Please meet me in your Bibles in Revelation chapter 5.
And we're going to begin by reading verse 8 down to verse
14. The Word of God tells us here in
verse 8 of chapter 5 of the Book of Revelation.
And when he had taken the scroll, the four living
creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each
holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the
prayers of the Saints. And they sang a new song,
saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its
seals. For you were slain, and by your
blood you ransomed people for God, from every tribe and
language and people and nation. And you have made them a Kingdom
and priest to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living
creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering
myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud
voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and
wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under
the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying to
him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and
honor and glory and might, forever and ever.
And the four living creatures said, Amen.
And the elders fell down and worshipped.
Father, we ask that you teach us about worship.
Guide us, lead us and make us true worshippers, for this is
what you are looking for. We trust that you will do that.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
The main thought of this final section in Revelation chapter 5
is worship. It's the very last word found in
the very last part of chapter 5. Look at it again in verse 14.
And the four living creatures said Amen.
And the elders fell down and worshipped.
I'm aware that last week you heard from Pastor Benda's
message and in that message included a few very important
thoughts pertaining to worship and what true worship entails.
And I believe in God's Providence.
He wants us to explore this further.
You know, in the Book of Revelation, the word worship or
worshipping appears around 22 times.
I don't know about you, but that reflects how Christ wants us to
really meditate and understand the importance of worship,
considering the fact that this is the final book of the Bible.
So here you and I are in the final book of Scripture, and
what you find repeated among many things is worship, Worship,
worship, worship, worship. So with this in mind, we're
going to begin by answering a very simple yet imperative
question. What is worship and following
that, what does it mean to truly worship God?
I think a helpful place to start is to understand the definition
of the most commonly used word for worship in the New
Testament. It is a word prosecenaeo.
Prosecenaeo is the most common word for worship in the Greek,
and what it means is very simple to kiss toward, not as an act of
affection or endearment merely, but as a token of reverence, as
a symbol of allegiance. A very familiar illustration
might be what you would find commonly in history when
somebody would approach royalty in ancient times.
They would bow down and they would kiss their hand or even
kiss their feet to express their honor and devotion toward the
king. And so with this word, proscaneo
is also the posture of bending down, sometimes even prostrating
yourself. And that's why some people are
more comfortable of defining this word as to bend down.
So if we work with that definition, then we have our
understanding of what worship means.
It is a visible outward expression of 1's honor and
devotion towards someone, and I think that's what most
Christians believe worship to be.
But we run into a problem. The problem, which is a good
problem, is found in Jesus teaching because he deepens and
he challenges our understanding of worship.
If worship is purely just me externally demonstrating
something of appreciation or allegiance, then how do we make
sense of Jesus's words and Matthew and turn with me there?
Chapter 15, verse 8 and 9. You know this very well, where
Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and he tells them in
Matthew 15-8 and nine, this people honors me with their
lips, but their heart is far from me.
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men. Notice that Jesus is confirming
that the spiritual leaders of his day honored God with their
lips. Would you agree that that is a
very clear demonstration of outward honor?
Yes, it is. It's audible.
It's it's visible, It's seen, it's heard.
They honor me with their lists. Well, isn't that worship?
Well, no, he clarifies, and he actually denounces it as vain
worship. How?
One crucial reason, the outward expression did not match an
inward conviction. It's as simple as that.
That's why he says, but their heart is far from me.
So based on this, worship according to our Lord Jesus is
far greater than bodily postures, is far greater than
external acts. It's more than just audible
expressions. Worship includes those displays
of reverence and adoration. But that's not the essence.
The essence of true worship is a matter of the heart.
It is an inner experience. It is an inner reality.
Christ is not after our lips saying things if our hearts
don't believe them. Christ is not looking for us to
bend our knees of our hearts are not completely surrendered.
Christ is not satisfied with you and I offering acts of devotion
and even expressions of adoration weekly in a designated
location. If we don't carry that
allegiance and that affection in our hearts outside of those
meetings, what worship is according to Jesus is an inward
delight in God that recognizes Him as supreme over all things.
That's true worship. And Jesus Christ elaborates on
this another very famous passage, and we'll turn them
together in John chapter 4. And notice what he says here in
verse 23 and 24. But the hour's coming, and now
is here, when the true worshippers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such
people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
This sounds almost cryptic to some people.
