You've tuned into a mega church. We are people hungry to
encounter God through worship and His Word being witnesses to
the world around us. We pray this teaching blesses
you and trust God will reveal Himself to you in a new way
today. And.
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page through the links below. Good morning church.
Feel like it's been a while. So I feel like we should start
with our usual proclamation. Does anyone remember it?
It's been a few weeks. The Kingdom of God is within us.
Amen. This morning I wanted to talk a
little bit about worship and that's something that the Lord
has been placed on my heart recently and, and just how
that's modelled for us in the word of God.
And there's a lot of instances in the word where that's
modelled, but I really, really like and, and the Lord's been
speaking to me a lot through the Book of Revelation lately.
And it starts with, I want to start with, yeah, chapter 4,
verse 8, day and night. They never stop saying holy,
holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is
to come. And I think that's just so
beautiful. I love that's one of my favorite
passages in the word because it is a constant day and night.
It is a constant song of, of, of the living creatures in heaven.
They sing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
And then you have to ask yourself, what does holy
actually mean? Because these, these living
creatures, they sing this day and night 24/7 for all of
eternity. And it's pleasing to the Lord.
And, and I was talking with dad a few a few weeks ago and, and
he told me holy is the best word in, in a human language to
encompass the characteristics of God because God and all of his
goodness and his mercy and His Majesty.
He has eyes like fire. There's a sword that comes out
of his mouth. He walks among the seven golden
lampstands. There's so many attributes of
God. There's so many words that could
be said to, to ascribe worth to this to, to our God, that a
lifetime could never be enough and eternity could never be
enough. English, any language, English,
Hindi, like no, no human language could be ever ever be
enough to ascribe worth to our God.
But through His word and through example of the four living
creatures, the Holy Spirit God, He gives us this beautiful word,
and it is holy. How beautiful must this word be?
How much, how much meaning could be in this word that the four
living creatures say it over and over and over again for all of
eternity? How beautiful is this word that
every language on earth has a word for the word holy.
Then no matter what tribe, what tongue, whatever native language
you speak, you can ascribe worth and worship the Lord worthily by
saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
These are my favorite words to pray to the Lord.
These are my absolute favorite words to pray to the Lord and,
and in times in my personal worship I've I've spent just
like I can just repeat this over and over and over again.
Lately I've come to a realization that these are the
best words that I could ever say to the Father Holy, holy, holy.
Each time I repeat this word, a new characteristic of God comes
in my head and it's a new reason to worship him.
I mean, you can, you can, you can sing holy, holy, holy.
You can say it all you want, but the prerequisite for worship is
reverence for the king. If you don't have reverence for
our God, then you can say holy, holy, holy all you want, but the
reverence for the king is what is needed.
Revelation for Chapter 9 says whenever the living creatures
give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and
who lives forever and ever. And I want to hone in on who
sits on the throne. Chapter verse 10 says the four,
the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and
worship him who lives forever and ever.
I'm going to skip over to chapter 5.
Chapter 5, verse 13 says, then I heard every creature in heaven
and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is
in them singing to him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb.
We sang that song this morning. Jesus, we enthrone you and that
is that's, that's so beautiful to me because when we, because
when we enthrone our king, when we crown him with many crowns,
when we build a throne for him to sit upon that his reference.
The elders, the living creatures, they sing holy, holy,
holy 24/7 for all of eternity because they Revere this king so
much. These elders, these living
creatures, they, they're in the presence of God, people, they're
in the presence of God 24/7. They're in the throne room.
And what the Lord was saying to me is that as you increase your
reverence for God, your sensitivity to his presence also
increases, right? Like some, some, like some
people might feel hot or some people might feel cold or some
people might get goosebumps or, or there might be a little
tingly sensation and that's all fine and good.
That's, that's not to say that's not the Holy Spirit.
It absolutely is. But from person to person, I've
found, I've found that that can look so different.
There's some people will feel hot, some people will feel cold.
My dad likes to say that he's like a piece of wood.
He doesn't feel anything like that.
But that's not to say that he doesn't.
He's not, He's not in the presence of God, right?
