I'm gonna sing a song about me and you.
You make me want you.
You're the love that I think I really need.
There is somebody that I think I really need.
You are my wish.
You are the love that I think I really need.
With all mercy, with all grace, everywhere I look, I see your face.
Your love has captured me.
Oh my God, you've stopped comparing me.
Na na na na na.
When I break, I break to you.
You make me go crazy, I go crazy, I take you with me.
There is somebody that I think it's you.
You are my wish.
You're the love that I think I really need.
I'm so thirsty when I'm crazy Everywhere I look I see a flame
From the west, cap, and deep Oh my goodness, oh, what can it be?
Na na na na na Na na na na na
Na na na na na
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my life, my strength, my soul
I reach for on a stone in solid ground Far through the thick, thick shroud in stone
But I follow up on depths of breeze When fear comes clear and striving deep
I conquer, I call it on Here in the love of Christ I sing
In Christ alone I've got cash For you've got in heaven saved
In the blouse and the righteous dress Sporn by the ones He came to save Till on that golden day that's come The fount of gold has rung
For every sting I'll give one's way Here in the friend of Christ I sing
In the blouse and the righteous dress Sporn by the ones He came to save
Every single day Every shade Every fear Every thing
We'll be inside the dark That's not who we are We are children of the dead
So hold the sleeves and pinch your head We will match your more than just With the shadows down your desk Take the most of the time we have left
We are the light of the world We are the city on a clear sky We are the light of the world We got it, we got it, we got it, nothing like crying We are the light of the world
Worthy has found The land of what is saved Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song To Him who sets all Heaven's mercy free
Worthy has found The land of what is saved Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song To Him who sets all Heaven's mercy free
Holy, holy is the little white King The one that is against your power
With all creation I sing Right to the King of Kings We'll rule over everything And power over all
Jesus, your name is power Crowned in the holy water Such a marvelous mystery
Holy, holy is the little white King The one that is against your power With all creation I sing Right to the King of Kings
I want to share with you a little bit of a story that I found that helps to deal with some trees. There was a man in the church who knew this man and he had been witnessing to him and sharing with him the truths of Christ and God and church and faith and walking in faith and so on.
He had told me that the man had told him that he didn't need to go to church, that he didn't need to be part of the church, that he was a believer and that he was okay. He was okay being a believer and not being part of a local church.
And the man came to my house and he did a reasonably good job of trimming my trees and I had written him a check for the agreed upon amount. He came out to my driveway afterwards and the man said, okay, I'm done. I got all hauled up on the trailer. I'm about ready to get out of here. He said, do you have my payment? I gave him the check.
And he's holding the check in his hand and he started to leave and I said, well, God bless you. Have a great day. And that was pretty much all that was going to happen. And he turned around and he came back to me and he said, I just want you to know that I am a professing Christian and I do not feel that I need to be in the church.
I don't have to worship God together with the church. I don't have to go to church. And then he began to rail on the church and I had had a couple of churches come to his house and ask him if they could pick up his children to bring them to church even though he was not going to come to church.
And he was very angry about that and he thought that was extremely disrespectful by those churches to want to take his children to church and teach them about God even though he wasn't going to have anything to do with going to church.
And he began to kind of get kind of heated and was on his soap box, if you will, if you understand that phrase, and kind of preaching at me about how he was a believer and he didn't need the church and he thought the church was all bad.
And he said things like, full of hypocrites and so on. And I was practicing Share Jesus Without Fear methods and I was kind of letting him go and kind of let him roll water off the duck's back and not worrying about it too much.
And I listened to him for about five minutes, rail on like that, and then I said, well now can I tell you what I believe?
And he felt compelled, I guess, and he said, well sure, go ahead. And I began to teach what I thought was true about God and the church, which is that the church is the bride of Christ and that you can say you have Jesus, but if you say you have Jesus and hate Jesus' wife, you're going to have a relational difficulty with your Lord to say the least.
And I began to talk to him about how the whole New Testament was written in the context of the church. And he said, well you can't find any verses that talk about the church and tell me that I have to go to church, which isn't actually true, by the way.
There are a couple of verses that do say that, but even so, you can't find anywhere in there that says that. And I said, well, even if that were so, and it's not, and he said, well you'll say Hebrews 10, 25 where it says forsake not the assembly yourselves.
And they've tried to use that one on me before, and he said, but that really is out of context and blah blah blah. And I said, well, whether that verse is out of context, I'm not going to argue that verse with you.
I said, but here's the bottom line. The whole Bible, the whole New Testament was written by the church, right, by the called out assembly of God in the church, for the church, sent to the church, so that they could study the Bible, the New Testament, and learn from what was written and from other people's experiences.
The whole thing is nested in the New Testament church, and it's the local body of believers, not just folks who say, yeah, I'm a Christian, because they wouldn't be there, because the letter come to the church and was read in the church, but they don't have nothing to do with the church, so they wouldn't even have known about the letter.
And he got so mad at me, he said, fine, I'm not taking your money, and he took the check, and he tore it up in front of me. Payment for his, and he threw it on the ground. And I said, and he started to walk away, and I said, now wait a minute, I said, in the name of Christ, I adjure you, stop.
So you profess to be a Christian, you don't want nothing to do with the church, fine. I said, but I committed as a believer in Christ to pay you this amount for doing this work, and I'm going to do that, I'm going to keep my word to God.
And I said, and you committed in Christ to take this amount of money for this work, and you're going to do that. And he said, well, I already tore up the check, it's right there. And I said, well, I'm going to go back in the house and get another check.
