Discipline of Worship

Welcome to The Student Podcast. This is where two guys get together and we discuss and learn how to be students of Jesus Christ. So good to have you today. Yeah, so anyways, when I was doing my internship and I was running our business, I became very conscious of the fact that if I was to engage in any type of ministry I needed to actually make sure it was worth it.
Sure. Not half baked, not, you know, just go out at the fly of this, of my pants because people's time is valuable. And I remember just thinking I have three and by the end of it, four kids and it was just like, what am I doing here? Yeah. You know, like it's only so much time in a day. Yeah. And so, um, so I'm sorry that tech took me so long to set up the night. Uh, yeah.
It seems like the fact of the fallen world. If you have a cord, it's going to get tangled. And if you have a car, it's going to break down. If you have a tire, it's going to get a flat. And if you have a marriage, it's going to need work. Yes. And if you have children, they're going to need to disciple the discipline. Growning, I guess. Some days are groanier than others, I guess. Some days are groanier than others. This is true. This is true. I always said that when I worked in the ER, you've got all creation groaning. Well, in the ER, it's not groaning, it's screaming at you. Oh, boy. Because you just see the acute effects of either depravity or just brokenness there, whether intentional or not.
Now you started doing that when you were 17 or 18? Yeah, I did the training when I was 17 and worked when I was 18. And that had to make, do you think it made you grow up faster? Oh yeah, yeah. I think so. I mean, not to be frightful about it, but there's something very maturing about seeing someone die and more than just one person die and dealing with it on a very regular basis. I don't know, I think, I know for people who, at least in Missouri, people who had multiple offenses who were juvenile, you know, like 16, 17, you know, just got their license, part of the rehab, not rehab, but ways you could get points off your license, back off your license, is you would do some, you know, crash training. They would basically scare you to scare the crap out of you to, you know, show you what an accident is, how stupid driving kills people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would have them come through the ER all the time. They'd lay out a body bag empty and show them where the trauma center was. And they'd walk, these high schoolers were like.
But that part of it was to like no. You are young and you're stupid and you need to wake up and realize like life is a thing you can't get behind. We only stupid OK and so that I think that was part of their intention with it, but definitely working in it. There's more to life than what a young typical 18 year old would blow off to be so.
It makes me think, I wonder if I should have a crash course or something for marriage counseling. Maybe it's more illustrations, but if you could visually see, here's this picture, here's their wedding day. Here's what their life looks now after their poor decision. Kind of like a reality check, a little bit. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to know those reality checks until it hits close to home. Right, right. But this has absolutely nothing to do with our chapter tonight. No. Except for maybe living in the presence of God.
Father, we thank you so much. It is a beautiful spring day. All creation declares your glory as the birds chirp and the grass is green. Lord, we just thank you that you remember us in your mercy, that you surround us with beauty, and that you have called us to respond to that in ways that bring you glory. In Jesus's name, amen.
All right, well, it's been about 17 years since we've done anything in this book, not because we haven't met, but we've had some personal time of prayer and worship together, and so that's, this is just, the podcast is just like, I don't know, we were just talking off air, it's kind of multiplication of industry, meaning like, I remember reading a pastoral theology book one time, they were like, keep all your notes for everything. Like any work that you do, like if you're exegeting a passage for a sermon, keep that because someday you're going to need those notes when you go for counseling or you're going to need those notes when you're at a Bible study. Keep that so that way you can write an article on that You know if the church newsletter has an article in the pastor writes or whatever, you know, you need to be conscious about how you're multiplying Not just doing one thing for one reason, but how can it be evergreen? So so I appreciate you doing an evergreen podcast with me that I hope isn't just Dies with you and I but I am thankful that I'm thankful for you for asking last time. Can we just hang out and pray.
And I was like, yes, I love it. Um, but this, uh, this time we come to chapter nine of, uh, Archon Hughes books on discipline of a godly man. And once again, I mean, I have read this book so many times, but it's been like, this is the first time in a long time I've gone through with a fine tooth comb and realizing that so many of the convictions I have now, were planted, the seeds were planted in this book. So I'm excited to get into this one because obviously in a reformed Presbyterian church, this hits close to home and it started my journey in a theology of worship. So what'd you think about his opening story of the pagan bishop, Yeah, it reminded me a little bit of I had an opportunity to go down to Peru.
And if you know anything about Latin America, it's very Roman Catholic. Catholics got there first, colonized the land and indoctrinated everybody. But now, you know, a couple hundred, at least a couple hundred years later, the native nature worship has very heavily morphed with nominal Roman Catholicism to the point that I remember there was a blaring, bright, shiny parade came through this one town and you're like, what is going on? Must be a national holiday or something. And it was like some day of the sun worship festivity put on by Roman Catholic priests singing some Roman Catholic song to the sun.
And it just, it made me kind of think of like, not that I think that the Roman Catholic Church is necessarily doing true worship, but it was interesting to see the mesh of syncretism there with that and just how like, yeah, we can, you know, in one way you say we're worshiping the one true God, and another way you say we're worshiping the sun, and there's no incompatibility there.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was thinking, uh, recently the, the kids and I, or the whole family has been going through family worship and we're in second Chronicles and we get to a has this time. And I was thinking, you know, at least a has is a credible pagan. Yeah. Right. Like he locks up the temple, you know, no worshiping here only at the high places, but we're going to offer incense to everyone. Oh no. Yeah. The Syrians defeated us. So that must be stronger than Jehovah. So we'll just start worshiping him too. All the while God's just, you know, punishing him, punishing him, punishing him.
And part of me is like, that type of overt paganism sometimes is like, okay. But then I have to remind myself and the kids of what was going on in Samaria. And in Samaria at the temple, they literally had Baal worship, but it was patterned after the temple. And they said they were truly worshiping Jehovah. And in some ways, at least this bishop says, oh, we're renting it out to the pagans, and that's good. And obviously that's sinful. But at least you're like, well, at least they're actual pagans.
Whereas I was listening to a lecture or a sermon, something like that, by Vody Bauckham. I think it was just yesterday. And he was saying our culture has so far been moved away from not just the regulative principle, you know, God's, or we only do and worship what is explicitly commanded by God or, you know, what is by due and necessary consequence derived from God's word. But it's not just that, it's not even the normative principle, which is even more loose, you know, whatever's not forbidden is allowed. He says we've moved into this era of affective principle.
