WEBVTT 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:02.640 Psalm 122. 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:07.519 I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord. 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:11.359 Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:23.600 Jerusalem, built as a city that is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:28.399 Their thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.960 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. 00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:33.439 May they be secure who love you. 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:37.600 Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:43.039 For my brothers and companions' sake, I will say, peace be within you. 00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:47.679 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. 00:00:48.399 --> 00:00:49.759 This is the word of the Lord. 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:51.119 Please be seated. 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:54.799 Good afternoon. 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:57.920 Welcome to Redemption Church Denver. 00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:59.520 My name is James Rathman. 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:02.000 We are happy you're here. 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:06.480 First, some announcements before we get into our text for the day. 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:12.959 So, first announcement is uh is really just an invitation or an ask. 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:19.200 Would you be joining us as a church in prayer for where God is leading us next? 00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:21.920 Specifically, we mean like a location. 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:26.799 So uh we typically don't meet during Broncos Games. 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:33.120 I've read a couple of books on how to context to a culture, how to contextualize the gospel to a culture. 00:01:33.359 --> 00:01:38.239 And uh one of the things you don't do is uh schedule church during Broncos Games. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:41.040 It's what uh it's in center church, it's by Tim Keller. 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:46.959 And uh uh so part of that is we're looking for a new place to meet. 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:52.319 And uh we're we've got some really neat opportunities that are kind of brewing. 00:01:52.480 --> 00:02:03.840 We think that there are some uh that God is honestly going before us into some places, but it takes a lot of discernment at this point on the leadership's part and just deciding what the next move is going to be for our church. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.799 So this first announcement is an invitation. 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:11.840 Would you commit to joining us in prayer for where we're headed next? 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:19.840 Like when you have your prayer time, would you make a note at the top and say, Don't forget to pray for where Redemption Church Denver is headed next? 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:26.319 Uh I think our next move is going to be something that is given to us by God. 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:31.039 And it that means that it's going to be something that we've sought together from him. 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:46.639 When I first really, when the gospel first really hit me, one of the things that I kept saying over and over again to people, uh, whether they liked it or not, they, you know, in when you have conversations with people, it's like, oh, I've got this thing going on in my life, got this thing. 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:52.159 And it it just hit me in the gospel of like, wow, God loved us so much that he gave his son for us. 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:52.960 That's incredible. 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.120 He loves us so much. 00:02:55.439 --> 00:03:05.599 And so when people would share their problems and things, I'd always say, like, just you should just pray about it, because he'll probably handle it, because he loves us so much, it's insane. 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.000 So this is our issue together. 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:11.919 And I think we should just pray about it because he'll probably handle it. 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:14.479 Because he loves us so much, it's insane. 00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:16.000 So that's announcement number one. 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:18.879 It's an invitation, and we'll we'll get to do it together here soon. 00:03:19.199 --> 00:03:25.199 Uh, next announcement is we're having a baby dedication next Sunday. 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:39.759 So to sign up your baby of choice, go to our app and you can tap calendar, and then uh you'll see baby dedication in there, and you'll be able to tap the link that uh allows you to sign up for a baby dedication. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:43.439 Um okay, so that's our announcements for today. 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:51.680 Let's go ahead and pray, and then we'll jump into our sermon and our text, and we're gonna do a twofer here, because I'm gonna pray for our location as well. 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:55.360 Um then you can say, like, oh yeah, I learned how to do that. 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:09.520 Father, thank you for uh bringing us together um at such a time as this. 00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:21.439 Lord, thank you for your body that gathers in this room for the um community that you formed here, that you have formed. 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:32.639 Lord, we come to you knowing that you will provide all of our needs according to your riches and glory in Christ Jesus. 00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:36.079 That's so much riches and glory. 00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:40.879 So, Father, it's nothing to ask you for a new location. 00:04:42.319 --> 00:04:44.800 So we'll ask specifically for it. 