word, the Bible.
a. The Psalms have been called the Jewish Hymnbook. Interesting that the longest is all about God’s Word. We have Psalms in the book of Psalms that they would sing on their way to Jerusalem for certain feasts, called Psalms of ascent. These are Psalms 120-134. I find it interesting that these Psalms follow the masterpiece on the Bible. Therefore, I believe meditating on the Scriptures is pivotal in worship.
b. There are verses in Psalm 119 that specify praise: See verse 164: Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.
c. Consider this, the Psalmist is praising God for God’s righteous law. The Law is the Word, the Bible. In fact, terms used for the Word or what we would call the Bible are:
i. Law,
ii. Testimonies,
iii. Precepts,
iv. Statutes,
v. Commandments,
vi. Rules,
vii. Word
II. The Scriptures are our base in worship. They are our guide in worship. We must have God’s Word in our head.
a. Think of paint, the base is critical. I worked at Lowe’s and I went to a paint certification class. In painting they taught us something like 90% of painting is surface prep. Not only that, there are base paints which we used to mix paints.
i. Our surface prep for worship is being in the Bible. Reading the Bible having the Bible handy.
ii. The Bible is our base. Just like I could not mix paint without the proper base paint, we cannot worship God without the Word.
b. Think of a building’s foundation. I am not a master-builder, but I have dug holes at Alliance Mission Encounter and we are supposed to go a certain depth. Foundation is important and the Bible is the foundation in worship.
c. There was a wonderful family in my youth ministry at my last church. So, I was disappointed to see that the mother posted an article on Facebook, or, rather linked an article, that references things the author wished Christians admitted about the Scriptures. This article had a negative view of the Scriptures. However, the more I study, the more I learn, the longer I am a Christian I am realizing that every Word of the Bible has great value and great meaning. Jesus responded to the devil’s attacks with the Scriptures. (Matthew 4; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13; John 4:6-7) The Word is the only, offensive weapon against the enemy in Ephesians 6:17, the Sword of the Spirit. People have sought out to prove the Bible wrong and they become believers.
d. I believe the Bible leads us into worship.
e. How can we study the Bible, study the promises of God, and not worship the One those promises are about? I believe the Bible is written about a Big God. Tony Campolo was once confronted by an atheist who was one of his students. The young man told Campolo, “For me to believe in God, I have to have a God that I can understand.” And Campolo replied, “God refuses to be that small!”
f. In Eugene Peterson’s book called Answering God, He makes a strong case that we only pray well if we are immersed in Scripture. We learn our prayer vocabulary the way children learn their vocabulary—that is, by getting immersed in language and then speaking it back. And he said the prayer book of the Bible is the Psalms, and our prayer life would be immeasurably enriched if we were immersed in the Psalms. So that was the first step. I realized I needed to do that, but I didn’t know how.
g. I think we could apply the same idea to worship. Where do we learn our worship vocabulary, but only from the Scriptures.
h. Let’s think about words and the promises of God:
Many philosophers have said that God is a pure spirit and so it is inappropriate to talk about God speaking. 102 Yet Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matt 24: 35). Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff and others deny the idea that God cannot and does not speak. Wolterstorff applies J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, which points out that words are also actions. They not only say things, they accomplish things. If God exists and has power to act, then there is no reason he could not speak, because words are also actions. Also, since the Godhead contains a community of persons, and because language is intrinsic to personal relationship, there is every reason to expect that God communicates through words. Therefore, Christian prayer is not plunging into the abyss of unknowing and a state of wordless hyperconsciousness. That condition is created not by words per se but by sounds . “The techniques that prepare for [the mantra meditation state of samadhi] feature repetitive sounds, sights, or actions. Analytical thought is mesmerized to favor intuitive awareness, a relaxed state in which one’s consciousness of individual identity is suspended.” Rather, Christian prayer is fellowship with the personal God who befriends us through speech. The biblical pattern entails meditating on the words of Scripture until we respond to God with our entire being, saying, “Give me an undivided heart, that . . . I may praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart” (Ps 86: 11– 12).
Timothy Ward’s book Words of Life argues that God’s words are identical with his actions. He quotes Genesis 1:3, “‘ Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Ward observes that the passage does not say that first God spoke and then he proceeded to do what he said he would do. No, his word itself brought the light about. When God names someone, his very word also constitutes the person. When he renames Abram to be Abraham—“father of a multitude”— that word makes the aged man and his wife biologically and spiritually capable of being the progenitors of a whole race (Gen 17: 5). Psalm 29 is an entire hymn of praise of the power of God’s voice. “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars—the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert— the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh” (Ps 29: 5, 8). We see again that what God’s voice does, God does. God’s speaking and acting are equated. Isaiah 55: 10– 11 puts this theological principle most powerfully.
One writes: We humans may say, “Let there be light in this room,” but then we have to flick a switch or light a candle. Our words need deeds to back them up and can fail to achieve their purposes. God’s words, however, cannot fail their purposes because, for God, speaking and acting are the same thing. The God of the Bible is a God who “by his very nature, acts through speaking.” When the Bible talks of God’s Word, then, it is talking of “God’s active presence in the world.” To say that God’s word goes out to do something is the same as to say God has gone out to do something. To break one of God’s commands or words is to break one’s relationship with him. “Thus (we may say) God has invested himself with his words, or we could say that God has so identified himself with his words that whatever someone does to God’s words . . . they do to God himself. . . . God’s . . . verbal actions are a kind of extension of himself.”
So, we need to have the Word, the Bible, in our head, we do that by meditation.
III. Meditate is used 18 times in the N.I.V. translation of the Old Testament and 16 times in the Psalms. Meditate is used a total of 8 times in Psalm 119. Of course what does the verb mediate have to do with the Bible.
a. I’m concerned about approaches to reading the Bible that say: Read the Bible, but don’t think about theology, just let God speak to you. I’m concerned about that because God speaks to you in the Bible, after you do the good exegesis and you figure out what the text is saying. Martin Luther believed you need to take the truth that you have learned through good exegesis, and once you understand that, you need to learn how to warm your heart with it—get it into your heart. And it diminishes our prayer life that our hearts are cold when we get into prayer. Without meditation, you tend to go right into petition and supplication, and you do little adoration or confession. When your heart is warm, then you start to praise God and then you confess. When your heart is cold, which it is if you just study the Bible and then jump to prayer, you are much more likely to spend your time on your prayer list and not really engage your heart.
b. Prayer begins with worship. Prayer and worship go hand-in-hand. So, we can apply truths about the importance of Scripture in prayer to the importance of Scripture in worship.
c. The idea of meditation is not necessarily memorization, but making the Scriptures a part of us. This will lead to worship, but this will lead to God’s Word becoming a part of us. This means that we will reason differently, think differently, live differently. The promises of God, the actions of God are a part of us. Then we have the language of worship.
The application for today is this:
We are not ready for worship without the Word of God, the Bible. The Bible is our base in worship; the Bible is our guide in worship. The Bible is Truth, how can we worship without the truths of who God is? We cannot. So, meditate on God’s Word and then we have Truth to worship God with.
Let’s pray

