That Which We Receive from God

Introduction: The Church as Pillar of Truth and the Two Aspects of Worship

0:07 Those of you who were here this morning were apprised of the fact that I began this morning what will constitute a brief series of messages dealing with the basic theme of biblical directives for God-honoring worship, and I sought to establish a biblical framework for this great concern by directing your attention to 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 and 15, in which the Apostle tells us that the Church, in its visible, organized, functioning reality, has been constituted by God the pillar and the ground of the truth.

0:52 And I deduced from that the principle that the gathered Church, functioning by the rule of Scripture, is the primary depository of those means ordained of God for the maintenance of true religion in the earth. And since the majority of those means deposited in the Church, the Church is the primary depository of those means ordained of God for the maintenance of true religion in the earth. And since the majority of those means ordained in the gathered Church are exercised in public worship, perhaps few things are of more central and crucial importance to the maintenance of true religion than is the maintenance of the vigor and power and purity of the public worship of the people of God. And with that broad biblical perspective forming, as it were, the foundation and framework within which we would move in our thinking, I then began to lay before you a working description of public worship, and I suggested that everything that is legitimate in public worship can be ranged under one of two headings, that which we bring to God, and secondly, that which God brings to us.

1:57 The pivotal text that we considered was 1 Peter 2 and verse 5, in which the people of God are described as living stones built up into a living temple or a living house to offer up spiritual sacrifices. This is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And it's that whole biblical concept of the priesthood of every believer that must, to some degree, grip our hearts by the ministry of the Spirit if we are to begin to worship as we ought. So often we think of the priesthood of every believer in terms of the privilege of every believer having individual access to God, and that's a glorious truth.

2:39 But Peter introduces that subject in. In its corporate dimensions, we are built into this spiritual household, this living spiritual priesthood, that in the context of our corporate life, we might offer unto God those spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Him through His beloved Son. We then proceeded to examine the Word of God and to see that there are at least seven elements of the spiritual sacrifice. We bring to God, or I use the imagery, seven various sacrifices that we must individually and consciously gather and bring with us into the gathering of God's people as really as an Israelite would take a lamb or bring his omer or half an omer of meal or whatever else was required of God. This was a conscious, deliberate activity of bringing to God that which He required so though the commodities are not physical but spiritual. We must nonetheless gather them by prayer and meditation and supplication and come, as it were, with our arms laden with those sacrifices that we would bring to God in the midst of His gathered people. So much for that brief review.

Receiving from God: Order and Active Reception

3:59 Now what I propose to do this evening is to take the second part of this working description of what it is to worship God in the assembly of His people. Namely, that which we worship. That which we worship. That which we receive from God in our worship.

4:16 Having considered what it is that we bring to Him, public worship is not only an activity of bringing and giving, it is an activity of taking or receiving. Now I want to say, by way of introduction, just a word about the order. We considered first what we bring to God and now we consider what we receive from God and that order was not just a matter of the necessity of a teaching. I chose that order deliberately, because in a very real sense it is only as we are prepared to give what is God's due that we can receive what He offers and He promises.

5:00 It is only those hands that come full of the God ordained spiritual sacrifices prepared to render them to God in the congregation of His saints, it is only those hands that come full of spiritual sacrifices that will leave full of blessings given from the hand of God. The hands that come empty to take will go empty from the place of worship. And perhaps this is the thing that will unlock for many of you the pattern of barrenness in conjunction with public worship, because you've come, as it were, with your fingers itchy to take and to receive, but empty of those spiritual commodities which God requires of you. God does not reward thieves who happen to gather in His house. And when you come with hands that are empty only to take and not full to give, you sit as a thief in the presence of God, robbing Him of that which is His due. And God does not put honor upon thieves in the assembly of His people.

