Biblical Worship

Providence Baptist Church

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Well, I want you to do a little supposing with me.

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Suppose, suppose I had hundreds of millions of dollars. All right, well, let's just go big.

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Suppose I had a billion dollars. And one day, I gave you a few million dollars and a blueprint of a home.

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And I wanted you to build this home for me. Now, I said something along the lines, I had so much money, so it doesn't matter.

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I'm like, well, you know, I'm gonna be overseas for a year or so. And when

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I come back, I'd like you to have this house ready for me.

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And then here you go. Here are the plans to build it. And then I said, look, I have all these accounts open for you to use.

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Go to whatever store you need to and get this done for me. Whatever you ask in my name, it'll be done for you.

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Well, that's that sort of sounds familiar, doesn't it? But I give you the money. I give you the resources, everything you need.

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And I say, get this house in order the way that I want it built. And I'll see you in maybe 12 months or so.

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Now, what would you do? What would you do with those plans that I gave you?

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Would you wad them up? Would you toss them out? Would you say, well, we've never done it that way before.

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Or would you say, well, these people over here you see in the neighborhood, they are building this way.

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And don't you understand, if we are to build according to the blueprints that you gave us, they're gonna think that we're weird.

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Or would you say something like, you know, I actually, I think it'd be more practical. I'm just gonna put the kitchen over here.

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It doesn't seem right to have all these windows over here. I'm gonna put a few more windows over there.

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Or would you just say, you know, the house you said to paint it red, but I like yellow.

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So I'll paint it yellow instead. Of course, if you had any sense at all, you wouldn't do any of those things because it's not your house, right?

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It's my house. And you would build the house the way that I'd asked you to build it.

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Turn in your Bibles to John chapter four. John chapter four.

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Friends, I cannot say this clearly or strongly enough.

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This is not our church. It's not yours.

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It's not mine. It's not the church of our city.

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It is not the church of our culture. It is not the church of our neighbors.

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It's not the church of our country. It's not our government's church. Friends, this is

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Christ's church. And we must have his church constructed according to his blueprints.

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And Christ is worthy of a healthy church in Perryville. We have no right, is what

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I'm saying. We have no right to move things around according to our preferences or standards of the world or cultural acceptance.

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This is Christ's church. And what I'm saying is it must be regulated by his word.

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And we're foolish and we're wicked if we don't do it that way. And so what we're doing as a church, we've paused

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Ephesians, we will pick that back up, but we're walking through our 10 distinctives of Perryville Second Baptist Church.

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And today we're gonna actually cover two distinctives. Number five, number six, biblical worship and biblical preaching.

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We want to get this right. We want to do what the Lord Jesus has to say. We don't wanna paint the church red if he wants it yellow.

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We don't want the church to be two stories if he wants it one story. We don't want the windows over here if he wants them over there.

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Everything that Jesus wants us to do, that's what we wanna do. So let me read our preamble and then we'll jump into John chapter four.

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We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, risen from the dead and now seated at the right hand of God the

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Father Almighty as King of all is worthy of a healthy church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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We believe taking these 10 distinctives together sets us apart as a local church in the location where God has planted us.

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These distinctives do not exhaust all of our beliefs as a body, but they are a non -negotiable part of who we are as a local church.

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We hold these truths according to the Bible for the purpose of the good of one another and our community and ultimately for Christ's honor and glory.

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All right, John chapter four. You've heard this passage read already this morning, but let's read it again.

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Would you stand with me in the honor of reading God's word? Let's start in verse 20.

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The Samaritan woman says to Jesus, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the

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Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the

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Jews, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the

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Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship

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Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

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The woman said to Him, I know the Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ, when

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He comes, He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am

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He. Let's pray. Father, would you help us understand worship this morning? Would you help us to understand we were created to worship?

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Would you help us to understand that the church is obligated to worship as you have set forth, but not merely obligated, it is the church's great delight to worship you as you have set forth.

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Help us to understand these truths today. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

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Biblical worship, I'll read it. It's in your bulletin insert. This is our distinctive. We believe that our triune

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God alone determines how He is to be worshiped and has expressly set forth in His word how

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He would have His local churches worship Him. We therefore seek to follow the regulative principle of worship.

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This means that we believe that only what God has expressly commanded His church to do in worship should be done.