What does it mean that God is looking after those who worship
in spirit and truth? Here's the essence of what
Christ is getting at. True worship is informed by the
truth of who God is, it must be informed by who God truly is,
and it must impact and influence the deepest part of who you are,
your spirit. So true worship includes being
informed by who God truly is and that impacting my spirit, the
deepest part of who I am. Listen carefully now.
If I am familiar with truth, divine truth, but it does not
affect my spirit, it will never lead to true worship.
And if I have ideas and conceptions about God, but they
are not grounded in truth, no matter how strongly I feel about
those perceptions, no matter how much passion is behind them, it
will not lead to true worship either.
It needs to be informed by the truth, and it must impact the
deepest part of who I am. That's true worship.
Let me say it one more time. True worship is a heartfelt
response to the truth of who God is, one that continually
recognizes with absolute delight that God is supremely better,
more glorious, more satisfying than anything else.
And once that conviction is settled in your heart, the Lord
in His grace gives us guidance of how we can then express that
worship in a way that further glorifies Him.
So if I bend down, if I serve, if I sing, if I do anything but
my heart is not impacted or impressed or is convinced or
settled that He is indeed supreme over all things.
It's vain worship. Do you see?
This is what Christ is truly after.
And I want to bring this up to you because what we find in the
text that we read in the opening of this message, I trust, is a
wonderful example of how we can now then offer worship to God
once it is chained around your heart and you're convinced He is
above all things. We now receive instruction even
in the passage that we just read, how then we can worship
Him. Here's the message today I want
to present to you three ways that we can worship the Lamb who
is Jesus. Three ways, because we have an
example laid out by us and for us with the worshippers who are
in heaven. So let's come back to our text
in Revelation 5, and the main focus will be verse eight.
Look at it again. And when he had taken the
scroll, that being Jesus, the four living creatures and the 24
elders fell down before the Lamb highlight that they first fell
down. Following that, we're told that
each was holding a what a harp. I wonder what that means?
And finally, golden bowls full of incense, which are the
prayers of the Saints right there.
You know what I see three ways I can worship Jesus after I
determined He is my All in all in here.
More importantly, I can express it in these ways.
In fact, I must express them in these ways.
Three ways #1 the way that I am called to worship Jesus Christ
is with my body, with my body. That's symbolized here by the
fact that these elders with the four living creatures fell down
before the Lamb. You know what's so interesting?
The four living creatures and these elders who fall down
demonstrate something that you find most commonly in the Book
of Revelation and the Gospels. In other words, for creatures
and for humans to fall down before Jesus appears the most in
the four Gospels and the final text of Holy Scripture.
Why do you think that is? Why do you think that the most
frequent records of this response to Jesus is in those
two places? Because Christ is most visible.
His presence is most real in the Gospels as He took on flesh, and
here as we find Him in heaven in glory.
His purity and His power demands such a response.
The weightiness of His glory even in His humanity called for
people to helplessly fall down before Him.
But that bodily response is not emphasized in the Epistles.
There is a different thing that is stress concerning our worship
with our bodies, and this is something that is familiar to
you. The priority that is placed on
these physical frames and how they should respond to the glory
of who Jesus is, is in practical holiness.
Practical holiness. Not to say that I can't express
my worship by bending down or even laying on my face, but
that's not the mandatory posture in the letters to the churches.
You know what it is your body in holiness.
Paul tells us in First Corinthians 624, You were bought
at a price. So glorify God in your body, in
my body. And the Bible can't be any more
clear than that. When Christ redeemed you and he
paid a price for you, what's included in that ransom is your
body. Every part of it belongs to Him.
He owns your body, not just your soul, not just your spirit, your
body. I'm sure you're like me and
wondering, I've never doubted that.
But what does it look like for my body to worship Him?
What does that look like? And I believe it means two
things. It includes what you do with
this body and what you don't do. 2 main categories that you find
throughout the Bible. How I glorify and worship God
with this body is what I do with it and what I don't do.
It's positive and it is negative.
It advances and then it refrains.
There's offense and there's defense.
There's go and there's no. And let me give you an example
of that dual emphasis in the New Testament.
Let's go to the book of James. Let's go to chapter 1 and let's
look at one verse, James 127. James says in chapter 1, verse
27, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father
is this to visit orphans and widows and their affliction and
to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Do you see the positive and the negative?
You see the offense and the defense.
You see the go and the no. So here's what this means.
We're after this right? Pure religion, pure worship,
glorifying God in a pure way. According to James, whenever I
sacrifice my time, my energy, my focus, waking up early, for
example, earlier than usual, traveling longer than I prefer,
attending to somebody else's needs, even at the expense of my
own, every time I do that in the name of Christ, in service to
others, that's worship. That's worship.
