Dignity and Worship

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Don Filcek; 2 Samuel 6:16-23 Dignity and Worship

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack is preaching from his series,
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The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and it's really good to be back after a couple of weeks of vacation. My family had a great time.
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We were down in the Smokies for a week, and then we spent a couple of days over in Virginia Beach with family.
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So, super good time. It sounds like it was a good week to be away, despite the fact that we did have...
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We had 70 degrees one Friday in the mountains. The next morning, we woke up to 4 inches of snow and 20 degrees.
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So, Michigan does not have a corner on temperature swings. Apparently, other states get 50 -degree swings in 24 hours too, and then two days later, it was 70 again.
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So, we did have some good weather while we were gone. But it really is good to be back. I miss you guys when
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I'm gone, and I mean that sincerely. You can't see in my heart, but it's the truth. And when I get a chance on vacation to visit other churches, which is something that Lynn and I actually kind of enjoy.
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I know some people probably are like, well, I'll just take in a podcast or a live stream or something the week that I'm on vacation.
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But we enjoy visiting other churches. But I'm always impressed with a couple of things when we get a chance to travel different states or different places and visit other churches.
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The first thing that always impresses me is that the Church of God is everywhere. Anybody enthusiastic about that?
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You can travel just about anywhere. You can find a church to attend. You can worship together. You can sing songs. You can hear from His Word.
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That's super exciting. But the second thing that always stands out to me when I get a chance to visit other churches is that we have something really unique here at church.
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I don't know if you realize that. I feel it, and I see it. We take the Word of God seriously here at Recast Church, but we don't take ourselves too seriously here.
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And I think that combination doesn't always go together. Do you know what I'm talking about? We're going to study the Word. When we're going to study the
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Word, we're going to dig in. We're going to seek to understand it. We're going to seek to take God seriously and what He has to say to us.
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But we're not super caught up in all the glitz and glamour and smoking lights and trying to just impress with some kind of a show either.
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We're not taking ourselves too seriously. As a matter of fact, we don't take ourselves seriously hardly at all. I think that combination isn't always there in churches.
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It seems to me like it's often the case that churches that stick closely to the Word tend to, over time, grow in a level of self -importance, which leads to a strong sense of dignity, which we're going to see a word that's going to tie in closely with our message this morning.
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But they grow in a sense of dignity and propriety or properness, if I can call it that.
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That's something that we've sought to avoid over time and not that we're trying to mess everything up. But you've noticed, how many of you noticed that our transitions aren't always the most smooth?
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We're not always just everything locked down, but we do the best that we can. But we also recognize that we're fallen humans trying to worship an awesome and glorious and perfect God.
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But our text this morning is going to seek to attack a common problem that I think all of us have to deal with in our own hearts.
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Every single one of us has to face this head on. You see, the text is going to offer us a clear and concise choice.
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And I hope there's nobody in the room that can squeeze out from underneath the choice that's going to be placed in front of you today.
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You're going to have to walk out of here choosing one thing or the other. And the two things that you must choose behind is, on one hand, personal dignity.
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On the one hand is personal dignity. Will you choose to dignify yourself? Will you choose to be concerned what others think about you?
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Will you be concerned for your own reputation and your own standing, your own nobility, your own self -importance?
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On the other hand, it's going to be stark what I put in the other hand. It's worship.
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Will you have self -dignity and self -nobility or will you have worship? We're going to see that there's a pretty hard line between those two in our text this morning.
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Will you be inhibited in your life of worship? And when I talk about worship, I'm not just talking about merely singing songs.
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I'm talking about a life lived before the face of God. A life that would say to a neighbor or a co -worker, like, bro, sister, the truth is that we all need
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Jesus. To testify to somebody else about what is true of you with little to no concern for how that's going to impact you.
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With little to no concern about what others are going to think about you. Will you be inhibited in your life of worship in praise by fear of what others might think of you?
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Will you reserve your outward expressions of joy and elation and enthusiasm for buzzer beaters, for touchdowns in the last closing seconds, for windfalls where the money rolls in, for promotions where somebody finally recognizes how good you are, or for monster dunks in this tournament?
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When do you reserve your enthusiasm? Where does your fist pump up in the air and you rise up off the couch in joy and gladness and shouts of exclamation?
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Where does that happen in your life? Does your grasp of the gospel and the knowledge of what you have been saved from enough to shake you from concern over what others think of you?
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I want to caution you before I read this text that this text is not prescribing an outward, a particular and specific outward expression.
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Dancing in the street in our linens like some college spring break toga party is not the application of this text.
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Despite the fact that what we see David doing in the text looks kind of similar to that. But a heart of exuberant worship is the point of this text.
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And it's going to look different in different contexts and different for different people, but it is going to push the boundaries of what makes you comfortable, what makes others comfortable.
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And my hunch is that many of us will be tempted, even as I read this, to temper our outward expressions of worship and we will excuse it as a matter of personality.
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Well, I'm not that expressive. I'm not that outgoing. Or even we might excuse our reticence to really engage enthusiastically in the worship of our
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God as cultural propriety. We live in a culture that's pretty subdued. It's not very emphatic.