And he said, you're going to stand right where you are. And he looked pretty cowed at the moment, and I went back in the house and wrote another check, the exact same amount, and I came out and I handed it to him, and I said, and now I say to you, go in peace.
If it's possible, if you can find any peace, go in peace. And he took the check and he left, and I never saw the man again. That 20 minute episode in my driveway was all my fault.
All my fault, every bit of it. Not because I said anything to the man, because I started it, because I provoked him or anything, but because the believer who was there, who brought that man to me, was responding incorrectly to my teachings when he was talking to that man.
Now, not my teachings, they're God's teachings, but I was teaching him something, and I was not teaching it correctly, and so he was responding incorrectly to what I was teaching, and he was taking up that discussion with that man and then brought that man to me.
And it's now, it's taken me 10 years, it's taken me until this day right here to realize what I did wrong. And so that being said, I have already talked to the Lord about that, and I am going to make right today what I have done wrong for the people.
I have done wrong for 20 years. Now, it's not that I am teaching the wrong thing, and I'll show you that when we get there. I am teaching the right thing, but I have been teaching it out of order.
Interesting, considering how the Lord was speaking to us about chronological order in the New Testament and in the Old Testament during the inspirational moment time.
God was saying to me, you've got this out of order. Now, I submit to you, and I'm not trying to be mean when I say this, that we all probably have it out of order.
If you've gotten it from me, you've got it out of order. Now, if you've figured it out from Christ and Jesus led you to it, good for you. Praise God.
And I promise you that I will get this order right in my teaching in the future.
So, grab your Bibles and go with me to a very familiar story of the Bible, and it's found, give me a little amen, hoot, holler, something, Matthew chapter 2.
Come on, this is God's word. Now, I want to submit to you that that little hoot or holler there is a form of worship.
If you cannot bring yourself to make a noise at that moment in time, then I want you to think and ask yourself whether or not that is a form of worship, and then consider this as we go forward today.
Because we are going to talk about, as you can see, are you for or against this kind of worship? That's the title.
Chapter 2, verse 1, the visit of the wise men. So it says, I fire you. If you ever read in your Bible and it says, and he called his name Jesus, I would do my best effort to skip where it says the visit of the wise men and go right to the next verse.
Because that there, not inspired by God. That's not inspired by God. This, on the other hand, is.
Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.
Okay, before we go any further, there's just stuff I want to break down. Because this story is all messed up in the minds eye. First of all, in the manger scene that everybody puts out, there's always wise men.
The wise men did not visit the manger. They don't belong in the manger scene, and frankly, they don't belong as part of the Christmas story.
Just saying. Do what you want with it. Fire you. I take the manger, put them away, bust them out a few weeks after Christmas if you really feel like you must.
But this is not a few weeks after Jesus was born. They visit Jesus, most likely, in a house. Not where he's laying in the manger.
Probably he's up, toddling around. He's walking. He's learning to talk. He might be potty trained. He might be potty trained pretty early.
You can fancy that however you want. These Magi were wise men. They observed a star.
It says, Behold, Magi from the east arrived, Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east.
So, oftentimes, the star led them from where they were to over kind of the Jerusalem area.
And then the star disappeared, and then later in the story, it reappears.
It does not say that the star led them from where they came. Not in the text.
Part of the Christmas story. In that song, we three kings of Orient are traveling from afar, following yonder star.
That's all. So make that noise with me. King of the Jews.
Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.
So they are in Jerusalem, which is ruled over by King Herod. Does anybody know King Herod's nationality?
Somebody take wild guess. Take a stab at it. Because I want to make the Jeopardy noise.
Somebody, come on. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's incorrect.
So, no. He's an Edomite. He's a descendant of Esau. So I guess he's kind of sort of a Hebrew.
So you get a half an int for that. But the bottom line is, he's a descendant of Esau, not a descendant of Jacob.
And the Israelites are descendants of Jacob. This is a troubled man.
He killed several of his wives, several of his sons, because he thought they were going to rise up and replace him.
He's not a good guy. I don't know if they knew that or not.
But here they come saying, where's the guy who's been born king of the Jews?
At that moment in time, in Herod's court, you could have heard a pin drop.
He'd already killed some of his wives and sons. So I submit to you that everyone in Herod's court knows,
maybe subliminally, maybe under the surface, they're all thinking,
what is he going to do to the one who is born, who's called the king to come?
It's not going to be good. What is he going to do to these men who come saying that they came because of a star,
they've come to worship him? What's that going to do?
And they're all going, oh boy, here it comes.
And when Herod, the king, heard it, he was troubled, as they all expected he would be.
And Jerusalem with him, as you would be too, if you were under that kind of king
who had just been told he's going to be replaced.
And gathering together all the chief priests and the scribes and the people,
he began to require of them where the Christ was to be born.
So he's asking the people who know the word and the history, where is that going to happen at?
Notice that he is asking where the Christ was to be born because he knows,
enough to know that they need prophecy of the Christ,
not just a baby king who would become a human king to replace him,
but the Christ is what he's asking about. Verse 5.
And they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, house of bread of Judea,
for so it has been written by the prophet, and you, Bethlehem land of Judah,
are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
So they found that prophecy from the Old Testament and they nailed it down to Bethlehem
and they said he's going to be born in Bethlehem.
That's where. Verse 7.
Then Herod secretly called the Magi, now,
secretly is a strange way of calling these wise men who visited his court.