Two weeks ago we looked at worship in the throne room of God. At that time we talked about worshipping the Lord because He is worthy. Last week Meagan talked to you about worshipping the Lord because Christ was slain for us. Today, let’s look at a prayer in Scripture.
A few months ago I was listening to Max Lucado talk about his new book on prayer. He gave a short prayer based off of all the prayers in the Bible.
‘”Father, you are good. I need help. They need help. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”’ This prayer, Lucado says, is a template for beginners to pray their balanced prayers rather than simply offering up a list of demands.”
I notice how Lucado begins this prayer with “You are good.” He analyzed many prayers in the Bible and tried to study all of them and realized this prayer. I see that prayer begins with worship in “You are good.”
Max Lucado said that he is not good at prayer. I would have to say that I am not good at prayer either. So, I have been reading Tim Keller’s book on prayer. Tim Keller spends time in worship in our prayer life. He writes:
There are three basic kinds of prayer to God. There is “upward” prayer— praise and thanksgiving that focuses on God himself. We could call this the “prayer of awe.” Then there is “inward” prayer —self-examination and confession that bring a deeper sense of sin and, in return, a higher experience of grace and assurance of love. That is the prayer of intimacy. Finally, there is “outward” prayer— supplication and intercession that focuses on our needs and the needs of others in the world.
Following that Keller spends a chapter on upward prayer. He shares:
Years ago I was preaching on the Lord’s Prayer and commented— rather offhandedly— that since adoration comes before asking for “daily bread,” we need to spend time thanking and praising God for who he is before we go to our prayer list of needs. One woman in my congregation took this to heart and a couple of weeks later related what a difference the advice had made. “Before,” she said, “I would run right to my prayer list and the more I went through all the problems and needs, the more anxious and burdened I would get. Now I’ve started spending time thinking about how good and wise he is, and how many prayers he’s answered of mine in the past. And when I get to my own needs— now I find I can put them in his hands and I feel the burden coming off me rather than on me.” I never forgot her testimony, because she had taken a principle I barely understood myself and had appropriated it in her life.
He writes:
Eugene Peterson believes that, just as all prayer is framed by praise, in the end, all prayer should and will end in praise. He writes: All [true ] prayer, pursued far enough, becomes praise. Any prayer, no matter how desperate its origin, no matter how angry and fearful the experiences it traverses, ends up in praise. It does not always get there quickly or easily— the trip can take a lifetime— but the end is always praise. . . . There are intimations of this throughout the Psalms. Not infrequently, even in the middle of a terrible lament, defying logic and without transition, praise erupts. . . . Psalm 150 does not stand alone ; four more hallelujah psalms are inserted in front of it so that it becomes the fifth of five psalms that conclude the Psalter. These five hallelujah psalms are extraordinarily robust. . . . [ This means] no matter how much we suffer, no matter our doubts, no matter how angry we get, no matter how many times we have asked in desperation “How long?,” prayer develops finally into praise. Everything finds its way to the doorstep of praise. This is not to say that other prayers are inferior to praise, only that all prayer pursued far enough, becomes praise. . . . Don’t rush it. It may take years, decades even, before certain prayers arrive at the hallelujahs, at Psalms 146– 150. Not every prayer is capped off with praise. In fact, most prayers, if the Psalter is a true guide, are not. But prayer is always reaching toward praise and will finally arrive there. So . . . our lives fill out in goodness. Earth and heaven meet in an extraordinary conjunction. Clashing cymbals announce the glory. Blessing. Amen. Hallelujah.
C. S. Lewis says that a lack of praise of God is a lack of reality, and praising him helps us enter the real world and enjoy him more fully.
So, today let’s look at an example prayer. I want to go to the Old Testament and look at one of King David’s prayers as well as one of Daniel’s prayers. I also want to look at the Lord’s prayer. We will simply skim over these and see what we can learn from him. What is my point? My point, the great idea is that we are to pray in adoration and praise with an attitude of humility.
Read with me 2 Samuel 7:18-29:
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said:
“Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign LORD, is for a mere human!
20 “What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, SovereignLORD. 21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
22 “How great you are, Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? 24 You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, LORD, have become their God.
25 “And now, LORD God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The LORD Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established in your sight.
27 “LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you.’ So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. 28 Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.29 Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, Sovereign LORD, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.”
I. We are to pray in worship, let’s look at Matthew 6:9-11:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