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It's not that expressive. But what I think those excuses are truly made of is more frequently in our hearts, and this is where it's going to take some introspection for us.
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I think we often, if we're honest, lack awe and wonder that the
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God of the universe would rescue a wretch like me. Wretches like us.
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So before we read this text, let me share a little of my own struggles in this area. Then we'll read the text and we'll come and we'll actually have an opportunity to worship our
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God together. Here's a little minor confession. I am frequently moved to tears during our morning worship.
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I don't know if any of you have ever noticed that or not, but I am. And it's often centered on one common theme in my life.
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God has been so very good. God has been so very kind.
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He has been so very patient and incredibly gracious to me. Can anybody testify to that in your life?
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So incredibly gracious to me. And it impresses me in the gathering of God's people as we sing that it's not just me.
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It's us. He has been so kind to us. When I sing here in this gathering,
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God's kind work in my life and in our church comes flooding into my heart. And this is just me speaking.
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I don't know if anybody else is impressed in this way at all. But here's the confession part of this.
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It's not that I cry or that I'm moved to tears. It's that I try to hide it. It's that I try to hide it.
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Real men don't cry, right? Real men don't shed tears, especially over a song. Goodness gracious.
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And so I have been at times moved to pretend to scratch my cheek to wipe away the tears during worship.
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I'm sure to regain my composure before connection time. And I make sure that I regain some semblance of, and here's the trick word, dignity, lest anyone see me as weak.
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This word wants to present all of us with a choice this morning. Will you choose dignity or will you choose worship?
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So let's open our Bibles or our devices to 2 Samuel 6, chapter 6.
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2 Samuel 6, verses 16 through 23. 2 Samuel 6, 16 through 23.
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Recast, this is God's holy and precious word. This is what he desires for us to take in. And for some reason, this is exactly what he wants us to hear.
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I believe that it's for the purpose that we would make a choice before him today. As the ark of the
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Lord came into the city of David, Michael the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the
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Lord. And she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of the
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Lord and set in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the
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Lord. And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the
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Lord of hosts. And distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one of them.
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Then all the people departed, each to his own house. And David returned to bless his household.
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But Michael the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of the servants, female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.
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And David said to Michael, It was before the Lord who chose me above your father and above his house to appoint me as prince over Israel.
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The people of the Lord. And I will celebrate before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this.
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And I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them
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I shall be held in honor. And Michael the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.
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Let's pray. Father, as we see a text like this,
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I pray that you would press in our hearts and our minds rightly what you desire to communicate to each one of us.
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It is not in the application of outward expressions to open our mouths and sing louder or to raise our hands or that somebody might break out into the aisle and dancing that is the application of this text.
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It is a heart change that drives those outward behaviors. That our bodies, our faces, our smiles, our entire selves would be brought into this gospel truth that we are saved and rescued by that which we could never have earned on our own.
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The sacrifice of your son was required and has indeed been given on our behalf.
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I pray that that would light our hearts on fire with enthusiasm, with joy, with gladness, with shouts of praise this morning.
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Father, it can be awkward talking about these things because now we're thinking about raising hands and dancing and those types of things.
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Father, I pray that you would allow all of that to be washed away in the glory and the beauty of the salvation that you have granted to us.
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And that we would be moved now to sing these songs from that place of rescue granted in your son.
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Hope before us. The work behind us done by one other than us.
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So that now in the present we are free to praise. Free to rejoice.
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Free to live a life of worship before you. Because you have rescued us. In Jesus name.
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Amen. Alright, yeah you can go ahead and be seated. But as I say every Sunday if at any time during the message you need to get up and stretch out in the back.
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Or if you need more coffee or water back there. If you need to use the restrooms they're out the double doors down the hallway on the left hand side.
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And then I ask just for your benefit that you actually keep your Bible, your app or whatever you're using to access the
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Bible. Keep it open to 2 Samuel chapter 6 verses 16 to 23. What we read earlier is the text for the morning.
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And it's what we're going to walk through. Now I want to start off with just kind of like a little bit of personal reflection about my history when it comes to worship.
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I was raised in a fairly conservative and subdued context. How many of you would raise your hand and say that was me?
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Like that's you too. Okay, so that's you. Raised in a little bit of a context that was subdued.
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The church kind of, I gathered from the church as a young child that austerity was the goal in worship.
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A formality was the goal of worship. We took God seriously and we took ourselves at least as seriously as we took
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God. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Okay, so that is often expressed by being sure that we use limited physical expressions in worship.
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Just a reality, hands in the pocket was the safest way to go during any worship time.
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That's at least the impression that I got. So when I went off to Bible college where they had daily chapel services and there was a fairly conservative school to begin with down in South Carolina.
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No it wasn't, Bob Jones, not that conservative. You can talk to Dave Bunn about that one. Just pinned you on that Dave.
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But I went to Columbia Bible College, the better conservative school in South Carolina.
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But anyways, when I attended there it was fairly conservative yet there was a lot of expression during the chapel services.
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And you can imagine my shock when people did radical things like raise their hands in worship during the singing.
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We see in our text here that David enthusiastically is worshiping God. And that's going to take different cultural forms and different ways.
