Sunday School - Living In God's Kingdom Part 5

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Sunday School - Living In God's Kingdom Part 6

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How about images, what images might pop up? Bowing, praying.

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You know, what always comes to my mind is, before I was a Christian, there was this famous documentary called

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Jesus Camp. Anyone ever seen that before? Jesus Camp. Very anti -Christian documentary.

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But it really kind of took a look at kind of what was called a

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Jesus camp for kids. And they followed this camp around, these little kids, you know, probably 8 to 12, and kind of documented kind of the extremism that is prominent within certain circles of evangelicalism in America.

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And this was very charismatic, so speaking in tongues, flailing, running around, kind of religious hysteria.

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And that's still kind of one of the ideas and pictures that come to my mind when I think of worship.

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I think of kind of a charismatic gathering of Christians where hands are up, people are falling over, there's kind of emotional staticism that's happening everywhere in the place.

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But all those things actually failed to take into account what worship actually is according to the

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Bible. Worship does not mean singing, praise, or even exaltation, or exalting.

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Those are all aspects, and worship can include those things. But worship means to physically demonstrate to an object or a person that you recognize it as being authority over you, and that you're willing to adhere to its rules.

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That's what worship actually means. So again, to describe what worship actually is, worship does not mean singing, jumping up and down, hands up in the air.

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That's not what worship actually means. Again, worship is actually a physical demonstration that something has authority over you.

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Now, that may kind of change your understanding of worship a little bit.

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It may even make you a little bit uncomfortable. I've only got one to start. You've already got a question that's cooking.

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No, I was just going to add to what you're saying. Doesn't our word worship hail back from the Middle Ages? I can't remember what the word was, but it was the acknowledgment of a servant or a vassal to the land of Israel.

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That's right. And in fact, if you go even further to the Hebrew word that's used for worship, that's used about 172 times in the

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Old Testament. And the word worship, shecha, literally means to bow down, literally.

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When you go even to the root of that word, literally it means your face to the ground. That's what the word means.

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That's what it means, is to have your face to the ground. And that's why sometimes in the

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Bible, the word worship is translated as either worship, bowing, bowing down, obeisance, reverence, falling down, to crouch, to stoop.

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That's what the word literally means. It means it's a physical response to authority.

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So for instance, in the Old Testament, there are times in which, I think in Judges chapter five or six is an example of it, where, where, what's that?

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You're talking about Samson's appearance when the angel came? Yeah, that's right. And there's a physical bowing down, there's a reverence, there's an obeisance to the angel.

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Same thing with kings. With David and Solomon, men bowed, the

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Hebrew word worshipped, worshipped David and Solomon. Okay, bowing down as a sign of reverence to their authority.

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Now, you may be asking yourself, wait a second though. If the Bible says that men and women bowed down, worshipped angels, men like King Solomon and David, doesn't the

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Bible teach that only worship is to be given to the one true God? How would you harmonize that now with your updated understanding of the word worship?

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Pastor, go for it. Well, I remember that word, the anglicized word we had back in the

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Middle Ages was worth -ship. That's right.

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You were showing the worth of the better, of the vassal to the noble.

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And so, worship, in that sense, one of the subjects to the King David or the

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King Solomon would show the worth of that one. That's right. That's only analogous to what we offer to God.

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But in that sense, you're just showing, how did you say it before about following the rules at the beginning?

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That's right. So the word God, if you remember, doesn't mean supreme being.

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It simply means the one strong enough to make the rules by which you live by, okay?

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And so that's why in the Bible, even men, certain men, spiritual beings other than God have been referred to as God or gods,

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Elohim in the Hebrew. Now that, too, doesn't negate the fact there's only one true

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God. Doesn't negate the fact there's only one true God to whom we are to render sacred service.

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Now there's another word that's used that has a very similar connotation to worship. In the

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Greek, there's two words. There's proskuneo, proskuneo, and then there is, what's the next one?

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What's the other one? Or what's that? Oh, proskuneo, and then there is latreo. Yeah, so latreo and proskuneo are the two words in the

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Greek which basically means some sort of worship.

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It can be rendered differently. Now, latreo is interesting because latreo means literally sacred or religious worship.