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:47.519 Lord, would you provide us with our next steps? 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:54.319 Um bring us to a place where there are people who might discover you because we're there. 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:58.639 Would you take us to where your name needs to be made famous? 00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:02.000 Lord, would you build us up as a community in this process? 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:05.199 Would you work in us as you lead us to the next place you're taking us? 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:06.639 Lord, we trust you. 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:08.720 We thank you for your guidance so far. 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:10.959 We thank you for where you have us now. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:16.800 And we ask in confidence that you will take us where we're headed. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.360 Lord, your word shapes us and brings us together as a body. 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:24.399 Would you apply it to our hearts by your spirit today? 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:31.279 And would you use your word like you're a craftsman that's building up your holy temple, which is your church? 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:32.560 Would you build us up by it? 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:34.079 We lift this up in Jesus' name. 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:35.040 Amen. 00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:42.800 So over these 11 weeks of this fall, we are moving through a series called Redemption Applied. 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:53.680 And the purpose of this series is to lay out the vision for Redemption Church Denver, so that we can have some shared language, shared understanding of who we are as a church. 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:59.680 The first sermon was about how everything we do is centered around the gospel. 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:09.839 So that means that the gospel is the power which allows us to do what we're doing, and it's also the purpose, which is why we're doing what we're doing as a church. 00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:17.040 And the gospel is this incredible news that God is reconciling all things to himself in Jesus. 00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:21.680 He has made peace by the blood of Jesus' cross. 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:33.040 And so, in our understanding of that, we see that the gospel transforms our hearts, it establishes a new community, and by that community, the world is transformed. 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:40.160 And so that has formed the outline of our series: Heart, Community, and Denver, our little slice of the world. 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:47.439 And so we are midway through our third, our second section, which is community. 00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:54.879 We've looked at how the gospel transforms our hearts, and now we're seeing how the gospel establishes us as a community. 00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:01.519 And today we are looking most specifically at how we move from attendance to participation. 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:08.399 And what this service, what this sermon is supposed to do is help us understand what is happening when we gather small. 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:12.399 At Redemption Church Denver, we get together, there are two main ways of connecting. 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:14.959 We gather and we gather. 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:21.040 If we keep meeting at 4:30, we'll amend that to we gather all together and we gather small. 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:30.639 But we uh uh there's a reason that weekly we gather all together as a church and we do some strange things. 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:35.120 We preach, I don't know how many other sermons you guys attend throughout the week. 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:36.720 Probably not many. 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:40.000 Or uh you're like, you should meet my boss. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:40.879 Sorry. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:43.439 Terrible preacher joke. 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:47.519 Um and uh we sing. 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:50.079 And we sing. 00:07:50.560 --> 00:08:01.040 So uh it we we gather together, we preach, we sing, we take communion, we recite the same words together, we do these things every week. 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:04.240 Have you ever considered why do we do that? 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:06.720 Why do we do these things? 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:13.839 Jesus was God incarnate as a man, he died for our sins, he rose again on the third day. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:20.480 After rising back to life from the death, he ascended to the right hand of God where he rules the world now. 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:22.720 He created a people for himself. 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:33.919 Knowing that story, do you think, oh, well, now that I know what Jesus did, it probably means we need to get together with a group of people once a week and say the same stuff at the same time? 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:34.639 No. 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:35.600 Right? 00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:39.759 It doesn't seem like it naturally follows that we do this. 00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:42.000 So why do we do this? 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:45.360 Uh well, hopefully we can get an answer to that today. 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:51.039 Uh, and it and the answer is because this transforms our hearts for the Lord. 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:55.279 That's uh kind of the baseline, what we're headed towards. 00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:02.480 When Luke is writing in Acts about what Athens is like, he describes it like this. 