a. Jesus, who is a descendent of King David, gave us instructions in prayer and at the very beginning of those instructions He tells us to begin prayer: Our who is in Heaven. Hallowed or Holy is Your name. In prayer we understand that God is Holy and that God is in Heaven. In prayer we say Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
b. So, Jesus instructs us to begin prayer in worship. By what Jesus instructs we do not have a choice. We do not begin prayer about ourselves but about God. Before we ask for any request we give glory to God. So, in reality, our prayer is not to be about us but giving God the glory due His name.
c. Tim Keller writes: In Jesus’ instruction on prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, praise comes first. In what ways is praise primary? Praise motivates the other kinds of prayer. The more we attend to God’s perfect holiness and justice, the more readily we will see our own flaws and confess them. Seeing God’s greatness also leads to supplication. The more we sense his majesty and the more we realize our dependence on him, the more readily we will go to him for every need. We could say that awe-filled adoration of God corrects the other forms of prayer.
d. I love that last phrase: awe-filled adoration of God corrects the other forms of prayer.
e. Now we are ready to look at David prayer once again.
II. In David’s prayer, David prays in praise and adoration with an attitude of humility.
a. Let me set the context first.
b. Prior to this passage, the Ark of the Covenant was moved into Jerusalem, David was wanting to build a Temple for the Lord and then Nathan the prophet came to David telling him that God did not want him to build a temple, but for his descendant will build the temple. Prior to this passage there is an amazing passage in which God declares His covenant with David that David’s throne shall last forever. This is an amazing Messianic prophesy.
c. In this prayer we see that ten times David called Himself the Lord’s Servant and eight times David referred to the Lord as the Lord Most High.
d. Let me just outline the prayer.
e. David begins prayer with thanksgiving, which I would say is a kind of praise in verses 18-21.
f. Then David gives praise for what God has done in the past in verses 22-24.
g. Notice verse 22: How great you are, Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.
h. Then we have a petition for God to fulfill His promises in verses 25-29. Notice that his request is still more of an addendum. One writes: David included humility (v. 18), gratitude (v. 19), praise (v. 22), remembrance (vv. 23-24), and acknowledgment (vv. 25-29), as ingredients in this prayer. Normally Israelites stood or kneeled to pray. Perhaps David “sat” back on his heels to pray in a kneeling position because he was a king.
i. David, even in asking his request does so with worship. In verse 28 David says that the Lord’s words are true. Jesus said the same thing in John 17:17.
j. So, we see this as a model of prayer in worship and humility.
III. Allow me to site another example: turn to Daniel 9:3-5.
So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed:
“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.
a. Just notice that Daniel began this prayer with worship. Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.
b. Following this there is great humility: we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.
c. So, there we see another example of prayer in Scripture, yet there are countless examples of worship in prayer in the Scripture.
Tim Keller writes about adoring God in prayer:
Adoring God, God is transcendently and infinitely bright, blessed, and beautiful. He is self-existent— depending on nothing for his being. Instead, all things are dependent on him. He is an infinite and eternal Spirit, the only perfect One, the God of absolute glory and importance. God’s perfections are matchless and without comparison. Those perfections include his eternal and unchanging character; his presence everywhere; his perfect knowledge of all things; his perfect, unsearchable wisdom; his absolute, irresistible power and sovereignty over all that happens; his unspotted moral purity, beauty, and holiness; and his justice— his inexorable judgment that will ultimately put all things right. God is a Creator God, the maker, protector, sustainer, and ruler of all creation. He is a God of truth, a speaking God with whom we may have a personal relationship. He is the covenant God, who is faithful to his promises, who has bound himself to us that we might bind ourselves to him. He is the triune God, one and yet three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is not only our King but our Friend and Spouse. Our hearts were made for him to be our only joy.
Lastly, he continues:
We must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God— drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says : “a man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But we shall then know that these are the same thing . Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.
You know what? In David’s prayer, verses 27 is Thy Kingdom come and the thrust of verse 28 is Thy will be done.

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)
Let’s pray

Attitude and attitude in worship:

I want to think about our attitude when we come to worship God. Listen to what Chuck Swindoll says about attitude:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

Now, let’s start talking about worship. What is our attitude when we come to worship? Who do we think we are? Really? I remember hearing that Joni Eareckson Tada said something about when she gets to Heaven she is going to kneel on her new legs and worship God. Now, what you must know is that she has been a quadriplegic for decades. What does she want to do? She wants to worship God.

Please, reflect on your attitude as we look at this passage and as we talk about worship. Let’s read Revelation 4:1-11 and the application is that we humbly worship God because He is worthy. We are not worthy.

Please turn in your Bibles and let’s read Revelation 4:1-11:

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.
In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:
“‘Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,’
who was, and is, and is to come.”
Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

