"What is Worship?" Week 3

In the final week of What Is Worship?, Pastor Jake unpacks what Scripture calls unacceptable worship—and why God cares more about our hearts than our habits. This message invites us to examine our motives and return to worship that is sincere, obedient, and rooted in truth.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Manna Church Stafford Podcast, where we're all about equipping God's people to change their world. We're thankful you're here, and we're praying that this message encourages you to love God, love others, and love the world more fervently than before. Now, let's get to it.

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We thank you for being a good father to us, Lord, for being a good example. We thank you for the men that you've put in our lives who have discipled us, who've raised us, who've been there for the highs and the lows. And while I'm sure that not all of them have done it perfectly, Lord, we appreciate their sacrifice, God. And so, Lord, we pray for a blessing right now over every father here. I pray, Lord, that they would have your heart, God, that we, me, even as a father, God, that all of us would have your heart as it relates to stewarding our families, shepherding the children that you've entrusted to us, God. We know you love them more than we do. And so, Father, would you just give us more and more of your heart for them, God? I pray that you would strengthen us in the times where we need to shoulder the responsibility of caring for them and providing for them, God. I pray that you would um give us words of wisdom in the challenging times where maybe we've got to provide some correction, God. And Lord, I pray that you would give us compassion, Lord, when there are moments where we need to show mercy and um and just lead them back to you, God, when they fail. So bless us, God. Bless the fathers in the room, Lord. We thank you so much. In Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen. All right, hey, middle schoolers, you guys can go ahead and be dismissed. You're gonna have a middle school small group out there in the lobby. And uh, if I haven't had a chance to meet you yet, my name is Jake Johnson. I'm the pastor here at Manna Church. And um we are in a series called What is Worship? Where we are trying to figure out, we're trying to answer that question. And um I've defined it as this worship is a posture of our heart that can find expression in every single facet of our existence. So that means in your work life, it can find expression. That means in your home life, it can find expression. That means here when we gather together, which is predominantly where people consider worship to be expressed. Obviously, it finds expression. And it looks different based on the geography of where you live. It looks different in the underground church than it does here in a Western contemporary church. It looks different in liturgical churches versus how it looks in a non-denominational church. It looks different based on the era of life that you're living in. And so we talked more about the diversity in form, and we came up with this idea. We shared it last week that there's a diversity in form across all of those different dimensions, but there is a very unmistakable consistency in the function when it comes to worship. It always has the same function. We went through three points, and I'm kind of giving you a recap here so we can position us for this week. Number one, what do we do when we get together is we honor God's presence. Every single time when we worship, we honor God's presence. So he's already here. The focus really has to do with our preparation and getting us ready to be in his presence. Then we express our gratitude, our adoration, and our belief in him. And so we talked about all the different ways we do that. We went through several of the words. There are nine different words that the Bible uses to express praise, all the way from yada, which means to throw out a hand, to hallelujah, which means spin like a top to praise Yahweh, to tahila, which means just to sing a song, like an extemporaneous song. All of those different words, we talked about those. And then obviously we express our belief in him through worship as we're teaching the word. And all of that comes down to the third point of what happens when we worship God is that he transforms us. God actually changes us during the worship process. So whatever we gaze at, whatever captures our attention, eventually it's gonna start to shape our identity. And when we get into a worship posture here, that's what we want to do. In fact, some of you are a little bit frustrated because you started gazing at the beauty of Jesus while we were having that first song. We went into How Great Thou Art, and you were like, Yes, how great you are. And Kelly came up, did such a good job hosting, but you were like, man, I wish I could have just stayed there for a little bit longer. Because you started to feel the Holy Spirit like transform you, start to make you think a little bit differently. You started to focus on him more. Because it's not that he transforms us while we're singing, he transforms us while we're seeing, while we see him for who he is and we truly worship him. 2 Corinthians 3 says this in