He's up to something.
Then Herod secretly called the Magi and ascertained from them the time the star had appeared.
Does not say the time the star began to lead them, just when they saw the star.
Verse 8.
And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and make careful search for the child.
And when you have found him, report to me that I too may come and worship him.
And having heard the king, they went their way and lo, the star, which they had seen in the east,
not which led them from the east, but which they had seen in the east,
lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them.
Now because it moved on before them, that means it was not a conjunction of planets, right,
or just some other kind of astronomical, that people always figure out,
oh, there were three planets that lined up on the night, you know, of the wise men leaving Jerusalem to go toward Bethlehem.
There were three planets that lined up and that's why they went that way.
Went before them until it came and stood over where the child was.
And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Now that's awesome, they said, and by the way, I think that's a good spirit of worship.
That's awesome. God is doing an awesome thing.
And they came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother.
Notice they came into the house, they came into the house, not the manger,
not the stables where the manger was, but they came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother
and they fell down and worshiped him.
And they fell down and worshiped. Now did they trip?
No, they didn't trip. The falling down part, that's part of the worshiping, right?
You fall down and worship him.
And they opened, and opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
So how many gifts did they present?
Everybody wants to say three, but the fact is we don't know how many gifts they presented, probably a lot more than three.
But amongst them were gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Not everything that they would have given him would have been made of gold and frankincense and myrrh necessarily.
Also, by the way, how many wise men were there?
We just read the text. Now that's what the story says, but that's not what the text says.
It doesn't say anything about how many, that there were three, did it?
The story says, the tradition says there were three because it says gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
In fact, we went and saw that really awesome movie that was in the theater's Journey to Bethlehem.
If you did not see it, please get a chance to see it if you want.
I'll buy you a copy if you're desperate to see it when it comes on DVD. It's not yet.
But anyway, good movie, kind of postmodern, modern, whatever, very biblical, but also kind of sporty and musical telling of the story.
And there were three wise men in that story and they gave gifts of gold, one gave gifts of frankincense, one gave gifts of myrrh,
which is in keeping with the tradition, but not necessarily in keeping with the text.
So there may have been 12. I kind of like it if there was 12. Or maybe seven. Seven would be a good number.
Or maybe 40. But we can pretty much assume there probably weren't seven, twelve, or forty because if there was it probably would say that.
But there may have been. Who knows? So 12.
And having been warned by God in the dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their own country by another way.
So they didn't go back to Herod because they had a dream, which we can safely assume was probably from God or fostered by God in some way,
but it doesn't say that exactly. It just says having been warned by God in a dream.
So were they dreaming about what was going on and God says, excuse me, hey, I got a little message for you.
Or did God send the dream and the dream was all about what was going on and God says, here's a dream and it tells you this.
We don't know. They were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod. They departed for their own country by another way.
Going to go just a little further.
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying,
Arise and take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remove there until I tell you.
Notice the difference there. Warned by God in a dream, meaning God might have sent the dream or God might have spoken into the dream, whatever,
is a lot different than an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. That's pretty different.
Saying, arise and take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.
And he arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod,
that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, out of Egypt did I call my son.
Now interestingly enough, that's a prophecy written by Jeremiah and until this writing, until the book of Matthew,
that prophecy would not have been used to speak of the Messiah or the Christ.
In fact, it was used to speak of the Israelites under the conquering of the Babylonians when they would carry off the people from the land
and it was saying how they were weeping for the children that were being carried off or killed in some cases.
But in any case, where it says, out of Egypt did I call my son, that would have been Israel being called back out of Egypt.
And then I was misquoting the prophecy, I apologize. So out of Egypt did I call my son.
There he's talking about Israel being called out of Egypt, right, parting of the Red Sea, crossing the desert, blah, blah, blah.
The next one is the one where it was talking about the Babylonian. I apologize. 16.
Then when Herod said that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem
and in all its environs from two years old and under.
So he did that based on the question, when did you see the star?
So we can believe that Jesus was no more than two years old at this time, but he was definitely a little older than a few months, right?
Because they saw the star two months before. According to the time which he had ascertained from the Madadai.
Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled. Here we go.
Saying, a voice was heard in Ramah weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted because they were no more.
And again, that prophecy also would not have been applied to the Messiah until here.
It was applied to Israel. But I submit to you, so goes Israel, so goes the Messiah.
And so Matthew chose to use it for the Messiah here.
But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying, arise and take the child and his mother and go into the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead.
And we'll stop there. Nope, we're going to read one more.
And he arose and took the child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. There we go.
Alright, so here's the question right here. Do you worship God as the wise men came to do?
That's the question. Do you worship God as the wise men came to do?
So let us examine the wise men for a moment. Now obviously, wise men is kind of a generic term for studied men from before.
They may have been kings, we three kings of oriental art. They may have been sages. They may have been teachers, prophets, you know, from whatever.
But they were coming, they said, to worship him. That word there, to worship him, is a Greek word and it's proskouneto.
I don't know if you can pronounce it correctly if you're a Greek scholar and I apologize but I'm pretty close.
And it means to fall down in front of the person in worship, to kiss their feet. It's kind of gross but it's real.
Kiss their feet right on your face in worship. And so the very first thing that I want you to see about the wise men's worship,
what they said they came to do and I submit to you, when they came, did they not fall down in front of him?
It said they fell down and worshiped him. So what they said they came to do and what they did were the same.
They came to fall down on their faces and if necessary kiss the feet of the Messiah, of the born king.