An example that James gives us is this.
Picking up your feet, choosing rather to go outside instead of
lounging at home, maybe even putting in your hands a plate of
food or some take out that you buy with your hard earned money
so that you can spend the evening visiting a lonely widow
or an overlooked orphan. When you do that, my brother and
my sister, according to James, you're worshipping.
But this is not the only thing. It's not just in what we do.
And again, this is just one example of many ways that we can
worship by what we do. It's also in what we reject and
to keep oneself unstained from the world.
I'm not sure if you've ever seen it this way, but every time you
and I deny the temptation to indulge the flesh or to conform
to the patterns of the world, that also to God is worship.
So when I'm with a group of people and a name comes up and
that person is not in that circle and there begins to be
backbiting and the tearing of that person's reputation.
And here I am now, because it's a consensus.
Everybody's saying the same thing and sharing the goods.
And I feel that urge to to say something or make a comment or
contribute my own silly observation about a person's
person's way of life that that really may not even be true to
begin with. But I choose to instead reject
it and keep my mouth shut, or even more than that, speak up to
their defense. That's worship.
Or when I have been tired after
a long days of work and my mind now is being pulled by the ropes
of lust to imagine things and fantasize things that I
shouldn't be fantasizing about. And I begin to now come up with
a personal appointment with my screen to visit websites that I
shouldn't be visiting. And instead I canceled that
appointment. That's worship.
Or here I am now on a Saturday
evening, no plans. There was no clean up day at
church, no basketball event, no volleyball, no BBQ, no nothing.
My phone is quiet. But hey, I get a text from some
friends, family friends actually, but they don't know
Christ. And they say, what are you doing
tonight? Let's go to this place.
And you just read the name and you Google the maps and you see
it. OK?
This is not a place that's going to help my testimony.
If anybody finds me there, that's going to be trouble.
And surely there's going to be opportunity to sin there more
than if I stay home. And So what you do instead,
though you're bored out of your mind, you kindly decline.
And more than that, you say you listen.
Since you reached out to me, what are you doing?
Tomorrow, let's go to church together.
That's worship. That's worship.
And here's what that means for you and I.
That true worship toward Jesus Christ is totally achievable by
any of us. Common acts, small sacrifices,
private appointments, visitations.
A simple call to encourage a weary soul.
Things that you don't think are really impactful or monumental,
like denying thoughts and denying actions and refraining
yourself from evil, wicked company.
All of that is worship and it's achievable.
Can you imagine? So we fall down, yes, not
physically, but even, as we heard last week, internally.
I surrender my body by what I do and by what I don't do.
That's a fragrance to Jesus. But we move on.
We come back to Revelation 5A and what do we see?
That they didn't just fall down before the Lamb.
They were each holding a harp. Now there is no need to over
spiritualize. There is no need to allegorize
this detail. Remember, context is king.
Context will keep you safe. Every time you see the word harp
mentioned in the Book of Revelation, every single time
it's accompanied by singing. It's here in Revelation 58.
You find in Revelation 14 two, Revelation 15 two, Whenever a
harp appears, right after, there's going to be some
singing. So what do we find here?
It's so obvious that Christ is worshipped in our praise.
Christ is worshipped in our heartfelt singing.
Not just our bodily sacrifice, but what we do with our lips.
And here's the part that moved me the most about this detail.
How many of them held harps? Each of them, every single one
in attendance had a harp. And I don't think it means that
every single one of them were musically gifted.
This is symbolic. What it does mean is that every
single one we're called to praise.
It wasn't optional. Praise is not optional.
We're all called to it. But my person, I know your
personality. It's OK, I'll tell you.
The Spirit will help you because Christ is worshipped when you
praise. Now here's so something so
significant. We can spend a great time
exploring this, but I want to offer one reason, just one
simple reason why praise is a glorifying form of worship.
What is it about praise that Christ wants for us?
To me we sang it. Praise the Lord.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
You find it throughout the Bible.
But why does he want it? Because it publicly acknowledges
God. This is just one reason.
There are many reasons why we praise, but let me give you one.
It publicly acknowledges God as the source of all good with
passion and joy. It's a testimony.
You are testifying. And we went to James, right?
Let's go to James again. Look at James 5, James 5, verse
13. James, as he's wrapping up his
epistle, gives some final exhortations to different
members of the churches who might have different heart
conditions, and he gives words of wisdom by the Spirit.