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So it has a very different word and connotation. It's specifically just in the realm of religious service.

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And then you have proskuneo, which has a very similar meaning to the Hebrew word that's used over almost 200 times in the

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Old Testament, which means to bow down, to prostrate. Again, the etymology of the word literally means to depress oneself to the ground.

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It means that you can't be any lower to the ground. It's a sign of submission. And so, for instance, today, many people, less and less now, but when you see someone you know, you wave at them.

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You know why we wave at people? You know where that comes from? It means I have no weapon, right?

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It's a sign of friendliness, saying listen, hey, I don't have anything that I can hurt you with. So you wave at them showing that I'm friendly, right?

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In a very similar sense, the evolution of bowing down in worship has a very similar connotation.

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It literally means to bow down to authority, to show I've got nothing to oppose you with.

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My face is to the ground, right? And so, very similar usage in that sense.

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Any questions so far? So, yes. I like that.

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I like that. You know, share a quick story. When I lived in Canada for four years,

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I was a case manager at a program, and so often time I'd have to go to court to be a support to some of the men that were in program who were in trouble.

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And one of the things that they do in Canada is when you go to the municipal court, they call it the

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Queen's Bench. At that point it was the Queen's Bench, now it's the King's Bench because now the king is in power. But you'd call it the

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Queen's Bench, and they still wear like these funny wigs. So they wear the wigs. And it's called the

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Queen's Bench. And so when you enter the courtroom, you can never turn your back to the queen's magistrate.

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And so you have to walk in, and then you have to literally walk backwards out of the courtroom. And when you enter, you have to bow.

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And when you leave, you have to bow out of respect for the authority of the queen and the representative of the queen, which is the

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Queen's Bench, the magistrate. And so when I heard this, I said to myself, this is gonna be a problem.

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One, because I'm a Christian, two, because I'm an American. We don't take too kindly to bowing down before magistrates in America.

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It's not a custom of ours. And I don't quite like the idea of bowing down to any man.

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And so I wonder what would happen if I just didn't do it. And so I experimented, and they don't do anything.

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There's no consequences for not doing it. But Canadians are very different from Americans. Canadians are very, are far more trusting and friendly towards authority than Americans.

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Now that makes sense. We had a revolution in this country. We kicked the British out. They kept the

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British, and they're still under the British rule because they're a British commonwealth. So they never had that kind of anti -authority streak to them in their culture or DNA.

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But as an American, I see things a little bit differently. But it's interesting in that what was used in that setting is that the magistrate represents the queen.

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So you bow to the magistrate, but you're not really bowing down to the magistrate. You're bowing down to who the magistrate represents.

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In a similar fashion in the Old Testament, you have angels and kings who are representatives of the true power, of the one true

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God, of Yahweh. And so when a person bowed to, for instance,

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Solomon, they weren't truly bowing down to Solomon as much as they were bowing down to the power behind Solomon.

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Now this makes sense. In 2 Chronicles, I think it's chapter, I forget which chapter it is, but in 2 Chronicles, it says that Solomon, or David's throne, which

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Solomon at that point was sitting on, was Jehovah's throne. It was Yahweh's throne.

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So King David and his ascendants sat on Yahweh's throne. Now Yahweh doesn't have a physical throne, obviously, where he sits in Jerusalem, but that throne, the

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Davidic throne, was symbolic of God's reign, was symbolic of God's rule, was symbolic of Yahweh's throne itself.

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It was a symbolism of his authority so that when men bowed before Solomon, they were truly bowing before Yahweh.

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This was a representative worship, in a sense. Similarly to how we as Christians today worship the one true

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God in Jesus Christ. He's the image of the invisible God. He is a representative of God's very essence and nature.

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We worship God through Christ. Does that make sense? And so today, we're gonna learn more about what it means to worship and what worship looks like in a true biblical sense.

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Any questions before we move on to some of the scriptures here? We're all getting it?

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We're all understanding what worship means? Well, we have to start with the commandments. The commandments, so here's one of the interesting things about our church is that we adhere to something called the regulative principle.

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Anyone know what that regulative principle means? Can anyone just break that down? What does that mean?