That's called full obeisance. There's a word for you, obeisance. That's an English word.
It kind of sounds weird but it's an English word. It means to be completely and utterly putting yourself on your face in front of somebody else.
That's the kind of worship they said they came to do and that's the kind of worship they did.
Do you, in worshiping God, put yourself on your face?
By the way, when I was a teenager I used to look in the mirror and see my face and I'd be like, all that pleased with that really.
There's a lot of people who are handsomer than me. That's why all the girls like all the jocks because they're all handsome and I'm just not.
Things like that. Or I'd get a pimple and I'd go, oh I feel terrible I got a pimple.
I'm trying 17 products and hot water and everything else trying to make myself look okay.
Because when you're a teenager you're concerned about what your face looks like.
Listen, God made you perfect. You're uniquely you. You look exactly like what you're supposed to.
Your scars are in the right place where they are. Your pimples are in the right place where they're supposed to be.
If you've got health issues that are causing your pimples and you're not dealing with them, that's on you. That's another thing.
But the bottom line is you're alright. Except when you compare you to Jesus, get on your face.
Start feeling okay with yourself when you go to Jesus, get on your face.
Not looking in the mirror which is me going, oh I look okay or I don't look okay, but on my face.
You don't like feet? Some people don't like feet. Not a big fan of feet myself.
But when it comes to Jesus, obeisance. Ready to kiss His feet.
When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are in the tomb and they realize Jesus is not there,
they just come back to life just as He said. And they go to run to tell the disciples along the way they meet Jesus.
Do you know what they do? You do. Think about it first and stretch your mind.
They fall on their faces and kiss His feet. That's what they do.
When we are to worship God, we have to recognize, did anyone here ever create anything from scratch?
I don't mean you got the material and stitched it together or the ingredients and whooped it up.
Did you ever make any flour from scratch? Did you get the corn, grind it up yourself?
Did you ever make any corn from scratch? Did you plant the seed and harvest it?
But did you ever make a seed? We're talking about God.
If you can't fall on your face before God, you arrogant. You prideful. You got a problem.
Notice they not only gave full obeisance to God, but also they gave offerings befitting the nature of God's Son.
Those offerings that are so often studied and talked about in every theological way.
But the fact is they gave gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Now we all like gold, right? Anybody got a gold wedding band or gold jewelry? We like gold. It's cool.
I mean it may not be your favorite thing in the world. Other things like better or whatever.
But the bottom line is gold is kind of a nice metal. It's a little rare and so it's worth quite a bit of money.
In fact, in today's economy it's worth a lot of money.
When I was in high school, my dad encouraged me to buy gold when it was like $25 an ounce.
He said, just buy it. Hold on to it. Trust me, you'll be rich one day.
Now it's like we're thousands and I didn't do it because it was too expensive.
Gold. Gold is for kings. Gold is for the wealthy. Gold recommends power and authority.
It represents that he would be awesome and a ruler.
Frankincense represents his life's work, his holiness, his connection with God that he would never do anything that God didn't have him doing.
And myrrh. Myrrh is a spice that's used for embalming bodies.
And so it was a picture of his sacrifice.
I submit to you that not knowing exactly what the Messiah was going to do or be, and I draw that conclusion by this,
they went to Jerusalem to ask where the king would be born because they didn't know the scriptures.
See? They went and asked. They were told, well, he'd be born in Bethlehem. So they went. If they knew, they'd have gone.
So did they have any of the scriptures? I submit to you, probably not.
And so because they didn't know, how did they give gold, frankincense, and myrrh?
The things that would represent his kingdom, his nature, and his death, and sacrifice for our sins.
Because God did that. And God does the same thing for us.
If we come asking God, willing that God would direct us to bring offerings befitting his nature, then we will do so.
We will succeed in doing so.
Notice that they came to worship, and it was no journey too long.
They came a long way to worship this king. A long way. And they came a hard way.
It isn't an easy journey. And they came through Jerusalem, which entails a certain amount of risk.
No. No journey was too long for them.
One time, a while back, our family got up on a Sunday morning, and I think Amalia was still home at the time, living with us.
And we decided we would ride our bikes to church. And so we rode our bikes to church.
And on the way home from church, we stopped and got a meal at an American family table there on Wheeling, and then rode them the rest of the way home.
Because not everybody's got a car. How far you got to walk to come to worship?
When I was a young pastor, I met a man. He and his wife had basically gone through being involved with drug use and so on.
They had gone into bankruptcy. They had lost everything.
He was in jail for a little bit, and then he got out of jail. They had nothing. They literally had nothing.
And so he got a job. And he lived on the south end. They lived with her mother.
And he walked every day to work at Home Depot out on Airport Highway, almost to Holland, Slovenia.
That's a long walk. And he walked every day for like six months until they were accumulating money trying to get their own place, that kind of thing, until he got the money to buy a nice bike.
And he bought a nice bike, and then he rode his bike to work every day to and from.
How far would you go to come to worship?
Most of us, if we've got a cold, or our cars broke down, or there's a schedule conflict, we're canceling Sunday morning worship.
I'm here to commit to you, and I hope it'll never be so, but if it is within me to do so, like if I can still walk when that time comes, if we get up on Sunday morning, and we've got no way to get here, and none of you will come and get us, we will walk.
How far are you willing to go? How inconvenienced are you willing to be?
What kind of resources are you willing to put on the line to worship God the way that God teaches us to do so, the way these men had as an example?