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This also means that we believe only qualified men may preach or publicly lead in the singing,

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Bible reading, and prayers that occur when the church is corporately gathered on the Lord's Day main assembly.

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We prize the first day of the week, Sunday, as our day for worshiping God corporately.

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While there will be times of providential hindrance, we prioritize our meetings on this day, setting aside this day as sacred for worship and fellowship with the body of Christ.

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We believe that biblical worship is for all ages and that the entire church body and every family ought to worship

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God together. We therefore do not provide separate spaces for children's classes during corporate worship.

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Okay, that's a lot. We could do a whole series just on what I just read. And I would point you,

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July 31st, you can find this on our website, July 31st of 2022, I did preach a message called

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Worship by the Book. And I would encourage you to go listen to that. It might be another place to kind of fill in some of the areas that we won't get to today, but you can find that at PerryvilleSBC .org.

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But for today, I'm going to break this down into two points and then I'll give a third point about preaching.

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And come back tonight, we can talk about this more tonight. Number one, I want to tell you that worship is a reality.

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Number one, worship is a reality. If you look at our text, I'll go back to verse 20.

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The woman says, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

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So this woman was a worshiper, but notice in verse 23, how Jesus distinguishes something.

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He says, the hour is coming is now here when the true worshipers, little words like that are important, true worshipers.

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That is, there is such a thing as false worshipers. There are true worshipers and false worshipers.

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And where I want to begin this sermon is to say that worship for the human existence, it is a reality.

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The woman at the well worshiped. Jesus said she worshiped what she didn't know.

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So, two thoughts to mention here. First, God created us for worship.

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God created us for worship. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins this way. It says, what is the chief end of man?

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And what's the answer? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

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That is, the very purpose, the very reason that mankind exists is for the glory of God.

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Our triune God made us to worship him. I just got to pause for just a second.

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I want everybody in here to focus. I know, I see a lot of eyes looking around, maybe looking down, all that.

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Look at me for just a moment because I don't want you to miss what I'm about to say. Listen to this carefully.

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Kiddos, adults, you were made the reason that you exist.

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I know it's hard. I know you're locked into a certain period of your life, whether you're young or old or you're somewhere in between.

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You were made, the reason you exist is to worship God. Do not let this reality pass over you.

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The triune, holy, eternal, incomprehensible, wonderful, awesome

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God of the universe created you in Perry County, Arkansas to worship him.

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In fact, look at verse 23. We could go into this, but this lady had no idea what was going on.

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But Jesus says, the hour is coming now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

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And listen to this. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. Let me just make a side note. This lady, she went to go get water from the well and she didn't realize that whole time that the

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God of the universe was seeking her. And John, the gospel writer

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John, tells us a story here that Jesus is explaining to this woman that the

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Father is the seeker of biblical worship and he is seeking sinners to transform by his grace and worship him biblically.

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Friends, you were made to worship God. What an awesome reality. Awesome because only

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God is awesome and he formed you to worship him. Okay, but listen carefully.

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Here is the problem. This is alluded to in question 51 of the Baptist Catechism, which we read either last week or maybe the week before.

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But it says, what is required in the first commandment? The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge

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God to be the only true God and our God and to worship and glorify him accordingly.

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Okay, the problem is though God is the only true God and though only

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God is worthy of our worship and though we were created to worship him, it is now the default state of every person to worship false gods.

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I say now because we live in the age after the fall. Ever since Genesis three, it has been our natural disposition to put other gods before the

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God of the Bible. Now, I hear you in your 21st century mind and you say, Brother Quatro, I don't worship false gods.

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I don't worship Allah. I don't worship any of the millions of Hindu gods.

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I don't worship false gods. I don't do any such thing. Perhaps you don't worship those false gods, but the reality is the vast majority of Americans do worship false gods.

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Let's bring it down to Perry County. The majority of Perry County worships false gods.

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They look to the government as their provider. They look to substances or sexual immorality to fulfill them.

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They worship their children's academic or athletic success. They serve money.

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They worship their job or their possessions or their hobbies. We are a nation, friends.

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We are a county of idol worshipers. And the Bible says time and again, places like first Corinthians six and Revelation 21.

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Listen, by the way, you guys know my stance on homosexuality.

