Purity Before God

The point: Recognize that your life lived Monday through Sunday determines the acceptability of your Sunday worship.

Martin uses the examples of enjoying ballgames, art galleries, and concerts to illustrate that secular enjoyments do not require a specific moral condition, unlike true worship of God.

no doubt there'll be some people who this very day will be enjoying ballgames really wholeheartedly involved in watching a ballgame now their moral condition has nothing to do with their ability to enjoy a ballgame they might have been out last night painting up the town drinking it up boozing it up chasing around to the haunts of iniquity and yet they can come today and really enjoy a ballgame in other words their moral condition the condition of their heart and life before the law of God has nothing to do with their ability to enjoy a ballgame there will be other people visiting art gallerie...

8:35 - 9:17 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains that man in innocence could worship God delightedly, but sin causes an instinctive aversion and flight from God's presence. Fallen humanity attempts to create…

The story of Adam hiding from God after sinning is used to show humanity's instinctive aversion to a holy God once sin enters.

So man in a state of innocency can worship with no problem. Ah, but you and I are not in a state of innocency. Man in sin has a tremendous problem because instinctively our sin makes us do exactly what Adam's sin made him do. The moment Adam's sin, what is his first activity?

12:27 - 12:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The idol is man's attempt to make a God that he can worship and feel at home with in his state of sin.

He compares the natural response of a musical or athletic genius to their craft with humanity's aversion to God, highlighting that there is no natural delight in God for fallen man.

And the moment we begin to have any true knowledge of God, the reaction of our heart is not that of a man who has, say, a disposition for music. A man who's born with a musical gift. You hear of some of these geniuses who at age three were playing stuff that some of us couldn't play at age 300 if we took ten lessons a week. Four hours a lesson.

13:37 - 13:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The idol is man's attempt to make a God that he can worship and feel at home with in his state of sin.

The act of making idols is explained as man's attempt to create a god he can worship and feel comfortable with in his sinful state, a god who doesn't see his secret sins.

If we can create a God of our own, a God who isn't holy, a God who will not punish sin, a God who doesn't know everything, why then we can worship a God like that. That's why man continually makes idols. For what is the idol? The idol is man's attempt to make a God that he can worship and feel at home with in his state of sin.

14:53 - 15:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Adjust your life morally before God to offer acceptable worship.

Martin uses stained glass windows and sonorous organ tones to illustrate that aesthetic surroundings do not aid spiritual worship or sanctification, emphasizing that true worship is spiritual and internal.

For once we begin to know who the true God is, then our spiritual condition must be such as to make a God that we worship. Just feel at home in his presence. This is why I am not at all impressed when people try to tell me that a beautiful building aids them in their worship. Rubbish.

16:17 - 16:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Adjust your life morally before God to offer acceptable worship.

Jesus's interaction with the woman at the well, specifically his command 'Call your husband,' is used to show that spiritual worship requires addressing one's moral condition.

then I think the top item ought to be not an ad in the paper, Newark News all this week for land and a building for the Trinity Church, but it ought to be for an organ, because we need to be sanctified more than we need brick and mortar, don't we? No, no. Worship is spiritual. That's why when Jesus was talking to this woman at the well, in the context of spiritual worship, he brought in this whole matter of her moral condition.

17:40 - 18:07 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using Revelation 4, Martin highlights the holiness of God and the sinless nature of heavenly worshipers. He then poses the problem: how can fallen, sinful humanity worship such a…

Martin quotes from Mr. Binney's hymn to articulate the problem of how a fallen soul can stand in the burning light of a holy God with delight, contrasting it with sinless heavenly beings.

How can we worship? That's the problem that Mr. Binney focused in his hymn, Eternal Light. Eternal Light, Eternal Light.

21:43 - 21:53 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have never been perplexed by the question 'Am I really fit to worship God?', you are an unthinking person.

He quotes Spurgeon to challenge listeners who have never questioned their fitness to worship God, calling them 'unthinking' and contrasting them with truly humbled souls.

Has it? Listen to the words of Mr. Spurgeon. Where angels bow with veiled faces, how shall man be able to worship at all?

22:53 - 23:06 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin presents the solution: purity, both positionally and experimentally. Positional purity, a legal standing before God, is achieved through the finished work of Jesus Christ…

The analogy of a condemned man cringing before a judge is used to illustrate that a sinner, knowing God's justice, cannot approach Him directly with confidence without a mediator.