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Go for it. What's prescribed in scripture, basically, right?

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So it is, so if you go to a modern evangelical church today, and you ask them, what is worship?

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You'll get 100 different answers, and you'll get 100 different expressions, right? And that's because they have a very open concept to what worship is.

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Well, we who try to follow the Bible as best and as closely as we can, we look at it a little differently.

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We say, no, God is the only one who can prescribe what true worship is.

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We cannot attribute to God things that he himself did not ascribe or command.

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So when we talk about the regulative principle of worship, we're saying God is the determiner of how he is to be worshiped.

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We don't get to make that decision for him. He's made that decision already, and he's revealed it to us in Holy Scripture, right?

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So when a person says, for instance, very popular, even in American evangelicalism, we don't really need church.

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We just, we can be, you know, under a tree and worship God, and that's totally fine.

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It's just as equal. It's just as valid as going to church on Sunday morning. Where's the problem in that?

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Can one worship under a tree? Sure. Yeah. So that's fine. You can worship under a tree if you want, okay?

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But what's wrong with that statement? Is worshiping under a tree just as valid as the prescribed

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New Testament form of worship that God has given the church? No. Is it a replacement?

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No. So that's the problem, is that in a loose understanding of Scripture, you know, we become the arbiter, we become the judge, and we become essentially the one who dictates to God how he's to be worshiped.

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I will tell God how I will worship him. No. God says, I will tell you how you are to worship me, and that's, in a nutshell, the regular principle.

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God has spoken. He's given us his word, and he has told us how he is to be worshiped, and we are to adhere to that.

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We are to honor him. We are to do as he has commanded us. And so we have to go back to the commandment,

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Exodus chapter 20, verses three to five. It says, you shall have no other gods before me.

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You shall not make onto you any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, and you shall not bow down yourselves to them nor serve them.

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So what is this a warning against? False worship.

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False worship. And what else? Search of an eye. Idolatry.

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We're gonna hear about that today in today's sermon as well when we look at the Magnificat and how

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Mary is elevated to a status that is unbiblical in the Roman Catholic tradition. And yet here you have in God's, in the first two commandments, shall have no other gods before me.

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Starts with saying, I'm Yahweh. I'm your God. I'm your coveted God. I'm your coveted rule maker.

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Remember, God means rule maker, basically. I'm your coveted rule maker. And he shall have no other rule makers, gods, before me.

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You shall not make onto you any graven image. So these are prohibitions that Yahweh has given his people, saying not only should you not, you shall not do this, okay?

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Remember when we learned about the difference between instruction and law? Mitzvah and Torah.

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What would this be? Mitzvah.

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This would be law. This has law. This has gravity to it.

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So much so that, not necessarily here in the 10 commandments, but in other places, false worship had a penalty.

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Do you know what was the penalty associated with false worship? Death. Death, yeah, death.

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That's why you see in Exodus chapter, what is it, 34, 33? Where Moses comes down and they're all worshiping the golden calf.

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And what happens to those people who were worshiping the golden calf? They got killed. They were destroyed. They were destroyed.

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They were all cut off from the land of the living for their rebellion against Yahweh.

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So if you ask yourself the question, what are some examples of regulative worship and the consequences associated?

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There is one right there, right? God says, don't do this. Because they did it, and there were consequences to it.

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It wasn't like, oh, Yahweh didn't say to himself, oh, it's okay. They're just trying their best. That's not how he takes worship.

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And my concern is, especially in modern evangelicalism in America, we have such a looseness with definitions and a looseness with worship that I think is very dangerous.

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And it's no wonder why we have so much strange fire, so to speak, happening in evangelicalism.

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It's because everything is permissible. Everything is so loose, and everyone has become a law unto themselves, and that's a danger.

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Let's go along with your point. One of the things that has exacerbated that in America was the whole

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COVID and watching the service online, and people becoming convinced, even by their pastors, which

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I think is almost an abomination, that, yes, you are worshiping. No, it's not even second best, it's way down.

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People got to believing that that's okay. So if you're home, you don't even get dressed, you might not even take a shower, you're just watching, you're doing what you want, you're not being directed, you're not being supervised, even though you're watching it online.