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:04.559 Uh this is Acts 17, 21. 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:15.279 He says, Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:18.480 Doesn't that sound just like us? 00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:23.600 I can think of like it's like the perfect description of our culture. 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:30.960 Right when I read that verse preparing for this sermon, I thought, you know, I just listen to a podcast that kind of reminds me of something of that. 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:32.720 Because that's all we do. 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:40.399 We listen to podcasts, we read articles, we consume news, and then we get together and we say, What do you think about the things that you're consuming this week? 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:41.360 And that's it. 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:43.120 That's kind of life. 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:48.720 Uh a uh uh Zach's uh he's plays music here, you'll meet him. 00:09:48.960 --> 00:10:01.679 Zach is the uh uh his sister and brother-in-law are missionaries on an island surrounded by water called Vanuatu. 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:14.159 Um and uh so while they're living there, where they've been living for the past uh seven years, they're you know much less connected uh than we are. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:26.000 And so they were back in the United States several months ago for the first time in three years, and they said, you know what's really changed is everybody has something interesting to say. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:33.840 Like there's not a person we met that didn't have something that was from a book that they had just read or from a podcast that they had just listened to. 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:38.480 And so any topic we brought up, somebody had something really interesting to say about it. 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:43.759 They said, and the weird thing is it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. 00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:51.360 People seem about the same, same sorts of struggles, but just way more interesting things to say. 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:59.840 See, I think we can kind of our our faith and our culture have kind of blended together. 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:09.120 And we can start to think that growth in our faith means consuming more information about our faith. 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:28.159 And to be a mature Christian means to be the type of person who has consumed the most information about Christianity, is able to regurgitate the most information about Christianity, and uh we therefore reduce our growth in the faith to just mere information. 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:33.679 The gathering up of some new information about what Christianity is. 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:44.240 When it's just information, we make this key mistake about what it means to really grow in our faith and to really know God. 00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:47.759 You know, the gospel is good news. 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:48.559 That's what it means. 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:49.840 It means good news. 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:59.039 And if it were just news, then perhaps the way to know it best, the way to grow in it most, is to gather more information about that news. 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:05.120 But it's not just the gospel that we have, it's the gospel of someone. 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:08.799 It's the good news of Jesus Christ. 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:10.720 That's our gospel. 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:22.960 And what that news says is that Jesus is alive now, he sends his spirit to inhabit us, and he is to be known in the way that we would know a person. 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:30.159 Now, knowing a person is far different from just knowing information. 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:37.360 If you know a lot about someone, that does not entail that you know someone. 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:45.600 So, how do we think about what it means to grow in our faith and to really know Jesus? 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:50.639 Well, it might not mean another input of information. 00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:59.519 It might not be on the other side of that book, it might not be on the other side of a podcast, it might not even be on the other side of new information in a sermon. 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.320 What does knowledge of Christ mean? 00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:06.639 Well, we need to develop a fuller, more complete picture of knowledge. 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:13.120 And somebody who's been incredibly helpful in this in the church is a guy named John Frame. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:16.799 He's a professor of the seminary that I'm currently attending online. 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:23.840 I chose that to go to this seminary because he was a professor there, and then like five months later he retired. 00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:25.840 Total ripoff. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.480 Um, it's called Baiton Switch. 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:32.960 And because I'm sure Reformed Theological Seminary did it intentionally to me. 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:37.759 So he wrote this book in 1987 called The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:42.639 It's a book that's been really influential for our church, really formative for our church. 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:50.960 And uh he posited that knowledge of God is best described as coming from three perspectives. 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:56.960 He's a philosopher, so he saw an opportunity to make a word and he took it, and he calls it tri-perspectivalism. 