Hindrances to Worship in the Converted, #1

Introduction: The Converted Believer's Struggle in Worship

0:00 I would ask you to follow in your Bibles as I read two portions of the Word of God as an introduction to this, our sixth and final study in this brief series on the subject of God-pleasing worship. The first passage is in Romans 7, and I shall pick up the reading at that point at which the apostle is making the complaint of this terrible sense of spiritual tension that he

0:46 experiences with a heart that longs fully to please God, and yet the consciousness of a contrary principle, I begin the reading in verse 18. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I practice.

1:22 But if what I would not that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then the law that to me who would do good evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

2:00 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that I of myself with the mind indeed serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. And then over to the second letter to the Corinthian church, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And I shall read the first five verses, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5.

2:38 For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven, yet so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened. Not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us, for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

Review of Previous Studies and Introduction of New Topic

3:32 As we address ourselves to this, our final study in this broad and vital area of concern, the principles of acceptable public worship, I would very briefly remind you of where we've been. I gave a more extensive review this morning, and I shall not repeat that review. We have first of all considered from the Word of God those activities which constitute the ingredients of God-honoring worship. And we have seen that they can be ranged under two basic categories, those activities in which we bring something to God, and those activities in which we receive something from God. Then we consider the agent of public worship. Who is it that renders these

4:24 spiritual sacrifices to God? Who is it that receives these blessings from God? And from the scriptures we have seen that it is the child of God in the totality of his redeemed humanity. Wasn't that brought out beautifully in our opening hymn? Body and soul were mentioned there as being engaged in the worship of the living God. And then we've considered in the third place the hindrances to the rendering of this God-honoring worship. And I've suggested that the hindrances break down into two major categories, hindrances in the worshiping context, and then hindrances in the worshiper himself. This morning we considered the hindrances in that worshiper

5:15 or that would-be worshiper who is yet an unconverted man or woman, boy or girl. And we saw from the scriptures that because the person of the unconverted man is not accepted, his worship cannot be accepted, and furthermore, because his heart is unfurnished for worship, he cannot render acceptable worship. Now tonight we come to consider the hindrances to acceptable worship which are peculiar to the child of God. One would think that if the worshiping context is relatively pure. That is, there is no intrusion of carnal aids to worship, no inclusion of unscriptural

6:05 activities in worship, no toleration of any unnecessary distractions to worship, that if a person is accepted before God in the Beloved, is indwelt with the Spirit and thereby I furnished with those motives and concepts which are productive of true worship, that all would be well. All you need do is put such a person in such a context, and real, true worship will simply flow from his heart. Well, the problem is that neither the Word of God nor the experience of the people of God teaches us any such concept. Both the Word of God and human experience teach us that there are indeed hindrances in the worship of the

6:57 true child of God. Hindrances that are real, that are powerful, and that are continuous. And in a very real sense, no one will make much progress in being a true worshiper who does not understand those hindrances and who does not learn to apply the biblical remedies to those hindrances. So there must be an intelligent grappling with the malady and an intelligent understanding and a believing appropriation of the divine remedy. And so tonight in this, our final study, our subject matter is precisely those things. We're going to consider

Two Fundamental Sources of Hindrances: Indwelling Sin and Imperfectly Sanctified Body

7:43 the hindrances to acceptable worship peculiar to the child of God, and some suggestions as to how to deal with those hindrances. Now the heart, the substance, the essence of the hindrances encountered by a child of God when he would give himself to God-honoring worship can be reduced to two fundamental factors or two essential spiritual realities. They are the fact of his indwelling sin and the fact of his imperfectly sanctified body. And whenever the child of God would attempt to worship,

8:30 He is going to confront hindrances that derive from those two great realities. First of all then, the reality of indwelling sin or remaining corruption. Now I like the term indwelling sin not because I have a great respect for and appreciation of John Owen's treatises on this subject, but because it is biblical language. I read in your hearing from the seventh chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.

9:10 And in that chapter, the apostle is laying out, as it were, the innermost strivings of his heart as a true Christian. And I say without any reservation that I adopt the position of interpretation that says that the apostle here is describing not a pre-Christian experience, nor is he describing a sub-normal experience. He is describing an element of continuous, wholesome Christian experience. And as he does, he refers to this great reality of evil that is present,

9:56 verse 21, this law that is in his members, but at the end of verse 20 he says, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. Now this is the very apostle who in the previous chapter has stated in language that cannot be misunderstood that the dominion of sin is broken in the life experience of every true Christian. He uses such language as ye have died to sin. Sin shall not have dominion over you. Ye are free from sin. This is the vigorous language of chapter 6, stating very clearly that in the case of every Christian, the dominion of sin

10:47 has been broken. But the same man who affirms this breaking of sin's dominion is the man who says there is the problem of sin that yet dwells in me. Though sin's dominion has been broken, God has not yet so worked in the heart of any of his children in this present state, this present arrangement prior to glorification, either in one stage or two stages, death and then the resurrection, or at the return of Christ, no child of God is without these two realities, the breaking of sin's dominion and the burden of indwelling and remaining sin. Or we may wish to

11:37 choose the language of Galatians 5.17, in which the apostle says, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary, the one to the other. There is no Christian who does not experience both the powerful putting forth of the energy of the indwelling spirit calculated to put down the flesh. The spirit is actively and powerfully lusting against the flesh. But wherever that's true, the counterpart is true.