6:13 Granted, all that we offer Him can only find acceptance through His Son. Yes, that's emphasized by Peter. It is the spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God only through Christ. That's the emphasis of Hebrews 13, 15, by Him. Let us offer the sacrifice of praise. Granted, everything we bring is imperfect and stained with sin. It finds acceptance with God only through the mediation of God. 1 Peter 3, 4-5. Granted, it can only be acceptable as it is animated by the Spirit. I know that. Philippians 3, 3. We are the true circumcision who worship God by the Spirit. I'm fully aware of that. But that does not negate the reality of our conscious spiritual endeavor, both in the gathering and the giving of the spiritual sacrifice.

7:07 So the order is of crucial importance. And unless we discipline our minds and hearts into the giving mentality, the bringing mentality, we shall know very little of what it is to receive largely from God. So there is significance in the order. And then in the second place, by way of introduction, I want to say a word about what I mean in the word receiving. It is a spiritual activity to receive blessings from God. The receiving that is to go on in the context of public worship is not a spiritual activity. It is a spiritual activity. It is not like the receiving of a passive piece of wax which receives the impress of the imperial seal. The wax is totally passive in the reception of the impression of the signet ring that is pressed into its pliable substance. And we must not think of

8:05 receiving blessing from God in public worship in that passive sense that we bring, as it were, the tender wax of our souls into the presence of God. Trusting that God will somehow put the impress of some dimension of spiritual blessing upon our pliable souls. No. All that we receive from God we are to receive as men and women of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. And though certainly there are dimensions of blessing which come to God, there is no such thing which far exceed what we have asked or even dared to think. Those added dimensions, those extra somethings that God confers upon the souls of His people generally come to those who are actively receiving from God that for which they have sought God and that for which they consciously wait in His presence when they gather in the midst of His people. As sure as they are in the midst of His people, they come to Him. As sure as they are in the

9:15 midst of His people, they come to Him. As sure as they are in the midst of His people, they come to Him. As surely as the whole soul and body, as we shall see next week, the whole redeemed humanity is involved in the presentation of the spiritual sacrifices, the whole redeemed humanity is involved in the reception of the spiritual blessings. Both the giving and the receiving are whole-souled spiritual activities. So again, you see, true worship is a thing that engages the entire human being. And that is what we are to do. And that is what we are to do. It is the entirety of what we are as redeemed men and women.

The Principle of Receiving: God's Answer to What We Bring

9:51 So then we are to consider that which we receive from God. The order is important. We consider it, secondly, having concentrated upon that which we give to Him in worship and then when I say receive I am speaking in terms of an active reception of faith, not a passive reception, some kind of a mystical, undefinable夤d to worship, and a certain excessive perception experience of God's blessing. Now then, specifically, what do we receive? What can we expect to receive from God in public worship? If God has made the public worship of his people the main deposit of those means ordained for their edification, what is it that God has deposited? What commodities grow out of that deposit that we should expect to receive when we come to render spiritual sacrifices? Well, in a very real sense, and if you get hold of this, then you can preach the rest of the sermon to yourself if you were here this morning. In a very real sense, everything we receive is the answer of God to that which

11:01 we bring. Now, that's the simple principle. Everything we receive is the answer of God's blessing to that which we bring. You have the principle articulated by James in James chapter 4. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. James 4 and verse 8. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Now, in the context, he's speaking of a drawing near to God that involves contrition. Repentance. Humiliation. Notice the language. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners. Purify your

11:53 hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you. You see what he is saying? As you draw nigh to God in the spirit of humiliation and contrition and brokenness, God will draw nigh to you. God will come answering to that very state of mind and soul. As you bring the spiritual sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, God will answer with the blessing of spiritual refreshment and spiritual exaltation, so that there will be upon your cheek the fragrance of the kiss of the reconciled God and the glorious knowledge of his forgiveness. So we're going to very briefly just go back over the things that we've been talking about that we bring to God and see the counterpart in terms of that which we receive from God, and then you can work out the details in your own meditation.