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:08.080 So he says that in order to understand what it means to really know God, we need to understand it in at least these three categories. 00:14:08.879 --> 00:14:13.519 He uses the words normative, existential, and situational. 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:20.320 Those aren't very sticky, so we're going to use the words our head, our heart, and our hands. 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:25.279 Three H's, all body parts, seems better. 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.200 Normative knowledge, this is our head knowledge. 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:36.799 This is the standard way that us and the Athenians think about what it means to know something. 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:40.159 This is the raw facts of a situation. 00:14:40.320 --> 00:14:44.559 This is the raw data that you can convey and know in your head. 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:52.720 Everything from Y equals MX plus B, that's normative knowledge, to, and on the third day he rose again. 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.799 That is normative knowledge, facts to be known. 00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:02.960 This is what we often and most frequently exchange, is just normative information. 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:07.600 Second is existential. 00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:09.200 This is our heart. 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:12.799 I'm not using the term heart the way the Bible uses the term heart. 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:18.799 The way the Bible uses the term heart is much more comprehensive than this. 00:15:19.039 --> 00:15:28.960 This is the way that like we in our culture normally use the word heart, which is the seat of our emotions, our existential experience. 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:40.080 And so in this, we would say, I know uh I know that my wife is really nice, and that means I enjoy being around her. 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:46.000 Part of my enjoyment of being around her is my knowledge of her. 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:50.960 To remove that from the equation is to know her less. 00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:54.639 And third and finally is situational knowledge. 00:15:54.799 --> 00:16:04.879 So this means I know it in my head, I know it in my heart, this makes sense emotionally, and I'm able to live out the implications of this knowledge. 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:09.600 So I, oh man, I forget it now, it just ripped through my head. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:10.960 Maybe one of you knows it. 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:18.080 The Mark Twain quote about there's there's only one way to know what it's like to hold a cat by the tail. 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:19.679 Nope. 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:20.559 All right. 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:24.320 It's only one way to feel alone on a stage. 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:32.000 The uh well, anyway, something like that, you get the idea. 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:39.279 The way you know what it's like to hold a cat by the tail, it doesn't matter how much you read about it, it's only when you hold a cat by the tail that you really know what that's like. 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:44.720 There's certain knowledge that requires actually doing it to know that knowledge. 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:47.519 We might even say like kinesthetic knowledge. 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:57.600 So, frame says that our knowledge of God requires all three of these things together, simultaneously. 00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:04.240 And whenever we lean on just one of them, we aren't acquiring a true knowledge of God. 00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:11.519 This is a really heady way to get at saying we need to know God as whole people. 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:20.799 God intends for us to be, God intends for Himself to be known personally, relationally. 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:43.519 So when we reduce our knowledge of God to something that's just normative, or to something that's just emotive, or to something that's just active, then we're missing out on what it means to really know God in the way that He's revealed Himself to us, a real way that He's shown Himself to be known. 00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:52.000 And so I think our limiting or our prioritizing of one of these over the other, my tendency is to prioritize the normative. 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:57.039 And I think there are a lot of other churches' tendencies are to prioritize the existential. 00:17:57.279 --> 00:18:02.160 So we're going to just create an emotive experience over and over again. 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:06.000 Other churches are uh just more missional. 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:09.279 The way to know Jesus is in the eyes of the poor. 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:15.359 You know, so uh it in many ways we can get out of proportion. 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:21.200 For our sake, I think what if I were to diagnose us, I think we tend towards the normative. 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:27.920 So we need to learn how to cultivate a true knowledge of God. 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:35.440 And the problem with leaning on the normative is it requires us to approach God from some sort of objective position. 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:49.920 We'll say, okay, God is a set of facts, and I can know those facts, and the way to know them is to remove myself from the situation and just examine what the facts of God are. 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:54.880 That's a great way to test a new pharmaceutical. 00:18:55.200 --> 00:19:00.640 You want to remove yourself from the situation, perform the test and see what's objectively there. 00:19:01.279 --> 00:19:07.599 But that's a terrible way to know a friend or to know a spouse. 