Whatever draws in people, whatever appeals to their affections, whatever makes them have a experience is okay and God will honor that. And I was thinking how many books on worship and how many articles come across my desk on worship and church revitalization and how you should term things on your website and all this other stuff where the word worship is actually going away. Really and more and more and more in contemporary evangelical type circles the word the Kind of hot word right now is experience. Okay, that's gonna say I've heard celebrate Celebration or experience but but the heavy emphasis is on What do you experience? And if you come into an experience with God, then who's to tell you you haven't.
And that's a tough thing. I remember my pastor, Micah Ramsey, he was doing a sermon one time on worship and he was just saying, The moment he realized that it couldn't be his fuzzy feelings was when he was at a parade and the national anthem was played and he got the same type of shivers in his spine that he thought he was getting when he was worshiping God at their community church. And he was like, oh, this feeling of experience, almost a transcendental type experience, that feeling of experience isn't necessarily tied to worship. And it started breaking down for him, a lot of things. And I thought, I think that's true. It can't just be our feelings, but what are we there for? Man, that was long-winded.
But he talks about a common assumption in that first, and this is what I'm getting at with that idea of if it's an experience. What is the common assumption underneath that of what worship is to be? Yeah, we're talking about the assumption of this kind of feeling-centered worship, experience-centered worship. I think it's the assumption that worship is about me, right? About what did I benefit from it? You know, what did I think of the service today versus a God-centered worship? How did God get joy from the service today? How was God honored? How did He change me through that?
Yeah, I meant to look up one word here and I was really glad. I'm going to jump around a little bit. It might be a little bit different than our normal ones. I was struck when I was doing just a word search study for a paper I did in seminary on the words that are used in the New Testament for worship. And both the words that are used for worship in the New Testament, there's a third one that's not used as frequently. I can't think of it right now.
But the two primary ones are Latre'o and Proskene'o. And Latre'o is what the priests would do in the Tabernacle and Temple. They would go into the Temple and they would serve God by the burning of incense, by the bringing of the showbread, by the offering of the sacrifices, by the sprinkling of the blood. The point is that they weren't necessarily serving themselves, but they were serving at God's altar. Sorry. I thought I had that on silent. This idea of service is literally baked into the idea of worship.
The second one is proskuneo, and that is the word for literally bowing down to someone greater than yourself. So this is what the disciples do in the boat when they say, you know, what type of man is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? And they bow down to him. They worship him. They recognize ontologically as he is someone greater than they are. And the only thing they can find themselves to do in his presence is to bow. D.A. Carson calls it a royal obscence. And so, This is the two main verbs we find for worship.
It's not people being served by God, but people coming into God's presence and serving him. And I think that radically changes the paradigm for what are we doing? So I know that's skipping ahead and it's going to be preachy and people are probably tuned out and that's fine. But he says in the second to last paragraph, worship begins not with man as its focus, but God.
Worship must be orchestrated and conducted with the vision before an August, awesome, holy, transcendent God who is to be pleased and above all glorified by our worship. Everything in our corporate worship should flow from this understanding. The piece that we get is a byproduct. That's what he says, right? It's Isaiah 6, being in the throne room of God, and how dare we do anything but stand with our mouths gape and say, woe is me, and just take in his majesty.
If we see the picture of worship in heaven, it's Yeah, it's hard to read and not be moved emotionally by it, but what are the people surrounding the throne of the Lamb doing? giving worth and honor to one on the throne. Their eyes are on the throne. They're not expecting the lamb to serve them. He has served them. He's a lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. He's sitting on the throne. What do we do? We sing with a myriad of angels.
He is worthy. and all eyes are on Him. I can't stress this enough in my own heart. This gives me riled up and excited, right? Because this is the heart of Christianity. It's how we serve a holy and awesome triune God who deserves all glory, honor, and might, right? He's the one that we look to. And so, And when I see just clips of what's going on in a lot of churches for worship, it makes me sad because I'm like, you're robbing these people. You're serving them in a sense because they're getting oftentimes some type of biblical counseling or biblical encouragement. but they're not coming to know the one that they're going to spend forever loving.
Um, so why, why, why is this even matter, right? That's what he gets with, uh, in this next reason, reason for God's in our worship. Why, why gets, why did Presbyterians and conservative, uh, you know, people on the side of worship get so bent up about this? Why does it matter?
Because God seeks our worship. and we are created to worship God and as just created beings we have a duty and a good enough reason to do it. Really? It's just duty? You just do it because God demands it of you? If we were only to do that we would be at best in profitable service. But we- But are there times that you don't want to? Oh yeah, yeah. There's lots of times.
And I think that's, you know, understanding that we were created to worship and knowing that we fell from that, right? That our natural bent in Adam is not to worship God. But to realize that as those who have been changed by Christ, yes, we have this duty and this reason that we've got breath moving in and out of our lungs like we should worship the Lord. But if that weren't enough, like he died for us and gave us a new heart to be able to worship him.
And so while, you know, we do have this struggle, sometimes Yeah, I gotta go to church. You know, yes, like you are worthy, but I need to like remember that like. The cross is there, right? There's there's double times double reason to worship God on top of just being made by him. And on top of that, God says no, I want you to come into my presence and I invite you in and I seek that. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Right.
Uh, he, and he, he points out, um, how heavily Jesus leans in or sorry, this, the scriptures lean in on the importance of worship just with it's massive, uh, priority, I guess you want to say, or presence in the Canon. Did you pick up on that right before divine presence? Yeah, Exodus has 25 chapters about how the tabernacle's supposed to be constructed. Leviticus has 27 chapters about how the nuts and bolts of liturgical Old Testament worship were to go. And if you skip too fast through the Bible, it'd still be hard to miss the Psalms, which are 150 chapters of praise and worship and pouring out our hearts to the Lord.
Yeah, no, I do got to say, you know, I came to, full disclosure, right, for anybody listening, they don't know who we are, right? Exclusive psalmody, right? That's one of the distinctives of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and that's what we're members of, right? But I came to exclusive psalmody, kicking and screaming. And even if nobody's convinced of exclusive psalmody, Ephesians and Colossians demand it must be at least psalm-inclusive, no matter what. So why do so many people have a hard time with psalms?
Yeah, I'm not sure. I guess that even like this is like a legit question. Yeah. Even talking with my wife who doesn't come from a psalm background by any means, but more of a broad evangelical, you know, I don't know why we never sing Psalms. Because they're they're at least there. It's hard to.
It's hard to read that in any, even with the most basic hermeneutic to miss that there's at least Psalms there to be sung. But you know, I think there's an idea that they're antiquated and especially if you come to the Bible with a more of a dispensational background. The Old Testament is nice info to have, but the New Testament is where we're at, big thing. And I think there is a genuine struggle that I've encountered with people in trying to sing the Psalms, and that is that, what does it talk about Christ anyway? Which also can come from a dispensational perspective on them. But It's a point that's fairly taken.