Receiving the Joy of God's Presence

12:53 We established this morning that in bringing spiritual sacrifices to God, the first thing that we ought to bring is that joyful expectancy of his presence. Well, if we bring to God the joyful expectation of his presence, we should expect to receive from God the joy of his presence, and that joy will provide us with the joy of his life. And we should reality of His presence. And that is precisely what the expectant heart receives. Coming with that glorious and wonderful expectation that my blessed Lord has pledged Himself to be present, what does such a one receive? Why, he receives what he expects. For the promises of God to the expectation of faith are certain, and they are precious. Psalm 81.10 is one such promise. Open thy mouth wide, and I will do what? Put a little drop

13:55 in? No. Just give you a crumb or two? No. Open thy mouth wide, and God says, I will fill it. And there is a sense in which He fills it to the same degree that we have opened it. If you come like this, that is all you get. Come like that, and it gets a mark. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. This is the answer of God, then. Coming with the spiritual sacrifice of holy anticipation and expectation, what do we receive from God? We receive the joyous reality of His presence, because the Scripture tells us, in thy presence there is fullness of joy. At thy right hand, there is joy.

14:48 There are pleasures forevermore, or in the language of 1 John, and I direct your attention to this passage for it's pivotal in this regard. 1 John chapter 1, John having established that he's not building his ministry upon fairy tales and upon religious notions, but everything is grounded in the stuff of historic reality, the word of life whom he has touched and handled and seen. And he says in verse 3 of his first letter, That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also. Why?

15:23 That ye may have fellowship with us. Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Goal number one in declaring these things is that there may be fellowship established between the living God and his Son and his people and his people with one another. Secondary goal, and these things we write, that our joy or that your joy may be made full.

15:48 You see John infers that the highest reaches of Christian joy are found not when all the bills are paid, not when all the circumstances are hunky-dory, not when everything about us in terms of external circumstances is favorable, no. The highest reaches of Christian joy come when the child of God can enjoy conscious communion with God. In thy presence is fullness of joy. And if you've got the voice of the Lord, if you've got the voice of the Lord, fullness in His presence, you can't get anything more anywhere else. And isn't that true, dear child of God? Those times when you have come in the joyous expectation of His presence and your heart is run out to God in that sense of expectancy, has He ever disappointed the believing, expected heart? His promises are too sure in the other direction. He fills the longing soul with good things, or in the language of Luke 1.53, He fills the hungry

16:54 soul, but the rich He sends away empty. As I reflected upon some of the exhortations I gave this morning and sought to search my own heart to see if I were too hard on you,

17:09 I believe the thing that vexed my soul was not anything to do with me personally, and I tried to search my heart at that point, and I believe it was something of genuine zeal for the honor of my God. But He deserves, He deserves something more than that which we have too often rendered to Him. His promise was sealed in the blood of His own dear Son. It warrants a greater expectancy, and that expectancy in turn warrants a greater climate of seriousness in the preparation for worship. And surely every pain of preparation be well worth the while if we can have but a glimpse of His love. If we can leave knowing that we've had something of that fullness of joy that comes from His presence being made known to us in the midst of His gathered people. Well, in the second place, is the spiritual sacrifice one of praise, adoration, and the homage of glad hearts? If we bring that to God, what's God's answer to that? And this is an amazing thing. The

Receiving Enlarged Views of God's Glory

18:21 answer of God. To the heart that comes bringing to Him the spiritual sacrifice of praise and adoration and homage is that of enlarged views of His glory which in turn give birth to greater degrees of praise and homage and adoration. You see this in the Psalms again and again. We take Psalm 107 as an example. The psalmist is recounting the ways of God and starts to praise Him for them, and then he gets so taken up, he says, How that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. You find this again and again in the Apostle Paul. He's carrying out a line of argument and then he gets speaking on the glory of Christ and as he gets caught up in adoration and praise, what happens? He gets larger views of the glory of Christ and then he takes off into another dimension of praise and adoration.