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:22.319 If I were to say to my wife, I'm going to know all that I can about you, so I'm gonna read up a lot on you, and we can't talk for the next two weeks, it wouldn't go, I'd learn something. 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:34.799 And that's because we're designed to know God as whole people in the same way that we would know someone in a close relationship. 00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:41.440 So we can see this type of knowledge in scripture, in the way that Jesus describes knowing himself. 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:50.640 In John 14, 21, John 14, Jesus is just really explaining what it's going to mean that the Holy Spirit is going to come. 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:56.400 And midway through this discourse on the Holy Spirit, Jesus says this. 00:19:56.640 --> 00:20:03.119 He says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. 00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:10.799 And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. 00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:17.279 See, you can see all three types, the head, the heart, and the hands, in this verse. 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:21.440 See, whoever has my commandments, that means you know them. 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:26.079 You could say the raw data of what God's commandments are. 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:28.160 Can anybody think of one of God's commandments? 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:30.400 Let's go with like the most important commandment. 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:33.920 Nice. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:35.279 You guys have a good pastor. 00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:38.880 And ne and then what's the second most important commandment? 00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:39.680 It's like it. 00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:42.240 Yeah, that's right. 00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:45.519 So you know the raw data of what those commandments are. 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:50.480 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:52.720 So you have the commandment. 00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:55.759 Next is and keeps them. 00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:58.480 So that means you're doing the commandments. 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.519 You are they're actually flowing out in your life. 00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:05.680 You have the commandment normative, you keep the commandment situational. 00:21:05.839 --> 00:21:08.720 You're actually loving God and loving people. 00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:11.599 And this is where it gets to our heart. 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:14.720 He it is, you know them and you do them. 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:16.000 That's a great way to tell. 00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:18.720 You're the type of person who is loving God. 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:25.599 It's flowing from your heart, this enjoyment, this love of who God is. 00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:31.119 And this is, this results in our knowing God. 00:21:31.359 --> 00:21:35.119 It says, He who loves me will be loved by my Father. 00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:40.079 And Jesus says, I will love him and manifest myself to him. 00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:53.920 So, in this whole person loving and serving and knowing of God, that's where God manifests himself to us. 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:59.599 This is what it means for God to really show himself to us. 00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:13.359 So you can see all of these things come together, and then you start to consider, okay, maybe this is why Jesus is describing, okay, what is the church going to do? 00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:22.400 It's going to make disciples of all nations, and it's going to teach those disciples to obey all that Jesus commanded us. 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:23.200 Why? 00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:33.519 Because it's in that experience of obedience, it's in that outflow of our worship that our hearts actually become formed to know God. 00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:37.039 It's not just in receiving information. 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:49.440 So the goal of the church, what real discipleship is, what real discipleship looks like, is formed and happens by us learning to worship God. 00:22:50.559 --> 00:22:55.680 When we come together and we worship God, we are loving Him together. 00:22:55.920 --> 00:23:00.559 And when we're loving Him together, that transforms our hearts. 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:06.960 We express our love and our love is formed at the very same time. 00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:28.799 And so we don't just come to receive information, we don't just come to get a lecture, we don't come to sing just to sing, we come so that in this whole person encounter with who God is, we are having our hearts formed into people who can love God. 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:31.599 This is how it happens. 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:33.119 We worship. 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:39.279 Next section is titled Worship or How I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Leviticus. 00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:46.160 So the most detailed instruction that God gives, I'm a big Kubrick fan. 00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:52.559 So the most detailed instruction that God gives to his people in the Old Testament is how to worship. 00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:54.559 It's the most detailed instruction. 00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:58.319 And it happens right where you stop your Bible reading plan. 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:00.319 Happens in the book of Leviticus. 00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:04.720 When you think you're gonna make it this year, and then you can't kill one more goat. 00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:07.440 So you just stop reading. 