I. I have one application. I am going to walk through this passage in order to show that God is worthy to be worshipped.
1. In order to do this I need to explain where we are at in the Bible. I think it would be wrong of me to simply start us a quarter of the way through Revelation and not give more detail about this book.
2. Actually, context is always important.
3. This is Revelation chapter 4 and John, the writer of Revelation is taken into the throne room of God. Imagine this. Have you ever seen something absolutely amazing? Have you ever seen something that compelled you to realize how awesome our God is? Have you seen something that reminds you of how little you are?
1. When I was a kid my parents took me to see Mount Rushmore and I really was not that amazed or that shocked. It was a cloudy day and it just did not strike me.
2. A few years later my parents took me to see the Grand Canyon and wow! That is all I can see. The Grand Canyon is amazing! I went there a few years later and it was the same reaction on my part. When I see the Grand Canyon, I am reminded of how little I am and how Great God is.
3. But, even before that, I was going into third grade and we went to Myrtle Beach and I saw the ocean for the first time. I love, absolutely love looking out on the ocean. The ocean reminded me of how great God is and how big the world is.
4. I remember being a child going into a planetarium at the Dayton Museum of Natural History. “Radical” was an adjective that I recently had learned. The person leading the show was showing us all the galaxies and where earth is and I said, “Radical” in a way that everyone could hear. Then the man leading the show said, “Is that the word these days?” “Radical” is a good word, but “awesome” is the best word. Seeing how big outer space is shows our awesome creator.
5. We are little, God is not just big, but amazing.
4. In this text John is trying to describe the indescribable.
5. Some studies show that children’s memories do not necessarily begin at age two or three. The problem is that before that age they do not have the words to retain, or process or explain what they have experienced. Therefore, there is no way for them to store these experiences in their memory. Think about that with this passage, and really most of Revelation. John’s vocabulary is not great enough, diverse enough to describe what he is about to see. How does that work? Neither would my vocabulary be exhaustive enough to describe this nor would yours. But what he does describe is absolutely amazing.
6. Verse 1 is the beginning of this vision. John says that there was a door and a voice like a trumpet said “Come up here so that I can show you what must happen after these things.” The first two words and last two words of verse 1 are “after this” that means what is in between is called an inclusio. Sometimes in the Bible there are inclusios which cover a few chapters. It is like a parentheses.
7. In verse 2 John is “immediately” “in the Spirit.” This could mean that he was in the Holy Spirit, or Spirit just is a spiritual state.
8. Now, this is not the first time John has written about being in the Spirit. In Chapter 1:10 John wrote that he was “In the ‘Spirit’ on the Lord’s Day…” So, something we must understand with the book of Revelation is that there are all kinds of things happening around John all at once. John likely describes things as he can, using the terminology that he can, but also he seems to repeat things, but he really is not. He is simply describing the same thing again in order to describe something else related to it. I heard this described as a cyclorama. Those are 360 degree pictures that depict an event. There is one at Gettysburg. This shows the war all around you. What John is experiencing is all around him and it is outside of time. John is describing these things in a temporal way. We are looking for chronology but there is none.
9. So, it appears what he is describing in this passage is similar to Revelation 21:9 so it is possible that John is seeing the New Jerusalem right here and then he particularizes the New Jerusalem in chapter 21.
10. So, he describes a beautiful throne room with all kinds of jewels. Then he describes 24 thrones with elders on the thrones. The elders had crowns. I like the belief that the elders are reflecting all believers. For example, in Rev. 3:11 Jesus said not to let them take your crown. In Rev. 1:6 we are called a Kingdom of Priests. In the Old Testament there were 24 priests. 24 was an important number in Judaism. 1 Chronicles 24 we have a listing of the 24 orders of priests. The beginning of Luke’s Gospel we see Zechariah’s vision and we see Abijah was one of the 24 priests.
11. Verse 5 references flashes of lightning and thunder. These are always signs of God’s presence. God is in the middle of this throne room. Remember what I said, John is trying to describe the indescribable. There is more in here but let’s skip to verses 8-11.
12. There are four living creatures that never rest. They are constantly worshipping the Lord.“‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”
13. Up until now we have talked about the setting and Who was at the setting and that is God. God’s presence was with them. Now, the response to the setting is worship.
14. Let’s think about worship. Remember I talked about attitude. When you come here to worship is your focus and attitude on God? Who are we worshipping? Are we sacrificing ourselves? I am not talking about money, I am talking about surrender. Are we surrendered. Don’t say, “I don’t have the right attitude so I might as well stay home.” No, we must prayerfully seek the Lord and ask that He corrects our attitude.
15. I must confess, my attitude is not perfect, some of you may have better attitudes than mine. I must ask God to work on me. We must ask God to work on us.
16. We are going to get into this now and I want it stated that I am not preparing to say what style of worship is best or what songs are best or right or wrong (and there are some songs that are not about God, but us), I want to show you that when we are with God we respond in worship. I want to focus on attitude. Look at this.
17. Look they say “Holy” how many times. Anyone, share how many times we see the adjective “Holy.” Three times. In Jewish language they could not say “holiest” so they would say something three times and that meant “most holy.” They are saying that God is most holy. He is the holiest. He Is Lord, He is God, He is most powerful or almighty.
18. He is eternal.
19. Then, whenever they gave glory, honor and thanks to God, the elders would throw themselves down. Wow!
20. That is humility. Dr. Mulholland of Asbury Theological Seminary shared:
1. We are not a bowing culture. When Dr. Mulholland enters the room the students do not bow to him, but when he taught in Korea when he came in they would bow and if a student came in late they would bow. Bowing acknowledges God as God.
2. Worship is allowing God to be God. Not just praising God and saying God you are God, but allowing God to be God.
21. I am not asking that you bow, but maybe we should. How do we know that our attitude is one of humility?
22. I do not know that answer, I am asking you. I have pride in my heart like I am sure you do and maybe in bowing or falling on the ground we are forced to remember our station before God. Is our attitude one of humility in worship.
23. It used to be common to pray on our knees, maybe we should get back to that. I had a preaching professor who talked about studying on His knees.
24. In the Old Testament Moses would fall prostrate before God in repentance.
25. We see this sort of humility all throughout the Bible.
26. Where are we?
27. Let’s pray and repent of our attitude of pride and lack of reverence before we move on. I am sure I am not alone, but if you feel you don’t have to repent then as I pray you don’t have to or you can pray, “Father God thank you that my attitude is correct…”
28. Next, these elders did not simply fall down. They offer their crowns before the throne. This is surrender. They cast their crowns. The crown represents role, authority. The Elders, who represent us, are surrendering their rule of their relationship to God, to God. Are we allowing God to be God on His terms or our terms. Casting crowns allows God to be God on His terms. John uses the present tense, they “are casting.” They are continually casting crowns. Our relationship with God is a love relationship which means we are free to say “no.” This means that we continually offer our authority and power before God and surrender and say, “You are Lord and I am not.”
1. Cast (βάλλουσιν). Read βαλοῦσιν shall cast. The casting of the crowns is an act of submission and homage. Cicero relates that when Tigranes the king of the Armenians was brought to Pompey’s camp as a captive, prostrating himself abjectly, Pompey “raised him up, and replaced on his head the diadem which he had thrown down” (Oration “Pro Sestio,” xxvii.). Tacitus gives an account of the public homage paid by the Parthian Tiridates to the statue of Nero. “A tribunal placed in the centre, supported a chair of state on which the statue of Nero rested. Tiridates approached, and having immolated the victims in due form, he lifted the diadem from his head and laid it at the feet of the statue, while every heart throbbed with intense emotion” (“Annals,” xv., 29).
29. Lastly, they worship as well.“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
30. Who is worthy to be worshipped? God.
31. Who created all things? God.
32. John is seeing who we are and who all creation is, what all creation is.
33. John is seeing that we existed in the heart of God’s love before we were created.
34. Ephesians 1:3: Paul notes that our lives are immersed in blessings. Verse 4: God chose us before the foundation of the world. “Chose” this means to speak forth. Genesis 1: God spoke forth creation. We were in the heart of God before we were created, before anything created. There was no emergency in Heaven when we were conceived, maybe in our mother’s life.
35. Psalm 139
36. By God’s hand we existed and were created.
37. We are not accidents.
38. The only response is self sacrificial worship. The only response is worship in humility.
39. The only response is to join the elders, which we may be in that group anyways and say, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.”

When I was a child my dad would rebuke me and say, “You need an attitude adjustment.” I wonder where our attitudes are at when we come to worship, or, why limit it to worshipping with the body of believers? Why allow our attitude to be a mess throughout the week. Maybe we simply must ask the Lord to work on our attitude.

Fijian Government Silences Singing at Conference
In Fiji, singing hymns can get you in trouble. About one million Methodists live in the south Pacific island country, and each summer 20,000 to 50,000 of them gather for a conference. Before the conference begins, they have a massive choral contest. About 10,000 people participate. They sing hymns. That’s it. Hymns. But in July 2009, the government shut them down. “No choral contest this year,” the government said. There is a lot of turmoil in Fiji, and the government feared that the big crowd might get out of hand. According to news reports, “Church officials said the government fears the conference and singing contest will lead to further political instability.” Nothing like singing Methodists to make a government nervous!
They are on to something there, though. Christians worshiping the Lord really are dangerous—although perhaps not as those officials feared. Worshiping God in Christ upsets world systems. It is revolutionary, subversive. It brings another kingdom into view.
Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois; source: Kim Cain, “Fiji Bans Massive Methodist Hymn-Sing,” Religion News Service (7-31-09)

Let’s pray.

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

Christmas is now over and so is New Year’s.