Receiving Fresh Assurances of Pardoning Mercy

19:15 Well, you see, this is what happens to us. And isn't that the essence of worship? Coming with the sacrifice of God. This sacrifice of adoration and praise. God answers to that disposition with greater unfolding of His glory to our hearts, which in turn then results in greater and more holy enthusiasm in our praise and in our adoration of Him. Well, are we to bring to Him in the third place confession, the brokenness of heart, the sacrifice that He does not despise, Psalm 51? The sacrifice of a broken and a contrite spirit. Well, what do we receive from God when we come with that sacrifice?

20:01 Why, we receive fresh assurances of His pardoning mercy. For we have the wonderful promise of Psalm 34 and verse 18. Psalm 34 and verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as are of a contrite spirit.

20:26 For we have the language of our Lord in the Beatitudes. Blessed are they, excuse me, that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Why do we so often complain that we have dim and indistinct and, and may I use the term without being saccharine, non-exhilarating views of the forgiveness. Of God.

20:47 Well, is it not that we've been unwilling to come with the sacrifice of a broken heart? Why should God give the firm embrace assuring us of pardon when we feel no need of pardon?

21:02 Why should He? When we go on smuggling, indifferent. Oh yes, we'll give lip service to the fact we're all sinners. We sin and thought, word and deed every day.

21:12 But when there is not that sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, when we have not paused long, long enough with our sins in the face of the holiness and the spirituality of the law, until we begin to feel something of the pain of what our sin is. When we have not by meditation brought our sins singly and individually to the blazing light of Golgotha, and beheld our sins in the awful abyss of abandonment into which our Lord was plunged. When we refuse to meditate and sense and look upon, and feel something of the foul nature of sin in the light of the forsakenness of our Savior? It should be no wonder to us that forgiveness ceases to thrill us.

22:04 When you think of it, I don't care how reserved you are. I don't care how natively indrawn you are. If you are what the Bible says you are, a sinner who was condemned in Adam, who could have been cut off the first moment you drew breath in a delivery room and justly sent to hell, if you really believe that, and yet you aggravated your condition by five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years of living in rebellion against the God of heaven who held your breath in His nostrils, if you and I really believe that the mountain of sin that could have crushed us and held us in hell forever has been forever swept away in the blood of Jesus Christ, how in the world can we be kept from being literally thrilled and overwhelmed and filled with awe at the thought of divine forgiveness?

23:14 How can we help but be?

23:18 Well, why are we so seldom filled with that sense of thrill and the wonder and the glory of it? Because, you see, we're not bringing that sacrifice of a tender and a broken and a contrite heart. We're not bringing that sacrifice of a tender and a broken heart. We're not bringing that sacrifice of a tender and a broken heart.

23:29 We're not bringing that sacrifice of a tender and a broken heart. Which, if we brought into the presence of God, God would answer with fresh embraces of His forgiving mercy and would make us to feel anew that He does indeed save those that be of a broken and a contrite heart. When you say, Pastor, how does He do that specifically in public worship? Well, think for a minute.

23:50 He will do that when those who lead us in prayer frame the language of acknowledging our sin and yet at the same time acknowledging the wonder of His forgiveness God will give us, as it were, the fresh embrace of forgiving mercy when we sing hymns such as we sang tonight No, not despairingly come I to thee No, not distrustingly bend I the knee Sin hath gone over me Yet is this still my plea Jesus is not And you see, if you bring a broken and a contrite heart to a hymn like that the Holy Ghost will take those gospel truths embodied in the words of the Lord and He will give us the grace and the words of the hymn writer and He'll seal them to your heart with fresh power and there may be a sense in which you'll forget that I'm here and everyone else is here and you and the Lord will be just shut in with the wonder and the glory of the embrace of His forgiving mercy. But then our Lord does it in even more intimate ways and here's where these wonderful sacraments or ordinances come into the picture. There are some who this day went down beneath the waters of baptism any one of those men or women who had a felt sense of his or her innate sinfulness heavy upon his spirit or her spirit but who could believingly say surely as this water covers me and cleanses me the blood of Jesus Christ

25:19 covers sin from the sight of God I wouldn't be surprised to have somebody jump out of that water and dance a jig up the stairs shouting glory.