It never says Jesus. It never says Christ. It never says the Holy Spirit. I guess it does say the Spirit. I think those In our modern culture of an average believer who wants to go to church, get a quick fix, not have to think about it, not have to work, Psalms don't really have a place.
No, right? It's almost, they're almost too difficult. Yeah, yeah. It's like trying to, I mean, it's not like this, but I think some people view it like, oh, that's like a promise. Don't worry about that. Yeah, and yet there's so many times like when this happens to me quite regularly when I do my, you know, reading through the Bible type plans, you know, and I get to the Psalms and I'm like, oh man, there's so much Jesus here when I read through the Psalms. But the same thing happens when I read through the minor prophets, you know, often people are like, oh, it's the minor prophets. You know, and they don't give much attention and then you read books like Zephaniah How do you miss Christ here? Like you don't have to say the name Jesus to know this is talking about Jesus You can't read Psalm 22 and not I mean literally hear the words of Jesus and his arc of redemptive experience that you know, I I Like I said, I came kicking and screaming because it was just so foreign and off the map to me, and this isn't a podcast about or a discussion on psalmody, but I have come to deeply treasure the psalms. And for me, I came to it just by the point of liberty of conscience. Have I told you this before? The story of this? Maybe not this specific story. Okay. It was basically pragmatism. Sure.
We kept singing these songs that were written by heretics and edited by the OPC. And I was like, well, I'd rather just not sing those lines or those songs. And so I just had our pastor add me to the carbon copy list of order of worship so I could just look through myself and be like, can I sing this or not? And then there was a day I was like, oh, I can sing that. Oh, I can sing almost all of that. Oh, I can sing all of that. And the ones that I could sing part of were based on Psalms and the ones that I could sing all of it were Psalms.
Oh man, Olivia might have a point. Like just pragmatism because I was like, it'd be a lot easier if I just didn't have to read this. I'm going to make sure this is turned off. I don't know why it's making noises here. But then he brings out, okay, we are going to get off the hobby horse and get to divine presence. Now, I'm going to challenge Arkennt Hughes here a little bit. What scripture passage does he bring out for this idea that Jesus is present?
As I pull here, Hebrews 13.5, I will never leave you, forsake you.
Matthew 18.20, wherever you're gathered in my name, I am among them.
Yeah, so he really leans into that Matthew 18.20. Yeah. And this is a very, very typical, I mean, I pray this at worship all the time for the invocation. Right. So this copy of Disciplines of a Godly Man is literally, Pastor Snap gave me his copy. And so he literally has it bracketed and says out of context. So my question to you is why is it out of context? I'm trying to remember Matthew 18 is gonna be the context of correction, correcting a brother, right? So a few brother sins go one-on-one. If he's still sinning, go two-on-one. If he's still sinning, bring him to the church or wherever he is.
I think that's it. Yeah, that's exactly the context. Actually, I noticed one of the elements of worship he mentioned wasn't proclamations of church discipline. Okay, you know he bring bringing it to the church is literally meant to be this this Passage, you know, and and it's very true wherever two or three gathered together in my name there I am in the midst of them right this is but it's specifically talking about when there are charges brought against a brother and And this is done in my name, following these steps. It's meant to give us comfort, don't be afraid. I'm there with you, this is what you should be doing.
And so it's talking about the context and the life of the church. Specifically church discipline. So putting that in its proper context, the question then I have is, does it have any application to the question of worship? Yeah, I don't know if that specific, I mean, I think, I don't know if I'd go to that specific text to get his same idea. I mean, I think he's saying church discipline happens in the context of the church and where the church is gathered, disciplining God is there. That's comfort. But I think if he's trying to talk about more specifically, God with his church.
I mean, I think there's a lot of passages to go to for that. I think of Hebrews talks about, quote Psalm 40, I will declare your name in the midst of my brethren. Hebrews, whoever wrote it is saying, Christ is there worshiping with his people, right? Or- By the way, that's Paul who wrote that.
Don't worry about it. Everybody knows it. They just don't want to say it. Okay. Okay. Or you think of, or we're reading through Revelation right now, and you look at Christ dwelling in the midst of the land, right? In the midst of his church. I know your works. Christ knows his church. So I don't know, I think, yeah. That context aside, there could be some other things maybe to draw to. It's not a foreign idea to scripture is all I'm trying to say. You know, I do think it's actually true, right?
I think it's a stretch and sometimes we forget about its immediate context, but it's broader context is he's with his people when they assemble, even when they assemble for discipline, right? He's still even there in the midst of them. And so if he's there in the midst of them when they're assembling for a discipline, you know, to announce it to the church, then he would also be there with them when they come to sing his praises, when they come together to pray. Because the whole point of the church is this idea of the ecclesia, the assembling together. And so where two or three are assembled together, there I am in the midst of them. So I don't think he's necessarily wrong, but I don't think Pastor Snap is wrong either. I just, I have just kind of jumped on this hobby horse. There's lots of hobby horses.
You know, that's been true for a long time. Let's talk about AJ Gordon's vision. He has this dream. What's the dream he has? Yeah, interesting. So let's see, he would be the founder of Gordon Conwell Seminary, I guess. And he had a dream that he was preaching and looked out and saw this figure in the congregation who was there and he couldn't tell who it was in his dream. And then he asked later, who is here? And everyone tells him it was Christ who is there. in there and it was something that really impressed him that Christ is present with his church and I guess inspired him to start the college. I don't know if that alone would have, but just that Christ is present in corporate worship with his church and that it's more than just a social club or a nice thing to do in the middle of the week to get to see people and to sing songs and hear, learn more about Jesus.
It's like actually meeting with the living God. Yeah. Yeah. I really think that that's, uh, for all my hobby horse criticism, right? Like, like the, the heart of it being that, you know, enter into his presence with Thanksgiving into his courts with praise, right?
We are the, we are the temple of God. Now the living stones, you know, built together. And as we assemble together as a, as a temple of God, he, he truly is present with us. And so we, we come to him I mean you just think of how serious God takes his worship, whether that be Nadab and Abihu bring him strange fire, you know, think of who's the king who starts out well and then he kind of gets all puffed up and he tries to burn incense in the tabernacle, or the temple, they try to restrain him. Yeah, I think it is. And he breaks out with leprosy. Like the Lord takes his worship seriously. You don't just do whatever you want.