Will you go that distance? I was a young man, and he's in this room, and I didn't ask if I could share the story, so I'm going to share it right now.
And if no one can see it on your face, no one will know who I'm talking about.
And I was sharing with the Gospel with him, and he wanted to give his life to the Lord, and I said to him, I said, are you ready to be baptized, give life to the Lord, just really live for God?
And he said, well, I just want to be 100% sure. I want to be 100% sure that when I do this, that there's no turning back. I'm all in, totally committed.
I believe God deserves nothing less than my all.
And then over the next couple of weeks, he was prayerful, and he was thinking about it and working through it, and finally he said, OK, I'm ready.
And he gave his life to the Lord, and he was baptized, and he said, I'm all in.
During COVID, we were under discussions. We kind of knew COVID was coming to the U.S. before it would come.
We were under discussions, and I talked to two men in our church because they reached out to me.
And we, Dick and Tony and I were praying, we were considering, and I was talking to the other team leaders and stuff, as to whether we were going to continue Sunday worship as planned.
And we thought we were, but we wanted to make sure everybody was kind of on the same page and not quit meeting.
And these two men of their own leading, probably prompted by the Lord, reached out to me and they said, I just want you to know, and they're both key holders in the church,
I just want you to know that if we stop having public worship on Sunday, and they did not know each other were going to say this, they each said it separately.
If we stop having public worship on Sunday, I will be there. My family will be there.
We will unlock the doors, and we will be there for anybody that comes, and we'll share the gospel the best we know how, and we'll worship God.
If no one else is, we will. Two of them separately disconnected, and one of them is not here with us today.
And I don't know where he is. But the bottom line is, and I'm not judging anybody,
what journey is too long when we're talking about God. For them, there was no journey too long.
Also, circumventing authority. They literally stood before our King to ask who his replacement was and where he was.
They were not afraid of the law. They were not afraid of the rules. They were not afraid of violence. They were not afraid of bigger men with better guns.
They were not afraid. This is the King that we've come to worship.
And once they've come hundreds of miles on foot or on camel or both,
were they going to be turned away only less than 50 miles from their destination? Probably not.
And I submit to you, it's the same thing for us. Who will stop us from gathering?
This message is not intended for the government of the United States.
But I'm here to tell you that if the government of the United States ever tells me that I cannot gather for public worship,
I will still be doing it until I am in dead or in jail. And then when I'm in jail, I will still be doing it.
And I don't know what they do with you in there if you do it and they tell you you can't.
Do you know? They don't tell you that, at least not now.
Circumventing authority is a thing they were willing to do. You tell me no, I tell you uh-uh.
I'm going to do what it is that I know is right. I'm going to worship God in this way.
They were willing as kings or wise men, rich men anyway, to be associated with the poor, to be hunted if necessary.
They were willing to leave their safe station in high place and join in worship with those who were, let's just be fair, socially less than them.
Now, I ask you, do you worship God as the wise men came to do?
Second point then I ask you is this, if not, if you would say no, I don't think I do. I don't think I worship as the wise men came to do.
I'm not going to ask you, at least not at this moment, will you start doing so or will you repent or change your ways?
I'm going to ask you this, what would you do to conserve your current lifestyle, position, control, etc.?
If you're saying right now I'm not worshiping God the way they came to worship God.
And I submit to you, they didn't even know it was God. The way they came to worship this born king.
And if you would say I am not worshiping God the way they came to worship this born king, what would you do to conserve your lifestyle, your position, and your control?
Now we see what Herod did, right? He acted secretly.
He arranged for a massacre of all children under two years old based on the time that they told him that they had seen the star.
I mean he'd already killed wives and sons. What's a bunch more peasant children to keep his kingship?
Now you said come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him the same as you.
But he wasn't going to. He never planned to.
He always planned on protecting his throne, protecting his lifestyle, his position, and his control.
Now you'd probably never do anything like that. I would probably never do anything like that.
You probably don't have the authority. If you did you'd be in real trouble with the law if you did something that radical.
But be aware that if your heart is somewhere else, if you have someone or something that you wouldn't give,
something that would keep you off your face, or something that you would hold back from an offering befitting the Lord,
some part of your journey say no that's too long, too hard, too risky.
Some part of your personality that would cause you to twist the rules and say well I can't break the law to worship Jesus.
Then you'd understand that you might be doing the primary thing that Herod was doing, which is lying about your worship.
And that is the primary thing that he did. He lied and he said tell me where he is so that I can go and worship him.
Here is that moment in time at which I tell you.
This kind of worship, the kind of worship that they would practice, it is not the kind of worship that allows you to find something better to do with your time.
It is not the kind of worship that you can do anywhere, anytime.
Now that hurts because we say you can worship anywhere, anytime and that may be true.
But this kind of worship that they were doing is not something they could do anywhere, anytime.
By the way, from the text, how do you know this kind of worship was not something they could do anywhere, anytime?
Because they traveled hundreds of miles to do it. To bring the gifts, to get on their face in front of a toddler.
It's not something you can do anywhere, anytime. It's not something you can do at home or away from other believers.
God would say it is not something you can do somewhere I am not known or somewhere without others.
This is where I made my mistake.
Someone will say to me that the truth is the Bible says you can worship anywhere, right?
And it kind of does. In fact, it urges us to declare the worth of God to, proskoneo, fall on our face before God, anywhere, anytime, everywhere.
But what the scripture actually teaches is you can only do that if you can do this.
