Gospel Worship - Sunday, February 26, 2023
2023-02-26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdkNtcicPqI

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Okay. Good morning, everybody. We're going to get started today. It's so loud. We're going to get started today by standing together and reading out of Psalm 66. So if you'd like to do that, let's go ahead and stand up. And we'll be doing verses 1 through 5. It says, "Shout for joy to God, all the earth. Sing the glory of his name. Give to him glorious praise. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds. So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds towards the children of man." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the opportunity to get here today and to be able to worship you together with each other.

and to sing together and to open up your word and just see what we have to learn today from you. Be with our service today and allow everything to run smoothly with all the new stuff we're doing, and allow it to glorify you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. If you can't tell, we got a new system up here, and hopefully everything runs pretty smoothly with it today. We will see. Just follow along and smile and nod your head. So we're going to begin with Great Are You, Lord.

In our life, You are love. You bring light to the darkness. You give hope. You restore every heart that is broken. Great are You, Lord. In our lungs, so we pour out our praise. Pour out our praise. It's Your breath. In our lungs, so we pour out our praise. You give life. You are love. You bring light to the darkness. You give hope. You restore. Every heart that is broken. Great are You, Lord. It's Your breath. In our lungs, so we pour out our praise. Pour out our praise. It's Your breath. In our lungs, so we pour out our praise. So we pour out our praise. You only. All the earth will shout Your praise. Our hearts will cry. These bones will sing. Great are You, Lord.

It's your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. It's your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. It's your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise. It's your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise to you only. Alright, we're going to be going into "Build My Life" and then our prayer and share time.

Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you.

Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever sing. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Oh, we live for you. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever sing. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Oh, we live for you. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me.

I will build my light upon your love. It is a firm foundation. I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not be shaken. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. All right, you may be seated. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Is this intentional? ...uncertainty with new technology, where everything is, my instant response is, "Well, this is probably just going wrong." So, and also, if you would like to talk like Russell, we have a couple more things we need to do in the chat. We have a couple more things we need to do in the very dusty attic, so you can just see me after if you would also like that, those changes to your voice. We're going to sing Living Hope, and then we are going to gather together for the Lord's Supper. So let's go ahead and sing.

How great the chasm that lay between us. How high the mountain I could not climb. In desperation, I turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night. Then through the darkness, your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished. The end is written. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame. The cross has spoken. I am forgiven. The King of kings calls me his home. Beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah. Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah. Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope.

Then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. Then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe. Out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. Jesus, yours is the victory. Hallelujah! Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah! Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Hallelujah! Praise the one who set me free. Hallelujah! Death has lost its grip on me. You have broken every chain. There's salvation in your name. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Jesus Christ, my living hope. Oh God, you are my living hope. In just a minute, we will spend some time this morning in those verses in 1 Peter that point us to that living, or if you have a King James translation, a lively hope.

And as we prepare to gather around the table in the book of Malachi, most of the book is God pouring out judgment, God pouring out judgment on unfaithful people, unfaithful leaders. But throughout the book is this picture of hope and promise coming. And so in the very last chapter of Malachi, there is this picture that there is a day coming. And for those who do not fear the Lord, it will be a day of fear and of reckoning. And then he says this in verse 2, "But for those of you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall." And that picture of the hope of Israel, people in the midst of enduring injustice, who are in the midst of enduring hopelessness to have this promise that one day there is this hope coming that will make them.

And if you've ever driven by a field and seen the lambs and the cows and the calves bouncing around in the field, on those beautiful spring days, this picture of hope that doesn't just help us intellectually, but it revives our souls. And the chapter ends like this: "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." And there is this picture of not just hope, but of restoration, that God will come and He will transform and change hearts on that day. And so, as we come to the good news of the Gospel this morning, that Jesus died for our sins, taking all of our brokenness, He rose for our victory, and in the Gospel, the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus,

that He has given us His righteousness, we find this picture of hope that should make our hearts leap for joy. And so, as we break this bread, and as we drink this cup this morning, let us be reminded that no matter how dark our lives look, how dark the world around us looks, how much fear and uncertainty we face, that in Christ there is this hope that's not just intellectual, but it is alive, and it changes and transforms us. So, I'm going to pray, and then we will partake together. Father in heaven, thank you for your word and for your church. Be with us this morning as we look to you as our hope. It's so easy to become busy and distracted and overwhelmed and overworked and overtired, and so I just ask in these moments as we partake of this meal together and as we open your word together,

