David Platt Messages
David Platt Messages is a podcast that highlights sermons from teacher, author, and pastor David Platt.
David Platt Messages
God-Centered Worship
When you hear the word “worship,” what comes to mind? Your favorite worship songs? A certain feeling or vibe on Sunday morning? Unfortunately, we often put ourselves at the center of Sunday morning rather than the One who should be the focus of our worship. In this message from Mark 11:15–19, David Platt urges us to make sure that God is at the center of our worship. God-centered worship changes not only our heart posture in corporate worship but also the way we live our lives.
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You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from pastor, author and teacher David Platt. What we're going to do is dive in this morning to what we traditionally look at as Palm Sunday, when Jesus enters into the city. I want you to see what Mark tells us happened right after Jesus entered into the city. He came in in this triumphal entry and that night he goes out and he stays in Bethany. Then he comes back to the city and that's where we pick up in Mark, chapter 11. Look with me at verse 15.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that on reaching Jerusalem, jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables and the money changers and the benches of those selling doves and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise to the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said Is it not written my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city.
Speaker 1:Dear God, we pray during our time in your word. You would show us what it means to truly worship you, and I pray, more than anything else, that you would be honored and you would be glorified during our time together and, god, that in that process you would show us what it means to not only sing songs of worship but to live lives of worship. Help us to understand this passage by the power of your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen. What you've got to realize when we come to this passage of Scripture, when we see Jesus coming into the temple and doing what honestly is to this passage of scripture, when we see jesus coming into the temple and doing what, what honestly is a bit out of character we see jesus turning all these tables over we got to realize the significance of the temple. This is not just any place of worship. This is not just a church building or church sanctuary. This is the place god had set up throughout the old testament, where his glory and his presence dwelled among his people. If you were going to encounter the presence or the glory of God, you would come to the temple. People would travel from miles and miles away and they would come, whether it was on a daily routine or a regular routine, maybe just at certain points in the year. They would come and that's where you would encounter the presence and the glory of God. And so when we see Jesus acting like he does here in the temple, I think we're seeing a pretty incredible commentary from the mouth of Jesus on what worship is all about, what encountering God's glory, giving God glory, is all about. So I want us to think about what God-centered worship really looks like, based on what Jesus does in this passage. Number one when God is at the center of our worship, I want you to see that it starts with us revering his greatness. When God is at the center of our worship, I want you to see that it starts with us revering his greatness. When God is at the center of our worship, we revere his greatness. I want to show you this.
Speaker 1:In this passage and it's a part of the passage that you may just kind of gloss over we kind of we come to this passage. We see this imagery of Jesus turning over tables and we can almost miss what happens in verse 16. Look at what happens there. After it says he overturned the tables and the money changers, the benches of those selling doves. It says Jesus would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. You see, here's what would happen.
Speaker 1:Say, you were working all day long and you got kind of near the end of your day, you packed up all your stuff, you're ready to head home and you've got to get to the other side of the city and you've got this huge structure called the temple in front of you. You've got two options Either you can walk around the temple or you can take a pretty good shortcut and just walk through the middle of the temple. And so that's what people would do. They would carry their merchandise, they would carry their things through the temple, using it almost as a shortcut and basically, in the process, had completely lost sight of the fact that they were in the presence of the glory of God. They didn't even give second thought to it, they just kind of walked through casually. And I think Jesus, when he says no more carrying your merchandise through the temple courts, we're not going to do this anymore, I don't know how he stopped him. Basically, jesus was saying this place is a place where you encounter the glory of God. It's not a casual thing, it's not something you just kind of have going on as another thing in your life.