But we really do come into the presence of the living God. And I think I think that idea really helps from whatever context the listeners of this are coming from. Whether you come from a very conservative background where it's know what the safe Lord or you come from a more laissez faire like let's do whatever either way. Both need to understand that true worship is fueled from understanding the very presence of God.
Because I think, you know, even in our church, sometimes I look out and sometimes I myself, I'm like, we are just, are we worshiping today? Like, am I worshiping today? You know, and the same thing can happen in other contexts. To understand that when you read Revelation, night and day, they can't stop for eternity. Days after days after days, the most capable creatures of worshiping the Lord are doing all they can and they still aren't done, right? When we've been here 10,000 years, right? Here's a psalmist quoting him, you know? That's now, right?
I think it's easy to read Revelation and be like, oh, well, that's coming when it gets to happen. Or to read Isaiah and be like, oh, well, that was him during his vision, right? Woe is me from it. So understand that that's now. I think that's the answer for really understanding the heart of worship and really from that heart of worship, then understanding, okay, I need to have my priorities straight and understanding how to worship. Because I think it's easy for everyone to get like, well, do we do smoke? Do we not do smoke? Do we do psalms? Do we do hymns?
It's easy to get on the front end of that and just start seeing that at face value. But I think we've really got to take a step back both for how to worship and why we worship and to see God for who he really is. For him to breathe that awesome presence, that worthiness into our worldview of worship to put that proper perspective.
Yeah, yeah, you're spot on man. Uh, and I mean, that's where he gets into, uh, okay, so how do we do that? Right. Uh, and that says like this whole books on discipline. And so, uh, so he, he kind of, yeah, exactly. Right. Uh, so how, and now we need to make, be careful here. Right.
Uh, because once this moves into this discussion of worshiping in spirit and in truth to the nuts and bolts of how we, um, how we discipline ourselves to be there, we need to make sure that we don't become essentially a modern second wave, great awakening Methodist.
If you just prepare this way, you will come into a spiritual contact with God. No, no, no, no. We're just saying when we go through these disciplines, how can we best essentially prime the pump? Now, it's still up to the Lord how he effectually moves in our hearts. And so it's just one fear I had of this is if it's dumbed down to nothing more than a method, if you just go to bed early and you make sure you have your clothes laid out, then you're going to have a spiritual experience with God. But the whole point is not about a spiritual experience with God. That's a byproduct. Our experience. Because it's not based on this emotional high.
This is where Joel Hart, or not Joel Hart, sorry, Joel Wood, who was a pastor in the RP church, now he's in the PCA down in Southern California. He's on a different podcast, The Jerusalem Chamber. If you have a chance to listen to Joel, he's a pretty entertaining guy.
Um, but he was talking about like, uh, we might want to act like we're as RP so high and above all this, but every song singer knows when everybody seems to hit that right tone at the right moment. And it's just like perfect harmony. It's like, man, this is amazing. Or when you come to that point in the sermon when it seems like the Holy Spirit is directly working on your heart, and it's like, Lord, Lord, I need you. And I don't wanna leave this place of your presence. Like, that's real. And so I don't want people to hear either, like, it's not about experience. But neither is a frozen chosen. Right. Both of those are extremes that the Lord does show up and His presence is real when we assemble in His name. but we plead with him that he might be working effectually in our lives and stirring our affections towards him.
Uh, and so, uh, I just wanted to worry about that, you know, kind of put out that disclaimer, but what are some things that you thought were helpful about preparation? I think just the idea that you just don't show up to church. I think you know. We it's we live in a culture where that's easy to do. You know that we're blessed to have generally most towns have a church that is preaching the gospel somewhere within driving distance and you can show up. And you know, we've got a lot of other things that are going on on Sunday and it's easy to just leave church as well and almost like it's an appointment on my calendar. I show up at 9 I leave at 1030 and I go on with my day. 1030 you must go to a Presbyterian church.
I think here he's talking about like whoa let's slow down here right like you don't just have been church and go on right like no. Nice sound effects did we pay you for that? It's the software. But just to know that like you don't like slow down and slowing down starts on Saturday night and I know what he's talking about. For me like you know we've watched like a really high energy movie or something and it's just very thought provoking.
That is really hard for me to not think about for the next 24 hours. So that's not going to be helpful for me to just be able to really just slow down and come into the Lord's presence undistracted. Or if I, you know, I used to work night shift, work until 3 a.m. in the morning. Not the easiest thing to get off work and sleep for a few hours and get up to church.
Yeah, there's a guy in our congregation who's that way right now. It's difficult. There are a couple guys. Yeah, and so he talks about just really Coming to church not out of habit or out of like, oh, I guess that'll work today, but out of intentionality. And I think when, again, when we understand like, wow, God, the holy God seeks me to come. There's intentionality with that.
It's like if the president said, yeah, would you meet me at the Capitol at 10 for coffee? You'd make sure you were there at 10 a.m. for coffee and you weren't just hair messed up and whatnot, right? You'd be ready, right? You'd have your best suit on.
Actually, I'm reading this by autobiography of Mike Pence right now, and he talks about how the first time he was invited to the Oval Office, his mom bought him a new suit. That's like a good mama, you know, but, but yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're prepared to go there.
Um, and so I, there's some practical things helpful here, you know, make sure your Bibles are together, lay out some clothes early, try to go to bed on time. I remember when I was a member at Calvary reform PCA in Hampton, Virginia, uh, It was actually helpful for me. The session actually gave out a handout one time, it was an eight by 10 piece of paper that actually said, here are ways in which you can prepare for the Lord's day. And I thought, oh, this is kind of odd. I've never heard of this before. How do you prepare for church? Well, you show up. But then as I was reading through, I was like, oh, it kind of makes sense.
If I'm going to bed because I've been watching movies or something until midnight, one, two o'clock in the morning, I'm not going to be ready and alert for worship, right? I'm going to be tempted to be sleepy. By God's grace at that time, that worship was an option. But for many people, then worship becomes an option, right? Well, I can sleep or I could go to church. But it's go to the Super Bowl or go to church, right? It's a real thing. Yeah, like is it a priority, right? And so preparing worship as a priority, we do some things that make it a little bit easier at our house, right?
We use paper bowls every Lord's Day, and we always have the same breakfast. There's granola and yogurt. And if you don't like granola and yogurt, there's bananas. I don't know what else you're going to eat, you know, cause that's, that's what, that's what there is. Every, there's two different types of granola is typically. And so just, and so the kids just know when they come upstairs, Olivia's got the paper bowls there, they're able to just help themselves the breakfast and they eat and you know, they've got their Sunday clothes that are hung up in their place.