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:20.160 But we see that it's a flow from all of Scripture that all what we're designed to do, what's built into creation, is God is teaching us how to worship him. 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:33.279 Because it's in the act of worshiping him, which requires knowing him, acting, loving him, that our hearts, our whole person, is actually changed so that we can love him. 00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:36.799 So you can see this flow through all of Scripture. 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:47.519 In Genesis 1, 14, it says that the moon, the stars, and the sun, they're put into heavens, and it gives us a reason for why they're put there. 00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:54.640 It's to mark the seasons, it's to mark uh years, and it's to mark months and days. 00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:58.160 So the stars and things in the heavens, they aren't there for just no reason. 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.759 They're there so that we can actually mark time by them. 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:14.559 And then you zoom forward to Leviticus, and God gives his people a worship calendar that maps to the sun and the moon and the stars that he had made. 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:23.119 God has surrounded us, he's built humanity into a cosmic liturgy. 00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:36.160 And then in Leviticus, he teaches his people here's how, even just by looking at the stars, you're going to be taught how specifically to bring yourself in worship to me. 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:39.279 God doesn't teach them how to set up their economy. 00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:44.480 God doesn't teach them how to set up their education system, God doesn't teach them how to set up health care. 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:49.680 God doesn't teach them so many things where it's like, come on, where the freaking is this part? 00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:50.720 And it's not there. 00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:56.400 But what he teaches is how his people should worship him. 00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:01.359 And that's because that is what forms his people's hearts. 00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:06.079 And if his people's hearts are formed after him, that other stuff will follow. 00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:07.440 In fact, it should follow. 00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:09.039 We'll be able to piece it together. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:11.680 So we'll have hearts that have put the Lord first. 00:26:13.039 --> 00:26:16.880 Worship in Leviticus is extremely detailed and extremely strange. 00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:21.599 It's it can be really challenging to read, as uh we've all agreed on. 00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:28.960 And uh if you look at what it's like, first of all, they took a ton of time off. 00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:37.599 If you go through Leviticus, it's uh it's insane how frequently it's like in next month that it's another it's another three-week-long festival again. 00:26:38.079 --> 00:26:43.599 So we're just gonna be sleeping outside in tents and barbecuing for like three weeks. 00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:45.440 Uh it's so frequent. 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:48.079 God builds these rhythms into their life. 00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:58.960 And they uh, if you were to look at what it requires, you would go to the market and you would purchase an animal that aligned up with your uh economic ability. 00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:05.680 And you would bring, so you're engaging with the market as part of your worship, and then you're going into the temple and you're offering it. 00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:12.640 And a priest would probably look, if we were to run into a priest, we'd be like, oh, you're a butcher, because that's what they would look like. 00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:16.960 They're slaughtering animals and barbecuing all the time. 00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:21.680 This is this is what they're doing every festival, every Sabbath day. 00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:31.759 And so what they do is they offer the sacrifice, which shows their repentance, they receive the word and they sing together, and then they feast and they celebrate. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.039 So, what did the worship of someone look like? 00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:40.240 If you were to walk up to them, uh walk up to an Israelite and be like, what did you learn today? 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:43.200 What did you learn today from our Sabbath gathering? 00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:47.440 I don't know that they could have answered in the way that we would expect. 00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:50.720 They probably wouldn't answer and say, like, oh, you know what I learned? 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:54.480 I learned, you know, there's this fact about the Exodus that I really didn't know. 00:27:54.559 --> 00:27:55.920 I thought it was nine plagues. 00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:57.039 Turns out it's ten. 00:27:57.759 --> 00:28:00.160 Some of them might have learned something like that. 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:13.039 But more of what happened was not something that they cognitively learned so much as they went through this experience that confirmed the story that they were in. 00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:15.680 We gathered together as a people. 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:17.839 We know we worship a just God. 00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:18.799 How do I know? 00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:21.440 Because I saw the dove die. 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:26.319 And how do I know that I'm really brought into this community? 