12:16 The flesh is always lusting against the spirit. Now, because they are mentioned in the parallelism does not mean they are of equal force, of equal power, of equal strength. But there is real presence, real power, and real strength in both of them. So the great problem that the child of God faces when he would render acceptable worship to God is that he does not shed that remaining sin when he enters the sphere where specific public worship is to mark his activity in conjunction with his brothers and sisters.

12:59 It is accurate to say that this indwelling sin, this remaining corruption, this flesh, is constantly present, even when I enter a place of public worship. Not only so, it is constantly active. It is always lusting. Or in the language of Romans 7, verse 23, it is always warring against the law of my mind.

13:28 Wherever indwelling sin is present, it is at war. Always, ever, continually. So it is constantly present, but it is also constantly active. According to Romans 6.12, it is always seeking to regain its former lordship.

13:48 Let not therefore sin reign. It's attempting to. Dominant sin has now been relegated to the place of remaining sin, but it is not content with its deposition. It's like a former president who can never be content to be a governor.

14:09 He's got to run for office and have the Oval Room again.

14:14 Indwelling sin, though no longer reigning sin, is not content with that place to which it has been deposed. So it is constantly present, constantly active, and in the third place, it is peculiarly vigorous in the face of or context of those activities or disciplines most calculated to weaken its power. the more calculated any activity is to weaken the power of remaining sin the more active remaining sin becomes now what means have a higher place for the weakening of remaining sin

15:04 than do those means deposited in the public worship of God's people their corporate prayers their corporate aspirations, their corporate subjection to Christ ministering through the Word, Christ present to give of Himself as the bread of life in the midst of His gathered people. So you see, as the Apostle says in Romans 7 and verse 21, and John Owen makes a very great point of this in his treatise on indwelling sin, I find then the law that to me who would do good, evil is present, And it is precisely at the point when all of my faculties are focused upon doing the highest good, that evil will put forth its highest energies to negate that good.

15:55 So your mind was instructed concerning the agent of worship. And you confessed to God the sin of laziness and non-preparation of mind and heart. And you were as it were caught up in the wonderful expectation expectation now that I see that I must come and with the entirety of my soul give myself to worship and where necessary shake off the dullness of the body. You said it's going to be glorious, but what happened?

16:23 You found that all of that holy resolve was in great measure negated. Why? When you would do good, evil was present with you right in this place. In the face of all your resolves, in the face of all your earnest prayers, evil was yet present.

16:48 Now all of the problems that a child of God faces in the matter of hindrances to his worship, The first great raw material out of which the problems arise is this problem of indwelling sin. But then the second major ingredient out of which his problems arise is the fact of an imperfectly sanctified body. And that's why I read 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul said, we that are in this tabernacle, that is the body in its present condition, and nowhere does the Bible demean the body.

17:25 It elevates the body. In fact, it says, almost in essence, the intermediate state is hardly even to be reckoned with. The great hope of the believer is not to be a disembodied spirit looking upon Christ, though that's a wonderful expectation. I desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, but that's never said to be his hope.

17:46 The believer's hope and expectation, the blessed hope is, that in the integrity of body and soul, I shall with a perfectly sinless spirit, in a qualified body, worship and serve my Redeemer.

18:03 The Apostle brings this out so clearly in Romans 8, does he not? And says that the whole creation is waiting for that too, the redemption of the believer's body. So you see, there is this problem that when I would worship, because I worship in the body, hindrances will arise from the imperfect state of my bodily sanctification. So the agent is the entire redeemed humanity of the child of God.

18:34 But that redeemed humanity is not perfectly sanctified humanity. The problem of indwelling sin, sending as it were its tentacles into every faculty and activity of the soul, and then an imperfectly sanctified body sending out its impulse, as it were, into the entirety of the organism and spilling over into the state of the soul, because though we separate for discussion and analysis, we don't in reality. Just as surely as an invigorated mind can pour over its vigor to a dull body, a dull body can pour over its lassitude into an invigorated mind. And there's this interplay and interflow between these faculties that constitute us men and women.