Notice what he says in this one verse.
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
Two questions I have. Why does James exhort Christians
who are suffering to pray? Because there's a tempting
alternative. When we're suffering, what is it
to complain, to murmur, to maybe even contemplate vengeance?
Depending on the source of your pain, it's easily possible for
those who are enduring any kind of affliction to preoccupy their
efforts and their energy. Their knee jerk reaction is to
spew out all their problems to another or even to themselves.
And genius saying no, no, reserve that energy and go
before God. Pour that out before the Lord.
OK, that's settled. Why does he tell those who are
cheerful? Now, what does he mean by
cheerful? The context suggests those who
are not weighed down by discouragement, those who are
not trying to fight off anxiety, those who are essentially happy,
those that you would ask, how are things going in your life?
Wonderful. I mean, no matter what sphere,
look at it, everything seems to be going smooth there.
There's so much ease. It's, it's wonderful, it's
great. Those kind of Christians, why
does he tell them to sing praise?
You know why? Because in the same way that
those who are suffering will forget God in prayer, those who
are cheerful tend to forget God in their happiness.
And so you need to praise when you're cheerful.
What does that mean? Here's what it means.
Praise repositions us every single time.
Praise has the ability, because it's designed by God, to give
Him the ultimate credit for whatever good that you are
enjoying in that season. Praise points your heart toward
heaven. Now one might say this, and I
can see why somebody might ask or wonder, well, can I just give
God glory and thanks in plain speech?
Thank you, Lord, for all the good that I am enjoying.
I recognize that you are the one who authored all of this.
Can I just do that? You can't do that.
But there's something unique about praise.
It weaves melody, it weaves rhythm into your words, and it
has a way of reorienting your emotions so that they are now
targeting the Lord and giving it towards God.
It brings the cheerfulness to its rightful place.
That's what praise has the ability to do, more than just
simple words. It caused you to tap into
something deeper in the human heart, the human experience, and
it associates the joy and the delight with beauty, melody and
rhythm and says, Oh Lord, you are the one.
All these good feelings that I'm feeling, it sanctifies your
emotions. All the things that you're
knowing here, all the things that make your step lighter, all
the things that make your day easier.
What praise does, it gathers all that up and says this is because
of God, this is because of him. Praise contains the power to
take all the cheerfulness that you are knowing and to lay it at
the foot of God's throne and saying this is because of you.
Now, we would make a great mistake if we think that James
is teaching that we can only offer praise when you're in a
good mood. Anyone cheerful, sing praise.
If you're not cheerful, well, you don't have to sing.
You think that's what James really saying?
Absolutely not. Scripture would tell us
otherwise. All he's doing here is simply
addressing those who might miss the opportunity to worship God,
especially when all is well. So those who may be in a
cheerful state and not know, how do I give glory to God in this
way? James says.
Sing praise, be intentional, come ready to offer that
sacrifice, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
And perhaps you're somebody who's convinced that praise
isn't really all that important, or again, like I said earlier,
doesn't really fit your personality well.
If you're serious about worshipping God, I trust, and I
charge you actually, to ask God to see the wisdom, the beauty,
and the honor that comes from giving him praise.
Each one of these creatures and elders held harps in their
hands. One more thing, we worship God
with our bodies. We worship God with our praise.
Lastly, we worship God with our prayers.
Not only were there harps, but lastly in verse 8 and golden
bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the Saints.
This part minister to me deeply. Do you know why?
Because if you've ever doubted that your prayers are
significant. If you've ever feared that your
prayers go unheard, look where they find themselves.
Look what happens with your prayers.
Be set free from those lies. God collects every supplication,
every intercession, every utterance of Thanksgiving, and
places them in golden bowls. Where?
In the backroom? No, near His throne.
It's a perfume to him. It's an aroma to him.
What is your prayers? Now, here's what's amazing.
He doesn't say the prayers of world leaders.
He doesn't say the prayers of influential thinkers.
He doesn't even limit it to prayers of those ministers who
shaped and redirected nations. What does it say in verse 8?
The prayers of the Saints. That includes the weakest of the
Saints, the feeblest of the Saints, dare I say even the
inconsistent St. All the Saints who had enough
faith to believe that God hears them when they cry out them.
God bottles up those prayers and he blends them in these golden
bowls and he keeps them there with high honor.
And that's really the take away from this.