We have been talking about prophesies fulfilled by Jesus, listen to what Tim Keller shared:
during his 2007 talk at the Gospel Coalition National Conference:
Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.
Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.
Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing wither he went to create a new people of God.
Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”
Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.
Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.
Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.
Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.
Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.
Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.
Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn’t just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.
Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.
Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

What do you most like and not like about Christmas? People were asked that question in 2013 and this is what they said:
Stats on What We Like/Dislike about Christmas
A 2013 Pew Research poll asked people what they like or dislike the most about the Christmas holiday season. Here’s a list of what people most look forward to at Christmas time:
1. 68 percent said spending time with family and friends
2. 11 percent mentioned religious services or religious reflection
3. 11 percent look forward to the Christmas “spirit” of joy and good will
4. 5 percent said music, decorations, and shopping
5. 4 percent look forward to the end of the Christmas season
Here’s what the poll said we most dislike about the Christmas season:
1. 33 percent—the commercialism and materialism
2. 22 percent—the money and expense
3. 10 percent—the shopping and crowds
4. 5 percent—the hectic pace and bad moods of people
5. 2 percent—the pressure to go to church
Note: For the purpose of this illustration, some of the categories in the original survey have been renamed and combined into one category.
Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, “Celebrating Christmas, Then and Now,” (12-18-13)

Regardless of what you most like and most dislike, there was a lot of worship during the first Christmas and the days afterwards. Jesus was born and then in Luke 2:13-14 and verse 20 there was worship. The angels worship and the shepherds worshipped.
Listen to what one scholar wrote:
What a paradox that a babe in a manger should be called mighty! Yet even as a baby, Jesus Christ revealed power. His birth affected the heavens as that star appeared. The star affected the Magi, and they left their homes and made that long journey to Jerusalem. Their announcement shook King Herod and his court. Jesus’ birth brought angels from heaven and simple shepherds from their flocks on the hillside. Midnight became midday as the glory of the Lord appeared to men.
Warren W. Wiersbe in His Name is Wonderful. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 18.

I planned that I would start a sermon series on worship next week. However, I started studying for this sermon and I thought, this is really the beginning of the series on worship. Next week we will get into the more nitty gritty. Today, we look at how the magi worshipped Jesus.

The great idea and application today is that Jesus, the light of the world is worshipped by the magi and so must we worship Jesus.

Turn in your Bibles and read with me Matthew 2:1-12:

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christc was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the easte went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

I. Notice, in verse 2 the wise men are traveling to worship Jesus. I notice right here that worship involved sacrifice.
1. So, here is this baby, about two years old being worshipped.
2. The wise men are traveling from the East to Jerusalem. The E.S.V. Study Bible makes a note.The wise men likely traveled with a large number of attendants and guards for the long journey, which would have taken several weeks. For example, if they had come from Babylon by the main trade route of about 800 miles (1,288 km), averaging 20 miles (32 km) per day, the trip would have taken about 40 days.
3. We can read the next several verses about their travels and even in verse 12 they traveled out of their way to worship Jesus.
4. An application for us all: Do we desire to worship God and will we sacrifice in order to worship God?
5. We, actually, may not desire to worship God, but does that mean we should not? They traveled to worship?
6. We have talked about the prophesies fulfilled in Jesus and we see in verse 6 a quote from Micah 5:2 regarding Bethlehem and these wise men or magi likely knew the Old Testament writings which helped them know where to go in order to worship.
7. How important is it for us to worship?
II. In verse 8 Herod says that he wished to worship Jesus. I notice that in this case Herod lied.
1. Herod did not wish to worship Jesus. He wished to kill Jesus. In fact, in verses 16-18 we see what is called the slaughter of the innocense in which, rather than worship Jesus, Herod kills all the children under age two in hopes that Jesus will be killed. Wow!
2. By the way, verse 18 is another prophesy fulfilled, this time from Jeremiah 31:15. In verse 15 there is a prophesy fulfilled from Hosea 11:1.
3. Do we ever lie to ourselves or others about worship?
4. No, I don’t think any of us lie like Herod did. We likely, don’t even mean to lie. We may not realize that our motives our impure. But they are.
1. Why are we here?
2. Am I here to worship Christ or because of a job?
3. Are you here to worship Christ or to fulfill a duty, maybe to feel good.
4. Are we here to see friends or to worship?
1. Seeing friends is not bad. Fellowship is important as well but worship must be a priority as well.
2. I knew of someone who said that he came to church for business connections. The church is not Kiwanis.
3. I knew of someone that said we come for our children.
5. Are you here to worship Christ or because you have nothing better to do?
6. Of course it is equally as bad to say, “My heart is not in it so I will skip worship.” No, pray that God gets your heart right. Get up early and pray so that you are eager to worship Christ. Change something so that you can eagerly worship Christ. Don’t sin by skipping out on worshipping Christ Jesus.
7. These three words used for worship are verbs that means action. What is the action? Humility.
III. In verse 11, in humility, the wise men worship Jesus.
1. The bowed down.
2. The N.E.T. Bible has a note that reads: “they fell down.” BDAG 815 s.v. πίπτω 1.b.α.ב has “fall down, throw oneself to the ground as a sign of devotion, before high-ranking persons or divine beings.”
3. Are we here to worshipping God in reverence?
4. Listen, I also have no problem with hand raising in worship but know what that means. What does that mean? It means surrender. We are surrender to Jesus and we raise our hands surrendering and exalting Jesus.
5. These wise men, or magi were wealthy, very wealthy and very wise and they surrendered and bowed down to a toddler.
6. My toddler wants me to surrender to her, but Jesus was and is worthy.
7. Whether we bow down or not, are we surrendering?
8. Are we metaphorically bowing down when we sing songs to God? What about when we pray to God?

Close:
So:
1. The wise men, or magi, sacrificed to worship Jesus. Sacrifice to worship Jesus this week.
2. Herod lied about worship, pray for pure motives.
3. The wise men, or magi, bowed down in humble surrender to worship Jesus. I pray we do the same.