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Obviously, we stand against that. But you know, like in first Corinthians six and Revelation 21, did you know that in that list of like homosexuality and sexual immorality, did you know there's another sin that's talked about who will not inherit the kingdom of God who will be in Revelation 21, cast off into the lake of fire?

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Do you know there's another sin? I know you look around and you think homosexuality, we stand against it. Yeah, but you know, there's another sin in there as well.

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You know what that sin is? Idolatry. First Corinthians six and Revelation 21, eight, both make clear that idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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They will be cast into the lake of fire. And the reality is that we were created to worship the one true

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God and the sinful human heart will always find something to worship, anything to worship besides God.

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In fact, there's really is no such state of existence for any person that does not involve worship.

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Did that come out okay? What I'm trying to say is you can't not worship.

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You were created to worship and you will worship. The question today is not if you are worshiping, you are worshiping.

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The question is who or what is it that you're worshiping?

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Now, look at verse 25 and 26 in the text. The woman said to him,

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I know the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things.

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Verse 26, Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. What is Jesus saying here? I am the

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Messiah. I am the promised one. I wanted to begin this sermon with a clear gospel message.

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The God of the Bible, he is holy, he has created us to worship him, but because of our sin, we fill our thoughts and our minds and our time and our affections and our devotion toward other things.

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Now, in the Bible Belt, and we could see this yesterday going door to door evangelism. In the

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Bible Belt, we're usually smart enough to give a tip of the hat to God.

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We know better than to deny him, although there were two examples yesterday, even in Perryville, of I was in one group that encountered a person and I think somebody else,

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I don't remember, was in another group, might have been Alex or something. I think Alex and Monty were in another group that encountered someone that just out and out denied

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Christianity, denied God. Most people in the Bible Belt won't do that, but in reality, so many are worshiping the false gods of this world, or, this happens here probably a lot, they worship a

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God of their own invention. And listen to this God, he's a lot like the

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God of the Bible. He has a son named Jesus and he gave the son on the cross and the son rose again from the dead.

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He's a lot like the God of the Bible. However, the God that we've invented seems always to be patting us on the back when we sin.

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And what he does is, he always has a problem with other people's sins, but he never has a problem, it seems, with our sins.

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Why is this? This is because this is a false God that many have invented in their brains.

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Our triune God is worthy of our worship, but we have despised and rejected him and we deserve the full measure of hell for all eternity for denying

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God what is due him. He is worthy of our worship. But this is the beauty of this text here.

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When Jesus says that he is the Messiah, what is that? He is the promised one.

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In steps the Christ, the Lord Jesus, the one foretold, the one promised in the Garden of Eden, truly

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God and truly man, the one who worshiped in perfect obedience in everything. Then he was crucified on the sins.

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On the cross, the Lord Jesus became our propitiation. He was punished as a idol worshiper.

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He was that wrath -satisfying sacrifice for all who look upon him in faith.

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He rose again from the grave so that those who repent of their idolatry and put their faith in him will be pardoned, they will be forgiven of their sins and they will live a life of worship to the one true

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God. Because by the way, worship is not just what we're doing in here. In a sense, worship for the

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Christian encompasses our entire life. I asked a man yesterday,

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I said to him, do you acknowledge Christ as king? And he kind of laughed.

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He said, I'm king, pointing to himself. What a miserable existence that is.

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You weren't created for that. You can't handle being king of your life.

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The question is, do you worship God and Christ? This is why you were made. Are there any this morning who will repent of their false worship even now and turn to Christ in faith and seek to honor him with their lives?

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Before moving on, I wanna add one more thought here about this.

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If you deny God, if you choose, okay, maybe you won't out and out deny

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God, but if you choose this morning to continue to worship self and sin and the world,

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I wanna tell you the reality. God is still going to get his praise. Psalm 76 10 says it this way.

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The wrath of man shall praise you. John Gill of this verse says, the wrath of man against Christ, his church and people, his ministers, gospel and ordinances will all turn to the glory of his name.

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Okay, but what we mean here is if someone thinks, if you think that you will rob

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God of his glory, if you think that you will steal from the glory of God by your rejection of him, you won't because one day

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God will get the praise for his justice against you if you refuse him.

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So before moving on, worship is a reality. You're made to worship God. What is it or who is it that you're worshiping?