19:19 Well, you see, that's the origin of the problems we face in worship. If only there were some kind of a magical instrument through which we could pass whenever we came to any place to gather for public worship. And passing through that instrument, indwelling sin in its influence would be suspended only for an hour. and all the imperfections of the present bodily state could be shed only for an hour.

19:53 Well, you see, that would be heaven brought down to earth, and then we'd never want to go back, and we'd be a mess. So the Lord, for good and wise reasons, allows us to struggle on, to worship on in this mixed and oftentimes frustrating state of affairs. Well, having laid out the major principle, now let me descend for the sake of analysis and clarity to consider these hindrances arising now from those two sources. Consider them in three simple areas, the physical hindrances, the mental, and then the spiritual.

Physical Hindrances to Worship

20:31 Now, these categories, again, are not categories so fixed that you can move from one compartment to the other. But in teaching, you must have some pegs on which to hang the thoughts that you seek to lay before the minds of God's people. So this is not meant to be a seminar setting forth biblical psychology or biblical anatomy or a biblical doctrine of precise analysis of the human constitution. No, it's not meant to be that at all.

21:01 It's meant to be nothing more than the effusion of a pastoral concern that I trust is rooted in the thought patterns of the Bible so that we might be a better worshipping people. Alright, starting on the lowest scale then, because these are the easiest to deal with. What about those hindrances that we may legitimately call physical hindrances? We come to worship God in the body.

21:28 Since remaining sin finds an ally in the body, not its source, but an ally, what are they? Well, let me suggest a few that I'm sure you're familiar with. Maybe it's a distracting pain. You come with a headache.

21:44 Or, as some of us do, you come with a backache. Or, as many of you young ladies, you come with the discomforts of advanced pregnancy. now those are very real things we're not Christian scientists who say the headache is just a thought in my head no it's a pain in my head I don't know what pain is but I know it's real it's not just a negative thought and when you come with a headache that headache is going to influence your worship some of you ladies who come in the discomforts of advanced stages of pregnancy that's very real discomfort When Junior or Junior S decides to do his or her calisthenics halfway through a worship service, that's very, very distracting.

22:31 That's very real. Or there may be what we would call general weariness. You've had an unusually hard week, and you carry over into the context of worship some of that weariness. Our Lord knew what that weariness was.

22:45 He, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by a well, John chapter 4. Some of you who travel, you experience jet lag. Mr. Spence knows what that is.

22:57 Having lived for a while with his bodily clocks twelve hours in the other direction, he's finding it a bit difficult to get sorted out. It may be that the kids kept you up half the night, Saturday night. They seem to have very little respect for your intention to render to God whole-souled worship. And their belly aches, and their colic, and their teething, and their flu bugs seem to have very little respect for your holy resolve to be a whole-souled worshiper.

23:28 So there are those problems, not only of distracting pain, but of weariness, or it may be general weakness. Some of you coming off a bout with the flu, coming off surgery, the delivery of a child. Well what happens? Now follow closely.

23:43 Indwelling sin that is always warring against the law of the mind, always lusting against the motions of the Spirit, indwelling sin will take advantage of these bodily states to draw us off from rendering the worship to God that we ought.

24:04 Indwelling sin will take advantage of that which is morally neutral. It is not sinful to have a headache. unless you've got a headache from watching too much television or drinking too much wine or something else. Then that's the fruit of your sin.

24:20 But a headache in itself, not contracted because of any specific ignorance of or indifference to known laws of health and good sense, it is a morally neutral thing. Weariness is morally neutral. It is not sin. Our sinless Lord was weary and rested himself by Jacob's well.

24:41 General weakness is not sin. But you see, indwelling sin takes occasion by that which is morally neutral and seeks to use that state to bring us to sin.

Practical Directives for Overcoming Physical Hindrances

24:57 By causing us to yield our spirits and our minds to the state of our bodies and thereby rob God of the worship which is his due. Now may I give you a few practical directives as to how to deal with those hindrances to worship that arise from these various physical states. First is this. Exercise rigorous discipline to master your body.

25:29 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 27. The Apostle Paul, speaking in a context of determination to persevere in the Christian race, says this, verse 25. Every man that striveth in the games exerciseth self-control in all things. In other words, a man who is determined to be an Olympic runner does not merely exercise discipline when he is out on the track.

26:01 His eating habits, his sleeping habits, his dating patterns, his reading patterns, every facet of his life comes under rigorous discipline with a view to the desired performance on the racetrack. It may only be for 10 seconds if he runs a 100-yard dash. It may only be for 3 minutes and 50 seconds if he's a world-class miler. It may only be for a little under two minutes if he's a world-class 880 man.