Christians that were in Russia anytime during the 1950s to about 1990 were familiar with the voice of Nick Leonovich. For decades before the Iron Curtain came down, Nick had been faithfully broadcasting the gospel in Russian to his people. When the doors began to open, and Nick would travel through Russia and meet those Russian believers finally, a lot of them would stop him and they’d say, “Hey, I know your voice! You led me to Christ.” Wow!
Well, I’ve got to tell you, Nick wasn’t always working for the Lord. That took a miracle. Nick was living as a teenager in Passaic, New Jersey, and his older brother, Alex, was pioneering Christian broadcasts in Russian for a company and ministry in Ecuador. And when he would ask Nick about his relationship with Christ, Nick kind of waved him off and said, “Hey, that’s my business.” It was an August day in 1945 when older brother Alex was driving to the radio station in Ecuador, and he heard the breaking news. He threw out his planned message and he spoke spontaneously from what he had just heard on the news. Nick happened to be listening on shortwave in New Jersey. He would never be the same.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I was to have A Word With You today about “Unconditional Surrender.”
The news that day? The unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces. Japan had expressed earlier interest in a surrender with specific conditions. But that day in 1945, they surrendered without condition. Alex Leonovich spoke on the subject Unconditional Surrender to Jesus Christ. Nick heard it in New Jersey, and he went to his knees. He said, “Lord, I’ve been a Christian but on my terms. Now I want to surrender to You with no terms. I unconditionally surrender.” Well, I’ll tell you, the lid came off his life from that day on.

Surrender to Jesus and worship.

Do you know Jesus?
God created us to be with Him
Our sins separate us from God
Sins cannot be removed by good works
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again
Everyone who trusts in Him alone has eternal life
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever

pray

Introduction:

Show video clip from the beginning of “A Christmas Story”

A Christmas Story: In the very beginning Ralphy (spelling) was waiting for Christmas, waiting for the BB Gun. In this case God has timing worked out and in the Old Testament they were waiting for the Messiah.

All throughout the Old Testament they were waiting for the Messiah. They were waiting.

We have been focusing on our Christmas theme which is “God provides the Light.” We have seen this played out in the Old Testament and then we have seen that John the Baptizer prepared the way. Now today we get to Jesus. The Light came into our neighborhood. This is called the incranation.

Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer once said “The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” The theological word for all of that is incarnation, meaning “in the flesh.” Jesus was the incarnation of God. Jesus was the way that God sent His “idea” to humanity; there was and is no better way!

Like the little girl who said, “Some people couldn’t hear God’s inside whisper and so He sent Jesus to tell them out loud.”

From Stephen Sheane’s Sermon “God With Us”

(Below is adapted from an illustration I read from John MacArthur)

I notice people sending fewer and fewer Christmas cards. Meagan and I will send a Christmas letter. Are you having that experience? The ones that they do send are two kinds, pictures of their kids, pictures of family, which are great and wonderful, and pictures of shepherds and wise men and mangers and stars and angels and all of that, right? I mean, that’s pretty much…we could separate them, the people go over here, the manger scenes go over here and that seems to be the current theme. And you might even wonder if the Christmas story could even be told without those very familiar elements. Would…what would the Christmas story be with no stable, no manger, no Joseph, no Mary, no Bethlehem, no shepherds, no angels, no star, no wise men and no baby? What would the Christmas story be?

It would be John’s account of the Christmas story. Fourteen verses, no Joseph, no Mary, no Bethlehem, no manger, no stable, no shepherds, no wise men, no star, no angels and no baby. But this is not any less the story. And if you think you can’t tell the story without those features, you’re wrong because that’s exactly what John does here.

One line from the text that I read you stands out and I want us to look at that line, it’s in the last verse, verse 14, and here is the story in four words…four words in English, four words in Greek, “The Word Became Flesh.” The Word became flesh. That is the most profound truth of all truth. That’s why we celebrate Christmas. Not because of the physical features of a stable and a manger and a star and a young couple and shepherds and wise men, they all participate, of course, in the physical historical features of the birth of Christ. But the real story is the Word became Flesh. The Word became Flesh.

Who is the Word? Verse 1 says, “The Word was with God and the Word was God. And this Word became flesh, verse 14 says, and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” The Word became flesh, dwelt among us without giving up any of His glory. This is the story of Christmas.

But the most concise statement in all the Bible on the incarnation, God becoming man, are the four words in verse 14, “The Word became Flesh,” God became a man.” The infinite became finite. The eternal one entered time. The invisible became visible.

That is exactly the theme today. God dwells with us.

Let’s read: John 1:1-14:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

1. Notice that verses 1-5 are specific about Jesus specifically beginning with His eternal past.

   1. I just want to skim over these verses. I like what John MacArthur says about verse 1:

      1. Was is an imperfect tense verb, eimi, a form of eimi. Eimi is the verb to be. And it describes continuous existence. The imperfect tense describes continuous reality. Ami is the verb to be, continuous existence before the beginning of everything. When the beginning began, He already was. John doesn’t use ginomai, he doesn’t say, “In the beginning the Word came into existence.” He uses ami, “In the beginning the Word already existed.” There never was a point when He came into existence. And that is why the testimony of Scripture is that He is before all things. That is why He says in John 8, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He was in the beginning already existing.

      1. John begins the Gospel going back to eternal past. He begins this Gospel going outside of time.

      2. By the way, “Word” is the Greek noun Logos and it meant all reason and reality. The Greeks and the Jews would have known John is writing about God, so we will not go deeper here right now. I would love to talk with you later regarding this. Actually, we do have a small group at my house at 6:00 and we could talk about it there. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament has about fourty or more pages devoted to the background of this Greek noun.

      3. I recently heard how C.S. Lewis wrote about the crazy things that we say. People say “time flies.” That is a weird phrase, it is like a fish saying the water is wet. That is weird unless fish were not meant to live inw ater but on land. Well, the point Lewis was making is that maybe we are so perplexed by how fast time goes because we were meant for the eternal. (I heard this from Ravi Zacharius on Just Thinking podcast, also on a White Horse Inn podcast)

      4. So, here we are in eternity past, outside of time and Jesus is with God.

      5. Jesus created everything.

      6. Then the Bible says that in Him, or Jesus was life and then the noun “light” comes into play. Life come into play:

      7. Dr. Constable “. . . we move on from creation in general to the creation of life, the most significant element in creation. Life is one of John’s characteristic concepts: he uses the word 36 times, whereas no other New Testament writing has it more than 17 times (Revelation; next come Romans with 14 times and 1 John with 13 times). Thus more than a quarter of all the New Testament references to life occur in this one writing.”¹

      8. We have been talking about “light” haven’t we?

      9. The “light” shines into the darkness. There is a contrast between light and dark in John’s Gospel.

   2. That noun is used 73 times in 62 verses in the New Testament. It is used 6 times in verses 4-9; 23 times in John’s Gospel; 6 times in 1 John; 4 times in Revelation. It is used 33 times by John, almost half of its uses. At its root, as it is used here, it means “light.” It can be used to mean:

      1. radiant or shining

      2. enlighten, give light to

   3. dawn, draw near

   4. star, splendor, radiance

   5. enligtenment, light

   6. radiance, morning star

      1. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996)

      2. Light does shine into darkness. Light does light up the path. Why do we care so much for light? Why do we need light so much? But this is metaphorical. The Light is Jesus. The darkness is the world.