that you would restore our souls with hope, that you would energize us like you see in Malachi, with joy and excitement over what you have done. And so we ask that you would help us in how we think and in how we feel and in how we live this morning. And so be with us as we partake of this bread and this cup. Remind us of the cost of our rebellion. Remind us of the righteousness of Christ that has been given to us. And remind us of the hope that is before us. It is in your son's name we pray. Amen. If you would take the bread with me as Jesus did and as he said and Paul records, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." If you would take the cup with me as Jesus did and as Paul records, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink this, do this in remembrance of me."

And a reminder for us, it's sometimes very easy for us to see this as something that maybe is about us or it's something for the church, but Paul will say in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 11 that this is a proclamation of our hope. It's not just a reminder that by eating this bread and drinking this cup, we proclaim Jesus until he comes again. So we've been talking a little bit about the gospel. Last week and this week and last week, we unpacked a little bit about what makes the gospel special, that it is good news. It is not good advice. It is about what Jesus has done. He has taken our brokenness. He has given us his righteousness. So this morning, I want to take a look from 1 Peter 1 at how the gospel moves us into worship, but it is not just a worship experience or this moment of awe and wonder over the gospel, but this worship lies at the heart of following Christ.

So that the gospel, as we hear it and respond to it, it moves us into worship, and that worship will fuel us as we follow Christ into deeper righteousness. And Spurgeon will say about the place that we are going to find ourselves this morning in 1 Peter, he will say this, "In these three verses, we have a string of pearls, a necklace of diamonds, a cabinet of jewels." And then he will go on to say, "Well, these comparisons aren't very good at all. We have something far better than all of the riches of the earth can ever typify." And so I'm going to read these three verses, and then we'll dive into it together. It says this by Peter, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time." This is the Word of God. Father in heaven, be with us this morning as we look at the wonder of the Gospel. We know that these things are hard sometimes for us to see the depth and the width and the height and how good for us is. And so we ask, like Paul asks, that you would help us to see this wonder, to be transformed by this wonder, and that you would call us further into righteousness with you. And so be with us this morning. May you help us, help our hearts, and help our minds, and help our lives to see your goodness.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now one of the things that happens, I think, as we get older, and you can sort of see this in children, is that children have this great wonder and joy in so many things. Many things they have wonder and joy about that you and I, as adults, we look at it and we say, "Well, that's not that big a deal." And one of the things that I think happens with us, is that we have a tendency, as we grow older, as we see more, to take things for granted, and we also begin to lose our wonder and joy, especially as we become sort of more cynical. So let me give you an illustration of what it's like to lose your wonder and your joy. So if you go back to 1896, and in the Yukon Territory of Canada, there's the Klondike.

You've probably heard about the Klondike Gold Rush. And so in 1896, gold is discovered, and by the time the word begins to reach out and everybody will finally begin to hear about it, it will be 1897 when San Francisco hears that there is gold near Alaska in Canada in the Klondike. And so in true Gold Rush fashion from that era, a whole bunch of people began to pack up an analysis of this that it said it was close enough that most people thought they could get there, but far enough that it was still really, really hard to do so. And I think the numbers are something like 100,000 people will set out to go find their fortune in the Klondike. The records show that probably 30,000 or 40,000 people actually persevered in that journey. 60,000 or 70,000 will get along the way, and others say it's too hard, and they'll turn around and go back home.

Now, in a lot of ways, it's not too hard to get there, but it's hard to get there with everything that you need. And in fact, the Canadian government at one point will say, because we don't want you all dying in the snow in the winter, that if you're going to legally be allowed to come here and mine for gold, you have to bring with you enough supplies to be able to survive through the terrible winter that you're about to endure. And so the average equipment load for one person going to the Klondike was something around 1,150 pounds of stuff, right? That's just their food. And then you add in camping tools, camping equipment. The typical traveler, they estimate, carries about 2,000 pounds of stuff. And you know, obviously, you're not going to be carrying a ton of stuff physically, so everybody's trying to buy,