Speaker 1:This is huge, and I think what Jesus shows us here is two facets of false worship that had happened amongst these people. Number one I want you to see that they had become uninterested in the majesty of God. These are people who would just walk through back and forth to the temple, carry on their business, do what they wanted to do, and never give second thought to the fact that they were in the presence of a majestic and holy God. They had become uninterested in his majesty. You look throughout the Old Testament, you'll see that, before people would come into the temple, there was an important time of preparation. Psalm chapter 24, who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. You'd have to really search yourself out. Psalm chapter 15 gives a whole list of things that says this is what you need to do before you come into the temple. Preparation for worship was huge, but they had missed out on it completely and had become uninterested in God's majesty.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question, though. When you walked into this room, into a place that is dedicated for the next amount of time we have together To corporate worship. What was on your mind On what's been going on the last week in your life, on what you've got coming up this week, on lunch plans, on hoping that the preacher doesn't go really long today, whenever it might be? Let me ask you, when you came into this room, were you contemplating the infinite grandeur and majesty of the God we were about to sing to? Were you seeing his greatness and saying God, this time is dedicated to me, glorifying your name? Is it possible that we can become casual with God as well and, along the way, become completely uninterested in his majesty? Second, I want you to see that they had become unaware of his presence. They would walk in and out through the presence of God and it never hit them that God, his glory and his presence was dwelling with them. And this place what a huge thing that was. And they were completely unaware of it, had completely missed it. As a result, they calculated when they would and would not worship God. It was only at certain times when they would say, okay, I'm in the presence of God now. Now I'll worship. But they had missed out on the fact that worship is not just about what happens when you offer that sacrifice. It's about what happens after you leave that sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Let me show you a picture of this in the Old Testament. This is nothing new for the people of Israel. Look with me back. Hold your place here in Mark, chapter 11. Turn with me back to Isaiah, chapter 1. Isaiah, chapter 1. Get to Psalms. Take a right, go a few books. If you need to use your table of contents, feel free to do that. But I want you to look at Isaiah chapter 1. I want you to see one of many passages in the Old Testament prophets, where God really speaks to his people about worship, and I want you to hear what he says. These are some pretty, pretty startling words from the mouth of God to his people. I want you to look at it with me.
Speaker 1:Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 11. This is God speaking to his people about their worship. I want you to hear what he says. Isaiah 1 11. The multitude of your sacrifices. What are they to me, says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats when you come to appear before me. Who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, sabbaths and convocations I cannot bear your evil assemblies, your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts. My soul hates they have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. Did you catch that?
Speaker 1:This is a picture of a people who had become pretty routine at bringing their sacrifices and bringing their offerings day in and day out. Week in and week out, they would do the drill. And God stands up in the middle of it and he says stop bringing meaningless offerings. And he actually tells them that their offerings, their sacrifices, are detestable to him. His soul grows weary with them. He's burdened by them. He said my soul hates them. I know what you're thinking, dave. Thanks for the history lesson from those people a long time ago.
Speaker 1:What does that have to do with us? Well, think about it. Is it possible for us to get in the same routine of bringing our songs week in and week out, doing our drill when it comes to religion? And along the way, god is standing up even in the middle of a worship-driven church culture and he's saying stop bringing meaningless offerings. God is not honored in our religion. He is honored with our hearts, with our obedience, and I want you to see that there is a type of worship that does not bring honor to God and we are facing, I think, in our culture today, a dangerous temptation to give him that kind of worship. I want you to see what true worship is all about, as opposed to being uninterested in his majesty. I want you to see that true worship rediscovers, continually rediscovers, the majesty of God, continually glimpsing his glory, seeing his power, seeing his grandeur and exalting him for who he is. A people who worship truly. Don't grow casual with God. Don't give second thought to the fact that we are singing to the God of the universe. We don't stand with our arms crossed just wondering what's going to happen next. We're glimpsing the glory of God. We're fixed on his greatness.
Speaker 1:I had the opportunity, heather and I, in the last couple days, to be out in Arizona. We were out at the Grand Canyon I don't know if you've ever been there before, but to get out of the car and step out and look there and you can get far too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, by the way, so just be careful. But you get there and you look out and for miles you see an infinite glorious display of God and His creation. We've sat there and watched the sunset. It gets dark and the stars come out, stars that you just don't see in Birmingham or New Orleans or Atlanta. Billions and billions of stars.
Speaker 1:And it hits me Isaiah 40, verse 25 and 26. What does it say? It says to whom will you compare me? Who is my equal? Says the Holy One, he who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Now think about that. The God who we worship in this room brings out the starry host one by one. Not only does he bring them out one by one, but he calls them by name Bob, mary, jack, z14356, I don't know what their names are, but our God calls them by name.