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And that's exacerbated, I think. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. False worship is increasing, not decreasing, unfortunately.

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And so that's why it says you should not make any graven image. What is a graven image? What's that?

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An idol? An idol, but more so, what is it made out of?

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Stone, material, stuff. Yeah, stuff, basically. It's made out of stuff.

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Stone, copper, silver, gold, wood. Wood that you didn't use for the fire.

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Yeah, now a graven image, particularly, is a image that is made in the context of religious service, right?

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Now, in the ancient world, not so different. You know, across the green here, if you look, there's a huge statue of, it looks gold, it probably isn't gold, but it has a gold color to it, and it is a graven image of a

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Hindu god, okay? It's not so much popular in the West as it is in Eastern cultures, but graven images were all over the ancient world.

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You know, Pastor Connolly said something a couple weeks ago which really left an impression on me, and he was speaking on idols, and one of the allure to idols, one of the things that make idols so, you know, marketable and alluring is that you have a god that you can see, but a god who doesn't see you, right?

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And that's the allure to idols and to false worship is that you can see it, you can touch it, you can feel it.

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And who wouldn't wanna see God? Who wouldn't wanna touch and handle God? These are, we have, God created us with senses to touch, smell, see, to experience, and so we want to experience

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God, but God has said this is not a way by which you can experience me.

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Just real quick, the other problem with the idol, too, is you make it, but you also tell that idol what it's allowed to tell you to do.

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You make the rules. That's right, you're God. In that scenario, you're God, you're the rule maker. You know?

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And that's, again, one of the problems of modern worship today is that we've become the rule maker.

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We've become the law unto ourselves, and that's a huge danger. I think.

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Yeah, that's a big debate, and I think at least two of the pastors here certainly take that position that it's inappropriate to have any images of Christ, for instance, because he's

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God, and he is, you know, if he's imaged, then that could be a violation of the second commandment.

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Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. And so that's certainly becoming a stronger position within the reform camp, and a lot of reform churches and brothers are taking that position.

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I'm still kind of undecided, and the reason I'm undecided, and I lean towards that position, I think it's a luring position, but the fact that Christ himself, who is

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God, the image of the invisible, took on flesh. You know, one of the criticisms by Jewish apologists against the

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Trinity and against the divinity of Christ is because they believe that by virtue of the incarnation, that itself would be an act of idolatry, because you are,

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God taking on a human form in flesh is in itself idolatrous according to their understanding of Jewish law and tradition.

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And so, and I don't think that that's a valid criticism, because there are times in the Old Testament where Yahweh is clearly embodied.

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Genesis chapter 17 says that Abraham saw the Lord under the tree of Mamre, so he saw something.

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Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple, and mostly when the

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Lord is seen, there seems to be a physicality to him, not to say that he's physical or that he's embodied, but that there is a way in which he represents himself, at least anthropomorphically to his people when he reveals himself.

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And so I'm not, I've got to do more research on it for myself to see if that is a convincing enough argument in regard to picturing

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Christ in children's books, for instance, because one of the things that's unique about the second commandment is that it seems to be like a total prohibition if you take it literally, right?

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It says you should not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth, or that is in the earth beneath.

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So it seems like you can't make pictures of anything, not birds, not giraffes, not even men.

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So even the act of a child making a toy would be prohibited if we took this ultra literally.

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And I think the connotation here is what it says, you should have no other gods, rule makers, this is religious, you shouldn't have any graven image, this is religious worship, this is religious connotation here.

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So there's no prohibition in my mind against making a toy giraffe. I don't think that that would be inappropriate.

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See where I'm going with that? What do you think, Pastor? Well, Conley and I, a year or so before you came here, we studied out the idea of could we have, for Sunday school was really the issue, and we came to the conclusion, no, there'll be a prohibition.

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But the one question that we really never quite resolved is if it's in a coloring book, say you're teaching the children a lesson, and it's a picture of Jesus, well, it's not being used for worship, it's being used for tutelage, for teaching.

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Right. And we never quite resolved that, but we still erred on the side of caution. And of course, what would you say about that?