Grandma instituted that policy. Thank you very much, mom. And they just do their thing. Um, and then now collecting Bibles and shoes. That's a different story. I am convinced I am convinced that Satan hides shoes on Sunday mornings, children's shoes specifically. Sometimes he hides my belt too. I'm just not. Yeah, but just don't show up with shoes. If I showed up with sneakers on, I might get mad. The old ladies might get mad, but if I show up with no shoes and I said, I couldn't find them, I didn't want to be late for worship, I might get some street cred. Yeah, so, you know, shower the night before, leave on time. I think a big one there, though, is pray. Pray. And then he has a next part, expectancy. What's he getting at in that part? Yeah, yeah. Who was it? This is a really common quote.
Expect great things. See great things. Don't expect great things from God. I think Doctor Simon said that. No, there's somebody. I think it was like one of the. Anyway, I don't know, just like I guess also that idea of preparation where like. I'll go to church and see what happens. You know, I guess it's God. You know, I guess worship God, but I think. Just coming with that intentionality of like no, I should God. God is there to bless me and to show me like character and to work on my heart. Because I think what he says, we will experience just what we get, what we expect. So I have a question though, right? This is an honest question. Sure.
What do you do when you expected something and it didn't manifest? I think, I don't know, I think There's similar things just in private devotion where I can fondly remember times where it is wrestling with the Lord in his very presence, a prayer experience. And sometimes I'll sit down to pray and God, you know, wouldn't that be amazing to have that again? No, like it's not there. I think that doesn't mean that expectations off here just means that there's more wrestling to do, like more persevering to do, right? It's not a matter of God aligning to our expectations, but us aligning to him, right?
Do you know what happens if you spend too much time on a mountaintop? It's boring. well maybe it gets boring or maybe you die of asphyxiation. Maybe you die of oxygen to your brain. I bring that up because somebody actually brought out the point to me that they thought one of the reasons why we don't have those mountaintop experiences every time we come into worship or we come into our daily devotions is because we would just die. like that's what the other side of glory is for.
It's a taste of heaven. It's that taste of this is the way it's going to be, but you cannot experience that fully in your sinful fallen state right now. And so we savor those times, but I think we set ourselves up for failure if we expect that every time. What we expect is to worship Him As he has called us to worship him, right? I think if we If this is a whole thing right because I feel like sometimes we get fallen into again this experience, right? What is what am I expecting though? I'm expecting to go do my duty to the king To go sing his praises to lift up my eyes to heaven and for a brief moment Not not necessarily to feel if I feel great but to remind myself That there is somebody greater than me that I am to fall on my face whether I feel like it or not The king has given me one day in seven to remember who he is so if I remember who he is if I bow before him if I sing his praises and then my experiences will follow. The heart follows the discipline. But if we're waiting for the heart to lead, we're always going to be disappointed.
You'll you'll live on this, you know waves of the ocean being tossed to and fro. Yeah, I mean, um, I wonder if there's a tension there though. Um Maybe this is playing devil's advocate of no. Don't do that, man complacency though, right? Yeah, because I think absolutely I think if we Come in and we're like, well, you know worship.
This hasn't been great for a couple weeks I mean i'll do it But i'll just do it, you know And I mean, you know again duties there shut your mouth and search your heart man No, that's serious, right? That's what I have to tell myself. Right, right. Yes, it's a duty. Right. But I get to worship the king of kings. Right.
And so I think, I guess, I guess like maybe expectancy is the wrong word, but I think if we just, if we come into God's presence and we're not really, um, I guess, seeing God's presence for what it really is. And we haven't seen it in a long time. And we're just disciplined to be disciplined. But then after a time, we just become complacent.
Like, well, I guess this is the best worship day. And this is, I'm just going to kind of thing here and kind of go at five miles an hour. I guess I'm feeling that tension there between like, Yes, we don't come and just like if it's not rip Warren, then we're, you know, anything else is subpar, right?
But also that. Did you just put Rick Warren on the on the epitome of experiential preaching? Is that what you just did? Wow. I mean, he was just named a chancellor of Spurgeon, Spurgeon seminary. So man, I, wow. Wow. Simon, I don't get to know you. But no, I think you're right. You know, it's like there, there is this tension and I think that biblical tension is what Jesus is getting at right in spirit and in truth. Right.
But when we're chasing experience rather than Coram Deo, we end up going down the wrong path. Whereas experience, I think true experiential worship happens when we are worshiping in spirit and in truth. And so if we're not quote unquote feeling it, What's wrong with me?
It shouldn't be, oh, man, I guess maybe our psalm leader is just off key lately. The presenter can't carry a tune. But no, it's what's wrong with my heart? Why am I not engaged? Why don't I see God for who he is? I guess we should place that expectancy on our heart, right? Does that make sense of that?
Like, okay, worship was lackluster today. Let me search my heart. Let me not just sit here and that'd be like, well, let's see what happens. See if God and his mercy will do something next day. Like if it's your will, God, you could bless me, but I guess we'll just ho hum down here, right?
Like I guess feeling that tension inwardly, right? And be like, no, my heart is cold. I'm not seeing the king for who he is. I'm not and like yes, God gives some seasons of blessing to that and some seasons of dryness to them, but like. I don't know, just you just see like in a song of Solomon, it's like. Like no, I'm going to go after right like I'm going to pursue him. I'm going to run all the more right now. I guess that's kind of that tension I'm feeling. Yeah, but then there are other times where we have to ask ourselves with a psalmist, oh, why my soul? Why are you so distraught? What's wrong with you? Why don't you thirst after the Lord? And this is where I just want to be honest with people who go through this, right?
Because I've been there. There are times where you might come to worship two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, a month, two months, three months, two years. And there might be a cloud of depression and it seems like heaven is made with a steel floor. And the question is then, if the experience isn't there, do you just give up? No, it was never about the experiential high. It's about expecting the Lord to show up, but doing our service, right?
You think about the tabernacle or the temple. When you think about the temple, the miraculous filling of the whole temple where they weren't able to do their service only happened once. yet God is there. They might not have this experience every generation, but do they still carry with them that, no, that's the throne room of the Most High God. We come before his presence with thanksgiving. We come before him with fear and trembling. We come to bow down to the King of the universe. And so with those truths of who God is in their minds, they worship in spirit and in truth.
And so experience is a part of worship, but it's not the goal of worship. I'm being vulnerable and honest here. There have been seasons in my life where this has been true. And to be honest with you, most of the time it's when I haven't prepared for worship. Most of the time it's when I haven't been diligent in the disciplines of grace. I haven't been utilizing my prayer closet. I haven't been in His Word.