No matter what you think about prayer, if you think it's
important or not, whatever your deep understanding of it is in
Scripture, here's one thing that you can leave with.
God honors our prayers. God is pleased with our prayers.
It brings the light to Him. Or else why use this kind of
imagery? Now, if prayer is an act of
worship, how does that work? If this scene again demonstrates
robust worship, how does prayer fit into that?
And I want to present you at least two ways.
First, prayer has been given by God to make communion with God
possible. It's only through prayer.
I said this so many times before.
When you look at the Tabernacle with all the different
furnishings in it, the closest article to the glory of God
behind that veil is the altar of incense.
There's so many things that means, but one practical point
is this. The closest that you can get to
God is in prayer, and prayer has been given by God to make
communion with him. Though yes, on this side of
eternity it's invisible, it's still very much real.
Prayer says, Lord, my heart yearns for fellowship with you.
And if you've given me prayer as the doorway to know the closest
communion with you, then I will designate time.
I will get away from all distractions and I will sit at
your feet and I will open my heart in my mouth and pray,
believing and showing you that I want to be with you more than
anything else. So prayer is worship in that it
demonstrates to God that you truly want to know Him, not just
theologically but experientially, not just with
head knowledge and head pursuit, but heart knowledge and heart
pursuit prayer. But secondly, the way prayer
becomes worship is that it invites God to intervene in such
a way that the testimony it would produce would grant him
greater glory. Prayer is the invitation of
God's intervention into my situation.
That's what prayer is, and that's what we find here with
these prayers that are symbolized as incense.
It's not the last time it shows up in Revelation.
Go to Revelation 8. Notice where they reappear in
Revelation 8, verse 3 and verse 5.
What to verse 5? Notice what John describes.
And another Angel came and stood at the altar with a golden
censor, and he was given much incense to offer with the
prayers of all the Saints on the golden altar before the throne.
And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the Saints
rose before God from the hand of the Angel.
Then the Angel took the sensor and filled it with fire from the
altar and threw it on the earth. And there were peels of Thunder,
rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
So much can be said about this. We're approaching Revelation 8.
I'll keep the extra Jesus for that someday.
Here's the main take away. The prayers of God's people that
were stored in heaven don't stay there.
God gathers them and he returns them to the earth fulfilled.
That's what happens to your prayers and mine.
As beautiful as it is to imagine that my prayers go up to heaven
and God gathers them and collects them into golden bowls
of incense as a sweet smelling aroma, the principle is here
that he can't take those prayers and launch them right back into
the world in a way where when you witness the answer, you go,
this is God. This isn't coincidence and
nobody can argue. Prayers are designed to come
back into the world and make such a mark that God would
receive glory from it. Do you remember what Paul told
the Corinthians when he beckoned them to pray for him and his
ministry team? Let me remind you, in 2nd
Corinthians 111, you also must help us by prayer so that many
will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us
through the prayers of many. Oh, Church of Corinth, pray.
And I said this before too. The Corinthians, were they like
the most exemplary of Christians?
You thought whatever church you were a part of had issues.
This church had problems and yet Paul the apostle says, would you
guys pray for me? Why would he say that unless he
believed that God would even hear their prayers?
Pray. Why?
What's what's Paul's heart? Yeah, I want to be delivered
from this, but pray so that many will give thanks on our behalf
as a result of the prayers of many.
I want God to be glorified and answered.
Prayer. That's how it becomes worship.
It becomes worship when I commune with him and God says,
like Paul, behold, he is praying.
And it also becomes worship because it's an invitation for
God to crash into the world and for people to say there is a
living God and he answers prayer.
Let me give you a final thought before we conclude here.
As precious as individual prayers are to God, as personal
communion is a calling for each of us, the Bible doesn't say in
Revelation 5A that those bowls had the prayers of the Saint or
a St. the Saints, plural. There's something especially
special when we give our prayers to God as a church, when we
combine our voices together and cry out to the Lord that to him
is a sweet aroma with all our backgrounds and all their
different testimony. And this is just real.
All their different ages, right? All their different history with
God. When we when we come
collectively and designate time to now unify our voice and bring
it before him, I see something here that's especially special
to God. So how do we worship God as a
church? Not just on Sunday for an hour
and a half, two hours. You can come on Wednesday too.
And that also becomes worship to him.
With one voice, we glorify the Lord.
The prayers of the Saints. Yes, this means the prayers of
the Saints throughout history, but also I'm sure, means the
prayers of God's people when we come and combine our voices
together. Why do we worship?
