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00:01 We're going to be looking at worship, what living worship means. You know, I
00:07 was thinking about this topic. And when you're getting older, sometimes you look back in your life and you sort
00:14 of think, you know, worship. One day when I get to heaven, I will be quite
00:21 obsolete. I can't imagine a single kidney stone in heaven. So, I won't be
00:27 with a job. Susanna will have no job because she's a lawyer. There's nobody to sue in and the only lawyer up there
00:33 advocate will be Jesus Christ. Some of your jobs, look at William, you'll have no more flowers to create anymore
00:40 because in heaven it'll be perfect. And you know, the only job that really is
00:45 going to, you know, I'm thinking like 35 years of medical practice, all the surgery I've done and learned in an
00:52 instant, irrelevant. The only thing that's going to go on forever and ever is living worship. And
00:60 then as you get older, this is something that you really got to focus on because this is something you'll be doing for
01:05 all eternity. Isn't that important? And so therefore, we need to come to this very important topic. Usually takes
01:11 about three seminars to finish this, but we'll squeeze it all into one day, half an hour. All right? And we'll see what
01:18 happens. Um, we're going to go through three simple questions. Okay? All good
01:24 sermons are three points. More than that problem. One, what is worship? Two, why do we
01:31 worship? Three, how do we worship? Reasonable. All right, let's go on. First, what is worship? All right,
01:39 worship. We look at the words here in this particular passage. The word that jumps
01:46 out at you is worship. Worship on this mountain. People ought to worship. You
01:52 will worship. You worship what? We worship worshippers. And uh it's about
01:58 10 times the Greek word is procano. And this procure is only 60 times in the
02:04 whole New Testament. 10 times of which occurs in this six seven verses. Huge.
02:09 All right. This whole passage is about worship. Uh although it's brought up in a roundabout way. The definition of
02:16 procure is to do reverence or homage by prostration. Giving respect to
02:21 superiors, kings and deities. This is giving respect. So um the worship
02:27 paradigm which we're going to be introducing to you today is what is worship? Worship is res revelation and
02:32 response. And I met a lady outside after the first service. The only thing she learned in the whole sermon is just this
02:38 word revelation response. Now if you learn only this that's fine you pass.
02:44 Okay? That's all that's important. Worship is revelation and response.
02:49 Revelation is like for example Revelations 1. In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp
02:55 two-edged sword and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. The response was I saw him fell at his feet
03:02 as though dead. That's what worship is. So before we go
03:08 a bit further, let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, we are waiting for your revelation
03:15 and we pray your revelation comes directly from your word and we pray that we will offer acceptable response which
03:22 is worship to honor you not only here at this worship but with our lives. We ask for Jesus sake. Amen.
03:30 What happened to that slide? What happened to my slides?
03:37 Okay. Now, the English word worship actually comes from the Anglo-Saxon word called
03:44 widkip. Anglo-Saxon. Wordship or worship is attributing worth to something. You want
03:52 to attribute worth to somebody who already has worth. If you look at the old English mayors, they're called the
03:58 Lord Mayor of London is called his worship. The mayor. Some politicians are also called his worship or their
04:04 worship. Worship in a simple definition is the active response to God where we declare his worth. So active response to
04:12 God where we declare his response. So worship is revelation response but the response is dependent on
04:19 the quality of the revelation and the person whom you worship. I like this um
04:25 ad cow bior ad. You know what this is about? Shampoo. They always have this ad
04:31 which I always use as a sermon illustration where a girl with a long hair will come sashing down and she's
04:36 like waving her head like left and right because you know I I wave nothing moves right. She knows her hair will go left
04:44 and right and if you got the right calorie shampoo there will be a nice
04:49 scent about it and and the thing will go gloriously around her head and as she sades past a young man he's totally
04:56 taken by surprise. He's like stunned and he he he he rushes out and nearby is a
05:02 vendor that sells roses. He grabs the rose from the vendor. He doesn't pay for it. punches his way through the crowd
05:09 and falls at her feet and just gives her the rose and she says, you know, the
05:14 usual surprise laugh and and he gives it to her and her
05:22 smile, her approval is all that he requires to satisfy him because she's
05:28 married. Can't do much about that. All right. That is worship because the girl
05:34 has so captivated his imagination, his excitement that that the the her smile
05:40 is his only reward. That's worship. Go and watch the cow beauty ad.