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Enthusiastic worship, it goes all across the board. When you hear me use the word worship, our minds are going to naturally gravitate towards songs and towards expressions of singing.
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But mind you that when I'm talking about worship it is a whole life kind of thing.
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It is how we interact with our spouse, how we interact with our kids, how we interact with our parents. How we interact on the road with other drivers, how we interact towards our employer.
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All different kinds of aspects that come into play when we're talking about doing what we do before the face of God.
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Now certainly in the text there's something about singing. Certainly in the text there's something about musical instruments. There's dancing, there's this kind of thing going on.
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And so it's not bad for us to think in terms of that more narrow focus for this text.
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But I want to make sure that you apply it more broadly in your life. To a life given over to God in enthusiasm and exuberance.
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But what's going on in the text is that David is dancing with all of his might before the ark of God. As it's being brought up into Jerusalem.
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And you can go through really all of chapter 6 of 2 Samuel. It's kind of a worship chapter.
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He goes to bring the ark up and it doesn't go well. So they get sidetracked and he leaves it at a dude's house.
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That dude is heavily blessed and so David comes back in recognizing the goodness of God. And goes to bring the ark back up into Jerusalem.
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That ark of the covenant, just so that you know, it's a 3 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot box.
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That symbolized the presence of God. There's a photographic evidence of it right there. That's probably a picture of the real deal right there.
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We don't know exactly what it looked like but we do know that it was inlaid with gold. It had two angels on the top with wings facing one another.
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That's probably a fairly reasonable look to it. There if you saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, that one works too.
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But whatever. You need to understand that this is not Israel's God. They were bringing
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God into Jerusalem. They were bringing a symbol of his presence into Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem has been made by King David the political capital of his Jewish kingdom.
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But in our text it's becoming the religious capital of the Jewish faith. And is so all the way down to where we live today.
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Jerusalem is still the religious capital of the Jewish faith today. But not everyone shares
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David's enthusiasm. He says he's dancing with all of his might before the ark. How many of you ever danced with all your might about anything?
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Some of you are like I've danced. Dancing with all your might sounds a little exhausting.
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Sounds a little excessive. Sounds a little like strange terminology to use for it. But our text this morning has very little to outline.
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So when we're trying to wrap our mind around this, there's two threads that we're going to pull on this morning. I think the text weaves these two thoughts back and forth.
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And the one thread is the expectation of outward dignity that we see on the part of David's wife,
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Michael. So she has an expectation of outward dignity. But the second thread is the lack of self -awareness apparent in the exuberant worship of King David.
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Put more simply, the contrast is this. On the one hand, enthusiastic worship, David. On the other, dignified demeanor on the part of his wife,
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Michael. We see in verse 16 that David is leaping and dancing. Words that indicate significant movement here.
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Dancing, I can leap, but I can't dance. So there's a difference between leaping and dancing.
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He's doing both. And we see that Michael, where's Michael's location in this? Michael's location is on the sidelines despising him.
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And I have sat where Michael sat. She's on the sidelines.
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And my question is, have you sat on the sidelines as well? That slide came up a little early and it probably distracted you.
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But we're going to explain what that slide is here in just a second. So I see everybody's attention up there, but just listen for just a second.
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We'll get there. Yeah, there's that thing. That thing is about early on in those chapel services at Columbia Bible College where I attended.
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Again, I remind you it was a conservative Bible college. But I sat back in those first few weeks of chapel and I observed things
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I had never seen before. Of the more expressive students around me, I took in my surroundings.
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Any of you ever been in a context? You're new to a church. You're just checking things out. How do people respond? What are they doing? There were girls doing the dueling light bulbs, you know, in worship.
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There were the fishermen showing off the size of their catch, right? You know, there were the students raising their hand to be called on by the teacher, one of my favorites.
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I do that frequently. Sometimes that leads right into washing the windows. You know what
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I'm talking about. There were those carrying the TV. Some were carrying the widescreen.
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You have all different kinds of things. Some of the students seemed to apparently be struggling with heartburn. There's a little bit of heartburn going on there.
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All of those things. And if we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at, right? How seriously are we going to take ourselves?
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I mean, this is not that bad. By the way, all of this stolen straight from Tim Hawkins. Any of you ever seen his little bit on that?
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How many of you know what I'm talking about? So I've got to give him credit. That's not me. That's him. But if I'm being honest, all that we can laugh about.
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We can joke about it. We can do that in worship. All of that's good, fair game. But I'm being honest to my shame when
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I say that observing these things from a heart of my upbringing and where I was coming from built up to me, in me, a heart of doubt that led me to what
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I would call a relative despising. Like the heart of Michael here is despising David for his acts of worship, for his outward appearance of worship.
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And I would say that I had that heart of Michael early on. Now, I didn't despise them in terms of wanting harm to come to those students who were raising their hands in worship.
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But I despised them in this sense. I viewed them as foolish or misguided or just maybe simply just trying to draw attention to themselves.
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And I remember a particular specific service like it was yesterday. Another student three rows in front of me, a guy about my height, pretty tall guy, did a full -on
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Rocky. Full -on Rocky. Okay. During an entire worship song. Okay.