they're trying to rent people who can transport their freight, and as a result of the scarcity and the demand for pack animals, the prices begin to skyrocket. And so even bad horses at this time in sort of the jump off town to go into the Klondike are selling for $700, which we say, "Well, that doesn't seem like very much for a horse." But in 1897 dollars, that would equate to about $19,000 today. And people were renting out their horses, and they'll say, "Well, I'll rent you this horse for $40 for the day." Now in our 2020, that comes out to about $1,100. And so we're talking about great effort, great expense to go and to go over these mountain passes to get there and to get gold. And most people, it'll take them about a year to do the journey. It's going to come at great physical risk. It's going to come at

great financial cost. And it's going to require this depth of determination that most of us have not experienced. Now, let me tell you how we've lost our joy. So a couple of years before I was married, one of my friends from college was in charge of a week of church camp in Alaska. And he's like, "Hey, you want to come to Alaska and preach at a church camp?" I said, "Well, I want to come to Alaska. Church camp will get me there. Absolutely." And so, you know, they sent me a plane ticket. And I remember getting on that flight to Alaska and looking at how long it was going to be. And you know what I did? I just grumbled the whole day. "Well, I'm going to be stuck on this plane for this long. I better get an aisle seat.

You know, hopefully we're not on time." Right? And I get off the plane, and it's still light because it's a 30 in Alaska, and it was still light at that time of year. And I'm just tired, and I'm grumpy, and I'm grumbling this flight was for me to come from Winchester, Virginia, where I left, and it was light out. And I get there, and it's light out. And I can just imagine, right, all the Klondike gold miners going, "Are you serious right now?" Right? Because for half of the cost for them to rent a horse for a day, right, I went from one side of the United States to the other in relative comfort. But I didn't see it as amazing. What did I see it as? I saw it as this hassle, and I was upset about having to sit and to ride

and to be inconvenienced. And some guy kept stealing my armrest. You know what happened? I completely missed the wonder of the fact that I had covered thousands of miles in just a span of an hour. And we do this all the time to be so accustomed to all of the good things that we have that we began to take them. And as we grow up, what happens? We begin to lose our joy. We stop seeing the amazement in the world and in the life in which we live. And this doesn't just happen for us physically, right? It happens for us spiritually as well. It doesn't just happen with things like airplanes or electricity or running water, right? We have texts like these three verses this morning in 1 Peter 1. And we look at that and we say,

"Okay, that's great. God has done this for me." And it's so easy for us to move on and to miss the joy. Now, I want you to see that as Peter writes this, he's not just explaining some intellectual things to us. In fact, the first 12 verses, or chapter 1, verse 3 on to verse 12, is one big long sentence in Greek. And so if you've ever had one of your kids or somebody's kid come up to you really excited and they're talking so fast with no pauses, what Peter is doing as he writes this whole section is he's so excited he doesn't even stop to take a breath. So from verse 3 all the way down to the end of verse 12 is one sentence, and in this sentence there is one main clause.

And that main clause is simply this: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." So Peter's emphasis in writing this isn't to sort of intellectually outline a whole bunch of facts. What he is doing is saying, "God is so good," and his praise begins to pour out of him, and everything else in this text is a supporting clause. And what that means is it all supports those words: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." So everything else you hear after verse 1, that phrase in verse 1, all points back to something good that God has done. And what Peter is doing is he is overflowing in praise, right? When we're excited about something and can't stop talking about it, that's what Peter is doing here. And so I want to show you briefly what moves Peter to worship, and then I want to talk about how worship impacts us as we pursue righteousness.

And so Peter has five things here that move him to worship. The first is this: God's mercy. And he will say, "According to God's great mercy." And mercy is not getting what you do deserve, and I don't mean that in a good way, right? Where you work all week, and they say, "Sorry, we're not going to give you a check that week," and so you don't get what you have earned. That's not what mercy is. Mercy is not getting what you deserve, even though you do deserve it because you've done something wrong, right? The illustration would be we get pulled over for speeding, and we deserve a ticket. And the police officer or the sheriff's deputy has mercy on us and lets us go without a ticket, right? That's mercy. Not giving me something that I deserve because I have done something wrong.