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Do you agree with our position? I feel like I put you on the spot here. You're in a policy place,

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I'm sorry for that. No, you know, I'll be honest, like for me, in this current moment, my tendency is, when you look at early church history, the early church used images almost immediately, almost right away.

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And we have very early Christian art that goes back almost to the first century.

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And so the Christian fathers were by no means perfect. Matter of fact, they had quite a bit of messes that they had to fix, that later church councils had to fix.

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But there seems to be a strong tradition in the Christian faith of using at least some form of imagery.

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Now, we see this even in the Old Testament, because in the Old Testament, you have the temple. Now, if you look at 1 and 2

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Chronicles and look at the depiction of the temple and the inner sanctuary of the temple, you had depictions of heavenly beings.

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You had pictures of angels. You had pictures of Eden. You had animals.

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You had all these depictions in the walls of the temple. So those were not inappropriate, even in the religious connotation of it.

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You also had the Ark of the Covenant, which was symbolic of the mercy seat. It was essentially God's throne.

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That's what the imagery of the mercy seat is. It's God's throne where he sits. That's why when the temple was dedicated, it says the spirit of Yahweh was upon the

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Ark of the Covenant, was hovering over the Ark, symbolically showing that he reigns, he sits on the throne.

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And yet, on that Ark of the Covenant were two what? Seraphim. Yeah, cherubim or seraphims that were depicted on the

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Ark. So they was fashioned by hand with gold and wood, and yet, that's not a violation of the second commandment.

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So there's a lot of nuance here that I think cannot be overlooked.

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Can I, yeah, can I get those? Thank you. Yes. Isn't this all about context? That's right.

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Yeah. It's how it was built. Right. So that's why the map.

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Sure. Says he was a prophet.

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It is. It's terrible. And how they depict him. And we depict, and that's a good point. One of my concerns with Christian arts depicting

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Jesus, as we've seen throughout church history, is that we make Jesus into our own image, right?

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So the medieval Jesus is a white Jesus with blue eyes and blonde hair. And then you've got kind of, if you look actually at the earliest depictions of Jesus in Christian art, he's beardless and he has short hair.

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He looks like an average Roman of that day, okay? And so they're constantly fashioning

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Jesus into their own image. And we do that today as well, obviously, with Christian depictions and arts of Jesus.

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He's always this handsome, non -problematic guy when he's depicted in the movies, right? It's just like, where in the

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Bible says in Isaiah 53, there's nothing of his appearance that would draw men onto him, right?

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There's nothing about his appearance that would be like, wow, that's the son of God, you know? When I was

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Jehovah's Witness, the Jehovah's Witnesses have lots of arts, really impressive art too, depicting Jesus and stuff.

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And he's always like short hair with like a six -pack abs, you know, and it's just like kind of muscular Jesus, you know,

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Jimbro Jesus. And it's just, yeah, that's a good point.

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And that sways me, yeah. I was just gonna say, this idea of can you depict

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Jesus if you're not worshiping the image? Yeah. You know, like we were talking a moment ago. And that's the argument of the

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Orthodox. That's right, that's right. Oh no, we don't worship them. We just venerate them and they draw us into proper worship.

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And yet, if you see what they actually do, it's like, that's nonsense. That's right. They are worshiping.

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Oh yeah, yeah. But that's the argument of the East. That's right, yeah. And in Eastern Orthodoxism and Roman Catholicism, iconography is very important to them.

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It's baked into their tradition. But it's not to be lost on us that this is still part of the mainstream

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Christian history, where iconography, especially in more illiterate times in church history, was used to depict the gospel, to teach, to instruct.

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Iconography was, at one point, especially in about from the year 900 to about the 13th century, was the de facto means of teaching in the church.

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Now this is, of course, before the Reformation. But images have been used throughout church history to teach, to instruct, but also have been horribly abused within the

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Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions. So I'm not sure if there's a happy medium somewhere. I don't know.

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And I will defer to Pastor Conley and Pastor Josh, who've studied this more in depth than I have.

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But I think that for the purposes of this teaching, the standard ought to be we're to have no other gods.

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And by a rule of thumb, we should not bow down to any image, graven image, okay?

