SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is what you value.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is what you behold.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is your priority.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody worships something.
SPEAKER_01: Some people worship their family.
SPEAKER_01: Some people worship their spouse.
SPEAKER_01: Some people worship money.
SPEAKER_01: Some people worship success.
SPEAKER_01: Success is a is probably one of the biggest idols in America.
SPEAKER_01: All you have to do is go to the bookstore.
SPEAKER_01: We put work to success.
SPEAKER_01: We value success.
SPEAKER_01: That's not all bad.
SPEAKER_01: But if it's all you worship, it's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, we've been in the book of Philippians for about, I think, eight or nine or ten weeks, but I've done a segue into worship after hitting Philippians 3.3.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to go back to Philippians, but I want to stay on this theme because of what God's doing in our church in the arena of worship.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that with Michael coming on staff, he has brought an energy and a passion to worship that is exciting, and I want to flow with that and grow as a church in the arena of praise and worship.
SPEAKER_01: So the last four weeks, if you've been with us, I've been talking about worshiping in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: And that's going to be actually a separate topic.
SPEAKER_01: When you go to the sermons, you'll find it not under Philippians, but you'll actually find it under worship in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about Philippians 3, 3, this idea of what it means to worship in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul's interesting in that he makes this contrast in probably one of the most vulnerable, authentic chapters of the entire Bible by Paul, Philippians 3, about his background.
SPEAKER_01: And he's pretty, it's pretty cool the way he explains his journey in Judaism and in religion in general.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up Lutheran, and I've taken some of you guys from time to time on my Lutheran journey.
SPEAKER_01: I was lifting weights the other day in Villa, and I met a young man who comes out of a Lutheran background, and we had so much in common as we talked about our Lutheran heritage and catechism and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so what Paul does in Philippians 3 is he's talking about his journey in Judaism.
SPEAKER_01: And then how he learned to worship in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's saying is, I didn't worship in the Spirit in my Jewish heritage.
SPEAKER_01: I followed tradition.
SPEAKER_01: I was circumcised on the eighth day.
SPEAKER_01: I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: I did everything.
SPEAKER_01: I was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: He probably had the Pentateuch.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, memorized.
SPEAKER_01: He followed the law, and he said, but I never learned to worship in the Spirit until I found Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about that.
SPEAKER_01: You can look back at that sermon if you like.
SPEAKER_01: Then we went to John 4 and we talked about worshiping with spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_01: That, and the image I gave you guys was this idea that, you know, your heart, because when it says worship in spirit and truth, it's small as spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So it's talking about your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Worship with your spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_01: And that this is like a furnace room.
SPEAKER_01: But the fuel is truth.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you don't know who Christ is, it's really hard to worship him as you ought.
SPEAKER_01: You can't worship something you don't know.
SPEAKER_01: And so the fuel of worship in the furnace of your spirit is truth, knowing God in his word, understanding doctrine, understanding theology, understanding who Christ is in his character.
SPEAKER_01: But then, but then you need fire.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be able to light the fire in your heart, and that's the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So the Holy Spirit, where we connect our spirit with his spirit, creates heat.
SPEAKER_01: It creates a fire within us, and that's worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: And then last week we talked about the four spiritual laws of praise.
SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed doing that one a lot too.
SPEAKER_01: The four spiritual laws of praise, and we were in Revelation chapter four, and we talked about there's no rock concert that's ever been done by Rolling Stones or by Bob Dylan that even comes close to Revelation chapter four, where the seraphim and the cherubim and the 24 elders and these and these heavenly hosts are thrusting down their crowns before the throne.
SPEAKER_01: Throne is mentioned 14 times in Revelation 4.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is on the throne, gang.
SPEAKER_01: And there's no Congress in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And there's no re-election every four years in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He's always on the throne, he's still on the throne, he's gonna remain on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we tend to do is think that reality is what's happening in this three-dimensional world, and yet the three-dimensional world is being affected by the fourth dimension of Christ on the throne, and that's the control center of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we come into worship, we're focusing on the control center, we're focusing on Jesus, we're focusing on him on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about this morning worship as beholding the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Worship as beholding the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So what is worship?