26:32 Whatever it is, he exercises discipline in every dimension of life. Because when the gun is raised and the starter says to your marks, get set, go, he is determined that he shall perform in that given area. Now, when we begin to think that way with regard to public worship. and as the week draws on and the Saturday comes upon us and our minds begin to think of the glorious dawning of another Lord's Day we will exercise discipline in all things that by any means legitimate we shall be able to perform not to gain a corruptible crown nor to impress others

27:20 but to render to God his due. 2 Timothy 2.3 says, Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And you see, one of our problems is, we've all for the most part been raised too soft, or many of you have.

27:41 I'm grateful to God again and again that I was raised in a relatively Spartan situation with a mother who made me do things that I didn't want to do, and I thanked her the other day on the phone again for it,

27:55 who pounded into me those words some of you have heard many times, doing things you don't like to do develops character.

28:05 But you see, everything is the soft recliner mentality. And you cannot live a recliner mentality in terms of your bodily appetites from Monday to Saturday and make any real progress in harnessing these states of the body when you come on the Lord's day. Any more than the man who ignores the rules of good training Monday through Friday is going to perform well on the track on Saturday. He must exercise discipline in all things.

28:37 And so the apostle says in that 1 Corinthians 9 passage, to which I was referring you and then got sidetracked. I therefore so run. Verse 26, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as beating the air, but I buffet my body and bring it into bondage. And that's vigorous language in the original.

29:03 You may have the marginal reading in some of your Bibles, I bruise, I beat my body till black and blue. Now, was he encouraging some kind of asceticism? No. He says, God has given us all things richly to enjoy. If anyone comes along and says, oh, I felt the spirit tingle down my backbone, I've got a word of prophecy. And my word of prophecy is the highest spiritual state is celibacy. The highest spiritual state is to be a vegetarian. You know what Paul calls that in 2 Timothy? Doctrines of demons. When people tell you high reaches of spirituality, are to be attained by denying our humanity.

29:43 He says that's the doctrines of demons because it's an attack upon the wisdom and goodness of God in giving us bodily appetites and making a world suitable to the meeting of those bodily needs. So this is not some kind of asceticism. He's talking of that practical matter that I'm laying before you tonight that we must learn by vigorous spiritual discipline to master the body and make it servant to the soul. Now, you know what that will mean?

30:14 It may mean when you come that morning with a headache that you say, Lord, I've gone to work with headaches. I've done my job because my job and my ability to provide for my family depended on it, headache or no headache. And by the sheer dint of determination, you performed your legitimate task at work in the midst of a headache. Is God worth less determination than that?

30:39 You wouldn't rob your employer of his eight hours because of your headache. Shall you rob God who made you and redeemed you in Christ of his due simply because you've got a headache? Are there times when you felt you just couldn't get to work unless you pushed yourself? Weariness just seemed to sit on you like a garment from the top of your head to the sole of your foot, but you weren't really sick.

31:02 You could not with good conscience as a Christian, call in sick, even though you had sick days coming to you that you hadn't used. You don't operate like the world and just use up your sick days when you're not sick. No, no, you have a Christian conscience on these things. So no matter how weary you felt, you kicked yourself in the britches and you got yourself off to work. Didn't you? Haven't you many times? Haven't you? I hope you have. Is God worthy of less dogged, grassroots, determined discipline than your employer? You see, we can just sort of adopt a very passive, mystical view of these things and hope that somehow God will just float my headache away and float

31:50 my weariness. No, no. God will call upon us in these things to exercise this kind of Spartan discipline to master our bodies, and you must learn to do that. A second thing we may do, and I have found this to be of tremendous help, when we come to worship and there are these hindrances arising from physical pain or weariness or general weakness use the consciousness of physical indisposition for spiritual profit Use the consciousness of physical indisposition for spiritual profit Now what do I mean by that?

32:34 Well, I mean precisely this. It is only when you feel the weakness arising from your mortal frame that such passages as Psalm 103 become precious to you.

32:49 Psalm 103.

32:53 And we read, verse 10, He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

33:22 For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are his grass, as the flower of the field so he flourishes, etc. He knoweth our frame. Some of the most wonderful times of communion with God I have ever known in public worship have been on a Sunday night when I felt that I have poured out my soul, my body, my mind, that my entire redeemed humanity has been expended, that there are no reserves of energy left, and something in me says I want to preach and pray with all the vigor of Sunday morning, but it's not left.

34:07 There's nothing there. This verse is, Come on with such power. He knoweth my friend. He remembers we are dust.

34:16 And you see, it's in the midst of that felt, physical weariness that the consciousness of a knowing, loving, tender Father can so permeate the soul that the spiritual vigor imparted by that thought will spill over its life into your weary body. And before you know it, you're preaching with greater vigor than you preached in the morning.