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That includes political powers and political leaders.

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If you go to, I think, in China, and especially in North Korea, I think in North Korea specifically, it is law that you have a picture of the dear leader in your house.

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It is law. Like you have to have a picture of dear leader, of Kim Jong -un in your house.

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And they will even check. The authorities will come and they'll check. And if you even have like a speck of dust on that image, you know, you'll be in trouble.

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Because they are seeing if you're gonna be reverent. Even if you're visiting North Korea, which

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I wouldn't recommend. If you visit North Korea, they give you this propaganda tour.

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And one of the stops is they have this huge statue of the two original leaders, you know, the original

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Kim and his son, and now the third son. Powers now to the third son. We have the two Kims up there, and there's a huge statue of them.

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And you have to bow down. You have to bow down. And if you don't bow down, that is an offense that will land you into a concentration camp in North Korea, right?

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That's what got President Obama in such trouble when he went to Japan. Yeah. Because he bowed to the emperor, and people just went crazy,

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Americans. That's right. Because of what it implies, I mean, you're teaching. That's right. That I will follow you, no.

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It's a submission. It's a sign of submission. You know, and yeah, that's a problem. We'll see how the scripture uses this sign of submission, this sign of worship in a few other places.

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Specifically in Genesis 24, 26, it says, and he bowed his head and worshiped the Lord. This is Abraham.

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He bowed down. He says, I bowed down my head and worshiped the Lord. So what accompanied this worship was a physical response to authority, okay?

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So again, it doesn't say he lifted his hands up and started singing a hill song. It says, he bowed down.

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That was worship. His head was to the ground. His head was to his feet. That was worship.

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Now, I'll be honest. One of the things I do like about the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions is that they have baked it into their liturgy a reverence in bowing.

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And so you'll have, obviously in an unbiblical sense, they'll bow before images. That's totally prohibited in scripture.

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But there are times in which in the service and the liturgy of the church, there's moments in which a person bows in the pew, for instance.

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And I think sometimes we miss something when we don't do that.

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Not saying that we have to start doing that. Not saying that that's gonna be something we're gonna start doing here. We're gonna start putting pillows on the floor for you to bow down.

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But I think that worship, especially in the Old Testament, is certainly associated with a physical response of being low.

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That's why the scripture teaches we are to be meek and lowly. It is a posture, not just of the heart, although primarily it's of the heart now as Christians, but it's to have a posture of humility, even in our physical response to the presence of God.

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That's right. Yeah, so let me look it up, because the word that is used, shehah, literally does mean to bow down.

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So let's see. That's Texas, Genesis, 24, 26.

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Let's see what, so the word that's used here is kah, it's kahdad, and kahdad literally means to, very similar to the word for worship, but it only means to bow down, or to stoop, or to bow.

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And so its primitive root is to shrivel up, to contract or bend the body or neck in deference, that's to bow down.

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So it's a word which describes solely the physical act, apart from the religious connotation that would come with the other

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Hebrew word. And so it's a physical word, bowing down, worship meaning having a religious connotation.

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Does that kind of make sense? We see that twice used in Genesis 24,

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I bowed down my head and worshiped the Lord. Genesis 24, 52, and it came to pass that when

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Abraham's servant heard their words, he worshiped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth.

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So you see the physical response to Yahweh's presence.

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It is to worship, it is to bow down. Again, we see this in Exodus chapter 4, 31, chapter 12, verse 27, and the people believed, and when they bowed their heads and worshiped.

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Just one of the reasons why it's totally appropriate as Christians to, when we pray, to bow our heads in reverence to the creator.

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It's not just out of habit that we do these things. There's a strong tradition as to why we do that.

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Exodus 34, eight says, and Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped, worshiped.

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So all these verses are basically just to show you there's a physical response in worship, okay?

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But it isn't what you might think it is. It isn't jumping up and down. It isn't hands waving in the air.

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There's nothing necessarily wrong with those things, right? Maybe the jumping up and down part, but there's nothing particularly wrong with, for instance, raising one's hand in worship.

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Scripture says to lift up holy hands. Scripture says that there are affectionate and appropriate physical means by which we can appreciate the grandeur of God.