verse 18, it says, and we all with an unveiled face, he's going back to Moses, who had to cover his face when he spent so much time in God's presence. He says, We with an unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. So while we're in worship, he's literally adding glory on glory on glory to us because we're becoming more like him. And he is so glorious. So he's changing us into his image as we worship. And that worship, man, it's marked by just nearness with him. James says this draw near to God and he will draw near to you. I want to be near God. Do you want to be near God? Yes? Do you guys want to be near God today? Yes. That's what worship is about. It's drawing near to his presence. And so from last week, we talked about what was acceptable worship to God. And so this week, we're gonna we're gonna kind of take a step back, go a little bit level higher. We got into a lot of minutiae last week about expression. Um today, I'm just gonna warn you it's gonna be a challenging word. It's gonna be kind of a hard word. It's meant to make you uncomfortable, but but it's it's biblical. All right? Um my hope is that every single one of us, when we leave today, we'll have a new understanding of what it means to have a holy reverence and fear of God when it comes to worshiping Him. Hebrews chapter 12, we've talked about this passage multiple times during this series. It says, Let us offer to God acceptable worship. That implies that there is an unacceptable worship. So he says, Let us offer him acceptable worship. Well, then there's gotta be something that's not that. An acceptable worship is with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. So we know God, we know worship is only acceptable when it's oriented towards God. We know that. We know he doesn't look kindly on people usurping his place. We talked about Herod, how Herod spoke, and people were like, oh my goodness, your voice is like a God, not a man. And God was like, nope, struck him down. We know that that God didn't look kindly on the Hebrew people when they worshiped the golden calf, when they worshiped Baal's, when they worshiped Asheras. They had all these things that they worshiped. God didn't like that. And for us, in our context, we have things that we worship that are not God. We worship money, we worship fame, we worship people, whether they're celebrities, whether they're performers, politicians, athletes, we can worship family members, put them behead of God, we can do that. Hobbies, we can worship our goals and make it such a strong ambition that we pursue it more than we pursue Jesus. God is jealous for his worship. But what about when you're offering worship in the right direction, but you have the wrong motivation of your heart? So remember that the definition we talked about, it's about your heart. It's about where your heart is postured. Worship is a posture of our heart that finds expression in all these different facets of our existence. So what about when you're you're offering worship with the right form, but you're doing it with the wrong heart? God actually talks about this in Amos. This is a hard verse. And most people don't read Amos because it's one of those, one of those books that are kind of in the back of the Old Testament. You go right by it. If you don't just open up your Bible directly to it. Amos chapter 5. This is what God says. He says, I hate. That's how it starts off. I hate. I despise your feasts. The feasts were when they were honoring him, supposed to be celebrating worship. It was their offerings that they would do once a year. I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. And then he says this take away from me the noise of your songs. He doesn't say the worship of your songs. Take away the noise of your songs. To the melody of your harps, I will not listen. That is really convicting that God would say this. Because here's the thing. Notice this, they're doing all these things. They're bringing offerings to him, they're having big celebrations and events and festivals, right? They're doing solemn assemblies, worship nights. They're playing harps, music, melodies. And God's like, ooh, I hate, I despise this. Imagine God saying this to us. Imagine he said this about a time of worship that we had. Imagine you're in your car and you're singing to him, or you're having a moment where you're like, okay, I'm doing my study, I'm doing my prayer time, and you're praying, and you get a word from God. He's like, man, I hate this. I despise this. That's what he was telling the people of Israel as a nation. Like your corporate worship, I don't like it. So today what I want to do is I want to give you seven types. It's really six types with one umbrella type of unacceptable worship, worship that God does not appreciate. Okay? So we're gonna talk through this. It's really quiet in here. First one, self-serving worship. God does not accept self-serving worship. You can be in a moment of worship, but really be doing it to draw attention to yourself. The best example I have of this is King Saul. He was a king in the Old Testament. He was actually the first king of Israel. Um he was anointed by this prophet named Samuel, and there's this moment where he's disobedient to God, he doesn't fully obey God, and so he's doing an