The Psalmist writes over and over again, and the book of Psalms is probably the greatest teaching tool that we have about worship.
Because they are the prayers and the songs of worship of God's people over centuries.
It teaches us that God demands that a saving relationship with God defines and directs every experience and relationship in our life.
There can be therefore no disconnect between worship and your life.
So us saying that you can worship anytime, anywhere, you can find a way to worship in your house and in your field,
or while you are working, or while you are playing, or while you are eating, or you can worship then, that's like a misnomer.
It's like saying you can breathe while you are eating. And you kind of can, right?
If you eat too much at one time, it might stop you from breathing briefly.
Or it's like saying you can walk while you are shopping through the grocery store.
You can, but first you have to be able to walk.
You can breathe while you are eating, but first you have to be able to breathe.
There is no disconnect between worship and life.
It's not like we say we are going to go out there and worship out there, but not worship in here.
In Psalm 24, worship is restricted to those who are ethically and morally pure, who have clean hands and pure hearts.
Jeremiah condemns those who committed every conceivable sin, yet assumed that God would be pleased with their professed worship.
So they keep living the way they want to live, but then say, but I am worshiping God, so I give sacrifices, I sing praises,
I serve, I give to the temple, etc. God is not going to be pleased with that, Jeremiah says.
Not surprisingly, in the Psalms, ethical demands are placed on would-be worshipers.
So you have to get it right. You have to get what is out there right, following the Lord and including worship in order to be in here worshiping.
And you have to get what is in here worshiping right in order to be out there worshiping.
It's not that we can worship out there, it's like everything that we do out there should be basic worship,
and then we come in here and we worship together. And the two are intimately connected.
Psalm 15, for instance, demands honesty and prohibits slander.
Psalm 82 demands justice, humanitarian and equitable treatment of the defenseless.
Psalm 131 requires humility.
Some of the Psalms that seem to deal predominantly with issues of piety and ethics are referred to as wisdom Psalms.
You've got to be right by God or you're an idiot. Basically is what the psalmist says.
So you go out there and don't live right by God, as long as you make sure you're in church on Sunday.
Or worse, you say, I don't really need to be in church on Sunday and dismiss where we learn to worship,
where we do worship, where we're made worship, where we become worship, where we're programmed for worship,
where our sins are brought in line so that we can worship and be holy the rest of the week and we dismiss it.
Worship is about putting yourself in the right place.
And this gathering, worshiping together in the body, is about putting yourself in the right place.
That's what it's about. Now, your bill paying, you're working on the job, you're making your meals, you're cleaning your house,
may not be about who gets to decide where you put the knickknacks when you clean your house.
Who gets to decide which laundry you do first?
Well, I need my clothes for work tomorrow, I'll do those first.
That's you deciding, unless you go to God and say, God, which laundry should I do first?
And God just might say, whatever you're going to wear to church on Sunday.
Let's do that first, Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.
So that you can put your worship of God first and put yourself away.
In the early days of Isaiah's public ministry, he saw God in heaven being worshiped.
He became a spectator basically of heavenly worship.
He was profoundly moved by what he saw.
No one who really sees the Lord can remain the same.
If you have worshiped the real God of heaven, you cannot but be changed.
If you can come in here and worship and leave this place and go about your life
and not reflect on what you experienced while you are here, you've got a problem.
Because this is about us worshiping the God of heaven.
And yes, we can do it together better, but that's not the point either.
The point is, we do it together first.
No one who really sees the Lord can remain the same.
And that's looking up, when you look up to God, when you praise God,
and you think, we sing the songs that we sang today about what God has done.
If you could sing those songs to God, to God, not just because you think they've got a nice melody or whatever,
but you can sing those songs to God, and it doesn't mean anything to you
that God became flesh and died on the cross after living a sinless life.
He shouldn't have died at all.
The wages of sin is death.
He didn't have to die because he didn't have sin.
He was born into a human body and would have died of old age if he didn't die on the cross.
Because this human body can only last so long without another miracle.
He died on the cross in an amazing death, a sinner's death, to pay for our sins.
As Paul would say, my sins are the worst sins.
We can stop looking around at other people's sins because it's only your sins that are going to keep you from heaven
or send you to hell.
And that's taken care of by Jesus.
True and biblical following and worship pervades life.
It affects everything.
In contrast to what the lost person does where they segment things out and they say,
well, I've got to deal with this for this purpose.
I've got to deal with that for that purpose, right?
I remember when I was 16 years old and I was at Fifth Third Bank in the Woodville Mall.
I really date myself there.
And I went in the bank and I had a little tiny credit card.
As a 16-year-old, I used to get this thing called the purchase plan card.
It wasn't a real credit card, but it was usable at about a dozen different stores.
And I was building my credit.
And I went in there to make my payment.
And while I was there, there was a man standing at the counter.
And he had all of his money separated out into little bank envelopes.
And each envelope was labeled.
One was labeled the electric bill, the gas bill, entertainment, allowances, food, everything like that.
And he had about 20 envelopes.
And he was standing at the counter in the bank sorting all of his money into the envelope.
And I thought to myself, that's a great idea.
I mean, if you're working on a cash system, that's not a bad idea, right?
And then at the end of the month, if you didn't spend, there was some money in that envelope,
then you move that to the savings.
And man, you've taken care of it, right?
But it's very kind of time-intensive, very, you know, it's a lot of work and stuff.
And so I never did it.
I never really thought to do it.
We do a similar thing in our spending plan now, but electronically on an app.