05:48 Look, look at this painting. I ask some of you here. We'll have a bidding. How much would you It's in the
05:54 back of the office. Would you pay for this painting? Uh, I asked a real estate guy. Eldrin, how much would you pay for
06:01 this? Give me a number. I I'll I'll take the check later.
06:07 200. Oh, Eldrin is very uh um his bid is very generous. Who else?
06:14 Desburn, what do you think this bid is? What? What bit? What's your bid?
06:19 500. Whoa, we're going up. See Men
06:25 50 50 cheap skit.
06:30 You see you got 500 up there, 200 here and he m is 50 bucks. All right. In real
06:37 life this painting was sold in San Bernardino, California. It was marketed
06:43 at $8 US. All right. And a retired truck
06:48 driver bargains are more. you know, he probably a relative of Mingen bargains
06:54 about $8 bargain to $5, okay? And and then she bought it and she was going to
06:60 use it as a dart board to throw darts, okay? Or she was going to give it away
07:05 to a friend. When she gave it to a friend, the friend couldn't even get it through the front door. And that's how she treated this painting. And later on
07:13 some clever professor came and walked by and sort of noticed hey this is a
07:18 Jackson Pock. For some of you who are a bit clever you know what Jackson Pollock is. Jackson
07:24 Pollock is a famous American painter who likes to you know take hair take take
07:30 the brush put the paint there just throw all over the place. Maybe shake here and shake there. You know all the drops will
07:35 fall in random but it produces a beautiful painting. And once she found
07:40 out was a Jackson Pollock, she started to study who is Jackson Pock, why is Jackson Pock so famous? And how many
07:47 Jackson Pocks are there left behind? She spent hours and days and spent trips.
07:52 You know why? Because the last offer she got for this was $9 million. Bing
07:58 50 bucks. All right. And the way she now acts towards this painting is completely
08:05 different from when she bought it. But response to revelation is is worship. So
08:11 therefore the one that we worship is of so immense value. Our response deter uh
08:16 determines it. Imagine if you come to a young girl, she's like 5 years old and for $10, what
08:24 will mommy buy you? A BMW or a doll. What do you think she will choose? She will choose a doll. A ragged, horrible,
08:31 smelly doll. If you chose the BMW, you could buy a thousand dolls. But she
08:36 doesn't see the value. And many of us, what is worship? We don't see the value
08:41 in God. And all we can spare God is an hour on Sunday. And that's the problem
08:47 with us. Why should we therefore worship? If you look at here, Jesus said
08:54 to her, "Go and call your husband." She got so many husbands. She stopped counting. So the last one she doesn't
08:59 bother to marry. She's a very modern woman. And yet she says,"I perceive you
09:04 are a prophet and our fathers worship on this mountain. But you say in Jerusalem is a place where people ought to
09:11 worship." Very funny. A woman who is basically sleeping with everybody else in town now talks about worship. Maybe
09:17 she's trying to distract Jesus. Maybe she's fed up with all these husbands. We don't know. Uh but people look to
09:24 religion. This is cave drawing about 40,000 years old and and they were drawing for their gods. You go to
09:31 Stonehenge and you see all these uh uh blocks being put up. Maybe religious.
09:36 The oldest religious artifact in this country is from Bujang. It's 300 AD.