offering. And Samuel comes and Samuel's like, I'm not gonna do this offering. And Saul goes, Well, can you just do it to honor me in front of all these people? Don't you know God does not appreciate that? That's not worship that brings glory to God. It was worship that was bringing glory to Saul. Sometimes we can we can get in the habit of accidentally doing that. If we miss the point, we we can pick songs that satisfy people more than songs that are theologically accurate and satisfy God. We can shift away in the pulpit sometimes from the way that we talk about things. You can do this when you're in your home, fathers, in your families, the way that you're leading your families, you can kind of shy away from saying the hard truths that would honor and glorify and worship God because you know you want you want your kids to like you and you want to be the fun dad. We can put people in places of authority sometimes in worship experiences to pacify them. I just want to be clear with you guys. The way that we do worship here, the way that we do worship is driven by what will draw glory to God, period. That's it. That's what drives us. What's going to give God glory? That's what drives how we we do worship. We don't let people steal the show. In fact, one of the things that I try to coach the worship team on is don't be distracting to people. Um, you can actually worship, you can have such excellent worship or excellent performance that it can actually be distracting. It's drawing attention to you. I'm not telling our team to not be excellent when they're up here. Be excellent. But we don't want to ever draw attention to ourselves. What we want to do is we want to draw you into a moment of praise and get out of the way so you worship Jesus. That's what we want to do. That's what we want the teaching of the Word to do. In fact, that's what I'm gonna do today. I'm gonna hopefully draw you in to where you're looking at Jesus, you're understanding what is acceptable versus what is not acceptable worship. And then I'm gonna get up out the way and we're gonna worship Jesus at the end. Amen. That's what we want to do every single time we come together. Second type of worship that's not acceptable to God is half-hearted or empty worship. So, Church of Laodicea, you guys know that there's this, there's this, um, there's seven churches in the book of Revelation. If you haven't read it, um John writes this letter. He writes to the seven prominent churches of that time, one of them, the Church of Laodicea, um, they get this really hard word from Jesus. And these are red letters. This is what he says in chapter 3. He says, I know your works. You're neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you're lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'm gonna spit you out of my mouth. I don't want that. It's not savory, it's not delightful to me. For you say, I'm rich, I've prospered, I need nothing, not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. So they had works. But they weren't hot or cold. They were just works. So when spiritual disciplines become detached from our affection for Christ, the things that we do that they don't have any heart behind them, it starts to feel like leftovers. It starts to feel like half-hearted or or empty worship, like chores. Matthew 15, Jesus says this again. He's he's referencing Isaiah. He says, These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You think that by maybe obeying some general set of rules that you made it when the rules were never the point, your heart has always, always, always been the point when it comes to worshiping God. That's what he's concerned with. He wants to draw your heart in. The person that is stuck in this is half-hearted worship. They may attend occasionally, they may avoid major sins, they believe orthodox doctrine, they maintain a really good lifestyle. They're good people. Good people. Maybe they even serve periodically. There is very little hunger in their life for Jesus, though. There's little expectancy, there's little pursuit, there's little delight when it comes to the things of the Lord. And maybe that's you today. If it is, just think about that a little bit. Like evaluate yourself. Jesus, he's no longer the treasure in your heart, in your home. He's just like one of the pieces of furniture. Just kind of there. He's an addition. It's not, you're not immoral, you're not outright rejecting God. It's just this self-satisfied indifference. Like, I'm good, I'm okay. You're comfortable enough that you no longer feel that you actually need Jesus. And what we got to do is we gotta be really, really, really careful that we don't fall into the trap of thinking that we can practice Christianity without pursuing Christ. There's a time I remember I was meeting with this couple, they wanted to get married. The girl was a believer, really close to believing. She had been a believer, but it kind of was in a weird spot in her faith. The guy, not a believer, didn't really have any intention of being a believer. And like, will you do premarital counseling for us? I'm like, sure. You just need to know I'm gonna counsel you according to the word of God. Like that's what that's what we're gonna do in this premarital counseling. And and just so you know, there are