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Got my attention. Full -on Rocky. Are you ready for it though? The floor wasn't enough so he stood on his chair.
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He's standing on his chair three rows in front of me, full -on Rocky. Okay. So, I have to tell you,
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I thought of him as kind of strange. I was confident he was only seeking attention.
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In my heart, I'm just confessing that I saw him as weak. I thought the whole thing to be strange.
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And I thought of him as primarily interfering with my worship. Interfering with my worship.
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Is anybody with me just at least a little in the awkwardness of this young man's expression of worship? Standing on his chair doing a full -on
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Rocky. Anybody think that he might have been trying to get attention? I'm going to raise your hand if you think there might have just been an element where he's just trying to get attention.
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And I've set you up because I also equally need to ask, does anybody need to confess a heart like Michael's? Does anybody need to confess a heart?
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Could you see that guy's heart? Could I see what was going on in him in that moment? Who made me judge over this man's worship?
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Who made me the judge of his relationship between him and his God? Is that my role?
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Is that my job? The heart of Michael is gross.
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I want to point out that we see in verse 16 what we can never see without the Spirit. We can never see what's going on in another person's heart.
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We judge it all the time, do we not? To our shame, we judge what's going on in other people's hearts. We can't see that, but we have in the text because God's Spirit reveals it to us, what's going on in David's heart, what is he doing, and what is
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Michael doing? We see in verse 16 where Michael's heart is. The Spirit reveals it to us, and it is indeed gross.
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It is despising her husband for his expression of worship to the
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Almighty God. She finds him to be undignified and foolish in his worship.
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Of course, she doesn't leave it in her heart. We already read the text, but so far in verse 16, it's in her heart.
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The ark arrives at the tabernacle, which would have been the sanctioned tent that David has pitched there in Jerusalem, where the ark is going to stay until the temple of God is built by his son
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Solomon. There they offer, it tells us in the text, burnt offerings, which were offerings for sin.
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They were fully burnt up, and then the remnants taken outside of the city. The peace offerings are unique here, and they need a little bit of explanation to explain what the atmosphere would have been here.
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There were sacrifices to cover sins, the burnt offerings, but then there were also sacrifices of celebration that we have peace with God.
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The peace offerings were cooked and eaten by the people, and what that indicates for us is that the atmosphere surrounding this entire event would have been more celebratory with just think a huge outdoor barbecue is going on.
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Everybody is together, the nation is celebrating the moving of the symbol of the presence of God up into Jerusalem.
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There's dancing, there's songs, and everybody is celebrating their God. The text makes a point of letting us into what's going on in David's heart here as well.
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We see Michael's despising, but verse 17 tells us what he's doing, and he's doing this all in his heart before the
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Lord. All of this is before the Lord. This is a God -centered event, even for David, for the people, for the nation, for those worshipers.
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A God -centered event, not a David -centered event. He was not the main attraction, God was.
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All of these activities, not just the dancing are worship, and again I want to emphasize to you that it's not just singing, it's not just music, it's not only that which surrounds music that is true worship.
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We talk about worship music, and we talk about praise music, and we use the word worship very narrowly where it needs to be thought broadly as anything that is done before the
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Lord. How many different kinds of things were you made and designed to do? Anything that you can do before the
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Lord is worship. Therefore, everything except for sin is up for grabs when it comes to worship.
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Are you getting what I'm saying in that? This is pretty significant what's going on here. He is doing this before the
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Lord. He offered a blessing over the people in the name of the
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Lord. He speaks blessing over them. He is the king, and on this day he is leading his people, but here's what you need to understand, church.
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David is leading his people under the authority and the worship of God. You see, the people of Israel have one
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God, and even King David serves him. Even King David is a servant to this
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God. In verse 19, the celebration continues with a ginormous blessing from the king.
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All of Israel, men and women alike, receive a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins, the text tells us.
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I believe that this was in part a continuation of David's worship in generosity. It was no potluck that day, bring a dish to pass or whatever.
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No, the sides, the main course, and the dessert were all provided at the cost of the king. I believe he's being lavish in his gifts, not to buy the favor of his people.
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Oh, look, he gives us stuff. But instead, I believe David is worshiping God through generosity. He is giving of himself, of his own flocks, of his own resources to bless the people
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God has entrusted to him. He's being generous. So it's from this high place of celebration here in the text.
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He has been worshiping. The nation has been worshiping. They've been celebrating. They've been eating a feast together. All with worship, musical instruments blaring and shouts of praise and acclamation to God.
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And from that place, David returns home, and the text tells us directly what his intention is to do when he gets home. To bless his family.
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He wants to give them a blessing. He wants to honor them. Back in verse 16, we were informed of what's waiting for him at home.
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Many of you know that sometimes, if you knew what was waiting for you at home, you might drive around the block a couple more times.
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Maybe talk to God about it or something, right? She doesn't wait in the text for him to get in the door.
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How many of you know that if your wife meets you at the doorstep and comes out to the car to talk with you, uh -oh, what do the kids do?
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Uh -oh, what happened today, right? He's going to bless them.
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And this is not going to go well. A little side note on this that I think is just kind of worth mentioning, and it's not drawn straight from the text, so I just want to be clear about that.