And when Peter talks about mercy, there's a couple of different ways this word is used in Greek. And both words sort of have this idea behind them of sympathy and empathy and compassion for someone. But the word that Peter uses here specifically means more than that. Yes, you feel empathy and sympathy and compassion, but the key difference is I put that sympathy and that action and that compassion into practice. And the picture of what Peter is saying here is that when God has mercy, He doesn't simply look at you and go, "Man, I feel really bad," and that must be terrible for them. That He sees our suffering, He sees our hurt, and then He does something about it. He takes action with us. And it's not just that He has mercy, but who does He have mercy upon?

Is it somebody who's made a mistake? I have a lot of capacity for mercy for somebody who has done something accidentally. It's easy to say, "It's not a big deal. Don't worry about it," for somebody who has made a mistake. Or maybe somebody who doesn't know what they're doing, and they end up over their head. It's not hard for me to extend mercy to those people. That's not what God is doing here, though. He's extending mercy. Not to somebody who's made a mistake or just kind of took a wrong turn. He is extending mercy to those who have eminently opposed Him. He's extending mercy to His enemies. And so the first reason Paul says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," because He has seen His enemies, and seen their brokenness, and seen their hurt, and seen their pain,

and He has done something about it. He has had mercy. And then he will go on to say that He has caused us to be born again. And we've heard this phrase. In fact, it comes from John chapter 3, where this sort of religious official, Nicodemus, he comes to Jesus, and he wants to ask Him some questions. And we're not sure if this guy comes at night because he's just so busy during the day. He doesn't have any other time. But more likely, he comes to talk to Jesus because he doesn't want anybody to know that he's talking to Jesus. And as he talks to Jesus, Jesus will say something to him that is really startling. He'll say, "You must be born again." And Nicodemus goes, "How is that possible?" And as adults, that doesn't make a lot of sense to say, "You have to be born again."

In fact, I looked it up. The world record for a child being born is like 22 pounds. I can't imagine that. And there's been several cases between 15 and 17 pounds, but I would guarantee that us as adults, like most of us, we haven't seen that kind of weight for decades. And so what is Jesus? He's not speaking about a physical birth, which is what Nicodemus struggles with. He's talking about a spiritual birth. And what Peter is doing is directing us to this wonderful truth that God has given us a new life, that God has taken us away from sin. He has brought us into hope. And as Paul will say in Romans chapter 6, that he has raised us to walk in a brand new life. And it's not something that we accomplish on our own by doing something that we have achieved,

but he will say it is God who has caused us to be born again and in just a minute to a living hope. And I want you to sort of see what happens in that idea of being born again. Because we live in a world where we like to restore a bunch of stuff. In fact, you can watch TV, people are restoring cars, they're restoring antiques, treasured family heirlooms. And there's also a big television market for people who are taking old houses and they're restoring them. And oftentimes when we think about making something new, we think about maybe fixing the problems or expanding it to make it bigger. And when we talk about being born again to a new life, we're not talking about Jesus coming in and sort of painting over our flaws. We're not talking about Jesus coming in and sort of expanding our capabilities in some way.

When we talk about being born again, what we are talking about is Jesus shows up in a bulldozer and tears our life down and builds us something brand new. That we die to sin and we are raised to walk into a brand new life. We're not talking about being born again as sort of a restoration of what we already are. We're talking about something brand new. And what Peter will go on to say is that we are born again to a living hope. So Peter has said, "I worship because of God's mercy. I worship because God has made me new. And I worship because God has brought me to this living hope." Now we use hope in so many different ways. And most of us use hope as a synonym for wish, right? I hope the weather's better tomorrow. I hope this happens. I hope that happens.

Most of the time we can just replace the word hope with wish. That's not biblically what is happening. Hope, biblically, is certainty in the future provision and the goodness of God. It's not an uncertain thing. In Psalm 42, as the psalmist is writing, and we've talked about this before, he's preaching to himself. He will say to himself, "Self, hope in God." And when the psalmist says that to his weary soul that feels like it's been chased to the edge of the desert with no water, he's not saying it in a wishy-washy kind of way. What he is saying is be confident that God will restore you. Be confident. Be strong in God. Be courageous in God. And what the psalmist is doing is in his own soul saying, "Hope in God." And it's not just a generic hope, but it's a living hope or a lively hope.