But the point is, that's what the world does.
I've got a certain amount of strength, and I want to use my strength for this, this, and this.
And they put some strength in the watching TV envelope, and some strength in the playing games envelope,
and some strength in the going to work envelope, and some strength in the going to the doctor envelope.
And they've got all these envelopes that put all their strength in there.
Listen to me, all the strength came from God.
It all goes in the worship envelope.
And if you need strength to do any of those things, you get it from the worship envelope.
That's your total budget.
Your total budget is your recognition of who God is and what God is doing in you and through you.
God defines and directs every experience and relationship in life.
First, worshipers must become subservient to the Lord.
You need to realize who He is.
You get out of bed on a Sunday morning and go, I don't really feel like going to church today.
I did have a fever a couple days ago.
I'm kind of congested. I'm tired.
There's a good football game or that good show or whatever, where I got a project I got to work on.
All of that's crap.
It's all crap.
It's all wrong.
This is it, baby.
This is what fuels the tank.
This is what gets it done.
We come together for worship.
We recognize who God is.
And you say, well, He recognizes better than I do.
Stop.
All of that is irrelevant.
It's a question of are you going to come to the Lord in pure worship and be refueled?
Worshipers must be subservient to the Lord.
And the vision that Isaiah saw, he saw angels around the throne.
But down from the throne, just above the robe thing that was on the floor, and they're worshiping God.
And they're singing, holy, holy, holy.
Worshipers must ascribe praise to the Lord.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
Listen to me very carefully.
Whatever you love, whatever you like, whatever you would tell someone else about,
does not hold a candle to God.
You can put your phone down forever and never touch another cellular phone.
And it won't hurt you at all, except possibly in navigation, you'll need a mask.
In time planning, you'll need a day timer if you're that kind of organized person.
In being a little less connected by text or phone call to somebody who's trying to get a hold of you,
you'll probably need a home phone or an email address or something.
So that people can get a hold of you when they're trying to get a hold of you when you're not expecting it.
That kind of thing.
You don't need it.
You can put it down.
You could turn your cable off and never watch TV again.
You could cut out dessert after lunch and dinner and never eat another sweet.
You could never have sex again.
You could give up anything in this life, except life itself.
Which, by the way, is found in God.
All those other things that I mentioned fall under the category of good things that God has given us to enjoy.
And they are not meant to be our bosses.
And the way you make sure they are never your boss is by going back to the supreme, the extreme, the eternal boss who made them all.
Oh, don't kid yourself.
Just like we talked about bait on Tuesday night and being baited.
All of those things are bait.
And behind them is a hook.
And it wants to get a hold of you.
And it will trap you when you think you need it.
And you're like, for years.
So for years of my life I drank pop with caffeine and sugar.
I drank liters of pop a day.
And then the Lord took it away from me and said, don't drink it anymore.
And I'm not saying you have to do that.
What I'm saying is, you know where I'd be at now if I spent the last 20 plus years of my life drinking three liters of pop a day?
I do.
Because I have a friend who when I quit didn't.
He had open heart surgery in his mid to late 30s.
Now I'm not saying that's going to happen to everybody.
But he and I had a mirrored lifestyle.
The only thing that was a little different about us was he was a few years older than me.
And a little bit bolder.
And that's about it.
Our lifestyle was very similar.
What I'm saying to you is God knows.
And God will tell you what to get rid of and what to keep if you will give him the proper position.
And that we do here.
Worshippers, lastly, must be ready for God's presence.
And that, frankly, I have a problem with.
Because my experience is that we come and we worship and we sing the songs and we'll sing whatever they've given us the same.
Whatever they put together, that's what we'll sing.
And then the preacher's preaching and most people not speaking back.
You're not doing anything.
Most people don't have their Bibles out.
They're not thinking about it.
They're not studying.
They don't leave after worship and go, what did God say to me today?
We get that inspirational moment, time.
And usually we have two or three speak up.
And that's fine.
That's all we really need is two or three.
But why not all of us?
And I've always said if I come in here in inspirational moments of time and I say, hey, what did you see this week of God?
We'll do a five-minute message at the end.
We'll cut the sermon.
If the Lord's speaking to you, he doesn't got to speak to me.
Or he doesn't have to use me to speak to you.
The point is this.
This is the church.
We do this.
The Bible says that we are gathered together for this purpose.
Ephesians 5, 15 through 21.
We're in the conclusion.
Ephesians 5, 15 through 21.
It says this.
Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation.
But be filled with the Spirit.
Listen here.
Speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.
Always giving thanks for all the things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.
And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.
You tell me how you can do verse 19 through 21 without being in church.
Without us being gathered here as the church.
How do you do that?
How do you speak to one another?
How do you sing Psalms and hymns together in spiritual songs?
How do we make melody together with our hearts?
And that's a plural statement.
We do it.
How can we be subject to one another in the fear of Christ if we are not together?
It starts here.
That's the problem.
We've taken it as a contrast.
We've got a lot of people out there who are claiming to be Christians.
And I'm not doubting their salvation.
I'm just saying that's all I can ever know.
They're claiming to be Christians.
And they say, I got it.
I'm following Jesus.
I'll be in heaven one day.
And they've got nothing to do with church.
They're not in worship.
They're not going to church.
It's a load of hogwash.
You are the church.
The very word church in the New Testament is called out, wait for it, assembly of believers.
If you're not called out, you're not saved.
If you're not assembled, you're not saved.
Called out assembly of the church.