09:42 It's Hindu, not Muslim. Um religion is at every corner of the globe. And you
09:50 thought by by as the world gets more modern, people won't go to God. You're wrong. The Pew research showed that that
09:58 in 2010 16% of the world profess to be unaffiliated to any religion. By 20150
10:05 it will drop to 13%. It's very hard to be an atheist because why we are
10:10 hardwired in our hearts to look for God. This is Aeropagus which is in Athens
10:16 where Paul preached in Acts 17 and when he went there Athens was a very
10:21 religious society. Everywhere you turn, you had an idol. Everywhere you turn, you had an altar. In fact, they were so
10:28 respectful of all the gods that they worshiped all the gods. And just to cover their bets, they worshiped to the unknown god just to make sure they
10:35 didn't miss out. And this is what Paul said to them. And he made from one man every nation of the mankind to live in
10:42 all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of the dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel
10:49 their way towards him and find him. Paul is saying that men are made with an
10:55 internal clock and a DNA like a magnet that will actually orientate them towards looking for God. And in fact he
11:03 says to the woman, Jesus says the woman the it's very astounding. You will only see this verse in this part of the
11:10 Bible. The whole Bible doesn't have a verse that says father is seeking such people to worship. God seeks us to
11:16 worship him just as he's created us to seek him. It's innate. It's it's second
11:23 nature to us. I was watching Oprah some years ago and Oprah tells a story of a
11:29 young man who had been addicted to amphetamines, metamins, and he's been addicted out of his mind and he wanted
11:35 to kill himself. So the best way to and most fun way to kill himself is have sex as often as possible. So he had sex with
11:41 25 to 20 men. He's homosexual every day until he got sex. He got AIDS and after
11:48 that he got AIDS. He was suffering and he wanted to kill himself. So he climbed up to a uh tall building which was
11:55 basically unfinished work site and he got up to the top floor and he jumped off head first and you know what somehow
12:03 as he falling head first he flipped and fell on his back on a bag of sand you know and he didn't die.
12:11 So sad. And then he gets up and think there must be a god because what are the
12:16 odds of me jumping on building a head first come down there on my back there must be a god. So underneath all the
12:22 travailes and all the problems in life the first instinct when a bullet comes near you. You think there's a god isn't
12:28 it? Because we are built we are built to worship God. We are created in the image of God. That is the proof. Have you ever
12:36 seen a otter have a prayer meeting or a bunch of cockroaches gathering together for a worship meeting? You you only see
12:42 that in Joe's apartment if you ever watch that movie. All right. This is GK Beiel who's basically a theologian who
12:49 who writes he wrote a fantastic commentary on on revelations. And here he's writing on theology of worship. And
12:56 he wrote writes what people revere they resemble either for ruin or for
13:01 restoration. All humans have been created to be reflecting im beings. They will reflect
13:08 whatever they ultimately committed to. whether the true God or some other object in created order. So what he's
13:15 saying is we're created in the image of God, a reflection of God. And if we are truly with God, we will reflect God,
13:22 isn't it? All right, that's from a theological point of view. Let me introduce you to uh David Foster
13:30 Wallace. He is arguably one of the greatest English writers in the last 20
13:37 years, but a very troubled genius who went into drugs, obsessed with a woman
13:43 that he loved and he stalked her, did all sorts of unsavory things and in the
13:49 end of his turbulent life, he hung himself in his garage at home. But this
13:55 is what he writes, which is very astonishing words for someone who doesn't believe in God. He says,
14:01 "Because here's something else that is weird but true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is
14:07 actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping.
14:13 Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what do we want to worship?" And
14:20 he writes further is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you
14:27 worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then
14:33 you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. That's the truth. If
14:38 you worship your body and beauty and sex alert, and you will always feel ugly,
14:43 and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.
14:50 So, so some of you my age graying and trying to get rid of your tummy,
14:56 you will die a death, a thousand million deaths because you never get younger,
15:01 you always get older. Very true from a voice of a non-Christian. Um, we become
15:07 what we worship. Jeremiah says, "Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went from
15:12 me and went after worthless and became worthless?" You worship worthless
15:18 things, you become worship uh worthless. Re worship is revelation and response.