Speaker 1:God, help us not to become casual with you. Help us never to lose sight of the infinite majesty of your character. Rediscovers his majesty and true worship. I want you to see that true worship not only rediscovers his majesty, but rejoices in his presence, as opposed to being unaware of his presence. Rejoices in the fact that he is there, that we are in the presence of God. Now we know. We know that everything changes after Jesus dies on the cross, rises from the grave. We know that the presence of God is not limited to a certain place or a certain building. We know we saw it in the very beginning of our study together in this series. Jesus saying I am with you always, to the very end of the age. God's presence is always with us. Aw Tozer said God's presence is the central fact of Christianity. And yet I can't help but to think that the presence of God may just be the most acknowledged truth of Christianity, but least realized and least experienced truth of Christianity. Think about it with me. Think today. What do you mean? We know it, we acknowledge it, but we don't experience it. We really don't realize his presence.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you a question. Do a little survey, just by raise of hands. How many of you would say this morning I believe God loves me? How many of you believe God loves you? Raise your hand? Okay, that's good. Okay, if you didn't raise your hand, I'd love to talk with you after our time together. That was most everybody, if not everybody. Yes, I believe God loves me. Let me ask you a follow-up question to that. How many of you, on a daily basis or just consistently, do you pray pretty consistently God please love me today? Anybody pray that? Okay, a couple people maybe, but not near as many people. Let me ask you a question why don't you pray God please love me today? Well, duh, dave, I mean, we just told you we believe God loves us, so we don't need to pray God please love me today, okay, well, let me ask you another question then, just by show of hands, how many of you believe God is with you wherever you go? Anybody believe that? Okay, good, about the same number of hands.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me ask you a follow-up question of that then how many of you, on a daily basis or maybe just consistently, do you pray God please be with me today? Huh, or maybe just consistently? Do you pray God please be with me today? Huh, now, I'm a little confused at this point. You looked at me like I was crazy. Well, we know God loves us. We don't pray God please love me. Well, if we know God is with us, then why are we always praying God please be with me? Ladies and gentlemen, maybe the prayer that we should be praying is not God be with me today. Maybe it should be. God, make me aware of your presence in my life today. Please hear me.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, even when we come into corporate worship, we say, well, let's ask God to be with us. We don't have to ask. By His grace, he is here in this room, he is living in our lives. We don't have to ask for Him to be with us, we just need to pray. God, help us to wake up to the fact that you are with us. Help us to turn aside from the busyness of our lives and realize the fact that we can be still and know that you are God and that you are here and that you are worthy of of our worship and all of our praise.
Speaker 1:God, help us not to be so casual with him that we become uninterested in his majesty, unaware of his presence. Let's see his majesty and let's rejoice in the fact that he is with us. So here's what I want to invite you to do In just a second, we're going to stand and we're going to sing to this God and we're going to lift him up, and I want to invite you set your whole mind's attention and your entire heart's affection completely on this God and see him glimpse his glory, glimpse his majesty, and whether it's seeing, whether it's lifting your hands, whatever it may be, let's just give God the honor that is due him and let's not be a people this morning who are casual with the majesty and the presence of God. Will you stand with me? May it never be said of the church at Brook Hills that we became casual with that God. When God is the center of our worship, we revere His greatness. Second, I want you to see that we reflect His holiness. Come with me back to Mark 11. And I want you to see the importance of the holiness of God in this whole picture.
Speaker 1:We see Jesus come on the scene, enters the temple area, begins driving out those who are buying and selling there, overturning their tables and the benches of those selling doves. Just to kind of get you the picture. What would happen is people would come and they would give sacrifices, bring offerings to the temple, and many times they would travel a long ways and so they would come to the temple to buy those offerings. So they would buy them there and then go in and sacrifice them. They would also exchange money for a temple tax, and so there was really this whole business, this whole economy that was transpiring right there at the temple and Jesus walks in. If you can imagine walking with Jesus on this day through the streets of Jerusalem and even today they're just these tight streets lined with people, vendors that are selling this or that, trying to get you to buy this or that.
Speaker 1:You walk through this crowded city and then you come to the temple, the place of worship. The place of worship, the place where the glory of God, the presence of God, dwells, and you look around and inside the temple of God dwells. And you look around and inside the temple you see the same thing that you've seen everywhere else in the city. So you see Jesus begin to turn all this stuff over, turning things upside down and basically saying this place is set apart for another purpose. This is not the place where you do what you're doing here. That's the essence of what it means to be holy. The word literally means to set apart different, unique. When we talk about the holiness of God, we talk about how he is completely other. He is set apart from us and we see in Scripture we're commanded to be holy, just as God is holy. So I want you to see in this passage the importance of holiness in worship, the importance of being set apart, being different not just for the sake of being different, but being different because we live according to different standards. We have different lives because we have surrendered our lives to follow this God. You know, I think it's interesting at this point.