So I have this stuffed dog that I've had, I think, probably since I was two or three years old. So it's very well-worn and very well-loved. But that difference between that stuffed dog and our two very real dogs is what happens. That stuffed dog will just kind of sit wherever I put him, right? Stick him in the closet, he sits there. Stick him on the shelf, he sits there. What about my real dogs? They're probably in the trash right now, right? That's what dogs do, right? They move and they run and they chase things. And when Peter says, "You have a living hope," he's not just talking about a hope. A hope you take and stick in the closet for a raining day, or a hope you take and you put on a shelf that you look at.

He's talking about something that is living, and it's moving, and it's taking action in the midst of your life. It's not just a decoration, but it is something that moves and lives and breathes in your life. And he's going to go on to make sure we understand that this is both an impactful hope, that because Jesus rose from the grave, the thing that we fear, the end of our life, we don't have to be afraid. And Jesus, in his resurrection, has a victory for us. And so this hope is not just alive, but it makes a difference. And then he will say this, that you have an inheritance. So if you're keeping track, Peter is worshiping God because of his mercy to the undeserving, because he has brought new life to the broken. He is bringing living hope to people who are hopeless. And then he invites them into the family. And that's the picture of this inheritance.

And Peter doesn't just say there is an inheritance, but he speaks about it in some specific terms. He will say, first of all, is that it is imperishable. And in our world, everything wears out. Our clothes wear out. Our shoes wear out. Our cars wear out. Our bodies, as we get older, begin to feel like they're wearing out. What Peter is saying is that this inheritance never wears out. Right? You can put your life on this hope, and it will never get weaker. It will never get less shiny. And it doesn't get dirty. That's what he means when he says that it is undefiled, right? We find in our life something good can be made into something terrible, right? Just by adding some contamination, right? If you want a picture of what undefiled hope, right? What's the difference between a piece of gum you pull out of a package and unwrap,

and the piece of gum you find on the sidewalk outside the church, right? There's a significant difference between the two of those. One of them has, by the addition of contamination, become incredibly undesirable, and we find things that are ruined by contamination all of the time. And Peter says this hope that you have, this inheritance that you have, right? It doesn't wear out. It doesn't get dirty. It never becomes less effective, and it doesn't fade. And so Peter will say all of these wonderful things. There's mercy. There's a new life. There's this living hope. There's an inheritance. And part of my mind says, "Well, that's all great as long as I can hold on to it." As long as I'm strong enough to keep next to these things, that's great. And Peter, it's almost as if he anticipates our objection to this worship. Yes, God is good because He gives mercy, and He makes a new life, and He gives us a living hope, and He gives us this inheritance, but I'm not strong enough for that.

And then Peter will say this so wonderfully: "Who," speaking to us, "who by power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." Right? This picture of protection. A couple years ago, or I guess it had been like a year and a half or two years ago, we added a new dog to our family. It was a bit of a traumatic experience, and for whatever reason, our German Shepherd Kaiser has very deeply bonded with Rachel. And do you know how hard it is to have an argument with your wife when there's 95 pounds of German Shepherd just standing next to her leg looking at you like, "Are you sure you really want to do this, sir?" Right? It takes it to a whole different level. And the picture here is those of us who are fearful, we say, "Yeah, there's mercy, but is it for me?"

Yeah, there's a new life, but is it for me? Yeah, there's hope, but is it for me? There's an inheritance, but can I hold on to it? Here is God standing there protecting these things. That God is not passive, saying, "Here, it's yours if you can hold on to it." He says, "I am guarding you through your faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time." And Peter says, "This is why we worship." Because God has taken his enemies, and he brings them in, and he transforms them, and he guards them, and he holds on to them, and it's wonderful. And we might say, "Why does that matter to me?" Why does this idea of worshiping God matter? Here's the thing: if you and I are to pursue righteousness, it must be fueled and brought into our lives through worship. Right? As we see the good news of the Gospel,

as we are moved to worship, it's going to transform how we live, right? As we see the good news of what Jesus has done, and we are moved to worship, it's going to keep us from going after other things. But it's also going to empower us to do what he has called us to do. And in the Gospel, in worship that flows from the Gospel, you're going to see this both negative and positive effect. Negative in that it's going to hold you back from chasing those things you shouldn't. And positive in that it's going to energize you to follow Jesus more deeply in a wonderful, wonderful way. And so the first thing we see is that worship, driven by the Gospel, is going to keep us from sin. And that, on the surface, might sound a little strange. How can worship