It's normally, like you said, where's my heart? right? Yeah, I think, you know, the psalmist talks about, like, while I have being, I will worship God, right? Like, with everything I have. A lot of times it says, like, with my glory, I will praise you, right? Just, like, the very essence of who I am. I think about, like, what does the Lord command? You shall love the Lord with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength, with all of your mind.
It's this entire being given worship, right? And so, like, we do come into worship knowing things about God. If we didn't, then we wouldn't have any anchor to worship out of. But it's also not emotionless. We worship with our heart. It's meant to stir affections. We worship with a soul that's been redeemed. We worship with our might. We worship with our minds. Yeah, it's a whole being thing. I think we've talked about how it's easy in our hearts to be like, well, especially in our culture, to be very feeling-based. Just remember, Alistair Begg one time was. Oh, you bring out the Irishman or Scots. It's going to get good here now.
Alistair Begg was out traveling on the Lord's not not in his own church on the website. And he went into church and he was having a really bad morning and I'm going to get this story so I'm not wrong. So Pastor Begg I'm sorry if you're out there. I don't think he's listening to us. But he is just having a really bad morning. Things have been going on. He was in a bad mood and he shows up to church and the worship says Good morning. How does everyone feel.
And are you daft? Pastor Meg says, don't ask me what I feel. Ask me what I know. No, it's true. You know, I, I gotta say, Simon, as, um, I've had somebody tell me off, like quite legitimately tell me off before worship. Don't ever talk to me again. And two minutes later, I've got to stand before God's people and read the invocation. Right. Like my heart in an absolute wreck of a knot. Like, I'm not feeling it. What happens in the mornings when I've just left the house and I've gotten into a fight with my wife? What do you do with that?
Well, you confess it and you worship. you take it to the Lord and you worship. I mean, this is literally one of the reasons why, before the invocation, we actually have this time before worship, just prayer and meditation. Go get your heart right with God. You go spend some time with the Lord, individually, by yourself, thinking and praying and asking God to put you in the right place, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, that you can come and you can just say, okay, it's not the time for that. Now's the time to enter into the presence of God. Now there's something better and bigger than my problems. And so let's go ahead and keep on going because man, we're moving at a snail's pace here. That's okay.
I actually want to get to the discipline of worship, right? He actually gives the discipline of worship and he talks about the different parts, the prelude. What in the world is a prelude? I think just kind of what you were talking about that time before the call to worship of just sitting in silence and trying to get your heart in a posture to worship.
Yeah, yeah. And then announcements. I'm a huge fan of announcements at the very beginning. I definitely hate them in the middle of worship. I'm not a fan of them at the end unless it's urgent, you know, pleading with people. hey, there really is too much food downstairs, everybody please come down. Or reminding people there's an important meeting or something. Because I really enjoy watching people fellowship. I think the moment after worship is one of the best times for a fellowship that people have.
Call to worship and invocation. Why in the world do we need that? Well, because we're. We need to be reminded of what we're doing for one thing. We also need to remember kind of what he talked about the beginning. God seeks God wants. No, I'm just kind of frame the whole thing. We are. Setting apart coming together. Yeah, yeah, I really think that that's actually a big part, right?
There's all sorts of calls to worship all over scripture, right? God commands us, invites us, bids us to come and worship him. And so I think reminding ourselves that this is what God, this isn't just like, you know, people making this up. This is God himself and his word who has said, come.
There's one part here that he doesn't have, and I'm gonna kind of put a few things around, because we're gonna disagree with him in a few places. One of the things that we do, we do a catechetical section, or what he might have as a creedal section. We actually do that before worship, and that's just our position on the regulative principle with sola scriptura. And so before announcements and before the prelude, that's when we do that catechetical section.
I wouldn't mind if we did the Apostles' Creed. I went through it a couple times with the congregation. I'd like it even better if we did the Nicene Creed, or if we did the Athanasian Creed, or did the Statements of Chalcedon. I think many of these would be helpful actually to the church too. think through this stuff.
I'm not sure if it's place in worship. I say that because I remember at a PCA church I was at, and this is not a knock on the PCA church. This is me, brand new Christian, come to this church, and in the middle of worship, all of a sudden we start reading something called the Westminster Larger Catechism. And I was like, so you guys have, is this like a Mormon church? You guys got like a Bible and a second book? Like, that's what you say you believe, but you really believe this?
Like, I've never heard of this thing. What is this? And I felt like, ooh. I don't think my mom's going to like me being here, you know? And I mean, I really wrestled with that and I still have a real wrestling with that. Like, I think there's a place for the congregation to say together the creeds of the church and remind each other of what the, you know, what the church formally believes, but I'm not sure using, especially we did recited, you know, the pastor read the question and then we as a whole congregation read the answer back. I wrestled with that. I think that's something to have serious pause over.
The other thing we do, or I do, it's not prescribed in the directory of church government, is apostolic greeting. Grace to you, grace and peace to you, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's all sorts of apostolic greetings that we find in the New Testament in the beginning of a letter that I think have a place to greet the people. I'm not the minister isn't standing there or the elder who's leading worship isn't standing there on their own authority, but they are Greeting you in the name of Christ Then he has a fun part, right? What's what's the first?
Song that he wants to sing the glory of pottery Okay What does that mean? Yeah, right, why would you want glory to the father there? I think he talked about how just drawing our hearts to the Lord, give glory to him. Yeah, we sing a doxology every Lord's Day. That's, again, a Brian thing. Many arpeggios just don't. That's fine. I would have no problem putting it, fronting it. We put it at the back, but that's interesting. I think I beat the dead horse about singing. But I do want to pick up, though, when he talks about the anthem. What's he getting at with the anthem?
Well, he talks about, he kind of reads it in the Old Testament about how there is, um, you know, musical instructions given before the Psalms. And even if you look at like the worship prescriptions and throughout the Old Testament, like so-and-so were sons of so-and-so's family gifted in music, gifted in singing. And there's, there's a lot of them, uh, men and women, I believe, um, who are to sing, um, together and make music and kind of lead the congregation and worship. Yeah. One of the things that I was telling the kids about recently is in the medieval church, there was no congregational singing. It was all choir. It was all show.
And A story that Scott Manich, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, told me was about Theodore Beza. And the first time Theodore Beza walked into St. Pierre's in Geneva, he heard a congregation of people singing the Psalms for the first time, and he wept.