2. Notice verses 6-8 are about John the baptizer preparing the way for the Light of the world.

   1. So we stay with this theme of Light. John is preparing the way.

   2. By the way, I do not know that we switched from the idea of Logos. John simply changed nouns describing Jesus. Jesus is the Logos, Jesus is the Light of the World.

3. Notice verses 9-14 are back to Jesus, ending in the present. Jesus took on flesh.

   1. Now, John tells us that Jesus comes to His own but they will not comprehend Him. His own are the Jews.

   2. There is heavy irony in those verses. In Jesus comes into the world and the world rejects Him. Jesus created the world (verses 1-3), but the world rejects her creator.

   3. Yet, verses 12 and 13, all who believe in Him. This is not a causual belief but a heavy trust. Confessing sins, believing, trusting and committing to Him.

   4. God gives the right to be children of God. Again, notice the irony. Jesus has created us. Jesus shines His light upon us and then He adopts us as childen of God.

   5. Verse 13 is key. Born not from human lineage but of God. This is full adoption, full children. And who does the saving? John tells us: The will of God. The text says, not of human decision.

   6. Remember this Advent I have stressed that God provides the light. Salvation is from God.

   7. So, verse 14: The Word became flesh.

   8. Literally, He pitched His tent amongst us. We are to the present.

   9. For the rest of John’s Gospel, He is not called the Word, but Jesus of Nazareth.

   10. How did He take on flesh?

   11. He was born of a woman in a stable or a cave. The Light of the World.

Now, that is a different Christmas story. That is different than the cards with the manger scenes, but it is full and in the Bible.

Let’s pray.

So, have you believed in Him? Have you accepted salvation?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

A man is rushed to the hospital where a doctor examines him and informs him that he is critically ill. The patient is told that he will die unless he gets proper treatment. The physician then prescribes medicine for the sick man and says, “If you will take this, I can assure you with absolute certainty that you will get well.” Now, what should the man do? Should he just lie there on his sickbed and believe that the doctor knows his business, that he has diagnosed his illness correctly, and that the prescription will surely make him well? No, that is not enough. If that is all he does, he will die. To live, he must take the medicine.

When a person offers you a gift that has cost him or her much, it does not become yours until you receive it from that person. The beautifully wrapped package in the outstretched hand of the giver will do the receiver no good until he or she reaches out and takes it. Likewise, reception of God’s gracious gift of eternal life is necessary before a person can benefit from it. Receiving a gift from someone else does not constitute a meritorious act or good work, and the Bible never regards it as a work. It is simply a response to the work of another.

Let’s pray

ON A RATHER INSIGNIFICANT SPHERE

A senior angel is showing a very young angel around the splendors of the universe. They view whirling galaxies and blazing suns, and then flit across the infinite distances of space until at last they enter one particular galaxy of 500 billion stars.

As the two of them draw near to the star which we call our sun and to its circling planets, the senior angel pointed to a small and rather insignificant sphere turning very slowly on its axis. It looked as dull as a dirty tennis ball to the angel, whose mind was filled with the size and glory of what he had seen.
“I want you to watch that one particularly,” said the senior angel, pointing with his finger.
“Well, it looks very small and rather dirty to me,” said the little angel. “What’s special about that one?”

To the little angel, earth did not seem so impressive. He listened in stunned disbelief as the senior angel told him that this planet, small and insignificant and not overly clean, was the renowned Visited Planet.

“Do you mean that our great and glorious Prince … went down in Person to this fifth-rate little ball? Why should He do a thing like that?” …
The little angel’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that He stooped so low as to become one of those creeping, crawling creatures of that floating ball?”
“I do, and I don’t think He would like you to call them ‘creeping, crawling creatures’ in that tone of voice. For, strange as it may seem to us, He loves them. He went down to visit them to lift them up to become like Him.”
The little angel looked blank. Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension.

(SOURCE: From Phillip Yancey, “The Jesus I Never Knew,” p. 43-44, quoting JB Phillips.)

We have been focusing on God sending the Light. We have been focusing on how God provides the sacrifice for our sins. Over the past few weeks we have looked at how way back in Genesis 3:15 God prophesied that He, being Jesus, will strike a fatal blow to the devil. This shows that when humanity first sinned, God was already declaring redemption. Salvation comes from the Lord. Then, last week we looked at Genesis 22 and how God provided a sacrifice for Abraham. This shows that God will also provide a sacrifice for us. In this we see the prophesies of old fulfilled in the New Testament that God would become a man to die for our sins. God loves us that much.

Today, let’s talk about John the Baptizer preparing the way for the Messiah, for Jesus. Today, we look at the New Testament.

Today’s Great Idea is that John the Baptizer Prepares the Way for the Light of the World. Today’s application is because Jesus Is the Light, we do not walk in darkness. So, walk in the Light. (Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thess. 5:4-8)

Let’s read Mark 1:1-8:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”—
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
4And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