25:32 Remember what they told old Billy Bray the Cornish miner who got converted he was a bit of an eccentric but he was a man of God and he was one that God gave to whom God gave unusual measures of joy he went through deep sorrows but he had unusual measures of joy and he'd sometimes get so happy at the thought that God forgave all his sins of all his years of profligate living and drunkenness and cursing and carousing he'd get literally dancing for joy and people tell him Billy why are you always praising the Lord why are you always dancing for joy he says I can't help it when I walked down the street he said one foot says glory and the other answers and says hallelujah he said what can I do what can I do well God may not make Billy Bray's out of us it would be artificial for most of us to attempt to be like that but you see the principle here was a man who never lost the felt awareness of what he was as a sinner and therefore he never got accustomed to the glory of what he was as a redeemed sinner so when we seek in the closet Sunday morning to think upon the sins of the past week is that morbid introspection no that's preparing the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart and we examine our sins in the light of the law and in the light of the gospel and when we come with that felt sense of our sinfulness we bring to God the broken and contrite spirit

Receiving Assurance of Heard Prayers and Provision

27:01 what will God do not only in the world in the words that are prayed not only in the hymns and psalms that are sung but in that ordinance of baptism the Lord will remind us that he has washed us and then in that wonderful supper of remembrance and I was meditating upon this this morning you see it's as though the Lord having gone back to heaven he no longer has physical arms to embrace us he no longer has a physical mouth to plant the kiss of forgiveness and reconciliation upon our cheeks may I say it reverently this table with its bread and its cup are his arms and his mouth and he comes to us physically he's not literally in the bread and the cup no we do not believe in transubstantiation no no but you see when he comes and says I forgive needy sinners take eat this is the blood of the covenant which is shed for you and as really as I hold that cup and the fruit of the crushed grape I can feel upon my lips as really as I feel it upon my lips and taste it as it passes over my taste buds and I'm conscious of it going down as I swallow and it becomes part and parcel of what I am as a man so surely if I'm a believing sinner

28:28 the blood shed upon that cross and the Savior who shed that blood has become my life and I'm a believer in him and I'm a believer in him and I feed upon him and he comes and as it were gives me the special embrace of reconciling love here at his table oh if we understand that we come with the broken heart what embraces of reconciling love would be our portion when we come to his table well I must hurry on as there isn't much voice left as well as time do we come with the sacrifice of our prayers our supplications and intercession do we come with a believing heart according to 1st Timothy 2 and as we saw this morning and what do we receive from God well we receive from God the assurance that we are heard in heaven and think of it that things are actually happening in the nations of men as well as in the church of Christ in answer to our prayers when we read 1st Timothy 2 that passage which gives direction for the corporate worship of the people of God I will that prayers supplication intercession giving of thanks be made for all men then he sets the stakes high for kings what does Washington care about a group of people

29:55 the likes of us a motley bunch David's cave of a dullum crown meeting here in an old school auditorium what does the senate care about this bunch well they don't care anything but the God who is Lord over the senate does and he says if you seek me I'll do things there that have direct bearing upon the progress of the gospel in your generation for kings rulers those in authority that we may lead a tranquil life in all godliness and gravity then he goes on to show why because the living God has sent his son to be a ransom for sinners and he desires that sinners hear and know of the one who is there for all who will have him dear people do you believe that? I think what's happened to most of us you see we've gotten in a rut where we say oh yeah this is the time when the pastor prays a little bit of a longer prayer and it has to do with the missionaries and the king so we just sort of talk friends get rid of that mentality that is blasphemous that's wicked we're agreeing together and if we come prepared to believe as we pray that God hears we'll receive from God the joyous awareness and confidence that God in heaven has heard us say because he has said from the lips of his own son ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find