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But everyone, I highly recommend that you attempt to use a little time on your commute to pray for what is waiting for you at home.
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Men and women alike. It might be now, yeah, well, hold on, there we go.
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It might be right now, I don't know how far your commute is. For some people, it's turned into a few steps down the hallway.
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For some of you, the commute is upstairs. Some of it's downstairs. Some of you are driving back and forth to work, so I don't know.
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If you're working remotely, you very well might find yourself in the same household. But I'm seriously recommending that you take a couple of minutes when the work is done in order to remind yourself that God has been at work already in your family for either blessing or challenge before you ever walk in and ask
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God to prepare you for whatever is going on there. Now, I'm not suggesting to you, by the way, in any of that, that David's wife,
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Michael, would have had a different response only if David had prayed beforehand or something like that. No, I'm just suggesting it is wise to prepare your own heart in transition times from one thing to the next in prayer.
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I encourage you as much as possible to use those transition times in your day to talk to God about what's just happened and what's coming up.
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But three times in this text, it's interesting how Michael is introduced to us. We've already seen her in 1
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Samuel. Back in 2017, we went through that book, and we've seen her mentioned one time here being restored to David as his wife.
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But she's identified for us three times by the same title, Daughter of Saul. That's not a fabulous title for an individual.
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The author reveals her in this way to show us that she is a remnant of an old, fading dynasty of King Saul.
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And I point this out because there's a really significant contrast that's drawn out for us between 1
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Samuel and 2 Samuel, the kingdom of Saul and the kingdom of David. You see, she represents a remnant of a different way of doing things under her father's rule.
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You see, her father, when he was king, had a very different mindset, a very different heart that was demonstrated in the way that he did things.
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So his heart was different than David's. And the text tells us as much, that Saul has the kingdom ripped from him because his heart is not for God, and he's going to be replaced by one who has a heart after God.
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So there's this weird situation that happened in 1 Samuel 15 that really, I think, ties in well, clarifies for us the distinction between the way that Saul sought to work with God and the way that David, with a heart given to God, works with God.
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So the prophet Samuel has come to Saul and directly told him that the Lord is tearing your kingdom away from you, and he's giving it to one who truly loves me, says
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God, through the prophet Samuel. So Saul was still concerned, though, after that interaction, in that context in 1
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Samuel 15, he is still concerned for his appearances, for the way that the people view him. You don't love
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God, so I'm taking the kingdom from you, and he says, but I'm worried about what the people are going to think. So in 1
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Samuel 15 30, Saul showed his concern by pleading with the prophet Samuel, saying these words. This is what he says to Samuel.
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I've sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel.
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I've sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel. And return with me, that I may bow before the
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Lord, and here's the really operating word, your God. I can return and bow before the
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Lord, my God. No, Saul doesn't say that. He says to Samuel that I might go before the people, and your presence with me is going to give me cloud, it's going to boost me before the people, and then in the presence of the gathering of the people of Israel, I'm going to bow and I'm going to worship your
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God, Samuel. You hear a problem there? He is putting up pretense.
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He wants to do a show. Saul begs Samuel to at least give the pretense before the people that everything was okay with his heart.
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And he was willing to bow publicly before the Lord, who he identified not as his God, but as Samuel's God.
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Think about what Saul was doing here, and think about what it would have looked like if he were one of the people of Israel in that crowd that day.
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He is worshiping. He is worshiping the
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Lord publicly before the people. If you had seen, if you had been there and you had seen Saul bow before God in polite dignity, before God in quiet prayer, you would have thought you were watching what?
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You would have thought you were watching worship. You would have thought you were seeing the king worshiping your
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God. But now contrast that. Imagine that you see Saul there bowing before God in polite dignity, or you see
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David in his linens cutting a rug before the ark. Which one looks like dignified and true worship?
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Which one would you take for worship? I contend to you that many of us were raised to respect the demure dignity of King Saul, who bows publicly before a
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God he does not love and has no interest in honoring. Outward actions of worship are never and can never be the point of true worship, because what
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God desires is not our outward behavior. Be it bowing in demure prayer, or dancing with all of your might before the ark, if it is made up and frothed up into a frenzy of flow and enthusiasm and excitement and laser lights and smoke and mirrors and all of the things, and it's not in your heart, it is a waste of time.
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It is actually damnable. It is condemnable that we would put up a pretense of worshiping this
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God. You hear what I'm saying? This is a serious thing. Very serious.
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We can't look at the outward and determine whether a person is worshiping God. Do you agree with me on that?
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You cannot look at what a person is doing. That's worship. Look at him dance. Look at his hands raised.
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Look at his rocky. Or look at his quiet reflection and singing that hymn with the right vibrato and the right...
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We can't see worship. But believe me, church, God can.
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He sees right into your heart, and he knows what you're thinking about. He knows what you're working through. Anybody glad that he's gracious at that point?
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Because I have never offered pure worship to God. Anybody here that has, I'd like to talk with you. Set up a meeting with me.
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Raise your hand if you've ever offered pure worship to God. And I'd love to sit down and figure out how you do it.