Speaker 1:When you listen to a lot of the contemporary discussions about worship and church life today, most of the discussions, you'll often hear people asking questions like well, how can we appeal more to people in the world? Or how can we make our worship services look more like the world in order to draw more people in? I want to ask you a question, church of Gil's, particularly when it comes to this issue of worship Is the church intended to be a reflection of God or the world? Is the church intended to be a reflection of God or the world, particularly when it comes to worship? A reflection of God or the world, particularly when it comes to worship? I'm talking about something much deeper here than just song style, worship form style. I'm talking about our lives. Jesus comes in and sees this place that is supposed to be dedicated to the glory of God, and he sees a place that looks just like the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:I wonder if the same commentary could be said on church and our culture today, that when people from outside the church come inside and look around in our lives, if many times they look at us and they see exactly what they see in the rest of the world. And we're not a reflection of the character of God, we are a reflection of the world. Think about our lives, the way we spend our time, what we do on the internet is it different or the same as what everybody else on the world does? The way we lay down our lives husband for our wives, wives and love for our husbands or do our relationships look just like the rest of the world? The way we handle our money I think it's very interesting. That's really the central focus here in this passage. Are we just as materialistic as everybody else in the world? Do we handle our money in the same way, serving our infatuation with things the same way as everybody else does in the world, or are we different? Are we unique, set apart? Now again, I'm not saying in any way that we need to be different just for the sake of being different, but don't miss the ramifications here. We mentioned earlier that everything changes.
Speaker 1:When jesus died on the cross, rose from the grave curtain of the temple torn in two. Let me you a question. We know we don't have to go to a temple in order to worship God, to the place to encounter the glory of God. What's the temple today? It's our lives. Right 1 Corinthians 6, 18-20,. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, honor your God with your body. We are the temple of God. Now, this is huge. When it comes to worship today, we are the reflection of God's character in the world, not a temple, not a building, but our lives are a reflection of the character of God.
Speaker 1:Now, here's the thing in our contemporary church, day guaranteed, if you put on a good enough show, have a good band, have a guy who can speak and entertain whether he uses the word or not is really, really negotiable, but as long as he draws the crowds, you can draw thousands of people. I guarantee you you can draw thousands of people in Birmingham like that. But that is not God's strategy for showing his glory in Birmingham. You want to know what God's strategy for showing his glory in Birmingham is? It's believers from this room walking out of these doors today into workplaces, into the marketplace, into homes and into neighborhoods, displaying the glory of God with the way we live our lives Now. Which is gonna be more effective at showing the glory of God in Birmingham, drawing a crowd of thousands to see a show, or us going out and showing the glory of God wherever we go? I wanna ask you, though, when it comes to this temple of the Holy Spirit that is your body, are you holy?
Speaker 1:You know, when Heather and I were about to get engaged, I remember saving up for that engagement ring I think I mentioned at one point. Guys, if you're not to the point where you're married or engaged yet, let me encourage you to start saving now. That thing is going to cost you the farm, and so just go ahead and get ready for it. I remember I bought it on a tuesday morning, put the cash down and got the ring, and I'm the kind of guy who has the tendency to lose things, and I thought you know, this is not something I want to lose, and so I decided I was going to get rid of it that night, gonna ask her to marry me that night. So I only had one day. That's how I was going to get rid of it, you know. So I guess that didn't sound good.
Speaker 1:Anyway, moving on, so I had one afternoon where I had to hold on to this ring without losing it and I only had one errand that I needed to run. I needed to go to the mall to get a CD from this store. It was a CD that I was going to use in the whole engagement process that's another story, I can tell you another time. But I had to go to the store. Well, I was afraid, just scared to death. This was going to be the day some guy was going to come up to me in the mall and mug me, take the ring. It was going to be gone. So it was a warm day outside, but I found the heaviest coat I could find. I put it on and there's a little pocket in the coat right here in the chest, and so I unzipped the pocket, put the ring in there, closed it up, put the heavy coat on and then put my hand over the ring so it was on the ring at all times, kind of looked like this and got out of the car and walked in the mall just like this.
Speaker 1:No exaggeration, no eye contact with anybody, don't want to make small talk, just want to get in, get the CD and get back out. So I go into the mall, I start looking around in this particular store for the CD. Can't find it anywhere. So I go to the lady who works there and I'm like, excuse me, ma'am. She's like yeah. I said I mean I need to find this particular CD. Could you help me find this CD? She said okay.