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If it's not God in Christ, repent, repent, turn from vain idols and turn to the living

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God in faith. Secondly, now I wanna talk about the necessity of biblical worship.

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I want to point out verse 24, a word that you may or may not have noticed.

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The necessity of biblical worship. In verse 24, Jesus says this,

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God is spirit and those who worship him, in fact, I'll ask you this, hope you're paying attention.

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What word do you have next in your text? God is spirit and those who worship him, what word do you have next?

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Must, must, what does that mean? It means you have to, there's an obligation, there's a necessity.

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It's not those who worship him should, all right? Think about what if the verse said that?

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God is spirit and those who worship him should worship him in spirit and truth.

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That's not what the text says, is it? It says God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

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All of life, if you will, is a form of worship in a sense. That means if you think you're worshiping

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God but your life is not aligned with his will and his word, then you're wrong.

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So many people that we talk to regularly, they're wrong about that. It doesn't matter how you feel about God.

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Worship that is not according to the truth is abhorrent to God. In fact, let me just give you two quick biblical examples.

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The first is from Exodus 32. You remember what happened in Exodus 32? Moses goes up on Sinai and he leaves his brother down there,

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Aaron, and the people say, make us a god, right? And you remember how

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Aaron says, later he tells Moses, I just threw in all the jewelry and out came this calf.

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But Aaron says that the calf, he says the golden calf is

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Yahweh. In other words, Aaron is not making up a new God. Aaron says, this is

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Yahweh, this is Yahweh, and so tomorrow will be a feast to Yahweh. In other words, the people worship the right

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God, as it were, in the wrong way. And what does God do? God is angry.

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Or there's another example. In Leviticus 10, Aaron had two sons, Nadab and Abihu.

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Nadab and Abihu are offering the one true God, the right God, they're offering

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Him worship. But the Bible says in Leviticus 10 that it's strange fire.

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It was false worship. You know what God does? He kills them.

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Those who worship God must worship Him, verse 24, in spirit and truth.

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So now this brings us to corporate worship. Not only do we worship God daily in our lives and with our families, but the

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Bible says that we're together weekly in corporate worship, to worship God together in the local church.

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And by the way, let me say this, if you're not doing that, it's like I'm not worshiping weekly,

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I don't care about the church, then you're not being obedient to the scriptures. You can't say you live a life that worships

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King Jesus while neglecting His church. In fact, let me just show you real quick, just a real quick side note.

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Turn over to Hebrews 10. I'll mention this and then I'll go back to John 4 because I could spend a lot of time on this.

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But Hebrews 10, let me just mention this, that it is in the Bible. Let's start in verse 23.

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Hebrews 10, verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promises faith, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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Friends, now back to John 4. The Bible is clear that we are not to neglect to meet.

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I understand, yes, there are providential hindrances, there are sicknesses, and there are things that come up that require our lack of attendance, as it were.

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However, we cannot, if we want to be worshipers of God, neglect our

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Lord's Day gathering. But here's the point for us. How God is to be worshiped by the church is regulated by scripture.

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God knows how he desires to be worshiped, and he calls upon his people to worship him rightly.

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Again, I'll read verse 23 and 24. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the

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Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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So think about this for just a moment. Everyone in here is a worshiper. You're either a true worshiper of Yahweh, the one true, eternal, triune

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God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You're either a true worshiper of him, or you're not a worshiper of him, and you worship a false god, or you worship an idol, or you worship something else.

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Well, how do you know? Well, we must worship, the true worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.

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To worship God in spirit means that we don't merely go through these outward rituals, as you heard this morning from Brother Jacob.

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There's inward affection and desire. It means also we remember that God is a spirit, verse 24, that he's holy, he's completely distinct from his creation.

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We cannot make images to depict him. It reminds us that God is not in this or that city.

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Oh, if we wanna go to, if we wanna get really close to God, we gotta go to Jerusalem, or we gotta go to Little Rock, right?

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Or whatever. No, no, no. No, he's not on this and that mountain, or in this or that city, but rather God gathers with his churches all over the world as they gather in the name of Jesus to worship him.

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And to worship God, we must worship in truth. We must begin with truth.