34:40 Use the felt awareness of physical indisposition to your spiritual profit, that is, for your comfort concerning your Father's heart. Or you may use it to sharpen your hope, what the theologians would call your eschatological perspective, that is, your perspective upon the eschatos, the end, the consummation. Isn't that what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 5? He says, we that are in this tabernacle, we groan.

35:12 We feel the indispositions of this present arrangement. But what did he do? He said, that causes us to long to put it off and do what? Not lie in the grave.

35:23 But he says, to put on the building from heaven. To shed this and put on that. You see, he takes no great delight in the thought that this body in which he served his Lord with the tension of its weakness and the present arrangement is simply going to be put off. That would go from some activity to none in the body.

35:43 That's no great deal for Paul. He says, I've been able to serve Him with this body, with all its limitations. I've grown, I long to put it off that I may put on a habitation from heaven and then I'll really serve Him.

35:58 And few Lord's days should pass, dear people of God, without us, as it were, fixing our gaze upon the consummation, which is the eternal Sabbath rest. And we shall be delivered from what Paul calls in Philippians 3, the body of this humiliation. The body of this humiliation. And we will take on a body like unto His own glorious body.

36:24 So, use the consciousness of physical indisposition for spiritual profit. suck comfort from that unusual plant.

36:36 Derive hope and expectation. And let me give a third suggestion as to what to do with the bodily problems of worship. Plead the fulfillment of promises that speak to this very problem. You know there are promises in the Word of God.

36:52 And as Paul says, godliness has promised not only of this life but in the life which is to come. But it does have promises that touch this life. And one promise of the word of God that ought continually to be before your own mind and pressed before God in prayer is that wonderful promise of Isaiah 40. In which God is comforting his people who feel that they are forgotten.

37:17 Who feel that their way in all of its tumult and all of its change is somehow hid from God.

37:27 We read in Isaiah 40 and verse 28,

37:57 strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

38:10 They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. And I do not understand the psychology of it, nor do I understand where I profess to unravel the mystery of the Spirit's work. But there is something in that principle. He that would save his life will lose it, but he that will lose it shall save it. You come to worship with that meager measure of strength. You can't even give a hundred percent of your mind because so much of it, it's torn away with that headache.

38:42 You can't throw yourself with all the vigor you would like into the worship because of a general weariness and lassitude of physical energy. What do you do? You take that which you have and you lose it. You say, Lord, I'll just give it up to you.

38:57 Every bit of it, as poor as it is, as meager as it is, you gladly give it up. And you know what happens in the giving? This verse is often fulfilled. God renews your strength.

39:11 And dear people, I can testify to this in preaching time after time after time. When I felt there was nothing to give, and yet that the people of God who came eager to hear the word of God, were worthy of an involvement in preaching that was more than just being a word machine and giving out right truths. And though there was very little to give, that little bit was thrown into the ministry. And lo and behold, as that was given, more was given until wonder of wonders, one's physical vigor is given in the very act of ministering the word of God.

39:49 I don't understand it, but I can no more deny that then I can deny my own name.

39:57 Here's a promise. The joy of the Lord is thy strength. And what happens as you take what little strength you do have and give yourself to expressing gratitude to God for His mercy, a new wave of joy comes over the soul and it spills over into the body. How many times people have said to me, particularly on a Wednesday night, Pastor, I just didn't want to come to the prayer meeting.

40:23 I was so tired. I was so weary. But you know what happened? I feel like I've had a three-hour nap.

40:29 How do you explain that? They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Well, let me hurry on now to consider the second major area.

Mental Hindrances to Worship: Ignorance and Indolence

40:43 And I don't think I'm going to get through the three tonight. The mental hindrances.

40:50 indwelling sin is coming closer to home now though it has an ally in the body in the mind it has more than an ally it has as it were a companion in crime and there are mental hindrances arising from particularly the problem of indwelling sin Now remember, acceptable worship is worship rendered in what context? According to John 4 The Father seeks a people to worship Him how? In spirit and in truth Now follow closely Any worship that is not the product of the understanding of truth

41:42 Is false worship now you see what this does to so much of what's called worship in our charismatic circles today it's when people's minds get blown and they get carried out you see quote in the spirit and it's usually someone who's a master of crowd psychology whipping up the troops I've seen them do it I'm not talking second, third, fourth hand I've been there and I've seen them manipulate the crowd And what do they do? It's almost a form of hypnotic repetition of little Jesus slogans. And people, as it were, are whipped into a spiritual frenzy, not as the result of coming to grips with clear, precise, well-chiseled understanding of truth.

42:39 but it's sweet Jesus Jesus is Lord Jesus is Lord Jesus is Lord and all this vain repetition you see in sloganism which operates at the realm of the psyche no no this is why you see we're shut up to the individual believer preparing himself for worship because there's no one who is seeking to lead in a context of pure worship who will dare to whip up the troops he'd be afraid God might strike him dead by offering such strange fire upon holy altars.