31:23 knock and it shall be opened unto you if God would give us as it were just a little bit of a picture of how much of his own mighty working takes into consideration the prayers of his people I doubt we'd ever be the same again you do have a little picture in the book of the revelation here we have in that majesty of symbolic vision and language of the Lord the vials the seals being opened and the vials of God's judgment being poured out and in the midst of all of that what do you have you have vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints and God is saying in the great sweeping movements of history the prayers of my saints are at the center of my dispositions and of my mighty workings in the earth that's what he's telling us symbolic language yes but he's telling us but he couldn't tell it to us in plainer language there is in the midst of the mighty working of God in our day that element of the prayers of God's people well you see if we come believing then we receive from God something of that joyous confidence that we are heard well what happens when we bring that sacrifice of glad acknowledgement of God's goodness and we bring our gifts our tithes and offerings as we saw from Philippians 4.18

32:51 a sacrifice pleasing to God well what we get from God is the assurance of God's commitment to meet all our needs that's an amazing thing here we come bringing the sacrifice of our substance and you read in Philippians 4.19 follows hard upon verse 18 and my God shall supply all your need you've brought the spiritual sacrifice to God you've come as it were with your hands full of this grace full of this gift then God says I'll see to it that your hands will have all that they need Matthew 6.33 seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness all these things shall be added unto you Proverbs 3 honor the Lord with thy substance the firstfruits of all thine increase so shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy vat shall overflow with new wine you see some of you come to the congregation perhaps nervous about your financial stresses and in your unbelief you've been cheating on rendering to God his due and you know what the result is you don't worship your mind so full of your financial entanglements and your spirit is so oppressed with it you come into the sanctuary I don't mean the building I mean the assembly of his people and you receive very little why? because you have not purposed in your heart to bring to God that which is his due

Receiving Instruction and the Danger of Presumption

34:18 oh if you would God promises to bring to you that you would then leave with the assurance of the provision of your needs well you see you carry this through to the other two things we dealt with this morning are we to bring the sacrifice of a submissive teachable heart why then we receive from God the instruction that he delights to give because he says in his word the meek will he guide in judgment he says that it is those who put aside these things that are able to receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls so in a very real sense and I hope this has been enough to at least help you to get the principle you and I receive in public worship that which is the answer of God to the very things that we bring and in a very real sense we have no right to expect to receive any more than we bring now God is gracious and thank God from those times when we come and we haven't had one sixteenth of an ounce of a spiritual sacrifice prepared and God shows he's the God of grace and he comes and he meets with us anyway but don't presume upon his grace don't tempt him thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God to expect anything from God that is a conditional promise

All Worship and Blessing Through Christ

35:45 without fulfilling by his grace that condition is presumption and surely as we've studied these passages throughout the day I trust we've come to the conviction that we dare not expect to receive from God unless we are prepared to render to him that which is his due now I want to conclude the message tonight by reminding you of those two notes that we need continually to sound whenever we speak on these matters lest we drift into a kind of legalism that would keep us preoccupied with ourselves I go back to the beginning of the sermon I go back to 1 Peter 2 and verse 5 and remind you that Peter says we as living stones are constituted this priesthood a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ he wants his readers to know that even the most spiritual sacrifice finds acceptance finds acceptance only through the mediation of Christ now what practical effect will this have upon us well precisely this we will in a sense have our minds preoccupied with the gathering of our spiritual sacrifices

37:12 prior to our coming to worship when we come Christ should be the focal point the object upon which we terminate our conscious thoughts in the act of worship for it is only as Christ receives and then presents to God all of these spiritual sacrifices that they find any acceptance with the Father therefore if you are not in Christ you cannot worship and here's the terrible bind you're in you must worship you're obligated to worship God commands you to worship and yet you can't unless you're in Christ well you say should I just not attempt? No! That's to add sin to sin Psalm 100 says that all the lands are to acknowledge Him as God know that He is God He has made us He's your maker He demands that you worship Him bow down before Him and acknowledge Him to be God and yet your bowing down and acknowledging of Him is not acceptable unless it is made fragrant with the mediation of Christ and it will never be so until you flee to Christ and embrace Him as your Savior and your Lord and embrace Him as your Savior and your Lord you're in a terrible plight my unconverted friend you must worship God God holds you accountable