some things I'm gonna teach you that the word of God says, like some practices, that will be good for you. They'll actually be helpful in your marriage. However, comma, if it only ever turns into habits and it doesn't ever get into your heart, it's never really gonna stick. If you just learn some good habits, like it'll last for a while, but it's not really gonna be transformative. There's gotta be something deeper that changes you. So don't just practice Christianity. You have to pursue Christ. Third one is this leftover worship. It's just like, if you have time for it, God gets what's left after you do everything else. On the priority list, he's super low. Does God get your first and your best? Father's Day, just saying, and again, you guys are the ones in the room. Father's Day is historically one of the lowest attended Sundays in Christendom, Western Christendom, because we only have Father's Day here in the U.S. You know why? Because God gets dads' leftovers a lot. He's not the top priority, he's a priority, he's on the list, but dads want to go do other things. Like, this is my day. So on my day, I'm gonna do my things, and then God will get whatever is left. Do you know that God rebuking that kind of offering was what led to the very first murder in the Bible? Check this out. Genesis chapter 4 says, in the course of time, when he got around to it, in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering from the fruit of the ground. He was a farmer. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So I know you can take a lot of what we're going to talk about today, and you can say, man, Pastor Jake's just talking about money and giving. I'm not trying to give a giving sermon. It's just hard to unlink, and I don't necessarily want to unlink something that God tied together. It's hard to un disconnect giving from worship from your heart. Those things are kind of tied together. Jesus said, Where your treasure is, there your heart is. And so, so giving is worship. Cain was giving, he was worshiping God in that moment. Abel was worshiping God. But here's the deal: God doesn't just want your leftovers, He wants your first and your best. You know, when the Hebrew people would bring their offering of their flock, they would give the firstborn without knowing if anything else was going to be born. They didn't know what it was gonna look like the rest of that season. But they would say, here's my first and my best. Danielle and I we were um went on uh vacation recently, and one of the things we were doing, you know, like we're trying to figure out like, okay, we're gonna send this check to pay for the vacation thing. I'm like, oh, but it's the first of the month. I've got to make sure that I'm doing my my check for offering first. And it was just a it was a simple thing, honestly, it was really in my head more than it was like financial, but I had to make sure in my heart God got his check before I paid the check for my trip. Just because I want God to always get the first and the best. A lot of times what we do when it comes to worship, when it comes to giving, when it comes to any of those things, is we treat God like someone who comes to our house, they buy all the food that we're gonna eat, they give it to you. Imagine this, right? Someone comes to your house, they bring all the food, they sit it out on your table for you, they're like, enjoy this. And they're gonna sit down and eat with you, you and your family, you sit down, man, you chow down, everybody's eating, and God's sitting in the corner. And when you're done, you look around, you're like, okay, what's left? Oh, you got some of this. Okay, let's scrape it onto a plate, the leavings. Here you go, God, you can have this. That's how a lot of us treat worship. It's and and it's most often expressed when it comes to our giving. Like, what do I got left at the end of the month, or at the end of this week, or at the end of the year? I'll give that to God. There's these two people in the New Testament, they felt the same way. Ananias and Sapphira. Um, the Holy Spirit, he's doing this powerful thing. It's the New Testament church. Church is exploding. Like amazing things are happening. And people are actually selling property and they're bringing it and putting it at the feet of the apostles, saying, like, here, just use it. Like everybody's gonna share everything. It's fine. Um, this guy, Barnabas, is even named, like it says he sold a field and brought the entire proceeds out. So these two people, Ananias and Sapphira, they see that this happens and they want a piece of some of that self-serving honor. And so they're gonna give God some of their leftovers. They sell a property, and then they come and they lay some of what it was at the altar after they'd taken out their piece. They lie about the receipt. They try to convince everybody that they gave the full amount, which leads to the fourth type of worship that God doesn't want, which is dishonest worship, inauthentic worship. Again, some of these, there's a lot of overlap between these, but there's different stuff in each of our hearts that I just want to poke on a little bit, let the Holy Spirit really do that. We can have dishonest worship. It wasn't that they kept money back. God doesn't need your money. This church does not need your money. God provides for us very, very well. Like that, the don't don't hear me saying that. I'm trying to get to your heart though. And that's what was the issue here is they kept the money back because they wanted to be dishonest. Acts 5, verse 4. Peter's talking to him. He says, While it remained unsold, the property, did it not remain your own? Like it was yours. And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? You could do whatever you wanted with it. Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You haven't lied to man but to God. You were dishonest to God. It was dishonest. Dishonest worship. It was inauthentic. It was fake. It was fraudulent. So worship meant to mask what you're actually thinking and doing, that's what this looks like. It elevates you in the eyes of people, maybe, or maybe it makes you feel like you're going through the motions, like I'm getting my check in the box, I'm good. It's just not authentic, though. Using language and actions of devotion to conceal the lack of actual devotion in your heart. Listen, God will not be mocked. This is where that holy fear comes in. He sees everything, he knows what's in your heart. The next verse, chapter 5, it says when Ananias heard these words, this rebuke from Peter, he fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard it. Dishonest worship, it makes the assumption that we can put one over on God. Like, ah, you won't notice this. I'll just kind of hide this. It doesn't work that way. This is what we do sometimes when we we're praying to be seen, when we're fasting to be seen, when we're giving to be seen. You know, Jesus, when he talks about giving, he says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Like, be really careful. And some of us can be over-extreme in this. Fifth kind. Unreconciled worship. So do you know that there are times where you have issues with people? I guarantee everybody in here probably has like somebody they can think of that like things aren't just great with them. Do you know that there are times when it comes to your worship that God would rather you not worship him until you get things right with that person? It's crazy. Jesus talks about this in his Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 5, 23 and 24, he says, So if you're offering your gift at the altar, you're worshiping, and there remember, like the Holy Spirit goes, Hey, you and this person have beef. There, remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come offer your gift. God's not saying, I don't want the gift. He's saying, get stuff right in your heart. Get stuff right with the person. And notice this, this is really, this is people miss this. It doesn't say, and there you remember that you're angry with the other person. It says, there remember that your brother has something against you. So he wants you to help take the baggage away from other people. They have some beef against you. So it's like, hey, if you remember that, you remember that they've got baggage, don't come and carry all your baggage up here. I'm not talking about sin, like we've got sin. Jesus accepts us as we are. I'm talking about things that you know that you haven't reconciled, things that you know people have and you're just kind of holding on to. He's saying, first go get that right, then come and offer your gift. I'm telling you, it's gonna mess with your soul if you don't. You're not gonna be able to get around it. You're not gonna be able to really get into his presence and gaze at him and enjoy him if you got this baggage coming into worship. And if you're letting other people carry baggage against you into worship. Sixth type. Again, this is all about your heart, okay? It's about your heart. It's not about the object that you're bringing. It's about your heart towards God. It's stingy worship. We know that God loves a cheerful giver, a giver of worship. It happens to be in money, it happens to be in praise, in service, in all these different ways. 2 Corinthians 9, 6 through 7, it says the point is this whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly. Whoever sows with a stingy heart will reap stingy portions. And whoever sows bountifully with a generous heart will reap bountifully. We're not a prosperity church, we don't preach a prosperity gospel. There is a principle of sowing and reaping that is very biblical, though. Each one must give as he's decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So this is this attitude, it feels like the same kind of thing as when my kids do something I ask me and then they side-eye me like, fine. Like, yes. I'll do that. That's kind of the way that some of us come into worship. I know it's the way that some of us give. And what's funny is that this is so ironic to me. Some people actually use this whole verse and they they they take it so far to the extreme, like, well, God loves a cheerful giver. I don't feel super cheerful right now, so I'm probably just not gonna give it all. I need to wait till my heart gets really right. It's like you're just doubling down on the stingy, bro. Come on. The seventh type is this. It's kind of the umbrella. It's irreverent worship. Irreverent. God is serious about us worshiping him with an honoring heart, a reverent heart. Sometimes you