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Christ, the Bible says, is the truth, John 14, six. There is no worship acceptable to God that does not begin with humble repentance and faith in the

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Lord Jesus. Repentance from sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

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You cannot worship God with yourself as the starting point. In fact, listen to some of the songs.

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Hey, I listen to K -Love, Confession. I drive around, I listen to it. I think it's probably cleaner than some of the other things on the radio.

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But there are a lot of songs on K -Love that are just so dumb. And they start with you as the starting point and why you're so worthy and you're so great and you're so wonderful.

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No, friends, we can't begin with us as the starting point for the worship of God. We must begin with Christ.

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If you go to God outside of Christ, you will only find his just wrath.

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We must worship in truth. This reminds us that true worship does not only stir our affections, but also engages the mind.

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In other words, a lot of people think of worship today as something that just makes you feel a certain way inside.

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I don't wanna engage my mind. I just want to be entertained, right? That's called amusement.

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You know what amusement means, right? It's got the prefix awe, which means without or not, and muse.

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What is someone who muses? They think, right? So what literally does amusement mean?

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It means you don't think. That's what you, I'm gonna lie, I just wanna sit and veg out and watch TV. I wanna be amused.

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I don't want to think. Okay, that's not worship, because worship is in spirit and Jesus says in truth.

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So mindless worship, where I'm just like whatever, that's an oxymoron.

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That's not worship. God is not seeking mindless worshipers.

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He's seeking those who will worship him in spirit and in truth. And it also means this, those who worship

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God must do so by his revealed will. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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Okay, maybe I can put it this way. Listen carefully or you're gonna miss. I don't want you quoting me on this unless you hear the whole thing.

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Every church should be a seeker -sensitive church. Now, in the world today, what is a seeker -sensitive church?

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A seeker -sensitive church is a church that tries to lower all the expectations, they try to minimize

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Christianity, and they try to be hip and cool, and they get all the quote -unquote seekers to come into the church.

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Two problems with that. Number one, Romans 3 says no one seeks

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God. Problem two, look at our text. You know who the seeker is? Look at verse 23.

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I want you to see it. See it in your Bibles. But the hour is coming is now here when true worshipers will worship the

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Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship

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Him. Who's the seeker? It's God. So we ought to be seeker -sensitive.

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And if we're going to be seeker -sensitive, it means we must be sensitive, that is, obedient to the seeker who is

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God. We don't bend or tailor our worship services toward the desires or whims of men.

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This is incredibly freeing, by the way. Because if someone comes and says, I think we ought to do this in worship, we're free because we don't have to be like, well,

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I don't know, should we do that, should we not? We can just say, no, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't twirl around on stage and dancing.

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Why? It's not in the book, right? So it's easy. It's easy, we don't have to wonder. We don't have to guess.

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We know this is the regular principle of worship, that God regulates in His word how

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He is to be worshiped by explicit precept. And we must follow that way.

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And there's no other way to follow that's pleasing to God. All right, two more things to mention here.

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One, I'll just mention this quickly, but Sunday is the day we gather to worship as a church.

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It's Sunday. You ever thought about that? I hope you have. There's a reason.

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Oh, it's just tradition. Well, no, there is tradition to it, but it's more than that. Jesus rose again on Sunday.

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Here shortly, you guys realize we're not far away from Easter 2023 already. Here shortly, we'll have

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Easter. And what do we do on Easter? We celebrate the resurrection of Christ. But hold up for just a second.

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We do that every Sunday. That's why we meet on Sunday, because Jesus rose again from the dead on the first day of the week.

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And you look at Acts 20, verse seven, or 1 Corinthians 16, verse two. The church gathered on Sunday.

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Sunday is not, there can be some confusion here. Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath.

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It's not. Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath. But it is the Lord's Day, or the

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Christian Sabbath, as it were. We set this day aside in our week to rest from our labors, to fellowship with the saints, and to worship

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God. A true worshiper of Christ does not schedule

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Sunday around their week. Rather, a true believer schedules their week around Sunday.

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We prize Sundays, because it is the day our Lord rose again from the dead so that we might be justified by faith in Him.

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Let me just say this lovingly. I'm your pastor. I love you. And I want you to hear this in a loving way.

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But most of us in here can treat Sunday with more priority than we do.

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Let me put it this way. Most of you can treat

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Sunday with more priority than you do. And here's, I'll make a deal with you.