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And basically call you out on it because you didn't. That would be an interesting meeting. No, we don't offer pure worship to God.
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But there are times, hear me church, there are times that call for quiet meditative reflection. Not every worship is going to be dancing with all your might before the ark of God.
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How many of you are glad for that? That's not what's required of you. It's your heart that's required of you.
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There are times that you'll be moved to tears, and you won't even be able to stand up out of your chair. You'll just be immobilized there as you think about the weight of your own sin before a holy
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God and his grace towards you. And you'll be moved to tears, and that's all that you can offer. You might not even sing along with the songs in those moments.
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You hear what I'm saying? It might move you to silence. There are times that call for lifted hands and shouts of praise.
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Has anybody here exclaimed anything at your TV over this last couple of weeks in tournaments?
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Anybody said anything to your TV as the basketball tournaments are rolling? Anybody showed any enthusiasm at all?
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I think we have. I have. Some of you are like, what are you even talking about? What tournament? Is this the hockey thing going on?
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That's good too. You don't have to be a basketball fan. But if your heart, hear me carefully church.
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Here's what I'm trying to drive for. Here's what the text is trying to drive for. This is not my motivation. This is not me trying to motivate you.
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Listen to the word and see if what I'm saying is true of this. If your heart has never moved over the gospel to respond in physical displays of joy, like David here, is physically moved.
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If your face has never shown gladness in Christ, you should take assessment of your own heart this morning.
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Does your heart belong to God? Is it his? Do you know his love that transforms you into reciprocal love back?
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See, Michael's heart was trained. Michael's heart was trained for dignity. And she is snide and dripping with sarcasm in verse 20.
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Look at verse 20. Go ahead and look at it with me for just a moment. And David returned to bless his household. But Michael, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet
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David and said this sentence, how the king of Israel honored himself today.
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Do you think she means it? Is she giving him a pat on the back and a big hug as she greets him? Oh, you're so dignified.
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I love you. Snookums. Sweetie pie. Do you think that's the tone with which she offered this?
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No, she's being snide and sarcastic. She accuses David of uncovering himself before the socially low women like a vulgar fool.
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How many of you think that that's how your wife greets you? You go home to bless. You've already planned in your heart to go home and be a blessing to your family, and your wife greets you at the door and says, you're vulgar and gross.
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Is that going to set your evening at odds? You're going to have a little bit of chill time there? Just a little cooled off or heated,
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I don't know. She's embarrassed of him. His behavior, according to her, has been shameless.
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Now, there's a risk in interpreting what David did here on both sides of the spectrum. And some of you are going, maybe she's right. Maybe he's really gross.
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Maybe what he did was totally inappropriate. You see, what we can do on two ends of the spectrum is we can disbelieve
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Michael, assuming that she's exaggerating his undignified behavior, and he did absolutely nothing strange, nothing weird, nothing unbecoming of a king, and she's all in the wrong here.
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She's just exaggerating. Or on the other end of the spectrum, we can imagine in our minds absolute impropriety on David's part, as if he exposed himself to the nation.
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And I think both of those are in error. We need to strike a balance here. What he did was absolutely socially, hear me carefully, what he did was absolutely socially unbecoming of a king, completely ignoble.
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He was dressed down, and the text had told us earlier in chapter 6, he was dressed down to the level of extreme poverty, just down to his linens, and he did so intentionally.
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He's wearing what was the equivalent of whatever it is that's under there. Did I make anybody think underwear?
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Did I get you? Did I get you? No? No one? Okay. That was super immature and not that funny.
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But we need to temper this socially. I've heard messages that made the analogy to David dancing around the streets of Jerusalem in his whitey tighties.
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But what he was wearing would be more modest than that by today's standards. You need to understand what they wore as undergarments in that day.
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A long linen robe that would have been girded up in order to allow him to dance freely.
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So girded up loins was to take this long flowing robe to the ankles and pull it up through and then tuck it in.
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Okay, so his chest is completely covered in this. He's wearing beneath his waist what would amount to probably more cloth than in our average athletic shorts today.
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And those things keep getting shorter. Eventually we're going to be 80s, guys. Are you noticing that? Are we going there?
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Guys, let's just vow right now to stick with the nice 2000s. You know, down below the knees.
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Anybody noticing what I'm talking about? Okay, anybody with me? Guys, let's just vote right here, right now.
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Are we going to go long shorts? Can we stick with long shorts? We good? Okay, alright. I think that's the majority of us that care.
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Okay, so moved. We got it. Alright.
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No, he's, by today's standard, David is modest. He is dancing. He's dancing with all your might before the ark in procession in a parade.
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Probably looks a little crazy. Okay. She's not wrong in identifying the indignity that he has expressed.
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He has indeed acted in a way that lacks kingly royalty. And he has done this before all the people.
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Rather than the pomp and circumstance of a king entering into his city with the dignity and the crown, and maybe even somebody, you might expect somebody to be carrying him on a litter, right?
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And people with him on his shoulders, and they're coming into the city, and trumpets announcing it and all that stuff.
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No, he's there in his linens dancing before them. He's done this in front of all the people.
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And David's response is direct to his wife. She's calling him out on this. And his response is direct and honest and yet super scathing.