43:21 But because of this principle that true worship is in the context of truth you see how central is the activity of the mind and therefore the two great enemies of rendering spiritual worship at the mental level are ignorance and indolence.

43:42 Ignorance of what really constitutes true worship. You see, the psalmist asked the question in Psalm 116, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me? Now, if he didn't have an answer to that question, he wouldn't know how to worship. He would be left at the mercy of his own impulses, or at the opinions of others.

44:06 But because he had light from God, he could say, I will take the cup of salvation, and I will render praise unto my God. The Apostle Paul went by that worship center on Mars Hill, and he said, the God whom you worship in ignorance, him I declare to you. and what he was saying in a very tactful way is you don't worship him if you worship him in ignorance because God is not worshipped in any other context but a context of truth. Or you remember what Jesus said in John 4, another worship passage.

44:43 He said to the Samaritan woman, ye worship ye know not what? That is, you don't truly worship because ignorance and true worship are poles apart. Truth alone is the mother of true worship and the context of true worship. Therefore, dear child of God, if indwelling sin can gain advantage by casting, as it were, a cloak, a veil, a shroud of ignorance over the mind, tremendous, tremendous work has been done to cripple true worship.

45:17 this is why I've preached the series that the entrance of God's word might give light that the light of truth would dispel the mist of ignorance but the problem is you see indwelling sin so operates upon the mind that what we see clearly one week we forget the next that's why Peter had to say in 2 Peter 1.13 I think it necessary as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir up your minds by way of remembrance So what we've done at a practical pastoral level, one of the brethren has had his fingers very active this week. He's typing up the outline of this series. And we're going to have it mimeographed and put it in your hands.

45:56 Why? Just for something to do? No. We hope that you will take these things.

46:02 Make them the basis of meditation, and particularly on a Lord's Day, until they become second nature to you. Go over those spiritual sacrifices. What are they? and seek to gather them by prayer and meditation, that you will come to worship in the realm of truth, which alone gives birth to true worship.

46:23 But it's not enough that the mind perceive truth. The mind must be active in reflecting upon and acting upon that truth. So indolence of the mind is the great hindrance, particularly during worship. If ignorance is the great hindrance prior to worship, indolence is the great hindrance during worship.

46:46 If our praise is to be praise in truth, you see what we must do when we sing a hymn? We must, by mental concentration, make the words of the hymn writer our words. and you can't do that simply by threading them through the eyes with enough contact with the mind so as to trigger the right words on the lip. It takes more than that.

47:12 You know what it is to thread words through your eyes so that you're singing the right words but your mind can be a thousand miles away. That's not worship. Because unless the heart and mind are reflected in the mouth the condemnation of Christ impinges upon us. this people draweth nigh with their what?

47:32 Lips, mouth, but their heart is far from me.

The Importance of Mental Activity in Corporate Prayer and the 'Amen'

47:36 So we must beware of that indolence of mind that just shifts into neutral. The same is true with regard to our prayers. Frankly, dear people, I don't believe we've begun to tap the tremendous spiritual power of united prayer. That when a brother is leading us in prayer, if we give ourselves wholeheartedly, our minds, as it were, enter into His mind by means of His words.

48:04 And we affirm with all of our hearts those things that He's expressing to God. So it can be said of us, as was said of the early church, comprised of thousands. Of thousands. It says, with one mouth, they lifted up their voice to God and said, if two of you shall agree on earth I think many of us still think that pastoral prayers and corporate prayers in public worship that sort of something thrown in for filler It be kind of awkward if you just stood up sung a hymn and preached No, no, my friend, these are not fillers.

48:40 These are God-ordained means, channels of bringing acceptable worship. And the mind must not be indolent. And frankly, this is why I'm still disturbed that we're not more free to say our amen when a brother finishes praying. And I may preach a sermon just on the biblical warrant for the corporate amen.

49:03 You didn't realize the Bible is full of indications that from the very beginning of the national life of the covenant people under Moses, God prescribed the corporate amen for the people of God. Frankly, I like to know whether or not the people of God have been active in their minds and hearts when I prayed. And if they don't say amen at the end, I feel like saying, well, were you with me or against me? Were we in this together?

49:30 You say, it's not my personality. Who cares?

49:36 That's nothing to do with personality, does it? Oh, some of you are a little more naturally vocal than others. But aren't there a lot of things that we've embraced that were sort of contrary not only to personality, but to a lot of other things because we saw them in the Word? So I just may do that.