keep me from sin? What we find is that worship of God, brought in by the Gospel, will keep us from pursuing sin. So where most of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments, which by and large are a bunch of things that we are not supposed to do, right? Not supposed to have any other gods, not take God's name in vain, right? Don't dishonor the Sabbath, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't lie. All of these things that we aren't supposed to do. And a lot of us, I think, when it comes to the Ten Commandments, for example, we'll think of them as a list, right? Here's ten things, and I just got to check off that I haven't violated any of these things. But I don't think the Ten Commandments are as much of a list as it is a building that is supported by one of these Ten Commandments.

And if you take away one of these commandments, the rest will come tumbling down. Let me give you an example. The very first commandment in Exodus 20:3 is all about worship, right? It says, "You shall have no other gods before me." God will say to his people as the very first thing in this sort of Ten Commandments, this sort of summary of the moral behavior he expects from his people, he will say, "You shall have no other gods before me." Another way, don't worship anybody else. And so how does this one picture of worship support the rest of the commandments, right? Don't worship anything else. Here's what happens. If I am worshiping God above all else, am I going to go make some idols? I'm not. If I'm worshiping God before all else, am I going to take his name in vain? I'm not.

If I worship God above all else, when it comes to the Sabbath, and I have to put my trust in him rather than myself for provision, am I going to break that command? Not if I worship God above all else. Let me give you one example from those that we're very familiar with. Think the idea of stealing, where God in the Ten Commandments says, "Don't steal." You might say, "How does worship impact stealing?" There's generally two reasons I think we can give that we would steal. Maybe it's there's something that we want. "If I get this, it will make me happy." The other reason that we might steal is I need this to fix a problem that I have, right? If I get this, I'll be happy, and I'm just going to take it. If I get this, my problems will be fixed, and my life will be saved, right?

Two reasons. One, maybe out of desire. One, maybe out of this idea in our head that we have to have this. Whatever it is, it will fix my problem. I'll tell you what, that's not a stealing problem. That's a worship problem. If God is my happiness, everything I desire, and He is my salvation, He comes into my brokenness and saves me. Ultimately, me not stealing, it's not about me just not taking stuff, it's about worshiping God. If God is my joy, and God is my salvation, then I'm not going to look at physical things as joy and salvation. And so if you can keep this first commandment, if you have this picture of worship, which is brought about not through our strength, but through the goodness of the gospel, it changes how we live. I don't have to lie anymore because I'm not the center. And we lie to protect ourselves, and we lie to make ourselves look better.

But if it's all about Jesus and what He has done, if it's all about worship, you see, worship doesn't just sort of change us emotionally. It keeps us from sin because of Jesus is at the center. The other thing that happens with this is that worship moves us. Think about the things in life that motivate us. Sometimes we're motivated by fear, and sometimes fear is a very good thing. It wakes us up. It brings us to the point where we say, "I've got to change things." But if you continue to live a life that is motivated by fear, how far are you going to continue to run? I don't know about you, but I'm going to run just as far as I feel safe. If I see something over here that I'm afraid of, I'm only going to go away from that just as far

as I feel like I am safe. And so while fear may get our attention, and it may put us on the right track, if we live our life in fear, we'll eventually just say, "You know what? I've gone far enough. I've done enough." And then some of us, when we come to life, we live out of obligation. I remember in high school, they would assign you a paper to write, and some teachers would say, "Well, it needs to be this many pages." And so you would try to come up with a way, and they were generally, rarely fooled by this, right? How can I extend the amount of words I've written into more pages? You had to be really subtle about it. They said, you know, one-inch margins. And so you do like, 1.15-inch margins. Just enough so they couldn't tell, but it stretched your paper out.