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I wasn't dancing for the women. I wasn't dancing for myself. And I certainly wasn't dancing for you,
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Michael. Look at verse 21. Who was he dancing for? Before the Lord.
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This was worship, Michael. It was done with God in mind. You can't see my heart. You can't judge me.
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It would be like the guy doing the Rocky turning around to me and saying, Bro, I love
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Jesus. And I just felt moved to do this because I love him. You see what she's doing?
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Do you see what he's doing here? I'm worshiping God. I wasn't really thinking about you. I don't really have you in mind on this one.
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It's worshiping God. And when he is in mind, all other concerns fade into the background.
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The scathing part is that David reminds her in his response that Saul's way of doing things is gone.
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David has been chosen above her father, above all of his house, implying even her.
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He is the king of Israel and he has chosen to lead the people in humble worship. He has lowered himself intentionally before the people to the level of like a servant to show that he is subservient to the
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Almighty God. So what's wrong with Michael's response here? Let's break that apart for just a minute.
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What is she getting wrong? Her decorum and dignity are indeed in the way. I think that's true.
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But more fundamentally, the question comes down to what is in Michael's heart. What's going on inside her? Do you notice where she's actually located during the procession of worship?
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Where is she? The text tells us she's in a window up above the street observing the procession.
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She is not participating. I'm suggesting to you that many of us, some of us if not many of us, have been sitting at the window watching when it comes to our daily, weekly, and monthly worship of God.
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We may not know what it means to worship God with a selfless fervor. And I'm not at all talking here, hear me carefully church,
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I'm not talking about mindless flow. I'm not talking about losing yourself to the music the moment you...
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Oh, I'm sorry. That went down a different road. I'm not talking about losing yourself to this experience as if what we're trying to craft here is
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David getting super sick on the guitar and eventually our minds just... We just melt into the music.
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How do you know that there's some attitude about that in the church that that's what worship is? As I hear it regularly, it's like the flow.
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Get into the flow. Make sure those transitions are sharp and tight. We don't do sharp and tight transitions.
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We hardly get the transitions at all. And we're okay with that. We're okay with that because here's the thing.
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It's going to be the words of the worship songs that are meant to move us. It's the theology of it.
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It's the deep truths of what God has done for us that ought to be flowing out of us. It's not disengage your mind, it's the exact opposite.
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It's engage your mind in the truth. That's where worship's going to come from. A real movement of exuberant worship incorporates all of us, including our hands and our voices and our faces and our tear ducts and even our feet.
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I imagine sometimes that God's grace hasn't quite gotten to many of our faces yet. He's redeemed most of us, just not our face.
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And if we could just let him get there too. Smile, rejoice, be glad.
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Dave, am I hitting on anything here? Dave Bunn, when you're up here and you look out, are you saying we need some redeemed faces?
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No comment. Thank you. I think we have our answer, folks. I put him on the spot.
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That wasn't planned at all. But why am
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I encouraging this? I'm not just encouraging you to put a happy face on, to fake it, to pretend. I recognize that some of you are going to have tears streaming down your face while Dave is up here singing and praising
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God. It's all different kinds of emotions, all different kinds of things going on in our lives, moment by moment, person by person.
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I'm not prescribing a smile. But I do want to remind you, he has rescued us from the flames of eternal hell.
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Oh, if that doesn't move your heart to joy, however you express joy, it ought to do that.
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If you ever are moved to smile about joyful things, then maybe this would be a time for it.
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If you're ever moved to shout, wow, that is amazing, glory to God. If you're ever moved to celebrate with your body, if you ever are like, whoa,
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I told you that I've got a scar on my knuckle from a Michigan touchdown, right? I just jumped up and I was like, whoa, and I scrapped my hand on the ceiling.
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It's one of those ceilings with the texture, and it's still a scar there today. You know that I can be expressive.
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Because a Michigan touchdown can do that? How about the Son of God dying on the cross for my sins, setting me free?
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What does that do? He has given us a faithful God. He has adopted us into his family.
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He has rescued us from hell. He has given us his Holy Spirit. Now again,
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I'm not prescribing dancing in this message. I'm not prescribing an outward form. I recognize that worship expressions are culturally driven.
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They were in David's time as well. But it's clear that he broke the cultural expectation in this event, and he knew he was.
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He was okay with it because he was not a man after his own dignity, not a man after his own high standing. He was a man after God's own heart.
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So rather than apologizing to his queen for bringing shame on their family and dressing down to the degree that he looked like a servant, he doubles down in verse 22.
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I will make myself yet more contemptible than this. The Hebrew phrase is really extreme in the text.
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The NIV has it as I'll make myself more undignified than you've seen this day. I will be thought of as a fool, or I will humiliate myself is another way that it's translated.
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All these translations get at a nuance of what he's saying here. She's sarcastic, and his response is no less.
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He says, you think that that was undignified and humiliating? I've only scratched the surface of how contemptible
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I would make myself in the worship of God. He's confident that in the eyes of the female servants, he will be honored as king and worship leader.
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In verse 23, he leaves us hanging with a statement of fact. Don't read too much between the lines just because we can't.