49:51 I ran across some material in preparation for this series, and it just about blew my own mind, because I didn't realize there was so much in the Scripture. But be that as it may, you see the place of it, and that's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, let's look at the passage for a minute, because it's so pivotal here, and we'll just forget the last point for another sermon, and work this one a bit more thoroughly. 1 Corinthians chapter 14.

50:21 verse 16 he's dealing now with the problem you see of people that were exercising their gift of tongues speaking in languages but they were doing it in an irresponsible and non-edifying way because you see true worship must involve the understanding if there's to be corporate edification so dealing with that problem he says in verse 16 If thou bless with the Spirit, how shall he that filleth the place of the unlearned say the Amen at the giving of thy thanks, seeing he knoweth not what thou sayest? His mind is alert and active, but it's unproductive.

51:08 You're talking in a language he can't savvy. So he doesn't know what you're saying. He doesn't know whether you've been telling lies, whether you've been cursing God, or whether you've been giving the time of the day. So he's not going to just say his amen to make you feel good.

51:20 So he withholds his amen. Because he doesn't know whether he wants to say, so be it Lord, what he prayed. That's what I would pray if I was in his place. And that's what we're doing when we say the amen.

51:33 Amen, so be it. It's the ratification of our own heart's conviction to that which has been uttered either in praise or in prayer to God. Well, you see, that involves then the activity of the mind. And may I remind you of this vigorous biblical language, first from Peter.

51:52 Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, pulling the loose ends, tie it all together. That's your responsibility. Or the language of Colossians 3, 2. Set your mind upon the things that are above.

52:08 You must set it there. No one else can do it for you. And as we learn by the grace of God to deal with these things, we shall find our worship more and more, not only bringing honor to God, but bringing blessing to us. May God help us not to give triumphs to indwelling sin, either by willful ignorance or unchecked indolence, in this area of the place of the mind in our worship.

Indwelling Sin as a Thief Robbing God of His Due

52:42 What would you do if you knew on the way to this building every Lord's Day, there would be clever thieves standing outside the building, either by force or by smooth talk, trying to steal your tithe money?

53:04 What would you do? Here you have deliberately, consciously, purposefully, in obedience to the word of God, set apart a certain portion of your income, your tithes and offerings, whatever the proportion may be. And you've come prepared to give it in the midst of worship as an act of spiritual sacrifice to God. Now, how would you treat some smooth-talking guys that every Sunday you knew were standing outside here, trying to smooth-talk you out of your money, or once in a while even threatening you, would you give up your money to their smooth-talk?

53:41 You say, not me. And I think some of you would even get downright belligerent physically if you needed to, if they tried to take it from you by force, wouldn't you? Why? You say, that's God's money.

53:52 That belongs to God. I'm not going to give it up because you smooth-talk me, and you're going to have to put a few lumps and bruises on me before you even take it from me physically. I'm going to guard that which I've set apart to God.

54:05 Now you see where I'm going, don't you?

54:09 What else is God's due when we come to worship? The whole engagement of our redeemed bodies in worship.

54:18 The whole engagement of our redeemed minds in worship. there are thieves every Lord's Day trying to rob God of his due but they're not just outside the building in the home Sunday morning in the car on the way to church they sit next to us right here in this place and that thief is indwelling sin in all of his subtle ways he'll try to smooth talk you into giving up something that belongs to God.

54:54 They say, well, you've got a headache. God knows your headache. He understands. So just lean back.

54:59 Give in to it.

55:02 Endure hardness as a good soldier. Bucket the body. Bring it into subjection.

55:10 There'll be that thief seeking to shroud the mind in ignorance so that you're not consciously thinking, what does the Word of God say? and to bring to God in public worship. By indolence, so that the mind just shifts into neutral when a brother is praying or when we're singing a hymn or when one of the brethren is playing at the piano while the offering is taken or before the service and playing a familiar hymn that ought to bring the words to our minds and be, as it were, a catalyst for our own independent meditation and thought. Let's remember all such tendency is yielding to the thieves that are here to rob us of God's due.

Conclusion: Dealing with Hindrances and Rejoicing in Christ

55:51 And that great thief is your indwelling sin. Well, we'll just have to save for another sermon. The spiritual hindrances.

56:01 Those that, though the others are spiritual, those that in a special way have their residence in our human spirits as they are influenced and indwelt and operated upon by the Holy Spirit. And we'll look into such things as weariness of God, distraction, dullness, lethargy, these great hindrances. And it's at this level that indwelling sin is doing its most powerful work. And if we do not know what our weapons are to deal with these things, we will make very little progress in rendering to God acceptable worship.

56:39 But I shall skip over all of that now and conclude by exhorting you as the people of God. When you come to worship, you must come not only prepared to render to God His due, but come prepared to deal with the problem of remaining sin and the problems arising from a body that is not yet perfectly satisfied. If you are conscious of outcroppings of these things right in worship, Don't become discouraged and then run from God, as it were, while you sit in his presence. But let it humble you as it did Paul and say, God, I am that wretched man.