I. Mark 1:1-8 is about John the Baptizer preparing the way for Jesus.
1. This passage actually quotes from the Old Testament, specifically, Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 about the one who prepares the way.
2. Since we are in the Chritmas season, how do you prepare for Christmas morning?
1. Okay, let’s pretend that you have people coming over for dinner, or lunch or a Christmas get together, how do you prepare? Do you have to get things ready in the house?
2. Less than a few months ago many of you hosted a few Judson University students for the night. How did you prepare? Did you get their beds ready? Did you clean the house? Did you get a camper out and get it ready? Then, when they came over did you drive them home and give them something to eat?
3. Prior to your Christmas celebratin do you decorate? Do you think, “I am having my grandchildren over and I want things to be right? So, you bake some cookies, you set up the Christmas tree, maybe you light a fire in the fireplace, maybe you light some candles. You are preparing the place for your family Christmas get together. When you do this you are preparing everything for the important people, your family.
3. Way back in the Old Testament God declared that someone will prepare the way for Jesus. Someone will prepare the way for the Light of the World.
4. John the Baptist was the forerunner. This passage is about John and his ministry.
5. However, I want to look at another prophetic passage.
II. In Luke 1:67-79 we see John the Baptizer’s father prophesy about John. Let’s read that passage as well.
His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
69He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant,
73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
1. So, we see an amazing prophesy and I only want to talk about a couple of verses.
2. First, in context John the Baptizer has just been born and they name him John. If you read the beginning of the chapter, verses 5-25 you can read about the angel of the Lord visiting Zecheriah to share that he and his wife, Elizabeth, will have a child in their old age.
3. Verse 67 says that Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Wow! Understand that there has not been a prophet in 400 years. They have not seen anything like this.
4. In verses 67-75 are prophesies concerning Jesus.
5. As I look at these I see that they all are in a worshipful way. Verse 68: Praise the Lord, God of Israel because He has come to His people and redeemed them.
6. This is worship of God. Amen!
7. Realize that Zechariah and his wife are likely older than sixty years and they just had a child.
1. Raise your hand if you are under sixty years old.
2. Understand that the parents of John the Baptizer were older than you are, maybe older than your parents and they conceived and gave birth.
3. Now, raise your hand if you are over sixty years old.
4. Understand that Zechariah and Elizabeth might have been your age as new parents.
5. I have been a new parent and I am not eager to have that responsibility, pressure and time commitment in my sixties.
6. I do not want to miss stating that some of you take on great responsibilities for children when you are over sixty and praise God for your commitment.
8. Verses 76-80 are about John the Baptizer preparing the way for Jesus, the Light of the world.
9. Verse 76: John will be called a prophet of the most High. Do you know that Jesus said that no one born of women was greater than John the baptizer? (Matthew 11:11) Verse 76 also says that John will prepare His ways.
10. Verse 77: John will give people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.
1. John went out and preached that people need to repent. (Matthew 3:1-11; Mark 1:1-8; Luke 3:2-16; John 1:19-39; 3:22-36)
2. In John 1:23 John said that he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. John recognized that he was fulfilling prophesies from the Old Testament. He knew the prophesies in Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 which he fulfilled. He knew who he was.
3. What is really awesome is that here when he was just born his father prophesies this ministry regarding his son. We must be careful of this. But this was accrurate.
The eighteenth-century Anglican clergyman George Whitefield was one of the spearheads of the Great Awakening, a period of massive renewal of interest in Christianity across Western societies and a time of significant church growth. Whitefield was a riveting orator and is considered one of the greatest preachers in church history. In late 1743 his first child, a son, was born to he and his wife, Elizabeth. Whitefield had a strong impression that God was telling him the child would grow up to also be a “preacher of the everlasting Gospel.” In view of this divine assurance, he gave his son the name John, after John the Baptist, whose mother was also named Elizabeth. When John Whitefield was born, George baptized his son before a large crowd and preached a sermon on the great works that God would do through his son. He knew that cynics were sneering at his prophecies, but he ignored them. Then, at just four months old, his son died suddenly of a seizure. The Whitefields were of course grief-stricken, but George was particularly convicted about how wrong he had been to count his inward impulses and intuitions as being essentially equal to God’s Word. He realized he had led his congregation into the same disillusioning mistake . Whitefield had interpreted his own feelings— his understandable and powerful fatherly pride and joy in his son, and his hopes for him—as God speaking to his heart. Not long afterward, he wrote a wrenching prayer for himself, that God would “render this mistaken parent more cautious, more sober-minded, more experienced in Satan’s devices, and consequently more useful in his future labors to the church of God.” The lesson here is not that God never guides our thoughts or prompts us to choose wise courses of action, but that we cannot be sure he is speaking to us unless we read it in the Scripture.
Keller, Timothy (2014-11-04). Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (p. 63). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
4. So, that is today, but Zechariah was letting God speak through him, how do we know? One way is that this was fulfilled.
11. In verse 79: Zechariah prophesies that John will: to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
1. Another translation says that he will give light to those who sit in darkness.
2. Would you be in darkness without Jesus?
3. Whether we realize it or not, we would be in darkness without Jesus.
4. In John 8:12 Jesus is speaking and He says: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
5. So, where you at? Do you have the Light of the world?
6. Ephesians 5:8-11: turn there with me:
7. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
8. Isaiah 60:1: Arise Shine for your Light has come.
9. Jesus has come and He was and is the Light of the world. John the baptizer prepared the way for Jesus, the Light of the World. Now, what is so awesome is that this verse has been fulfilled on multiple levels:
1. John the baptizer grew up as verse 80 says and he prepared the way for the Lord who would shine the light on those that walk in darkness.
2. Then, today, Jesus has come, died on the cross for us and risen again !
3. We have heard, we have seen the Light.
4. But others still have not.
5. Jesus said in Matthew 5:14 that we are the light of the world.
6. Go, spread your light.
On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry
by Charles Coffin, 1676-1749
Translated by John Chandler, 1806-1876 (Stanzas 1-3)
Translated by unknown author, (Stanzas 4-5)

1. On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Awake and listen for he brings
Glad tidings from the King of kings.

2. Let every heart be cleansed from sin
Make straight the way for God within,
And so prepare to be the home
where such a mighty guest may come.

3. For You are our Salvation, Lord,
Our Refuge, and our great Reward.
Without Your grace our we waste away
Like flowers that wither and decay.

4. To heal the sick, stretch out Your hand
And make the fallen sinner stand;
Shine out, and let Your light
restore earth’s own true loveliness once more.

5. To You, O Christ, all praises be,
Whose advent sets Your people free,
Whom, with the Father, we adore
And Holy Spirit evermore!
1. John the baptizer prepared the way. Zechariah prophesied that he would prepare the way for Jesus. You may not be a prophet like him, but you can still point people to Jesus as he did. Shine your light.
2. What better season than this season to shine your light and point people to Jesus.

Close:
Do you ever plug in your Christmas lights and only one bulb works on a strand? That would not be that pretty would it? No, the tree is pretty because of all the lights. The lights expose the darkness of that tree.

In like manner…

I am going to light a candle right now and ask that the lights will be turned off. This room can get really dark, especially at night. Just look at it. We just have the alter candles lit and this one. This does not brighten it up much. But suppose that it was just like Christmas Eve and you all had a candle, one by one this room would light up. Your candle light would expose the darkness in this room.

The Truth is, we all have the Light, if you know Jesus Christ. When you go about your daily lives you walk into rooms that are dark like this and you bring the light, which is Jesus within you.
Go be light.

Do you have the Light of the world that the Old Testament prophesied about? Do you have the Light of the world that John the Baptizer prophesies about?

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)
Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)
Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)
Pray