can have the right object and just be less reverent than what he deserves. There's this example, again, I don't I'm giving you a lot of narratives. You can go back and look these up. There's this moment where the Hebrew people are carrying the Ark of the Covenant. King David's super excited. It's where he it's just before, actually, he's dancing before the Lord in worship, but they're carrying it the wrong way. They're not being as reverent as they should, and somebody dies as a result. There's another example where Aaron, who was the first kind of the priest of Israel along with Moses' brother, and he had two sons, Nadab and Abihu. I think about this passage often when it comes to ministry, and I think it's something that all of us should think about because they're priests. This this narrative I'm gonna read you, it's about some priests, but you should know that in the New Testament, the way that God intended it was that we would be a a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people to show forth the praises of Him. That that's that's who God intends for us to be. So this applies to all of us as as we go into worship. This is Leviticus chapter 10. It says, Nadab and Abihu, these are sons of Aaron. They each took censors and put fire in it. Again, different context, different way that they were doing worship, but but they're still doing worship. They're giving an offering to God, and they laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he'd not commanded them. So this is unauthorized would be um profane, unconsecrated. There's all kinds of different um uses of that word. Strange is another way that some people use it. God never asked for this, and it wasn't what he wanted. In fact, it was they weren't treating it as holy. Fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. They brought an offering. Imagine you come into the worship experience here, and you're like, okay, God. You're profane. That's not what God wants. Fire. Falls. Consume somebody. That would change your perspective. That's what happened here. That's what happened to the people of Israel. They saw this. They died before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord has said. Among those who are near me, we said worship, we get near his presence, and he changes us. So he's talking about those who are near him. If you want to be near him, hear this, people. Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. Dad just saw two of his sons get lit up, and he doesn't say a word. Because God is holy. And you might think, like, what did they do wrong? Like, what was so bad? I'll tell you. Go on. Verse 9. He says, drink no wine or strong drink, let you or your sons with you when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. He's not saying don't ever drink. He's saying, like, don't treat this as flippant. Don't be doing your daily lifestyle habits that you do. You're consuming all kinds of substances and everything. And then you're just like, oh, yeah, I can just shift gears really quickly and go into the presence of God. He's saying that this is this is not the way that you treat worship. Drink no wine or strong drink. You or your sons with you when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. You are to distinguish between the holy, the set apart, and the common, between the unclean and the clean. And you are, Aaron, you're to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses. Dude, you didn't even teach your boys this. And you need to teach an entire nation how to do this right. This is the consequence of not doing it right. Again, it's unacceptable worship. They were casual with something holy. They treated it like it was just something common, like, oh, hey, it's just a Sunday meetup. I'm just gonna go, I'm gonna go sit in a school. It's just a song. It's just a little tap disc. It's just a prayer. Really? Like really, really? Is that what we really think? Is that what the Bible? Is that what the word actually teaches? That it's just a song? That it's just an offering. It's just some money? Is that really what the word teaches? I think the word teaches we need to distinguish between the holy and the common, the clean and the unclean. There are things that are not necessarily unclean, but they're common and they don't belong in the presence of God. I think it's safe to say on the spectrum of more or less reverent towards God, we're more in danger of being less reverent than we are of being too reverent. In fact, I never see it in the Word where some where God's like, hey, you were a little bit too reverent before me. Never happens. Like your kids, you never tell your kids, can you please be a little bit less respectful? We don't do that. I think it's important to be reminded regularly about our need for reverence. And I will tell you guys, it is way, way, way, way, way better for me to remind us than for God to have to remind any of us. Amen? The writer of Hebrews, he goes back and he's hearkening back to this period where this happened to Nadab and Abihu. It was where it happened to the two of them, it was shortly after the Israelites first came out of Egypt. They worship at Mount Sinai, and it is a terrifying experience for all of them. Scares them to death, actually. They're frightened. And God is showing