00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:28.319 Because we ate together. 00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:33.279 And I remember sitting across the table and we were both eating the same thing together. 00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:42.000 And we had to sing together, and so we had to listen to the people around us and learn how to match those harmonies, or just forget them and sing. 00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:53.839 And so what God brings them into is this liturgy that encapsulates the whole person. 00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:57.920 And that's what it then means to know God. 00:28:58.160 --> 00:28:59.839 It's something where it's like, what did you learn? 00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:02.160 It's like, learn, this is in my bones. 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:03.680 This is who I am. 00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.279 I I can tell you what the experience smells like. 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:13.359 It's more like engaging as a whole person with the whole person. 00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:17.599 So this thing that they were doing is called a liturgy. 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:19.279 It's well beyond a lecture. 00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:23.599 It doesn't just inform our minds, it shapes us as whole people. 00:29:25.599 --> 00:29:32.960 Uh an uh uh an excellent writer who's around right now, his name's James K.A. 00:29:33.119 --> 00:29:33.759 Smith. 00:29:34.079 --> 00:29:38.799 Um, he wrote uh a book uh that's been super helpful for me. 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:43.759 It's called You Are What You Love, and I'm ripping him off basically this whole sermon. 00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:52.640 Uh and in in this book, he breaks down how we're surrounded by liturgies that are forming our hearts. 00:29:52.880 --> 00:30:03.039 But we often don't realize it because we treat ourselves as purely cognitive beings who are able to just receive information and then filter it however we'd like. 00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:21.519 But what he posits is we're constantly engaging with liturgies of the world that are counterforming us to be not in the story that God has made for us, but to be in whatever the story of the world is, to get seduced by that. 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:22.880 So here's an example. 00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:33.759 So when you wake up, and these things don't seem like liturgies, but when you wake up and the first thing that you do compulsively is check your email. 00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:47.279 You're engaging in this process that is teaching your soul, it's forming your soul to think the thing that keeps chaos at bay is me being ahead of it. 00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:52.319 And if I'm ahead of it, then my world won't have chaos in it. 00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:54.640 Is that what the Bible teaches? 00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:58.000 Are you the one keeping chaos at bay? 00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:08.799 So when we are engaging in these in these ordinary, normal types of liturgies, we are reinforcing values. 00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:16.720 And we're teaching ourselves either to serve the Lord or to uh serve some other idol in our culture. 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:32.799 When you're driving in the car, and this is this is like one for me, and it's like uh I can't bring myself to listen to music because then I'd be missing out on some information that I know I need to get in this next podcast. 00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:39.759 And so I live just like surrounded by this constant dump of data into my head. 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.359 And so, what am I reinforcing by this liturgy? 00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:47.119 I'm saying you know what allows me to stay ahead of the curve? 00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:49.680 It's that I have the most information. 00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:55.759 And what will really provide me with my salvation, it's me being the most informed. 00:31:56.480 --> 00:31:58.799 Is that what provides me with my salvation? 00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:01.680 Is that where my rescue really lies? 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:08.799 So we're constantly engaging with these liturgies of the world, mostly unconsciously being formed by them. 00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:25.039 And when we recognize that, we can start to see why we need to face these liturgies that we're moving in the world in with a counter liturgy. 00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:35.759 This is why God gave uh in Leviticus these extremely detailed examples of what a counter liturgy will look like. 00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:48.799 All the time, throughout their whole lives, moving in these rhythms together as Israelites, they would be constantly being reminded that they are not like the tribes around them. 00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:52.000 They serve a different type of God. 00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.599 And they know because it's in the rhythms of their life. 00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:59.920 They're formed by the worship that they participated in. 00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:12.559 This is why we can read, and we're often off-put by it, where we read in the book of James, where he says, You show me your faith like you, well, I should know the Bible better than this. 00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:17.599 But uh basically, like, I'll show you my faith by my works. 00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:20.000 How can he say that? 00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:24.640 Don't we believe in salvation by grace apart from works? 00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:42.640 And the reason is he can't imagine entering into this sort of this Athenian, this Greek paradigm that we live in that has a person who's so disconnected that they could have a belief that didn't flow out into their works. 