Because it was the first time, one, he had ever heard congregational singing, and two, they were singing God's word in French, his native tongue. God's people were singing God's word in unison. And part of congregational singing is this, the body of Christ admonishing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We sing to God, but we're also encouraging and reminding each other.
There's a man I was talking to recently who, he was talking about how in a previous church, he actually led the choir, and he tried to lead the congregation in singing. And he said he really struggled, you know, because he was like really trying to draw out the people to sing along and stuff like that. And most everybody, especially the men, were very comfortable just letting the professionals, you know, the professionals entertain them up there and they use their gifts. And then he said he walked into an RP church and he was just so encouraged because he stood there and all around him he could hear people singing. And then he looked around and he realized there were very few men who weren't singing. And he was just like, when you do acapella singing, you really have to have full buy-in, right? Or at least a large majority buy-in. Here it goes. Exactly. And if you don't want it to sound bad, you should probably pitch in, you know?
And so, you know, It's something that I might get used to being in a acapella psalmody church all the time, whatever, but whenever Olivia and I go on vacation, we go to a non-reformed church and there's a choir, or we'll go to one of these conferences and there's a band up there playing. And I just watch how many people are just being entertained.
I'm just like, Why aren't you worshiping? Why are we not singing? And I mean, this is like a legitimate critique of what a lot of congregations do, is that they'll hear contemporary Christian music, CCM, on the radio, and they'll be moved by it emotionally, and they'll think, oh, we should program that into our worship. But the song was not designed for congregational singing.
It was designed for performance. And so the congregation by its very nature is left on the sidelines to watch. This is a lot of bad talking, right? But this is something I care deeply about. And I could stay on this hobby horse all day. But I do want to say, right, the chorus is God, or the choir is God's people. And to take that away from God's people, I feel is, I feel, I think. Watch that experience, Brian. Well, no, I really think it's one of the most detrimental things we can do to worshiping God in spirit and truth is the professionalization of worship. So that part scares me.
And then he talks about silence and congregational prayer. Probably the most boring time in our worship service for most people is what? Oh, I don't know if it is, but congregational prayer. Oh, I'm so glad you didn't say preaching. Why? Once again, we're weird, right? You gotta give me some encouragement here, Simon. Why do we spend 15 minutes of our worship praying? Like, is there any biblical justification? This is me honestly asking you in front of the entire world of however many tens of people listen to this, whether this is actually helpful to you in your walk with Christ. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, I think we have to, you know, it's not about whether it's helpful to me or experience it, right? I get in my face. Okay. But I mean, so like, why? Right? Like, why do we do that? Right?
God says, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, right? God's house coming into his presence is to be characterized by praying to him. And that is what made Jesus so angry when they were using it for merchandise, right? So we do need to take that seriously. But, you know, we have the privilege of praying with and for others, right, of carrying each other's burdens. And, you know, in this denomination, that's really encouraging to me to pray for missionaries and to hear what God's doing, you know, throughout the world. It's kind of like weekly weekly mission update in prayer coming to the Lord and taking it to the Lord together. And it's really encouraging.
There's something really appropriate about corporate confession, corporate adoration in prayer, corporate thanksgiving, especially when there are hurts in the congregation and burdens that Are known and that's we can take those together Um, yeah, it takes work, but worship takes work.
That's why it's called the discipline in this book, right? Yeah Yeah, just a plug. Uh, I don't like everything in this book. It feels like a pastor always has to say that I don't agree with everything Anyways, uh, the book is by pat quinn. Um praying or a guidebook praying for prayer in corporate public worship um anyways, it's a I found it helpful.
There's a lot of it in the back. That's essentially half the book is an appendix to this guy's public prayers. Samuel Miller, interesting story. I don't know where his book is right now. I see it right there by Sprinkle Publications. Anyways, praying in public and I remember and I was still in the Navy. Somehow I got my hands on this book and I was sitting at an olive garden waiting for some friends to show up and I was just reading this book in public. I was reading the book in public about public prayer, and this guy walks up and he's like, what you reading? And he's like, it's a book on praying in public. And he was like, for or against? And I was like, how? And he was like, oh. He just walks inside. But I mean, Samuel Miller's book on praying in public is a really helpful one on that too. That's just me saying, Simon, someday if the Lord calls you to be an elder and you're praying for the church in public, these two are two helpful resources.
I do think prayer is a discipline. We spent all last chapter talking about that. And praying corporately is a discipline. Listening to someone else pray. Joining our hearts to them. Thinking after them. going through it with them. Actually, somebody told me a while ago, they're like, well, I don't mind the long prayer. I just wish I could follow along with it.
I said, okay, look for when I do adoration, then look for when I do confession, then look for when I do Thanksgiving, and then we're going to get into supplication. Open up your bulletin. Cause it's all right there, right? Cause the supplications are laid out every week for what we're praying. Now there's other things.
And then look for when I pray for evangelism, look for when I pray for the civil magistrate. I don't do that one as often as I should. And then like, It's going to follow a pretty basic pattern every time. Pray for more laborers, pray for the people who are studying to be laborers in the field. Anyways, I think congregational prayer is really a discipline and an art lost. I shouldn't say an art.
I don't want to be a boring I don't want to just get up there and be all extemporaneous right now. There's a real sense in which when a passage strikes me through the week of who God is, I often write down that passage and think through in my own heart how would this translate in praying with the congregation. And then silence, right? they're just pregnant pauses of silence that are sometimes good. Tithes and offerings, different churches practice this different ways, whether it's passing the plate, which largely first great awakening type thing that happened, or having a box or plate in the back and people contribute.
I think there is biblical warrant for it. And then he talks about the reading of the scripture. What's he getting at with that? What's he pull out from Nehemiah? You know, when people stand when Ezra reads the law of Israel from morning until midday. Yeah, we're good at that, yeah? Yeah, yeah, not so much. No, we actually did do it. Yeah, I remember it. It was like, what? Yeah. Yeah. We were, I was going through the book of Nehemiah and I was like, we're going to do this.
We're going to stand, we're going to stand for the reading of God's word. Um, and I mean the, the intent was there and everybody understood the intent intent, but then other people were like, you want us to give honor to God's word, but I have a hard time like holding my Bible up for a whole chapter as you're reading and actually concentrating on the words. It's far easier to do that when I can put my finger on and line it sitting down. I was like, okay, the intent might've been there, but I was actually, like we were, and it wasn't just me, but it was elders like, oh, we hadn't thought about that side effect. Like we have a culture in which people actually, we encourage them to bring their actual Bibles. Yeah, I mean, there was literally the law of God, right? There are very few copies. And so, um, I don't think you necessarily have to stand for that. I think we try to honor the Lord by open your Bibles with me. Um, and then what takes the most time typically, um, is the pastor gabbing.