Speaker 1:So she kind of starts leading me over to try to find this CD. Well, she leads me over there and she wants to make small talk during that time. I'm not in the mood for small talk, but she is, and she's like I'm getting engaged. And she said oh, that's great, do you have the ring with you? You ever wonder if it's okay, just that one time, to lie. You know Somehow you can justify that right. And so I was like oh no, I can't lie. So I looked at her and I said yes, ma'am, I've got the ring with me. She said well, that's great, can I see it? I was like come on. And it's at this moment where I'm just scared. The guy's about to come out of the side. He's going to take the ring, he's going to be gone everybody else in the store unzip the pocket, pull the ring out, kind of duck down, and I show her the ring. She looks down, she's like, oh, that's so beautiful. And she raises up. She says hey, everybody, this guy's getting engaged, come check out this ring. I'm thinking who wants it? Okay, here you go, I'm out of here. So everybody starts headed over. I'm lady, please give me the CD, okay. And so finally I get it and I just go running out of the mall with the CD and the ring in my hand.
Speaker 1:I remember that day. Everything about me changed the way I walked, the way I talked, the way I acted. Everything changed when I realized what a valuable treasure I had in my possession. Can I remind you this morning, if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside of you and he is worth guarding your eyes and your ears and your lives with everything you've got. And there's a sad commentary on the worship life of a church when the immorality and the impurity inside the church just looks like everybody else.
Speaker 1:And so I want to ask you two questions this morning. Number one I want to ask you what areas of my life, what areas of your life? I want you to ask you what areas of my life, what areas of your life? I want you to ask yourself what areas of my life are not reflecting the holiness of God. And I'm not going to. I'm going to resist the temptation to go through a laundry list of sins that you might be struggling with this morning. I'm not going to go through that. You know what's going on in your life better than anybody else in this room. What are the areas that you're struggling with? Unholiness, don't forget. Sin is not just doing things that are dishonoring to God, it's also failing to do that which is most honoring to God. So I want you to think about your life, your marriage, your relationships, your habits, whatever it may be, and across this room, I want you to think. Now, at this point, it's really easy to think about somebody else who needs to hear this sermon. Yeah, my son, my husband, really needs this one. I want you to think about your life. What areas of your life are not reflecting the holiness of God? And then the second question I want to encourage you to ask is what areas of the church are not reflecting the holiness of God. I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1:When you look throughout the Old Testament, you'll see that corporate confession is huge in the church. We take that today and we isolate people who struggle with this sin or that sin in the church, kind of point the finger and say, well, they're struggling with that. That's not what the people in the Old Testament did. They said we're a part of this thing. We have grown complacent, not those people have grown complacent. We have grown apathetic. We have grown complacent. We have sinned in these areas.
Speaker 1:Look at Nehemiah, chapter 1. Nehemiah wasn't even near the Israelites at the time where he prayed God. We have sinned against you. He wasn't even a part of that community at that point, but he confessed corporately. So I want you to think about what areas of the church are not reflecting the holiness of God and I want to remind you please hear this loud and clear when you look throughout Scripture and church history at times of revival and awakening in the church, you will see that it did not start when the people outside the church finally started getting right with God.
Speaker 1:Revival and awakening throughout scripture and church history have occurred when the people inside the church started getting right with God, started getting real with God about their sin, stopped putting this face up like everything's okay, stopped settling for religion and finally gave themselves to obedience. You will notice in every single point of revival and awakening throughout church history, it has been a time of deep confession in the church, and so that's what I want to invite us to do this morning. This is a part of worship that we often leave out because it makes us a little uncomfortable, but in the next few minutes, I want to invite you to spend some time in confession in these two areas, whether personally or corporately, and whether you are just sitting where you are and spending time in prayer, or if you want to come down here to the front and just kneel before God. I want to invite all across this room, I want to invite you to spend some time in confession confession of sin in your own life and confession of sin in the church as a whole. How have we fallen short of holiness? And these guys are going to be singing in the background and at one point we'll be able to join in with them, but I want you to start just by spending some time between you and the Lord, whether it's at your seat or up at the front here, and I want you to know. Please hear me loud and clear on this. The Bible says that the God who is in this room is faithful and just and when we confess our sins, he will forgive us of our sins and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is a place not where we feel condemnation or guilt. This is a place where we find healing, we find grace and mercy. But I want you to see that you don't touch the healing and the grace and the mercy of God until you become real before Him, until you get honest and vulnerable before Him. So I want to invite you all across this room to be vulnerable and honest before this God, to spend this time in confession and let Him bring His grace and His healing through the blood of Christ in our lives. See how those first two tie together. The majesty of God is made most clear when he brings his cleansing grace and mercy in our lives.