You just heard three ways of how we can worship, but is there any
indication of why? What should stimulate me to
worship with my body, to worship in my praise, to worship in my
prayers? Revelation 59 and 10, they sang
a new song saying where they are you to take the scroll to open
its seals. For you are slain, and by your
blood you ransom people for God from every tribe and language
and people and nation, and you've made them a Kingdom and
priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
Why? Why?
Because he died because he shed
his blood. Why should I give up my body, my
rights, my impulses? Why should I consecrate that to
the Lord? Both.
Both positively negative. Because He bought your body.
Why should I praise? How can I praise when my faith
is clouded by unbelief? When I'm trying to weather this
tornado of turbulence and trials?
Well, let me give you one reason to praise.
He died for you. He forgave every wicked thing
that you've ever done. Well, why should I pray?
How can I pray? What can motivate me to actually
make time for that? Well, do you realize the high
price that he paid to make communion possible?
That God, because of His Son, makes your heart his new home.
And now no matter where you are, you can pause and you can give
intentionality to your communication with Christ and He
hears you as though he was face to face.
Why not pray when he shed his blood to ransom people for God
and he did. It doesn't discriminate.
Every tribe, every language, people and nation.
No matter where you're from or what you've done, He's purchased
you. Surely he deserves my body, my
praise, my prayers. I don't know if you caught this,
but in closing here, there is actually an order of worship
that's laid out. Did you notice it?
There's actually a pattern of concentric circles of worship
described in this chapter. Look at it again with me in
verse 8. And when he had taken the
scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell
down before the Lamb. Pause.
Who? Who are we seeing falling down
before the Lamb, the four living creatures, and the 24 elders?
But it doesn't stop there. You come down to verse 11.
What do you find? John says.
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living
creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering
myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.
Now we go from the elders, the creatures, to innumerable angels
who are now joining them in worship.
Does it end there? It doesn't.
Verse 13. And I heard every creature in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and
all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne into
the Lamb. Pause.
Show me in the Bible where Jesus is worshipped.
Right here. Jesus is an exalted, created
being. Millions believe that.
Oh really? So why isn't He on the side of
creation, worshipping God? Why is He on the side of the
throne being worshipped by every creature?
Remember that? Remember that to Him who sits on
the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and
might, forever and ever. Jesus Christ is being worshipped
by who now? Absolutely every living thing
that has breath. What's the point of this
observation? Well, the obvious 1 is that He
is worthy of such worship and he will receive all honor.
Here's the practical inspiration.
What happens with worship in the scene?
Is it growing or is it diminishing?
It's growing. Is it for you?
Is worship with my body growing? Is it becoming stronger?
Is it becoming weaker? Is my praise becoming more
authentic or more artificial? Is my prayer life deepening or
am I drifting further from intimacy with God as it is
growing here? Apply it to your life, my dear
brother and sister, and ask yourself this.
Is worship growing or is it weakening?
Is it permeating more and more of my life for other things
being worshipped more and more instead of Christ?
The instruction here has made it grow.
May it take over every part of who you are.
You know one of the most fascinating things about the
Christian life among the hundreds of things that we can
talk about. Can I leave you with one?
God says your body is a temple. Your body is a temple.
What happened? The temple worship.
When do you ever escape your body?
You don't until you die. You know what that means?
If my body is a temple, then I'm called to give worship all the
time. How well you heard it.
I hope by what I do, but I don't do with opportunities to praise,
especially when I'm cheerful. I'm not going to forget God as
the source of my gladness and my prayers.
Oh Lord, if you treasure my prayers in this way, then let me
offer it up to you. I want to express that I love
you and I adore you. I want to fellowship with you
and Lord, here's this problem, here's this need, here's the
situation. There's a way.
We're child, there's my church. I'm going to pray and ask that
you come through so that when you do, you're glorified and you
are worshiped. May we worship.
Lord, We thank you for the service.
We thank you that the Father is seeking after such worshippers,
and Lord, we praise you that in this church there are many who
worship in spirit and truth. May it be a growing reality in
each of our lives. Help us worship You, Lord.
Help us imitate this site that we just witnessed in heaven.
We love you with all of our hearts, and Lord, before any
external act, we want it to be more true in our hearts.
Inspire it within the Lord so that it would be real when
people see and hear it. And when you see and hear it,
more importantly, we give you thanks and we worship you in
Jesus name, Amen. Let's stand and let's fulfill #2
Let's praise him. Let's praise him.