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That are in scripture, okay? Joshua 5, 14, you've got a question?

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Yeah. How do you distinguish, someone might say, well, this is just what they did in their culture.

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Yeah, our culture certainly is less reverent. So there's no doubt about that.

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But the reality is we're getting down to the understanding of the word itself, the etymology of the word worship, and it literally means to bow down, right?

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And what we see in the New Testament is no different. In Revelation chapter one,

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John, the revelator, sees the Lord Jesus Christ, and it says in verse 17 of chapter one, and he fell as though dead to his feet, okay?

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Which literally means that he prostrated himself. He couldn't get any lower to the ground when he saw Jesus.

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Same response when Saul saw and encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Fell to his feet.

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This was a proper response to the presence of Christ, of Yahweh, in the

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New Testament as well. Jesus.

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That's right. Manifestation of the power of Jesus.

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Yeah, and that's one of the, when you look at the Reformation history, one of the things that was swift was the removal of images, of imagery.

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And it was with the removal of imagery that we lost that tradition of bowing, for instance. Because what are we bowing to, right?

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There's nothing to bow to now. There's no images that we're standing before. And so, I think that's one of the reasons why we lost it now.

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You know, is that valid? Probably. You know, we don't have anything or anyone to bow to in that sense.

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If we were all, and especially the way that Christian churches are kind of organized, you have the pews, the seats, and then you have the pulpit, and usually you have the preacher.

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So, if we're all bowing, we're kind of in the direction of the preacher, that might present a problem too.

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And so, those are just, you know, are those things completely valid? I don't know. I don't know.

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I'd have to process that a little bit more. But here's what we do see in scripture in Joshua 5, 14. Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, what says my

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Lord unto his servant? Now, the reason I bring these things up isn't so that we can introduce bowing in our worship.

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The point I'm trying to make is very, very clearly, very concisely is this, hopefully, that worship is a physical demonstration and a recognition of authority, okay?

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That's what worship is. It's to demonstrate and recognize an authority to whose rules you are now adhering to, okay?

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Remember, God means the one strong enough to make the rules by which we live by. Worship is a adhering and also recognition of that authority that you've now received, okay?

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Does that make sense? Bowing in the pastor, all three of us, you, me, and Conley, we won't say bow your heads.

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No. We'll say let us pray together. Because it's a corporate thing, but it's not focused on any human.

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So it's us together. I think that's, as I recall, that does go along with the

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Reformed tradition that it takes away that idea that this person's elevated up two steps so you can see us.

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That's right, that's right. That's very true. And so it says in,

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I'll just give you a few more examples. Nehemiah chapter eight, verse six says, and Ezra blessed the

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Lord, the great God, and all the people answered him. Now men and men were lifting up their hands.

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So you see that picture of lifting hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the

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Lord with their faces to the ground, okay? So you see a physical response to worship here and what it looked like.

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There was lifting up of hands. There was bowing. There was prostrate faces to the ground.

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And even in that connotation, right, Yahweh is not in front of them. Yahweh is not in the, well, in a sense he is, but he's not in the ground beneath them where they're seeing him.

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This is all in recognition of authority. Similarly to how I told you about the story of me being in Canada and having to bow before the magistrate, it was a recognition of the authority of the magistrate and more particularly a recognition of the authority of the queen who the magistrate represents.

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The quick question, so faces to the ground, does that mean your nose, your face is on the floor?

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That's right. Or does that mean your hands are up and you're bowed with an aspect towards the ground? Yeah, I think probably both.

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Probably both. Depending on the context. Yeah, yeah, that's right. The scripture says in Psalm 95, verse six, so come let us worship and bow down.

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Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. To me there's always something special.

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So in the privacy of our home, if I'm worshiping, we're doing family worship,

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I like to bend the knee before the Lord.

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I like to pray on our knees. I like to worship in that way. I think those are totally appropriate ways for us to worship according to scripture.

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Psalm 95 and other examples that we've seen, these are not things that you necessarily have to adopt in your private worship.

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Again, it's more so a recognition of the authority that is the most important here.

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Any other thoughts or questions on this as we're wrapping up? Go for it, Pastor.