What the Lord has been saying to me recently is that, and what
I've found is that I know I'm in the presence of God and I know
that the presence of God is thick and tangible when I have
an undying urge to worship him. That is the litmus test.
It's not like a physical feeling, it's not like an
emotion, but it's an obligation to worship the King of kings.
When you're in the presence of a king and you reverend you, you
Revere him that much, the only appropriate response is worship.
You could be sensitive to the presence or you could you in, or
maybe you're not. But whether you're sensitive to
the presence in the physical or whether you're not, these two
people, one who is sensitive, one who is not, they're both
going to have that same obligation.
They're both going to have that same reverence for the King of
kings, the Lord of Lords, and they're going to want to worship
him. The elders, the living
creatures, they're in the throne room of God 24/7.
But what about us, right? We're on earth.
I want to flick to on a flip to Luke chapter 10.
If you want to open up your Bibles, Luke chapter 10, verse
38 at the home of Martha and Mary.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a
village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening
to what he said, but Martha was distracted by all the
preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister
has left me to do all the work by myself?
Tell her to help me, the Lord replied.
Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, You are worried and
upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.
Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away
from her. Isn't that beautiful that Mary
has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.
In the throne room of God, the living creatures, the angels,
the elders that they see our king on the throne.
But when you look at the case of when you look at the case of
Mary, Mary has enthroned Jesus in her heart.
And as a response to that, she sits at his feet.
Isn't that beautiful? We sang that song this morning,
the King of my heart. Because when you enthrone our
King in your heart, you will have no you'll, you'll have an
obligation to to worship him, to pour out your love on him.
Earlier in Luke, I'm not entirely sure what the exact
references, but there was a man who got who got set free from a
lesion of demons in him and 1 he got set free.
He sat at the feet of Jesus because in that moment when he
was set free from a lesion of demons, when the demons had left
him, he enthroned Jesus in his heart.
That feeling of liberation, He, he looked at Jesus as the king
that he is and he enthroned him in his heart and what came out
of that, He sat at the feet of Jesus.
That reverence, that prerequisite, the the
enthronement of Jesus in your heart is where the heart of
worship comes from. Is, is Jesus enthroned in your
heart? Is Jesus enthroned in your
heart? Or in other words, if we flip
back to Revelation chapter 5, verse 13, it says then I heard
every creature in heaven and sorry, sorry, actually, I'm
going to go back to Luke. We're going back to Luke because
Jesus says what he says. Only one thing is needed.
My Bible has these little cross references, and they're really
helpful for Bible studies because that cross references to
a Psalm of David in Psalm 27 and in Psalm 27 verse 1, he says one
thing. He says, what one thing I ask of
the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the House of
the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of
the Lord and to seek him in His temple.
The one thing Mary chose that one thing that was better, and
it will it was not taken away from her.
David is one of the characters in the Bible that I look up to a
lot. He's probably my favorite, not
to pick favourites, but because he was a man after God's own
heart. He was a man who knew how to
worship, Revelation 513 says. Then I heard every creature in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea.
That's not to say that the earth and heaven, that's the divided.
It just means that no creature is worthy.
Every creature under the earth, on the sea, and all that is in
them, singing to him who sits on the throne.
And unto the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power
forever and ever, and all that is in them.
That sounds familiar, right? If we flip to Psalm 103, it's
another Psalm of David, and the first verse says praise the
Lord, all my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
See, this is how I know. This is how I know that David
was a man who knew how to worship, who was a man after
God's own heart, who could worship him worthily.
Because David and the apostle John who wrote the Book of
Revelation, separated by hundreds and hundreds of years,
David who spoke Hebrew, and John who wrote in Greek, received the
same revelation of the Lord. Why?
Because creation song, heaven song never has ceased even for
one minute. That when David was writing
Psalm one O 3 he said, Let all my inmost being praise his holy
name, the same way that all of creation and all of their inmost
being blesses the name of the Lamb.
The creation song has never ceased even for a second.
And hundreds of years later, when John was receiving
revelation from the Lord and writing down what he saw or what
did he see, he saw the creatures and all of their inmost being
blessing the name of the Lamb. Shouldn't that be our prayer?