Now, I'm not getting into Catholic doctrine where it says if you don't go to worship, you literally are not saved.
Or if you don't participate in community, I'm not doing that.
What I'm saying is we've got to get our ducks in a row.
We've got to get things in the right order.
This is it.
If you cannot worship God with full devotion, proskuneet, or if you can't get on your face here, you will not get on your face out there.
And if you cannot get on your face, then you are at least not as good as the wise men.
But notice, and let us not ever forget, the wise men only did it once.
They went all that distance.
They brought those gifts.
They risked their lives going to the king that would be replaced.
They did all of that, and they only did it once.
Because they didn't know that he was the Christ.
They didn't know that he would be Jesus.
They didn't know that he would be the one who saved mankind.
That he would be the ruler of all.
But you know.
And you don't do it just once.
You do it in the collected body of believers that God puts you in.
You are the church.
Ecclesia.
Called out assembly of believers.
You are the church.
You do it in the collected body of believers that you are a part of.
You do that every Lord's Day, which is the first day of the week, not the last.
A pastor friend of mine posted something on Facebook about how the last day of the week
and the last day of the year fall the same this year.
That's kind of exciting.
And I was like, what?
Sunday is not the last day of the week.
Sunday is the first.
It's not the weekend, brother.
It's not the weekend, sister.
It's the week beginning.
This is it.
This is how we start our week.
We come together as the assembled body of believers and we worship God.
We get on our face.
So get on your face.
We get ourselves out of the picture.
And we worship God.
And that starts our week.
And then all week long.
And we come together.
We worship God on Tuesday.
And if you don't do that, that's fine.
That's that's between you and the Lord.
But you are supposed to be worshiping God all week long.
It's not about I can as a believer.
It's no longer about I can worship God in the forest or on a mountain or wherever.
It's not I can.
It's if you don't.
You're not a believer.
This is God we're talking about.
He literally saved your soul if you're saved.
He literally came and took your sins if you're saved.
The one who was present at the creation of everything and without him nothing was created except that which was created through him.
He took your sins.
My sins.
You can't worship him.
You can't get on your face before him knowing that he is a gentle servant himself that he will raise you up.
The more time you spend literally and figuratively the more time you spend on your face before God the more he will lift you up.
Because he who humbles himself before the Lord the Lord will exalt him.
The more time you spend worshiping like this in full obeisance offerings befitting his nature his life's work and his sacrifice.
No journey too long circumventing any authority that would try to stop you associating with the poor and the hunted and whatever else.
The more time you worship God like that the more he will fuel you and make you able to worship him.
And if ever you miss it you should miss it.
Because here in this body some prophets some pastors some teachers some preachers here all people work together with their gifts.
And as we're all working together with our gifts we all grow up into the image of the Lord as every joint supplies.
And you are that.
But we need to be here.
Are you here?
We need to be here under the Lord.
Are you here under the Lord?
We need to be here prepared to give of ourselves.
Are you prepared to give of ourselves?
You're just coming to get something.
There was a for the longest time and I think it's still true today actually people thought of the church this way.
They see the church as a grand play.
In that grand play people think the church is the critic.
God is the prompter and the preacher is the actor.
So you come to watch the preacher and figure out what's going to go on to know what's going to go on and criticize.
Because you think that's your role.
But actually it's not that way.
God is the prompter.
God is the critic.
And the church, including the pastor, is the actor.
We are in this together.
I cannot worship God the way I want to without you with me.
And not just you but others who will come.
And you cannot worship God the way you want to without the person next to you with you or the person across the room.
You say, I don't hardly know them.
You don't have to.
When you come to God in their presence you are coming just like the wise men did, willing to affiliate and associate with people that you hardly know.
Strength of character is this.
Strong emotion.
But under control.
What control?
The control of worship.
I'm asking you today, do you worship the way the wise men came to worship?
And if you do not, what are you willing to do to protect your rule, your lifestyle?
These two questions will reveal to you what you need to repent of in turning to the Lord.
And really just turn to the Lord.
It's not about shame.
It's not about guilt.
It's not about feeling bad about yourself.
God doesn't do that.
God loves us.
And he would have us to repent and say, he is on the throne.
By the way, when you deny that God is on the throne of your life, one of you is a liar.
And it isn't God.
He is on the throne.
When you refuse to get on your face before him, oh don't worry.
You will eventually, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.
We come together to worship.
What goes on out there?
That's life.
They say you can worship in the woods.
Of course you can.
That's like nothing.
It means nothing.
It literally means nothing.
The question is, we come together to worship.
That means something.
It is what we are commanded to do.
At this time, I ask praise you to come forward.
See us in our closing hymn.
The Lord has spoken your heart today and he is calling you to some act of worship.
Say something.
Some act of service to do something.
To repent and turn to him and say, God help me worship you the way they did.
The way they came to worship you.
Not just once, but always.
I remember, times when I have and times when I haven't.
You probably do too.
We have to get outside our box, if you will.
Put ourself away and let him be the focus of our worship.
Today and always.
Ideally, every day.
There is a question.
What do you think one of the number one actions in heaven would be?
Read about it in Revelation.
Worship.
You know what they will do in heaven?
Worship.
24 elders remove their crowns and cast them as people.
You will have a crown too.
You will be serving the Lord during the playtime.
You will have an opportunity to cast it down.
Worship.
Stand with me and sing this song if you are willing and able to do so.
This is our closing hymn.
Just as I am without one thing but that heaven was your...