15:24 So they're responding to worthless things. Every man is stupid without knowledge. Every gold spit is put to
15:30 shame by his idols for his images are false. There is no breath in them. They they're worthless. A work of delusion at
15:35 time of the punishment. They shall perish. So worship is important because we are
15:41 hardwired to worship. But if we worship things which are worthless, then we become worthless. We are created in the
15:46 image of God to reflect the greatest person on the face of this universe and that person is God. And we should not
15:54 aim for any less. How do we worship? This is the important point in today's
15:59 sermon is how we worship. God cares about how we worship. Here it says, "But
16:04 the hour is coming and it's now here where the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth. For the
16:10 father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit. Those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in
16:16 truth. God is particular in how he is worshiped. You just can't. We come to a generation that comes to church dress
16:23 any way they like. Some are in shorts sometimes, some are very casual. The more casual the better. Not that formal
16:30 is good, but it may reflect what you feel in your heart. God is particular.
16:36 Let me give you an example. He wants us to worship in spirit and in
16:42 truth. Right? Uh so how do we translate that? That's the crux of the text today. Some
16:47 people translate that as must be must be what? Emotional like this girl. If we
16:53 really worship God in spirit and truth means we really stand up before God, raise up your hands, tears flowing down.
17:00 That's worship with emotion. I'm not saying that's not worship. I think
17:06 worship can be that. But I think more or in truth means sincere. That means you
17:12 really sincerely love God. But if you look uh here, God cares about how you
17:17 worship is not exactly what God wants. You can't just simply because you are
17:22 sincere and you're emotional, God will accept anyway you do. Let me give you an example. In the Old Testament, we've got
17:28 Naab and Abihu. They are the brothers of Aaron the priest. What did they do? They
17:34 took the sensor and they took fire and offered it to God. And you know what? God gave them fire back. They died on
17:41 the spot. Then you've got Usuza who was helping transport the ark of God
17:48 driven by bullocks. The bulocks stumbled. The ark tilted. Usuza saved it
17:56 with his hands. He touched the ark. He was smoked dead on the spot.
18:02 God cares about how you worship. It's not just a sincerity of your heart or emotionalism inside. Maybe it's the the
18:07 the the love because of love God will forgive everything. God killed them all.
18:14 They were sincere. Uh God Lord's supper. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. A lot of the
18:20 folk there in the Corinthian church were dying. You know why? Taking Lord's
18:25 supper. Yeah. They didn't put poison Lord's supper. But what they did was with the Lord's supper, they were not
18:31 respecting each other. The people who came for the Lord's supper first at about 6:00 to 8:00. wall up all the
18:37 food. So by the time the workers came in at 10:00, no more food to eat. You see
18:43 what I mean? And and and Paul writes that is why many of you are weak and ill
18:48 and some have died. So when you take the Lord's supper, you cannot play play. God cares about how you worship. It's not
18:55 the sincerity with which you worship, nor the emotion that wells up in your heart, but actually how you do it. The
19:01 controlling statement is God is spirit and those who worship him are spirit worship him spirit and truth. There is a
19:06 different dimension because God is spirit. You must worship him with the spirit and truth. But how do you do
19:12 that? It's nonspatial. Jesus said to the woman, "Believe me, the hour is coming
19:18 and neither on this mountain nor in this Jerusalem w will you worship the father." It's nonspecial because she's
19:25 asking where's the place to worship Mount Jerism or Jerusalem? To the Samaritans who are mixed race, Mount
19:33 Jerusm is the tallest mountain in the world. Did you know that? It's a bit taller than Gassing Hill, but to them is
19:40 the tallest mountain in the world. And they worship there. They don't want to worship in Jerusalem because they hate
19:46 the Jews. So the mutual hatred was there. So uh so what we cannot but real
19:53 worship is isn't spatial. It is nonspatial. It's with the spirit. Jesus said, "Unless I say to you, unless what