That all of that inmost being to
bless the name of the Lord. Because of creation, song to
heaven. But if heaven, song to the Lamb
never ceases, even for a minute, if it was singing to God our
Father when David was writing Psalm 103, and it was still
singing when the apostle John received revelation from the
Lord, if it never ceased, then why should we?
How am I looking for time? Oh, actually, I've got, I've got
time. That reverence, that reverence
for the Lord is what I long for. That reverence for the Lord is
what we should all long for, that we can sing holy, holy,
holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, over and over
and over and over again. And it never gets old.
Because every time you say that word holy, every time it leaves
your lips, a new thought, a new characteristic of God comes into
your mind. We can never understand how
incomprehensible God is in all of His Majesty and all of his
glory. It's winter right now in
Christchurch, right? And, and, and we're fortunate
enough that when we step out of our homes, we can look to the
Southern Alps and they're capped with snow.
And it's beautiful. It's beautiful.
God did that. God spoke and mountains rose
from the crown. God spoke the world into
existence. We can't fathom how great and
majestic our God is. My prayer is that I understand
how much I could never understand or never comprehend
God's majesty. When you have that reverence for
God, when your reverence for Him increases, you will be able to
sing holy, holy, holy, and it will never get old.
There are so many reasons to worship God.
One of my favorite, absolute favorite verses in the Bible is
from Revelation 411. You are worthy, our Lord and God
to receive glory and honour and power.
For you created all things, and by your will they were created
and have their being. Isn't that beautiful?
He is worthy. He is worthy.
We have so much to learn about worship from the Book of
Revelation. The elders, they fall down, they
cast their crowns, they lay prostate.
They, they, they lay on the floor.
I encourage you guys as you, as you go into worship in, in your,
in your own private, private worship times when you go to the
secret place, I urge you, I urge you to get uncomfortable with
the Lord, to do something that you haven't haven't tried
before. If you haven't kneeled before,
before the Lord, kneel before the Lord, humble yourself before
him. If you've never laid flat on the
floor before the Lord, I urge you to humble yourself before
the Lord Lay flat on the floor. Because it's it's such a
beautiful act of worship, because what we do in the
physical is it corresponds to what happens in the spiritual,
right? That reverence for God is all
you need to enter the throne room.
That reverence for God is all you need to enter the throne
room. When I was younger, I would go
to India with my family and we would go on these missions
trips. And I remember this one in
particular. We went to this remote village
out in the Whops on and we had a prayer meeting there.
And at the time I didn't the weight of this didn't really
sink in, but it does now. And we they would just worship
this village would just worship the Lord with so much reverence
and so much like energy. It was in.
It was incredible to watch. They would just go for hours and
hours. They would sing until their
throats like they they needed water.
They would have water breaks for their worship.
Isn't that insane? I need water when I play like 30
minutes of basketball or whatever and they need water
after they sing to the Lord. I just think that's so
beautiful. So if increasing our reverence
for the Lord increases our sensitivity to his presence, how
do we increase our reverence? And it's simple, it's, it's
reading the word of God. It is by meditating on his word,
meditating on what he's done, meditating on, on him and all of
His Majesty. Because we could never
comprehend it. But when we understand how much
we could never understand, that's that's where it is when
we can sing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was
and is and is to come. Oh my God, for time.
Good revelation talks about the Lamb
who was slain and the Lamb who was slain before the foundations
of the world. And I grew up hearing this and
it was it was good. It was, it was great.
I was like, yeah, I know the Lamb was slain before the
foundations of the world because it was all in the mind of God,
right? The Lamb was slain, but it only
dawned on me like last week why he had to be slain before the
foundation of the world. I understand how many of us know
the Lamb had to be slain for essence, right?
It might take me a little while to find the passage because I
didn't bookmark it, but we're going to turn to Titus.
Sorry guys, I should have bookmarked this.
Here we go. Titus chapter one verse 2 says a
faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life which
God who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time and
at His appointed season. He brought His word to light
through the preaching and trusted to me by the command of
God our Saviour. I want to hone on that first
part of faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal
life. How many of us know that that
hope of eternal life is only brought to us because of the
work the Lamb has done for us on the cross?