Speaker 1:I'll show you one final facet of God's center of worship as we come back to Mark, chapter 11. When God is the center of our worship, we revere his greatness and we reflect his holiness. I want you to see that it culminates in us committing to his purpose, and I want you to see how this unfolds in this passage of scripture. We've seen some pretty important stuff here in Mark, chapter 11, but now I want you to see what I believe is the crux of this whole passage, what Jesus is really trying to communicate. When I'm talking about not becoming casual with God, not reflecting the holiness of God, failing to reflect the holiness of God, I want you to see the purpose of God and I want you to see how this facet of worship connects with the mission that we've been talking about the last few weeks together.
Speaker 1:Look at Mark, chapter 11. I want you to look with me at verse 17, when Jesus begins to speak up and says as he taught them he said is it not written my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. Let's look at that last part there where he says you have made it a den of robbers. He's quoting there from the Old Testament. Anybody know where he's quoting from? Is it the audience participation part of our program? Anybody know where he's quoting from Jeremiah? Okay, very good.
Speaker 1:Are these just Bible scholars? Maybe, so. Maybe they have the note at the bottom of their Bibles that says Jeremiah, chapter 7, verse 11. Okay, we're not going to turn there, but just I would encourage you, maybe even in your time with the Lord this week, spend some time in Jeremiah 7. It's actually the temple address and it's a time when God spoke to his people about how they had been using the temple as a place where they would offer their sacrifices. But he said I never asked for your sacrifices. He said I asked that you walk with me and obey me and love me with all of your heart. He said you missed out on the whole point. That's what he said. Den of robbers, this place where you kind of hide out and then give me your sacrifice. Then you go off and do things that are dishonoring to me.
Speaker 1:But look at what he says before that. He said is it not written my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Now, where is he quoting from there? There you go. Take the note to the bottom Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 56. Okay, see, you're instant Bible scholars. Here's what I want you to do. You've got to see this. If you don't see this, you missed the whole point of this passage in Mark, chapter 11. Hold your place here and turn with me back to Isaiah, chapter 56. Turn with me back to Isaiah, chapter 56, and I want you to look with me at what the Bible says there. You see, it's at this point. When we're looking at Mark, chapter 11, we see Jesus say my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, and immediately we go into a dialogue about how the church is a place of prayer. This is a place where we're supposed to be praying, and undoubtedly we see in scripture that the prayer is primary in the church, and prayer must be central in the church. Oftentimes it's not, but it must be central. But it's interesting to think, though.
Speaker 1:Throughout the Old Testament there are different places where the Bible says God's house will be a house of prayer. Why did Jesus choose this one in particular? Look with me at Isaiah, chapter 56. We'll start in verse 6, just to kind of get a little bit of the context, look at it with me. The Bible says here's verse 7. Now, verse 7 said these I'm going to bring to my holy mountain. Who's the these? Well, verse 6 said foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord. You see, at this point there's two classifications of people Jews and Gentiles. If you're not a Jew, you're a Gentile. If you're not a Gentile, you're a Jew. And the people of God throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel, the Jewish people. So when the Bible says foreigners in the Old Testament, who do you think it's talking about Jews or Gentiles? Gentiles, exactly, the nations. So I'm going to bring them, the nations, not just the Jewish people, but the nations to my house. It'll be a house of prayer, not just for you, but for all nations. Now, why does Jesus quote that in Mark, chapter 11? Well, think about it with me.
Speaker 1:Let me give you a little geography background of the temple. The temple had different sections. For example, the outside of the temple was called the outer court and that was called the court of the Gentiles, and that was the place that was designated for the Gentiles to worship God. The nations could come and they would travel from many places and that's where they would encounter the glory and the presence of God. But there was a sign outside the court of the Gentiles that said if you're a Gentile, you don't go any farther past here for fear of death. You had to stop there if you weren't a part of the people of Israel. So inside the court of the Gentiles was the court of Jewish women. That was the place where Jewish women had the privilege of worshiping God. Inside, that was the court of Jewish men. That was a place where the Jewish men could go to worship. And then, as you get farther and farther inside, less and less people are allowed to go, until you get to the very center, which was the Holy of Holies. This was the place where the priest, only the high priest, could go, and only on certain occasions.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty intense thing. You study the Old Testament. It's a pretty intense thing. You study the Old Testament. It's pretty intense to see that the priest would wear bells, have bells attached to him so that when he went in he would constantly be moving around so you could still hear the bells, because if the bells stopped that would be a sign that the priest had been struck dead in the presence of God. Talk about intense. Just imagine, sitting here, really quiet, one of the leaders of the church just kind of walks in with bells on. We're just like are the bells still going? I mean, what an intense scene.