SPEAKER_01: Worship's not just the songs we sing, that's part of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the songs that we write, that's part of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not doing children's ministry, it's not your offering that you give, and people are, do you guys ever take an offering around here?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, we do have boxes in the back, and you can give in the box in the back, or you can give online.
SPEAKER_01: I think 70% of our church gives online.
SPEAKER_01: Those are expressions of worship, but they're not worship.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is what you value, worship is what you behold, worship is your priorities.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody worships something.
SPEAKER_01: Some people worship their family, some people worship their spouse, some people worship money, some people worship getting promotions in their job, some people worship success.
SPEAKER_01: Success is a is probably one of the biggest idols in America.
SPEAKER_01: All you have to do is go to the bookstore.
SPEAKER_01: For you that go to bookstores anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I was at Mardell the other day and I said, you know, you guys are gonna be out of business in the next 20 years.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy said, Oh no, the next five.
SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because I've been at now, you know, I've remember when Mardell came in.
SPEAKER_01: Remember if you've been to Mardell on Powers, how huge that book section used to be, and now it's shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and it's all more like trinkets and jewelry and crosses you can put on your wall and all that, because everybody's more and more buying online.
SPEAKER_01: So in America we worship success, we put worth to success, we value success.
SPEAKER_01: That's not all bad.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that's bad, but if it's all you worship, it's horrible.
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting that in the Old Testament, the word for worship means to bow down.
SPEAKER_01: It has the idea of bowing down and even falling forward before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Hebrew means.
SPEAKER_01: But in the New Testament, it changes, and that word for worship means to kiss.
SPEAKER_01: It moves from Jesus or Messiah, Father God, Yahweh, Jehovah as King, to being a friend, to being an intimate father, to having an intimate relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, he's still king.
SPEAKER_01: You see it in Revelation 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_01: He's on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus brought to us an intimacy that even the Jewish nation had not known.
SPEAKER_01: David knew it.
SPEAKER_01: David understood it.
SPEAKER_01: David was so prophetic because he talked about the beauty of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He spoke of beholding the Lord in Psalm 16.
SPEAKER_01: We'll look at it in a minute.
SPEAKER_01: But he was a prophetic voice.
SPEAKER_01: Hardly anyone got that except maybe Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Moses seemed to understand this intimacy with God.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah seemed to understand this intimacy with God.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah had to understand this intimacy with God because of the pressure he was under as the weeping prophet.
SPEAKER_01: David.
SPEAKER_01: David is a type of worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: We don't find anywhere in Scripture until Jesus arrives.
SPEAKER_01: But men and women, this idea of worship is giving worth to an intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: So two key passages.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn to the first one.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to turn to the first one if you've been with us.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to, you can.
SPEAKER_01: John 4.23.
SPEAKER_01: You jot it down, just John 4.23 says this.
SPEAKER_01: But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit, in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: Really interesting passage.
SPEAKER_01: Really revolutionary idea that God is actually, I believe, more interested in you than your worship.
SPEAKER_01: He is not seeking worship.
SPEAKER_01: He's seeking worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: It's a new dispensation, church, that God, in 2 Chronicles, he's talking about that God's eyes look to and fro across the earth, looking for those who love him, for those that affectionately go after him, for those that have crowned him, that have enthroned him, that he might strongly support them.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, now, Jesus says in John chapter 4, that it's a new day, and the Lord is looking for, he's searching for, what does he say?
SPEAKER_01: He's searching for true worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: Which by connotation means there's false worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: Those who worship with their spirit, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: What a concept that God is looking for worshipers.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if everything that God does, and everything that God desires for all of us in this room is based in and motivated by love, and that if everything that's motivated by love is for our best, then it means, men and women, that the more we learn to be true worshipers, then the more we discover his love and what's best in our life.
SPEAKER_01: And so as a Christian hedonist that I am, and I pray you're growing to be a Christian hedonist too, that the pleasure of God, the pleasure of God in our lives is becoming increasingly our highest value, is to live and worship and walk in joy, then worship is catalytic.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is maybe the most catalytic thing that we do that changes us.