Amen. Which God who does not lie
promised before the beginning of time.
When God spoke the world into existence, He spoke and the
world was God who does not lie. God, who's speaking is His doing
that when He speaks, He does so. If He promised before the
beginning of time that we would have hope of eternal life, what
must have happened when He spoke?
The Lamb was slain. The Lamb had to be slain before
the foundation of the world, before the beginning of time,
because at that time, before the beginning of time, God promised
us eternal life. That is why we sing.
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and strength and glory and honour and praise, because
God is faithful that when he speaks, He does.
In chapter 5, whenever the Lamb is addressed, I notice that it
says praise. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and glory
and honor and praise. Then I heard every creature in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and
all that is in them, singing to him who sits on the throne, and
to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power.
That word praise, I love it so much because it carries a joy
with it, the joy of the Lord when we praise the Lord, that we
carry the joy of the Lord with us.
And in Luke chapter 10, it's sorry, I'm just trying to find
the passage again. Luke chapter 10, verse 18.
I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions
and to overcome all the power of the enemy.
Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice if the
spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are
written in heaven. We have something to rejoice
about because our names are written in heaven, not because
of anything we've done, but because of what the Lamb has
done for us on the cross. That the majesty in heaven came
down to earth, emptied himself of all that is God, hung on a
cross that had our name written on it, and instead our names are
written in heaven in the book of life.
Isn't that something to rejoice about from the foundation of the
world in the mind of God? Exactly before the foundation of
the world, because we existed before the foundations of the
world in the mind of God. Thank you, Owen.
That was beautiful. That is why we ought to give
praise to the Lamb who was slain, because when we praise,
we rejoice in the work that he's done.
We rejoice in the Lamb that was slain for our sins and that our
names are written in the book of life.
And as a result of that, what happens?
We are given authority to trample upon snakes and
scorpions and to overcome every power of the enemy.
Nothing will harm us. See, when you praise the Lamb,
you exalt the king, You build that throne, and simultaneously
you remind Satan of his place. And where is that?
It's beneath our feet. Worship is such a beautiful
thing, guys. Worship is such a beautiful
thing because our God is so, so holy and our God is so, so
worthy that a lifetime could never be enough, that words
could never be enough. I've still got a little bit of
time left, so I want to touch on praying in tongues.
Because words can never be enough, right?
The English language could never be enough.
No human made language could ever be enough to ascribe the
worth that Jesus is worthy of our minds.
No human mind can comprehend God in all of His glory and His
Majesty. But there is someone who can,
and that is God Himself, or if you will, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit who is God, is able to comprehend all that is
God. And when the Holy Spirit gives
us words in that heavenly language, He gifts us that
opportunity to bless. He blesses our tongues and our
lips with the praise of the Most High, which is so much more
beautiful. It's, it's, it's, it's so
beautiful. I love, I love praying in
tongues. I love worshipping God in
tongues because I know that the Spirit is blessing my tongue
with praise to the Most High, which I could never even
comprehend. If you've never prayed in
tongues before, I urge you, I urge you to seek out that gift.
In Ephesians, Paul says that every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly realms is given to us because we are united in Christ
Jesus. So take that and run.
If you've never prayed in tongues before, it will change
your life. There's a place.
There's a place for worshipping in in English or whatever your
native language is, but there's also a place for worshipping in
tongues because it is that gift to us from the Holy Spirit.
Heavenly Father, we praise you because you are holy.
You are holy, You are holy, You are holy.
We thank you for the revelation that you've given to us through
your holy Word. Thank you for the example that
you've given to us in the Book of Revelation, for the way that
the living creatures and the elders and the angels sing to
you 24/7. Lord, I pray that you would
increase in all of us a reverence for you.
Help us to understand how much we could never comprehend you in
all of your majesty. God, incomprehensible, we give
you all the glory and we give you all the praise to him who
sits on the throne. And unto the Lamb be praise and
honour, and glory and power, forever and ever.
Thanks for joining us at Omega. If you need prayer for healing
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