And you couldn't go to a size 13 font, but you sure could go to a 12.5, right? Try to stretch out that paper, right? Or this, if there was an amount of words required in a paper, all of a sudden, instead of, you know, English class, Brandon Merrill, you know, I became Brandon Scott Merrill, and then sometimes I'd add some extra middle names just to bump that word count up a little bit. And I'll tell you what, right? If we had to write 5,000 words, I hit that 5,000 words, and I'm just crashing that paper into the ground, right? I'm not writing a conclusion. I've hit my limit, and I am done. I have met the requirement. I don't need to do anything else. And so if we try to live our life through this obligation, right, we're going to do

just enough, right? And maybe we're going to try to find some ways to shortcut it. So maybe I can kind of make it look like I did enough, but I really didn't do it at all. And if we live our life, and if we try to move into righteousness through fear, we've gone out of fear. If we try to do it, eventually we're going to say, I've done enough, and we're going to stop. But I'll tell you what, if you live your life as the gospel brings you to worship, there will never come a point where you will stop. If we pursue love and joy, it's why maybe we get to work, and we suffer through our day, and we get home, and we'll dive with unlimited energy into our hobbies, because it's something that we love. And so if you come to

following Christ out of fear and obligation, sometimes those things can wake you up and get you started, but they will not sustain your walk with Christ. The only thing that will sustain you is as you see the goodness of the gospel, that there is mercy, and that there is grace, and that there is a new life that has been given to you, and there is a living hope, and there is an inheritance, and God is guarding you, and what it's going to do is going to transform your life. And you're going to pursue righteousness, not out of fear or obligation, but you're going to pursue righteousness out of joy and love. And what you find is that when you're motivated by those things, you never stop running. You have this picture here of the gospel, the good news. And one of the things that we begin to see with all of

this is that every single one of our problems, ultimately, are not just about self-control or bad decisions, they're worship problems. And it's been that way since the beginning, in the garden, as Adam and Eve choose to eat that forbidden fruit, that's not just a disobedience problem. It's their choosing to worship and elevate themselves over God. And everybody in this world, we're all worshipers. It's not about will you worship, it's about what will you worship? Or who will you worship? Are we going to worship ourselves and our own strength which falls apart so easily? Or will we put our hope in God who has saved us, who has made us new, who as we pursue righteousness strengthens us and keeps us through from sin by His grace and who protects us? The question this morning is not are you a worshiper or not, it's who ultimately are you worshiping?

Let's pray. Father in heaven, help us as we seek to pursue righteousness. Help us to do so not through our strength, but through yours. Help us to see the good news of the gospel. And may love and joy and worship move us and energize us to follow you more deeply. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing Jesus Messiah. "He became sin" Who knew no sin That we might become His righteousness He humbled Himself And carried the cross Love so amazing Love so amazing Jesus, Messiah Name above all names Blessed Redeemer Emmanuel The rescue for sinners The ransom from heaven Jesus, Messiah Lord of all All our hope Is in You All our hope Is in You All the glory to You God The light of the world Jesus, Messiah

Name above all things Blessed Redeemer Emmanuel The rescue for sinners The ransom from heaven Jesus, Messiah Lord of all Jesus, Messiah Lord of all

I'm very thankful that you are here with us this morning. We will be back Wednesday night. We have been going through the book of James. And just a reminder, if you would like to watch those video sessions and you're not able to be here on Wednesday night, I can give you a link to sort of watch that playlist we put together of those sessions. It's been very helpful and very practical and been some good discussion. So that's Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Also, I'm very thankful for the project that was finished up yesterday. We've been talking about the projector. We've been turning it on in the mornings, and it's a little bit shaky. And I realize that this is at least 10 years old. And so as we've been talking about it, I'm very thankful for the gift of this to our church and for those guys who came yesterday to help us get it

onto the wall. That was a nerve-wracking thing to watch as you've got, you know, 86 inches of glass trying to be hung on the wall. It's an interesting experience. So we are very thankful for that. Our next project that we are going to begin working on and we're going to start moving some things out this week is that downstairs room with the flood-damaged floor. We've got some repairs to do before we're ready to start that. Start that in earnest and some prep work to do, and so we're going to begin to get those started and ready to go so that we can use that room a little more easily and without having to worry about tripping over damaged floors. So that's our next project, and so we'll talk to you just a little bit more about that as we move forward. So I'm going to pray, and then we will read from Romans 12 together, and then we'll sing the doxology.

Father in heaven, I thank you for your graciousness to us. I'm so thankful for how you have taken care of us and how you have helped us. And so we just ask that you would help fix our eyes and our minds and our hearts on you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Romans 12, Paul says this, "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you might discern what the will of God, discern what the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For more information, visit www.fema.org.