SPEAKER_01: It pleases God and it changes us.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: That what we do, the more we behold him, he's gonna change us.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a second passage and turn to this one, 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: I want to focus on verse 18, but I want to start at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Because we see the Old Testament and the New Testament development of worship starting in verse 13 with Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so 2 Corinthians 3, 13.
SPEAKER_01: Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.
SPEAKER_01: So you remember that Moses met with the Lord face to face.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that face-to-face encounter with the glory of God, his face began to shine as a reflection of the glory of God, and it was it was almost blinding to people, so he had to put a veil over, but then it says he actually had the veil over his face because it was going to fade over time.
SPEAKER_01: But, verse 14, their minds were blinded.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's talking about the Jewish nation now, for until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But even to this day, when Moses read, a veil lies on their heart.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, and by the way, that's for anyone.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who doesn't know the Lord, I mean, really, even in apologetics, when we're talking about apologetics and we're in situations with those maybe that have a different view, and we're having a discussion about creation and evolution or the inerrancy of the Bible or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: There's a veil, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's a veil, and they don't, they just don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's me, that's the way I was.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, six months before I got saved, if I had that discussion, there was a veil over my heart.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't understand the truth, it was just bouncing off.
SPEAKER_01: Then I got saved, the Holy Spirit came into my heart and I understood.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, why didn't anybody ever tell me this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: And then my dad, who taught me my catechism for three years, is my pastor and father, I did.
SPEAKER_01: But there was a veil over my heart, and so you can't worship with that veil.
SPEAKER_01: But then in verse 16, he talks about getting saved and what happens when we're born again.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
SPEAKER_01: So we can talk till the cows come home about worship, but if you don't know the Lord, you don't have a clue what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And every time you come into church, and I'm, and there's people in here who don't know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You may be long on religion, but very, very short on relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't really know him yet.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That was me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in church nine months before I was born.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was, I graduated out of church like 14 times, you know, between birth and 18.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is, when you get saved, the veil is taken away, and you begin this journey of now being able by the power of the Spirit to behold the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: A person could have been saved, been a Christian for 30 years.
SPEAKER_01: And they grew up in a church where they sang the hymns, they did, they went through the motions, and maybe for about 10 seconds, as we sang Amazing Grace, or How Great Thou Art, they have an encounter with the Lord once a week during the hymn sing.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's a young man, he gets saved here at the road two years ago, and he begins to behold the Lord 30 minutes a day.
SPEAKER_01: He just, he just maybe takes out his guitar, maybe he puts it on YouTube, whatever, and he beholds the Lord for 15, 20, 30 minutes a day.
SPEAKER_01: Guess who's gonna be changed quicker?
SPEAKER_01: Into the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's not quantity alone, it's quality and quantity.
SPEAKER_01: This person is spending that time every day beholding the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It might be five minutes at first, and then you get hooked, and then it's 10 minutes, and then it's 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: But they're learning to worship the Lord in the Word and in worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's both, gang.
SPEAKER_01: Truth and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Spirit speaking to you, opening the word, meditating on God's word, worshiping, making the word of God a dialogue, not just a monologue, not just about information, but transformation.
SPEAKER_01: And worshiping the Lord, then they're just gonna exponentially grow.
SPEAKER_01: And how many of us have said, right?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, I still have struggles with porn, I still have struggles with alcohol, I still have whatever it might be, I still have an anger issue.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta learn to behold the Lord, man.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the only thing that'll change you.
SPEAKER_01: You can't change you.
SPEAKER_01: And so you start beholding the Lord, and I'm just telling you what he says here.
SPEAKER_01: But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his image.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we, that's how you get, that's how you break the power of anger.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you break the power of jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: Today, I go into the furnace room to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just sitting there and I'm meditating on 2 Corinthians 3.18, and all this shame just starts to nail me.
SPEAKER_01: All this shame from my past.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: I just, I just, condemnation, man.
SPEAKER_01: And I got, I gotta preach.
SPEAKER_01: But I had to renew my mind, gang.