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Prove me wrong on this. Prove me wrong. Commit your life, commit your week to revolving around Sunday.

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Instead of just trying to squeeze Sunday in to your hectic and busy life. I know you're busy. I know your life is hectic.

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I understand, right? Some mornings I wake up and I'm like, oh yeah, I got five kids.

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Oh, it's crazy, right? What? I understand. And you got this one going this one, this one going this one, this one going there, and you got stuff to do, and you got your job, and you got bills to pay, and you want recreation, you want to hunt, you want to fish, you want to go on hobbies, you want to go on trips.

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I understand all that. But prove me wrong. Schedule your week around Sunday instead of squeezing

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Sunday into your week. And you tell me if you don't see change and growth in your walk with the

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Lord. And see whether or not these things that you thought that you couldn't get done, they begin to fall into place.

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And see if some of the things that you thought you just had to do and they're such a priority, if they kind of fade into the background and you realize there are things in this life that are more important, namely

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Christ. Okay, number two, let me mention this. Two more things to mention.

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I talked about Sunday. Let me mention this. I don't want to cause division or controversy, but what

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I'm about to say is not divisive or controversial. It really has crept up in the last 100 years, but it shouldn't even be a thing.

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It shouldn't even be a big deal. But the second thing I want to mention is God cares about the leadership of His worship.

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Turn in your Bibles. I need you to do this. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 2. This is not controversial.

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1 Timothy 2. But in our day, somehow, in some way, in the confusion of,

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I don't know which bathroom I'm supposed to go in, we've created this controversy here and it shouldn't be controversial.

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1 Timothy 2, verse eight. We can talk more about this tonight if you have questions.

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1 Timothy 2, verse eight. Paul says, I desire that in every place the men should pray.

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The word that he uses there, so sometimes he uses words that mean, like it could be men or women, you know, just general term.

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But he actually means males. Why chromosome here? I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

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Likewise also the women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self -control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or cassette tire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works.

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Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

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Rather she's to remain quiet, for Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

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Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self -control.

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You know what, let's do one more thing. Turn over to chapter three, because we're just right here. And you say like, what is he talking about?

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What are these rules for? Okay, look at 1 Timothy 3 verse 15. If I delay, you may know how we ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

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God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Okay, what am I saying? Paul is writing here so the church would understand how they are to order.

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So when it comes to leading in worship before the congregation, and when it comes to prayer before the congregation and Bible reading before the congregation, and when it comes to preaching, which preaching we set aside even as its own thing, preaching in all aspects really, these tasks are reserved for godly men.

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That's not controversial. I mean, if you just read the, it's not controversial. But we've made it controversial.

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Because we live in a strange age of rejecting God's good created order. This is not relegating women to lower class citizens.

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In fact, did you see that the text there, the strange part of the text, oh, I already left it off.

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But how it said she'll be saved through childbearing. So like the text highlights that women are the very means by which

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God preserved the line of the Messiah. So Jesus in Genesis is referred to as the seed of the woman.

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Obviously we think of Mary there, but there was a long line of godly women that God used to get us to the

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Messiah. And Paul encourages to Timothy, the women in the church to continue in love and faith and holiness and self -control.

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So that reminds us that God, the church needs godly men and it needs godly women functioning in their beautiful design, their beautiful God ordained roles.

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So when we say that God has appointed godly men to lead when it comes to corporate worship, our gathering, what we're doing here, we're simply saying that God is the builder of the house and he knows better.

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And we believe him and we trust him. And that this is good. The blueprints for the church are not ours.

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They're God's. The only one who owns the church is the one who paid for the church with his blood.

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Christ is king. This is his church and we are to worship him as he has said.

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I also mentioned that we worship together as a whole family. We don't ship the children off to children's church while everyone else worships.

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We don't do that. Why? Two reasons. Listen very carefully. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brother

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Quatro's not being mean by not having a children's church, right? Or you might think, man, if we just get enough volunteers, we'll have a children's church.

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No, no, it's not God's design. Two reasons for that. One, our children learn a lot in the services, don't they?

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It's amazing how quiet. I was gonna make a reference about children making noise later, but they're not making noise.

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It's amazing how quiet they are today. But in the service, our children learn reverence for God.