them in displays, visible displays, his power. This is the context of actually Hebrews 12. We read that. Let's worship God, give him acceptable worship with reverence and offer. He's a consuming fire. The context of that, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read the rest of it. Here. It's Hebrews chapter 12. It says, For you, he's talking to the New Testament church, you've not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest. This is all, this is all in that narrative, in the Genesis Exodus narrative. And the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. That's how scared they were. They heard God's voice booming and they were terrified. They're like, please stop talking, God. Can you imagine being so overwhelmed by his presence that you said that? Like, I love God's voice. I want to hear him speak to me. They were terrified of his voice. For they could not endure the order that was given. And this is the order. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Animals couldn't even go up on this mountain where God's presence had fallen. If it does, kill it. Because the mountain is holy. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. This is Moses, the same guy who God said, I talked to Moses mouth to mouth, face to face, like a friend. He's a friend of mine. And Moses said, I tremble with fear. I don't have a lot of friends that I tremble with fear when I'm in their presence. That's how scary this was. But you, the church now, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festival gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn. That's us. We're the firstborn of the saints, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkle blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you don't refuse him who's speaking. He talked one way in the Old Testament, he's talking a different way. Same idea. Context might have changed a little bit, but listen, we still need to recognize he's the same God, he hasn't changed. See that you don't refuse him who's speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he's promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. So, therefore, in context, in light of all of this, therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. That's the kingdom that we walk in as priests. The nadabs and abihus of this new kingdom that God intended. And thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. Do you worship Him with reverence? Do you do it with awe? Or are you irreverent and casual? How do we do it? How do you do it? Again, it's it's this is an individual thing. You've got to get your posture right. There are things we can do to kind of help get out of the way and help create an environment where it's easier to be reverent, but this is really all about your heart. Are you selfish? Self-serving? Do you only give them a part of yourself? You give them the leftovers. Are you stingy? See, we've hit all of this stuff. We've talked about it. And your question might be like, so should I be afraid? Yes. And no. Both. You should treat him with reverence and awe. Man, perfect love casts out fear. We've received this kingdom where we can come into his presence, we can worship him freely. But if you've got stuff in your soul that is any of those things that I described, you need to do some work before you come into his presence. So that way you can fully give him your heart and you can fully receive from him and be transformed. Like what we said happens in 2 Corinthians 3.18. Like we are being transformed from glory to glory. He's making us more like him. As we come into his presence, man, he will be honored as holy. So what we've done today is we shifted our time of music to the end here. So I want us, I'm gonna spend just a minute praying for us. Worship team, you guys can come on out. I'm gonna spend a minute just praying for us. And I want us to take this moment and just kind of consecrate our hearts. Let the Lord, let the Holy Spirit put his finger on something that he's like, man, this is something, man, this person has something against you. You need to make it right with him. Or this is an area where you've been stingy with your worship, where you've been irreverent. Whatever it is, just just get that stuff out there. So let's bow our heads. I'm gonna pray for us, and then the worship team is gonna leave us. Heavenly Father. God, I pray that you would consecrate this time, Lord. Consecrate us, God. Search us, God, for any wicked way. Father, I pray, I know this is a dangerous prayer, Lord. Would you purify our motives? Purify them, Lord. Purify the posture of our heart, God. We wanna we want to be able to worship you fully and freely, God. God, we love your presence. You're holy. You do me a favor, can you stand together?

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Thank you for listening to the Mana Church Stafford Podcast. If you would like to connect with us, you can find us on the web at manastafford.church or download the Mana Church app to listen to our new episodes as they become available. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast. We would also love to meet you in person. If you are local, our services take place each Sunday at 10 a.m. We pray you have an amazing week, and we'll see you next time.