Yeah. Um, here, here's where I want to stop. Uh, and I just want to ask you, Give me three of your favorite preachers and then give me one or two sermons that you think that the Lord has used in a powerful way in your life, however you want to term that. Yeah. All right, three of my favorite preachers. One would be Sinclair Ferguson. Sinclair Ferguson. Do you have sugar before you came here? Bringing up all the Scots, man. Yeah.
I really appreciated it. He had a memorable sermon on the work of the Holy Spirit from Romans 8. I really appreciate Pastor Joel Beeky. He's just a very thorough biblical preacher and he had a very powerful sermon from Malachi about Christ sitting as refiner of his people and refining them as silver.
Remember that one? Trying to think. You know, I have a hard time not just being broken every time I hear Paul Washer preach. I think the man just brings a fresh sense of eternity into his preaching that I think would do our culture well, do the church culture well. So yeah, those are probably three men that I found a blessing. What about you? Oh, good question. It's going to sound corny, but the two I have to give most credit to, who I sat under preaching along with, would be Byron Snapp and Micah Ramsey. These are my pastors, these are the guys. Oh, it was Byron Snapp and Pete Hurst. I mean, really Cutting my teeth on Reformed theology, sitting in there, and biblical theology, I mean, actually hearing the word of God exposited week in and week out.
There's too many formative ways in times there. But as far as big name type preachers, I'll just say Paul Washer. One of the most powerful sermons hearing from him was at a conference a few years ago when he was supposed to be preaching on something with the doctrine of Christ. I forget what his topic was, but this is very typical of Paul Washer. Well, I'm supposed to preach on that, but the Lord really laid it on my heart that I need to preach this, and I feel like I would be doing a disservice to the Lord to not listen to that prompting of the Spirit. So you're getting a different sermon.
And I mean, this was a group of like 6,500 people. But he had done a pre-seminar to a whole bunch of pastors who were there from Latin America. And Paul Washer is fluent in Spanish. And so he had been really working knee deep with these guys for a few days before this main part of the conference went on.
And his sermon was just on 1 Timothy and what does it mean to be a servant of God. And so he said, I know that many of you, most of you in this room aren't pastors. You're still going to glean from this, but men of God, I need to talk to you right now.
I mean, he really leaned in on your job is to bring people to Christ. Bring him to Christ, show him Christ, lead him to Christ. I still remember some of the illustrations. Like one of the illustrations you used was, you know, Abraham sends his servant to go find a wife for Isaac. He says, men, you're nothing more than that servant. You're not Isaac in the story. You're not Abraham in that story. Your job is Jesus Christ desires you to go get his bride.
And every time his bride gets distracted, your job is to remind them, remind her, bring her a jewel of Christ and say, it's going to be even better than this. It's going to be even better than this. It's going to be even better than this until the day that the church finally comes, the bride of Christ comes and she covers her face with her veil. Cause she says, who is that? And he says, it's your groom. It says, men, that's your job. And I, I mean, I was just weeping like, like, yeah, that's my job, you know?
So, uh, and then the other one, um, impactful that has shaped literally my ministry is actually the charge that was given to me at my ordination by Kyle Borg. Very simple sermon from my charge. Brian, preach the glories of Jesus Christ with clarity. And he expounded on each of those. Preach. Preach the glories. of Christ, preach the glories of Christ with clarity and just unfolding each of those and why they were important and how it would shape my ministry.
And I'm so thankful that he gave me a call that I could, or a charge that I could latch onto. And I mean, I took it not as a, you know, thus say it's a Lord type charge, but the Lord places on his heart that that's what he had for me. very rarely when you come into an assembly of people or a worship servant that somebody looks at you and say, this is for you. And it's not just like everybody, like, no, there's one person he's talking to, right. And it's kind of like, all right, Lord, I really need to sit down and soak this in and listen to it. So, uh, so yeah, that would, that was, that was probably be my, uh, but I think preaching, um, is, a great gift that God has given to his church to remind us week in and week out of the fullness of his redemption, of the glory of his being in person, of his plan of redemption, of his instruction for our lives as redeemed people, hope in times of distress. I'm just thankful that the Lord has placed that as part of an element of worship, that there's singing and we remind each other that way.
But when I talk to people about their Christian life, it's pretty typical that it's not a song that they're able to point to, but it's a pastor who applied God's word, opened up God's word in a way that the Holy Spirit, the short of catechism talks about, especially the preaching of the word is used to convert sinners. And how will they hear? sure yeah without a preacher um i know i'm probably biased to this because i'm a preacher but um but there's a special way in which i think the holy spirit does work um and so uh how do we wrap this up on worship man because he just kind of ends right he just recaps uh on saturday here's what you do on sunday which here's what you do um I will say one thing before closing, and I think that he's admitted the worship of sacraments.
We worship sacraments, but I think we worship through sacrament. But how do we wrap this up? I think kind of where he started, who is the object of our worship? What are we doing? meditate on that. That God would invigorate our worship by really understanding who he is and what it means to come into his presence. If we could only remember that more, I think we would have far more worship in spirit and in truth. Well hey, I opened us up in prayer, you want to close this part in prayer?
Sure thing. Lord Jesus, you are worthy, worthy to be praised. You are worthy of honor, glory, and blessing, and power. You are the lamb who was slain, who has overcome death, and who is alive forevermore, and who is at the right hand of the Father. We worship you for that.
Lord, we look forward to the day, Lord. Right now, we see through a glass darkly in the coldness of our hearts, Lord. shuts us out from so much blessing, Lord, that is to be had in your presence. Lord, you tell us there's fullness of joy at your right hand and pleasures forevermore, but Lord, our hearts, Lord, are cold to that many times. And we come into your presence sluggish and apathetic and unbelieving, Lord. And we long for the day when we will see you face to face.
Lord, come soon. And Lord, wet our appetite for that type of Being in your presence Lord that you would give us a taste of heaven on earth as we do worship you Lord May we worship in spirit and in truth Lord and would you visit us? With your presence and blow up on our worship with your spirit Lord We thank you that we can only do that Lord because of the perfect mediation of Christ Lord help us to Belong for that Lord help us to look into our hearts, Lord, and see where we have come short, where we have, where we are cold in that, Lord, and awaken our hearts to the worship with all of our being that you've called us, that you've created us, and that you've redeemed us to do. Thank you for this time together. We pray that this would be a blessing in our hearts that we mull these things over and, Lord, that you would just bless these things to our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.
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