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They learn the forms of worship. They learn the songs and hear the preaching.

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Little Jack came up to me last week and he said, can we sing, he said,

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I wanna sing a song next week. What's he gonna say? Jesus loves me, something like that.

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That's what I'm thinking, Jack, four years old. What's he wanna sing? He wants to sing, there's power in the blood.

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I'm like, what, why is that? Well, he's raised in a godly home and he's heard these songs we sing together.

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So our children learn so much in the service. The second reason though is, God expects children to be in the church.

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I think I can prove this definitively from the scriptures, like unquestionably. And I'm gonna just do it real quick from Ephesians.

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Y 'all know that book, Ephesians six. Real quick, Ephesians six. I read this one day and it stood out so strongly to me and I think that you might not have noticed it.

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Ephesians six, verse one. Children, obey your parents in the

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Lord for this is right. Now, you hear that and you're like, what does children obeying their parents have anything to do with being in the service?

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Well, maybe not much, but here is the point. Who does

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Paul address in Ephesians six, one? Who does he address?

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Who's he talking to? The children, right? He's talking to the church, but who's he talking to in the church?

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The children. Notice something. He doesn't say parents, be sure and tell your children this, right?

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Hey, when your children get back from their water slide and their fire truck baptistry and the cotton candy and the songs that they're getting in children church, when they get back from that, you tell them what

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I told the church. No, no, no. Paul addresses who? The children as though they're where?

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In the service. If you read Ephesians, he addresses the husbands, he addresses the wives, he addresses the masters, he addresses the slaves, he addresses the children.

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Why does Paul do that? Because he expects all of them are where? They're in the church.

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So this is God's design. Now, I understand things get noisy in here sometimes.

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Good. Amen? Good. That means children are present. Now listen, we need to teach our children and we need to discipline them, you know?

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Like, it brings joy to my heart when I see a father taking a child outside because I know that they're not eating cotton candy, right?

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I know what's happening. It's good to instruct and discipline our children to sit quietly.

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But sometimes, let's remember, church, and you gotta be patient, especially you, your kids are not in your home anymore, you gotta be patient because sometimes children are gonna act like this.

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Children, aren't they? They're gonna make noises. They're children and we love them and we teach them and we're patient with them and we don't, for one second, ship them off somewhere else to a children's church.

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We worship together. All right, lastly, the reality of worship and necessity of biblical worship.

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Thirdly, and this will be quick, but preaching is worship. Again, this deserves its own sermon, but let me just make a point back in John 4, verse 24.

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Preaching is worship. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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Teaching and preaching truth is part of worship because to worship God, we have to, we must, the text says, do so in truth.

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As we learn the truth of God and what he requires us in his word, we are participating in worship.

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And so our distinctive biblical preaching says this. We believe the main, this is in your handout.

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We believe the mainstay of our preaching is to be expository sermons through books of the

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Bible. We believe the biblical text itself must drive the sermon. We believe sermons ought to be both weighty in theology and application.

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We believe the ultimate goal of every sermon is the exaltation of Christ our King. We believe there are appropriate times to preach topically.

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That's what I'm doing now, by the way. But the desire of the people of God must be to receive the full counsel of God's word.

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While we do not put a time requirement upon sermons, we believe that healthy exposition requires sufficient time and therefore the sermon ordinarily takes up the majority of our

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Sunday morning gatherings. So ordinarily then we're preaching through books of the

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Bible, okay? Right now, topical series I know, but we preach through books of the Bible because this is how

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God communicated to us. He didn't communicate to us through little verses on coffee mugs or t -shirts or whatever, calendars.

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He communicated to us through entire books of the Bible, the full canon of scripture.

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And so the mainstay of our preaching then is through books. If I wrote you a letter, you wouldn't tear up the letter and just take one sentence and say, this is what he really wants.

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No, no, you'd read the whole letter in its context. So we prize biblical preaching.

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John Piper says this, preaching is not everything. Amen, it's not.

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He goes on, preaching is not everything, but it affects everything. It is the trumpet of truth in the church and it echoes in every ministry and every household for joy and strength and love and perseverance.

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Last year, I'll just tell the story real quick. Last year I gave a resolution to the

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Southern Baptist Convention. The resolution was that we'll be resolved as a convention to be reminded of the sacredness of this pulpit.