57:18 But don't stop there. Who shall deliver me? Thank God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The deliverance is as good as already done because I have the earnest of the Spirit, the down payment.

57:31 And God never gives the pledge without giving the full measure. You see, the very outcropping of indwelling sin can be a catalyst for praise and worship and humbling before God. Rejoice afresh that even if you're not conscious in any given act of worship of indwelling sin, your most wholly undistracted worship experience, if it were not washed in the blood and mediation of Christ, would stink in God's nostrils. 1 Peter 2.5 We offer up spiritual sacrifices Acceptable to God The best of them and the worst of them Only how?

58:10 Through Jesus Christ So you see Christ is never far From the struggles From the agonies From the tensions of imperfect worship And then rejoice that the best is yet to come When you want to love Him With an undistracted heart And you can't Let that be a reminder The day is coming when you shall When we see thee as thou art Love thee with unsinning heart When you come with a weary body Let it be a reminder an hour is coming Child of God When you'll serve him with no weariness That to me is one of the most glorious prospects of the believer To think that with this present imperfectly sanctified soul The body at times is such a hindrance

58:59 in the fulfillment of even its meager measure of holy longings. But then when the soul is rid of all the remains of sin, think what those longings will be. And God's going to suit a body that will perfectly answer to all the dictates and impulses of a perfectly sanctified spirit. That's glorification.

59:20 And that's what awaits the youngest babe in Christ in this place tonight, the weakest disciple, the most ignorant, the most faltering, if God's put His hooks in you, He's not going to let you go until He's done with you. And that ought to fill you with joy. So when you have an hour of worship in which you feel, my dullness, my dullness, my lassitude, my distractions have just swallowed me up, don't go out heavy-hearted, child of God. rejoice that it's not always going to be that way and let that very sense of heaviness spring loose the joy of anticipation you see if you're not a Christian my friend

60:07 I wouldn't trade places for you for anything in the world because you've got to leave tonight with no such prospect you've got to leave with conscience gnawing away again that you're not right with God you're not fit to live You're not fit to die. And hear the people of God leave with their hearts singing, their feet almost dancing in the anticipation of what awaits them and all that they have in the meantime until the Lord returns or takes them by the door of death. Oh, may God help any of you who've been looking in as it were on the outside and you've sensed that the people of God get excited about these things. And this is not just a lot of religious gibberish and godly gook.

60:53 Oh, I hope you get so jealous that you'll seek the Lord until you have in Christ that which he has graciously given to us. Not because we're something special, but because he delights to show mercy to sinners. To the neediest of sinners who will have him. Christ is yours if you will have him.

61:15 he is yours if you will have him have him on his terms bring nothing to him but your sin take all that is in him in his grace let us pray our father we are so grateful that we have the scriptures for even if you had given us life in Christ given us the earnest of the spirit had not described these great realities though we might have some enjoyment of them

62:02 we could never understand what mixed and contradictory creatures we are longing on the one hand to please you and worship you with abandonment. And yet on the other hand, conscious of this contrary pull, how we thank you for the biblical doctrine of indwelling sin. And though we do not rejoice or glory in the reality of our sin, for we know that our indwelling sin is our sin, we thank you that you've told us what this thing is. And we thank you that you've promised us through Jesus Christ the Lord, the hour is coming when we shall be fully delivered.

62:45 We pray that you will take these very practical pastoral concerns that have been opened up in the hearing of your people and write them upon all of our hearts. Whatever has had the mixture of man's thought we pray that you would blow upon it and bring it to naught but write your holy law upon our hearts and give us grace to walk in its light. we thank you again for this day surely Lord a day in thy courts is better than a thousand we praise you in the opening hymn of praise this morning to the instruction received concerning that great and final apostolic tradition embodied within the covers of this book for those who have led us in prayer

63:34 led us in our worship have instructed us Oh God, we thank you for this day. And oh, how we pray that you would enable us, as we take up again the responsibilities of our spheres of legitimate calling, that we may do so as those who manifest that we are in union with Christ and that every area of life is under His eye and under the regulation and direction of His own Holy Word. Hear our prayer and may the blessing of Your presence abide with us. Bless our times of fellowship following the conclusion of this hour as many will remain to share with one another

64:21 and go to each other's homes. Oh, may there be a holy restraint upon all speech that would not edify. Grant that nothing that we say in subsequent hours until we sleep will in any way erode or rob us of the blessings of the day. But may these times of fellowship be the capstone of a day spent in your courts.

64:46 hear our prayer and receive our thanks as we offer it in Jesus' name. Amen.