SPEAKER_01: So I had to behold the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So I was glad nobody was in there yet because I just began to worship the Lord and sing to him and to think on Jesus, and then it went away.
SPEAKER_01: It gradually went away.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way it works, though.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy comes and he shames you and he condemns you.
SPEAKER_01: And we have to take our eyes off of the condemnation and put our eyes back on him because that's how we are truly transformed.
SPEAKER_01: And so in the Old Testament, you have these passages.
SPEAKER_01: Um Exodus 19, 6.
SPEAKER_01: And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 61, 6.
SPEAKER_01: You shall be priest unto the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But then in 1 Peter 2, 9, it says, You are a royal priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: You are a royal priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses goes to Mount Sinai and he climbs up and he encounters the Lord, and there's thundering and lightning, not unlike what we just read about in Revelation chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: He's encountering the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: How many like Thunderstorms.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, my kind of church.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: You're still my kind of church, even if you don't like thunderstorms.
SPEAKER_01: But I love thunderstorms because I've spent so much time in Revelation 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_01: And it just reminds me, wow, it's like heaven came down.
SPEAKER_01: Now we'll say one time we were having a big thunderstorm and we heard the biggest explosion in our backyard, and this lightning struck one of our large pine trees and just took a streak, just took the bark off about that wide and about an inch deep, like a circle all the way around, and you can see where it drove into the ground.
SPEAKER_01: It was super powerful.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses is on Mount Sinai, he's beholding the Lord, he's worshiping the Lord there.
SPEAKER_01: And what did Israel do?
SPEAKER_01: They said, Moses, you get the words from the Lord and tell us about it.
SPEAKER_01: And Israel made a fundamental, huge, massive mistake at that point, and they're still living with it today, and that is we don't want a personal encounter with God.
SPEAKER_01: We want the law.
SPEAKER_01: Just get the law and give us the law, and we'll do the law.
SPEAKER_01: And then God raised up the church.
SPEAKER_01: We are, Peter says in 1 Peter 2 9, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, you've been born again.
SPEAKER_01: You're a priest.
SPEAKER_01: You can worship him in intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: We can know him.
SPEAKER_01: We can behold him.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're about to do.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to behold him for who he is.
SPEAKER_01: Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 115.
SPEAKER_01: This is really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 115.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Psalm 115, this is one of the, oh man, Psalm 115 is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: It's sad, but it's awesome because it's a reminder to us of some things.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Our God is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He does whatever he pleases.
SPEAKER_01: Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
SPEAKER_01: They have mouths, but they do not speak.
SPEAKER_01: They have eyes they have, but they do not see.
SPEAKER_01: They have ears, but they do not hear.
SPEAKER_01: Noses they have, but they do not smell.
SPEAKER_01: He's speaking of idols, the making of wooden, gold, silver idols.
SPEAKER_01: They have hands, but they do not handle.
SPEAKER_01: Feet they have, but they do not walk, nor do they mutter through their throat.
SPEAKER_01: This is this key verse, is verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Those who make them become like them.
SPEAKER_01: So is everyone who trusts in them.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, when you behold something and you continue to behold that thing, you become like it.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why you can see it in the eyes of men and women who fall away from the Lord and they go after illicit sex or they go after their anger or they go after gambling, whatever it might be, that begins to take them over.
SPEAKER_01: They become like that.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been in a been in a um a place where there's prostitution, we have, and you've been in places where there's tons of gambling, we have, and you just people are, they look like robots.
SPEAKER_01: They just, their eyes look dead.
SPEAKER_01: They become like their idols.
SPEAKER_01: You see prostitutes on the street, poor things.
SPEAKER_01: They're giving their bodies away to men or to other women or whatever it is, and they're they're just dead.
SPEAKER_01: So you become like what you give yourself to, and we behold the Lord, we become like him.
SPEAKER_01: His image begins to grow in the hidden places of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Your character is transformed from the inside out because you're beholding the character and the love and the forgiveness and the beauty.
SPEAKER_01: And next time I speak, I want to talk about the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_01: And it makes us beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.