00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:56.160 I had a professor in college, he was one of my favorite professors, and he uh for a decade taught uh philosophy in China, which was so he had these really cool insights. 00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:00.000 So he described to us how we as Westerners view knowledge. 00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:21.280 He's like, okay, you as a Westerner, if you were going to say, I know what a cow is, then you would take a cow out of its environment and put it in some hermetically sealed laboratory, and then you would you would like dissect it and learn all of its parts, and you would label all of its parts, and uh that that's how you would know what a cow is. 00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:29.440 And he said, there's this great parable about Confucius describing how he knows what a cow is. 00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:45.039 And the way Confucius knows what a cow is, is he stands in front of it with his sword, and then in like these beautiful, graceful movements, Confucius was able to completely butcher the cow right in front of him. 00:34:45.280 --> 00:34:51.199 And like so much so that it's like he stops moving, you know, and the cow's still there, and it's like, did anything happen? 00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:56.000 And then he blows, and it's like fillet, fillet, you know, all false. 00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:00.400 What did it mean to know the cow? 00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:07.199 It didn't mean you, it didn't mean you isolated yourself from it or you isolated yourself from the environment. 00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:14.320 It meant you were able to really intimately, physically engage with that animal. 00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:22.000 So James is bringing us back to that way of thinking when he's integrating our faith and our works. 00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:24.639 He's saying these things can't be separated. 00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:29.440 You can't say that you know God if you haven't loved your neighbor. 00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:34.159 You can't say that you know God if you haven't demonstrated hospitality. 00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:36.320 This is a category mistake. 00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:39.599 You're misunderstanding what it means to know God. 00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:51.840 And so, since we are always shaped by our worship, this is why we gather large. 00:35:52.719 --> 00:35:58.159 It's why we gather to perform a liturgy together. 00:35:58.559 --> 00:36:01.840 It's not just so you receive information from me. 00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:22.000 It's not that you have some cathartic experience with music, but it is so that our hearts, week in and week out, are formed by the worship of God, so that we can truly know Him in the whole of our being. 00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:29.039 This is why we go to a certain place together, stand next to each other. 00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:31.599 This is why we take communion every week. 00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:35.920 It's a way of saying, I can't survive without you as my food. 00:36:36.239 --> 00:36:42.079 We don't say it with our words, we say it by taking the bread, dipping it in the wine, eating it. 00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:48.800 And we're being taught that God is my true sustenance, God is my true sustenance. 00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:53.119 So uh James K.A. 00:36:53.280 --> 00:37:00.559 Smith, he says this He says, Worship works from the top down, you might say. 00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:09.280 In worship, we don't just come to God, excuse me, we don't just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise. 00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:17.519 We are called to worship because in this encounter, God remakes and molds us top down. 00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:29.599 Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:36.880 Worship isn't just something we do, it is where God does something to us. 00:37:37.599 --> 00:37:46.320 Worship is the heart of discipleship because it is the gymnasium in which God retrains our hearts. 00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:55.840 If we're supposed to make disciples that obey God's commandments, we need to remember what are those commandments. 00:37:56.239 --> 00:38:00.000 It's to love God and to love each other. 00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:03.360 Or how do you make a people that love God? 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:07.199 We gather together and we worship. 00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:13.920 This is the practice that God has given us to form our hearts after Him. 00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:24.400 So, from Psalm 120 to 135, it's this collection of 15 Psalms called the Songs of Ascent. 00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:38.559 And what they are tracing is uh this time where uh many Israelites were living away from Jerusalem, and then they would have to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to worship God. 00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:42.639 And so these songs are them ascending to Jerusalem. 00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:52.159 Supposedly there's 15 of them because they correspond to the 15 steps that you would walk up uh to enter the temple in Jerusalem. 00:38:52.719 --> 00:39:07.360 And so uh when we look at these songs, what we can learn is what does it mean to have our hearts be trained to ascend to the worship of God? 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:13.679 Because that's what we're doing every Sunday, week in and week out. 00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:20.079 We're ascending to the worship of God so that our hearts might be formed after Him. 00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:24.800 So let's go ahead and ascend with this Psalm. 00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:26.480 Psalm 122. 00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:28.000 So these are verses 1 and 2. 00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:33.039