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Yeah, in Romans 12, I wanna think about this as you've been speaking. It says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, meaning your whole life, the whole of you, holy and acceptable to God, and that's because of Christ, which is your spiritual worship.

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Amen. So that's the whole of life. That's not talking about the special gathering of God's people as most of the context we've been talking about.

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That's give your whole life to him. So that's when we wake up in the morning, when

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I'm brushing my teeth, when I'm going to bed at night, when I'm at church, it's the whole of it.

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That ties together quickly. I think so, amen. Anyone else have any thoughts or questions before?

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Yes. I do, I was thinking of Revelation, then the complements, and I think sometimes we'll take,

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I think the NIV might say, let us go boldly. Amen.

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Speaking of Revelation, it says in Revelation 4, speaking of the creatures who are on the throne now, a little bit of a background on that.

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The creatures who are on the throne represent the most intimate part of God's worship, and they are at the presence of God.

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So you have this four living creatures, and in Ezekiel, and in Isaiah, and in Revelation, they're described very strangely, and almost freakishly.

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But this is true of them, and then we'll see this is gonna be true of all saints as well.

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It says, in the four living creatures, in Revelation 4, 8, it says, in the four living creatures, each of them with six wings are full of eyes all around them and within, and day and night they never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. Mimicking very similarly what we see in Isaiah chapter six, verses one to six, where you see the cherubims, they're referred to as cherubims,

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I think, or seraphims, in Isaiah. And here, they're referred to as the four living creatures.

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And it says that there's others around this intimate gathering of God's people, and it says, whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him, who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him, who is seated on the throne, 24 elders falling down, worship, proskuneo, and worship him, who lives forever and ever.

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And they cast their crowns before the throne, saying, worthy are you, our

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Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you create all things, and by your will, they existed and were created.

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Interesting. Now, the identity of the 24 elders is up for debate.

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Many people in commentary seem to think that the 24 elders are representative of the church.

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And I think that's probably right. I would actually, before I even reveal, I'm gonna, hopefully, by God's grace, we'll teach you through the entire book of Revelation.

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It's a fantastic series that I have. But I actually think the 24 elders are probably more literal, and they maybe represent the church in its totality, which

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I think is actually right. I think there's a dual meaning here. But it's certainly, the 24 elders certainly, without a doubt in my mind, are the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles, okay?

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That's for certain. And now, does that, can that be representative of the whole of the redemptive people of God in the

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Old and New Testament? Yes. So, in a sense, part of our worship in heaven is gonna be bowing down and casting our crowns, the crowns of life that we've been promised, and casting it to his feet.

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And so, that's gonna be pretty cool. I'm looking forward to that. Any other thoughts or questions?

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So, worship is what? What is worship? A physical recognition of authority.

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That's what it is. It's a physical recognition of authority. The fact that you're here today, this morning, gathered on the

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Lord's day, under the house of God, with God's people, is a physical, you had to do something.

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You had to get up in the morning, you had to drive. Other people in other places around the world, you had to walk, okay?

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And you came as a physical demonstration of God's authority. God says, gather, and you've gathered.

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This is a physical recognition of God's authority, the one who is strong enough to make the rules. So, may the

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Lord bless you and keep you as we continue to honor him on the Lord's day. Let me pray. Lord, we thank you that today you have given us the capacity and the ability to recognize your authority as a true and proper sovereign of all things, that we can gather on the

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Lord's day in order to render sacred service, to worship you, to bow our hearts, prostrate before you, that we would render to you that which is rightly due only to you, that is true worship, praise, and adoration.

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Lord, we pray, God, that as we see in the heavenly visions of revelation, that there will come a day in which all saints, all the people of God, will stand before you.

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And not only will we stand, but we will then bow and cast our crowns, the crowns that you have appointed for us to have onto eternal life, onto your grand feet.

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And recognizing your authority, and singing together of all the saints and all the heavenly creatures, worthy are you, our

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Lord and our God, to receive glory, honor, and power, for you created all things, and by your will, they existed and were created.

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And we pray these things unto the one true and triumphant God, Father, Son, and Spirit, in Jesus' name, amen.