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She remains childless all of her days. Is that because David and her relationship cooled off and they never got together again?
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I don't know that that's what we're supposed to think of it. I believe this assessment has more to do with the descendants of Saul and his line than some unkindness on David's part towards her.
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Again, I think it cooled their relationship probably to some degree, but that's not matching the historical flow of this book.
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Michael is dead to true worship, and also that makes her one more dead end to the family line of King Saul.
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His dynasty is fading and going away. It's tempting to apply this message down the wrong lines until we land right where Michael found herself in the text from the opposite side.
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She's disgusted at his exuberant worship, so we could become disgusted at non -exuberant worship, right?
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Despising other people's outward form of worship is where she was at, and so if all we do is act in a way that we deem acceptable and begin to, like, oh, everybody needs to raise their hand, or everybody needs to be more expressive, or somebody needs to dance in the aisle, or something like that.
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If that's all we move to, then we create a new standard by which to judge others. Oh, they're not really worshiping because they're not raising their hands.
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Oh, they're not worshiping because they're not singing loud. They're not worshiping because they're not standing up and jumping up and down.
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Whatever it might be. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? We can land right where she was. If we walk out of here with instructions to worship with fervor, if my application is just dance, or if it's sing louder, or raise your hands, or give a fist pump, we will miss this message completely.
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So what we need is two things in closing. We need to take God more seriously, marinating in the truth of the glorious gift that He's given to us in His Son.
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Marinating in the gospel truths. And then the second thing is we need to be set free from taking ourselves too seriously.
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So let's wrap up with the first one. How will we worship Him in exuberance and delight? How will we be moved like that?
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How will we abandon our own dignity and really get down to elevating Him above our own reputations and fear of what others might think of us?
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I suggest to you that the only way we get there is through rehearsing what He has done for us. Glorious truths that I can't really express well in the amount of time that we have this morning.
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We need an enthusiasm that comes from awe and wonder at the gospel of Jesus Christ. He sent
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His only beloved Son to rescue you from your sins, and He did this while you were in enemy and rebellion against Him.
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Those of us who have faith in Jesus have been granted His Holy Spirit. We are never left alone, but we have a faithful guide to walk with us throughout all of life.
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Amen? We have been granted eternal hope. Our destiny is secured, and this life is not all that we have.
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Where the flames of hell were once our destiny, He has promised His children a place in an eternal kingdom where sin and death and tears will have no more role to play.
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And He's coming back for us, church. He's coming back for us. We've been regenerated by the power of Jesus.
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We have a new heart that desires to please Him, a change in our affections. Despite all of our wrestlings and struggles with sin, throughout the week, we have a new heart that wants to please
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Him. He has done that for us. I'm barely scratching the surface of the glorious things that God has done for us in the gospel.
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But that leads to my final application. Stop deceiving yourself about your own dignity.
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Stop taking yourself so seriously. We all have different personalities, and I'm not going to be quick to get up and dance in the aisles.
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Some of you might. And to our shame, we find it cute when a little child does it. While if we're honest, we may very well harbor unspoken hopes that they outgrow it.
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Hopefully they're not still doing that when they're 30. Hopefully they're not that excited about Jesus when they're 30.
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Anybody got a problem with that? You cannot set your own dignity as a target while worshiping this
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God who has rescued you from your internal rottenness. Our response is to worship
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Him. Some of you will use the excuse of your personality as if your body could never be moved to reflect any enthusiasm.
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But I believe that many of you would use this excuse to keep your hands in your pockets. Who would do so and use that excuse to keep your hands in your pockets could be brought to jumping up and down if I gave you a bag with a million dollars in it.
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And so it comes down to the heart. And it comes down to what we actually worship. It comes down to what we actually worship.
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What you worship will make you excited. And you know how to get excited. You do it regularly.
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You do it naturally. Who you worship will make you less and Him more.
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So as we come to communion, consider the great and awesome and glorious and unbelievable fortune we have come into church.
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You've been saved from your sins by trusting in the cross of Jesus Christ. And only if you have been saved from your sins by the cross of Jesus Christ then come to the tables this morning with gladness spilling over in abundance.
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We cannot pursue our own dignity on the one hand and worship on the other. So the remedy is a heart change to enthusiasm over the great salvation that we have been given in Christ to reflect on that, to meditate on it, to consider it.
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Let communion this morning be a first step this week in remembering why we lose ourselves in worship.
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True worship begins with a right assessment of what He has done and the surprising turn of fortunes over our lives so the gospel of Jesus Christ deserves enthusiastic praise.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much for the grace that You have given to us. I thank You for the hope that we have in Christ.
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I pray that the gospel truth, that we are set free from the consequences of sin and death and eternal condemnation that was over us is gone.
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It is washed away. As far as the east is from the west, You have removed our sin from us.
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And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Complete and utter rags to riches story for every person in here who is trusting in You.
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The beggars who won the lottery. I pray that You would inform our faces and our hands and our mouths and all of us to enthusiastically worship
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You in the way we drive our car, in the way we interact with our spouses, in the way that we do our work for our employers and in the way that we sing.
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I pray that all of this would be informed by the great glory that has been given to us in Christ.