Speaker 1:Now I want you to think about this passage in Mark, chapter 11. All of these people setting up tables, exchanging money. Where do you think they had set up? Think they set up in the Holy of Holies? Of course not, no chance. Had they set up in the court of Jewish men? No, how about the court of Jewish women? No, where did they set up the court of the Gentiles, the place that was designated for the nations to encounter the glory of God, and in the middle of it they were indulging themselves and feeding themselves and completely turning a deaf ear to the nations who needed to worship God.
Speaker 1:And the implications of that, I believe, are huge for us in this room. Please hear this how we worship has a direct effect on who else worships. How we worship has a direct effect on who else worships. These people had become so unholy and begun indulging in so many things that they had basically said to the nations that wanted to encounter the glory of God you can't worship him. They had filled up that space, so the nations couldn't come. Basically, they left the nations on their own and said we're going to do worship our way.
Speaker 1:And I think it is a dangerous temptation that we face today to get so caught up in what we do in this room that we miss out on the point that what is done in this room is intended to propel us outside of this room to proclaim the glory of God to the nations. In our contemporary church culture, we build buildings and we indulge ourselves, and along the way we completely turn a deaf ear to the billion people who haven't even heard the name of Jesus and we indulge ourselves in what we call worship, and along the way we miss out completely on the very purpose of the God we're claiming to worship. So Jesus comes on the scene, he turns things upside down and he says my house is a house of prayer not just for you, it is a house of prayer for all peoples. Now we see how worship is intricately linked to this unstoppable mission that we're talking about. Don't miss it.
Speaker 1:Worship is the fuel of this mission. It is what drives us. We see the glory of God, we see the majesty of God, we're aware of the presence of God. That propels us to go and proclaim the glory of God. It fuels us, it drives us. But not only is worship the fuel of this mission, but worship is the goal of this mission. There's one day when we're not going to need to go out and be making disciples and telling people about Jesus, because on that day, evangelism, disciple making, won't exist. We're bowing around the throne of Christ, seeing His praises. On that day the mission won't be anymore, it'll just be about worship. That's the whole goal of this thing. We want as many people as possible in Birmingham not to come into this house, but to be at that place bowing around the throne of Christ, singing his praises. That's what drives us, that's the goal we're headed for, and Revelation, chapter seven, tells us it's going to happen. There will be a day when every tribe and every people in every language, people from throughout Birmingham and all nations, will gather around the throne of Christ and sing his praises in worship.
Speaker 1:That is the goal of this whole thing, and if we lose sight of that, we have missed out on worship altogether. And so in worship, we don't just see his greatness, we don't even just confess our sins that we reflect his holiness, we commit ourselves, we surrender ourselves to his purpose. Here's the biblical truth that undergirds this whole thing. God-centered worship always leads, always leads, to God-sized sacrifice and obedience. God-centered worship always leads to God-sized sacrifice and obedience. If it doesn't, then we have participated in a man-centered production and missed the whole point of worship. And so it's at this point that I want to invite you to do something even a little more stretching.
Speaker 1:Throughout Scripture we see God's people responding to God's Word in different ways.
Speaker 1:This morning I want us to use Nehemiah 9-10 as kind of a model for one way to respond to God's word, one way to commit to his purpose. If you go back and read that passage, you'll see people of God spend time in adoration of God and then in confession of their sins, and then what they do is they have the leaders of the people of God out in front and the people of God stand before the leaders and they say here's some commitments we're making to holiness in our lives. They don't just say we're going to follow God with all of our hearts. They say that but then they say some specific things there's a whole list of them in Nehemiah chapter 10 that it gives that they're going to do in order to more effectively reflect the holiness of God and get in on the purpose of God and be a part of this mission, particularly when it comes to the sin that they've been holding on to. We hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of Radical with David Platt. For more resources from David Platt, we invite you to visit radicalnet.