Once I begin to know something of how holy God is and how just He is and what a sinner I am, I know that God, if He is God, must punish my sin. Therefore, though I may admire Him for His holiness, though I may praise Him for His justice, I can never draw near to Him and delight in Him because I know I'm drawing near to my judge. Did you ever see anyone in his right mind who knew he was condemned walk into a courtroom and hold his head high and walk up to the judge and say, all right, give me what's coming? No, he may have been some kind of a brassy, impudent person, but if he had any understan...

25:10 - 25:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Anyone who dares to approach this holy God in the defilement of his sin is either ignorant of God or ignorant of himself or ignorant of both.

Martin quotes a hymn to express the confidence believers have in approaching God through Christ's atoning sacrifice, highlighting the 'five bleeding wounds' as the basis for effectual prayer.

Because five bleeding wounds he bears received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. What does this say to us practically?

29:14 - 29:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Every true approach to worship should be a fresh application to the Lord Jesus as our righteousness.

He references a hymn about Christ as High Priest to express the profound truth of His mediatorial work, contrasting it with the apathy he sometimes observes in the congregation.

Every true approach to worship should be a fresh application to the Lord Jesus as our righteousness, the One who's given us a pure standing before God, whose blood has blotted out our sin, whose presence there is, whose presence there before God pleads on our behalf. This is why, frankly, I find it so difficult at times when we're singing hymns directed to Christ like that one we sang last week. It's been going through my mind all week. Jesus, my great High Priest, offered His blood and died.

31:42 - 32:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church; wives, be subject to your husbands; young people, honor your parents; all, love your neighbor as yourself and avoid bitterness and evil speaking.

Examples of a wife biting back with a stinging word or children on a playground making false accusations are used to illustrate the sin of backbiting and its impact on acceptable worship.

What's backbiting? Well, you've been bitten so you're going to bite back. Isn't that what backbiting is? You can't bite back unless you've been bitten.

38:43 - 38:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Be concerned about broken vows made before God, such as church membership commitments, as they hinder worship.

A quaint quote from an 'old saint' about the devil being in the tongue of the gossiper and the ear of the listener is used to emphasize the sinfulness of gossip and its hindrance to worship.

He doeth no evil to his neighbor. That is, he's concerned about his neighbor's good. He takes up no reproach against his neighbor. One old saint said it so quaintly.

39:46 - 39:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Be concerned about broken vows made before God, such as church membership commitments, as they hinder worship.

He uses the example of broken church membership vows (attending services, supporting work, family devotions, watching over one another) to illustrate a lack of integrity that hinders true worship.

We don't show wrong kind of honor and flattery to men who are unworthy of it, but we honor those that fear the Lord. We are glad to let it be known that we cast our lot with the people of God, no matter how despicable they may be. He that is a man true to God, through his word, he sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. Some of us have made some pretty serious vows when we came into the membership of the Trinity Church.

40:16 - 40:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate the holy art of true preparation for worship by seeking God's cleansing and fixing faith on Christ.

The instinctive act of choosing Sunday attire is used as an analogy for the need to cultivate the 'holy art of true preparation for worship' by cleansing oneself before God.

Just as Sunday morning you instinctively go to the closet and take not your work britches or your housecoat or your you may take your housecoat first before you come, but I mean as your last piece of attire, before you leave, but you instinctively move to take out of the closet your Sunday dress and your Sunday britches and your Sunday shirt and your Sunday tie. We should cultivate the holy art of true preparation for worship that we instinctively move to the closet alone with God that he would cleanse us, that we would again fix our faith upon Christ our advocate, that we would ask the Lord

43:27 - 44:10 Read in full sermon

The point: No matter how stained your past week, if there is true repentance and confession, you are fit to worship through Christ.

The story of David worshiping after the death of his son (the fruit of his illicit union with Bathsheba) is used to illustrate God's acceptance of a repentant adulterer's worship through Christ.

There's a beautiful description there in 2 Samuel 12. We don't have time to look at it. But it says that after God took the life of David's son, the fruit of his illicit union with Bathsheba, it says that when David received the news, he went into the presence of God and he worshiped God. And he worshiped.

44:52 - 45:11 Read in full sermon