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That is, when a man of God stands behind this desk, he ought to do so based upon time in the word, a holy life, a love for Christ, a love for evangelism.

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He ought to not copy other people's sermons. He ought not to be careless with what the word of God says.

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He ought not let things like critical race theory creep into his mind and distort what the text has to say.

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He ought to be a holy man of God and he ought to preach in a holy and authoritative manner as though he is saying before the congregation, thus saith the

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Lord. And the SBC rejected that. They said that it was too, I don't remember.

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Stephanie may help me later. Remember, too constraining or something like that. Friends, that's a joke.

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Preaching is the focal point of our worship because preaching, not the focal point of the worship and that's what we're, we're not worshiping the preaching, but preaching is the focal point in our worship service because in the preaching, we're heralding the truth of God.

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Like if done rightly, the preacher is heralding the truth of God. He's extolling the glory and majesty of God.

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He's saying, look at how awesome God is. You spent your week and you spent your fighting sin and the influx of the world and you're just tired and you're dragging in here and some of you look like Tom Hanks when he lost his

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Wilson and it's just been a difficult week and then you come in here and the preacher says, oh, but look at God and look at what

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Christ has done and look at how glorious the kingdom is and this is who you are and this is who

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God is and this is what God has done for us in Christ and now let us live for him.

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The preachers ought to be doing. Christ is king. Colossians 128 says him, that is

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Christ we proclaim. Christ we proclaim. This word by the way for proclaim is the word for preach.

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So Christ we preach, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

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The means by which God matures his church is biblical preaching.

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Now it's more than that, sure, but that's our mainstay and so a faithful preacher is heralding truth.

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Here's what God says about your life, about your home, about your job, about your hobbies, about your children.

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Here's what God says about his glory and his worthiness and his holiness and his mercy and his grace and his love.

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Here's what God says about Christ and his atoning sacrifice and his propitiatory work, his wrath satisfying labor where God poured out his wrath on Christ so that we would be spared his wrath and brought into his family adopted as his children.

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The preacher says to the church, here's the truth and the church says to the Bible, amen.

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Friends, preaching is worship. We don't have worship and then preaching.

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That's in our mind. Well, I like to worship but I didn't like to preach. You know, it all goes together. Singing is not the only part of worship.

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Preaching is included and so this gives us this morning the biblical distinctives of worship and preaching.

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Friends, I call to your mind now to remember that this is

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God's house and the only way that we're allowed to build it, the only way that we bring the greatest glory to his name is seeing that it is designed after God's blueprint which is the scriptures.

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Are you a Christ worshiper this morning? I'll ask you like I asked that man on the streets yesterday.

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Is Christ king of your life? Maybe there's someone in here who's like that man, but you're afraid to be honest like that man.

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That man was woefully wrong, but I'll tell you, I'll give this to him. He was honest. He said,

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Christ isn't king, I am. I wonder this morning if there'll be someone here so honest.

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And if Christ is not king of your life, I mean, he is, but if you're not acknowledging him as king of your life, will you surrender?

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Do you love the church? Do you love his ways? If you do rejoice in this message, rejoice in God's design for worship and his design for preaching.

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As Psalm 96 verse three says, declare his glory among the nations.

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That's what we do when we get the church right. But if not, if you are this moment, not in Christ and not worshiping

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Christ with your life, repent, repent of your sins.

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Repent. Oh, I don't know if God's calling me. I don't know. Maybe tomorrow,

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I don't know what people might think. Friends, you have an opportunity before you this morning to repent of your sins and go to Christ and find in him your only suitable and all sufficient savior and see in him full and free pardon and forgiveness for all your transgressions.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. We pray that you would be honored in what is happening here.

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Help us to build according to your blueprints, according to the word of God, knowing ultimately that is

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Christ who builds a church through his humble servants, through his work on our behalf, through his gospel, through our just simply being obedient and declaring this truth to the nations.

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Help us to hunger for a healthy church. Lord, I pray for those who are not converted.

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Lord, I know there are those bored to death sitting in a service like this.

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I pray, God, you'd convict their heart and show them Christ, the beauty and honor and worthiness of Christ.

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They'd repent and believe the gospel. Be with us not only this day, but the week ahead.