38:37 if you don't worship Him and yet you can't render acceptable worship unless you're in His Son so flee to Him He makes worshipers of sinners who worship themselves in their lust in their own way in their own will in their own notions in their own ambitions Christ came to make of them true worshipers of the Father and dear child of God it should be a reminder to you that you ought to have Christ never very far from your conscious thoughts in an hour of worship spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to God through Him learn to discipline your mind to think in those terms as you're singing a hymn of praise oh God as the pianist is playing a few bars to get us all on tune discipline your mind to think Lord as I bring this sacrifice of praise I consciously offer it through your Son and then as you sing as you're able to articulate the words of the hymn writer or the psalmist bring it through the Son when you bow as men lead us in prayer and as they frame the words of your own heart acknowledging sin and need and pleading for help I trust the little phrase

40:05 in Jesus' name is not just some kind of prayer but a religious shibboleth that is tacked on to let us know we're coming near the end or when our brethren lead us and say oh God we come in the name through the merits of your dear Son that's not just religious terminology I hope it is more than that with you and we need to keep this before us if we are to offer the sacrifices as Peter directs us to do and then we need to remember in the last place as surely as everything we bring to God is acceptable only through Christ everything we receive from God comes to us through Christ the scripture tells us of His fullness have we all received God has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Colossians 3, 4 says when Christ who is our life therefore we do not have dealings with God in the abstract we have dealings with the Lord the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and we expect and receive from God that which He has treasured up in His Son and we receive it from Him we receive it through Him so that you see in a sense our worship is bounded by Christ everything we bring to God we bring through Him

Conclusion and Prayer: Assimilating Truth and Anticipating Next Sermon

41:34 all that we receive from God we receive from God through Him through Him we can never we can never think too often we can never think too highly we can never think too frequently of Him who alone makes our worship acceptable may God grant that as we've meditated today upon this subject what are the essential ingredients of public worship that God will help us to assimilate these things don't be discouraged if you're not able if you're not able to assimilate them all at once work them all into as it were the almost subconscious and reflexive state of the soul no, no but set the standard there and work towards it pray towards it take pains to attain it and God willing next Lord's Day we shall consider the second broad area namely the agent in public worship that is what is it that brings this worship to God is it just the mind of the believer is it just the mind is it just the spirit of the believer is it just the affections of the believer is it just his soul or is it his soul and his body and what I hope to demonstrate is that the agent of bringing this worship to God is the whole of the redeemed sinner that is his whole soul and his body and I think some of you are going to be amazed

43:02 to see how much your body is involved in your worship but it is and I hope to demonstrate this from the word of God well let us pray and commit these concerns to God and ask his help as we seek to walk in the light of him oh our father we marvel that you are so willing to give and to give and to give and to give to your needy people we thank you that you delight to give you delight to give not only what we ask but exceeding abundantly above all we could ask or think we pray that you will teach us how to receive from you that which you are willing to give as we meet together in our various dimensions of public worship oh Lord as even in a few moments we will come together to remember our Lord Jesus Christ in the way appointed may we come to give the praise and adoration and loving remembrance of him that he commands may we receive from him fresh embraces of forgiveness and mercy fresh attestations of the magnitude of his grace oh Lord we would come prepared to give and to receive

44:31 for we are a needy people oh come to us in our need have mercy upon those who sit here tonight who worship themselves who worship their peers who worship the current rock stars who worship current TV personalities who worship their own bodies who worship money who worship clothes oh God shatter idolatry in our midst we pray you've made every creature in this place to worship you Lord we're paying to think that there are multitudes of idols before which men and women boys and girls in this place bow and pay their homage oh Lord shatter that idolatry and bring we pray idolaters to worship you the living and the true God and your dear son we ask this that your name be praised and that their joy be made full hear our prayer dismiss us with your blessing be with those who leave us be with those who will gather at this table of remembrance we ask these mercies with thankful hearts through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Amen