19:60 is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God that is born as flesh is flesh that's born of
20:06 the spirit is spirit." So the worship that Jesus is talking about is spiritual worship. It hasn't got to do with
20:12 buildings. No matter how big your building or where is located, maybe this is transported to the middle of
20:17 Jerusalem. It doesn't matter because it's not spatial worship. It is actually spiritual worship. Now then he says in
20:25 verse uh John 16:13-4 when the spirit of truth you see you shall worship God in
20:31 spirit and in truth. So now said spirit of what? Spirit of truth holy spirit he
20:37 will guide you in all the truth. He will not speak on his own authority. Whatever he hears he will speak. He will declare
20:43 to you all the things that that will come. He will glorify me for we'll take what is mine and declare to you. So he
20:49 is a spirit of truth. Right? So he comes and tells you that Jesus is
20:54 God. He comes and tells you that Jesus is very clever. He can add 16 jitters multiply by whatever. Is that what's
21:00 this about? The truth that revealed to you. Remember what is worship? Worship is revelation and response. Right? The
21:06 revelation that entails a response. So the Holy Spirit is the one that enables
21:11 worship by clarifying to you the driving into your very heart the enormity of
21:17 Christ and who God is. then you'll be able to worship. Hope does not put us to shame because
21:24 God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And and and you talk
21:30 about emotion with which you worship. How do you get that emotion with which you worship is actually generated by the
21:36 Holy Spirit because God's love has been poured out into heart. You feel God hugging you and you respond and the
21:43 tears that flow from your eyes because of his worship is is focused on God and produced by the spirit.
21:52 John Piper writes, "True worship comes only from spirits made alive and sensitive by the quickening of the
21:58 spirit of God." So it's only when spirit of God touches you and then moves your spirit that you're able to worship. Now
22:04 the Samaritan worship is physical and it's a lie. You worship what you do not
22:10 know. So God is very particular in how he's worshiped. You worship what you do not know. They have the Bible. But the
22:17 Samaritan Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Numbers, and then the rest don't want to read
22:22 anymore. They only have a a bridge version of the Bible. And that's how they worship God.
22:29 But that's not God. And so therefore, they're worshiping a lie. And Mount
22:34 Jerusm is not where God wanted them to worship. So the Samaritans will have
22:39 been sincere but no truth. The Jews have all the truth but not sincere. So that's
22:45 why they they hate each other. Look at the worship of the golden calf. This is
22:50 the golden calf. An example of it where the people of Israel when the first
22:56 escape from Egypt they built the golden calf and Exodus Aaron he received gold
23:02 from the hand and fashioned it with a engraving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, oh
23:09 Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." Hello. Think about it,
23:14 right? He puts takes your ring, melt it down, makes a cow, and the people it
23:22 believe that the cow let them out of Egypt. Your people come.
23:29 You think your grandfathers are that stupid? They made you, you know, I mean, people can't be that stupid. That's not
23:34 true, isn't it? People who worship idols don't actually believe the cow, hey,
23:39 come, follow me. They never did that. The cow is just a representation of
23:45 Yahweh, right? So, don't you think they're sincere? Don't you think they're honest?
23:51 They're sincere, honest, but sincerely wrong. That's the difference. And so
23:56 therefore uh um here you read when the people saw that Moses delayed coming
24:02 down from the mountain the people gathered together themselves to go Aaron and said to him up make us gods who will
24:08 go before us. As for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of
24:14 him. This Moses for chabot so long we were waiting for him to come back with ten commandments never come back. I
24:20 think he's forgotten us already. It's like some contractor who left your house, you know, after the renovations
24:25 halfway. And so therefore, we better make our own gods. And so what happened is that when they're making the golden
24:31 calf is they're impatient. They worship God on their own terms. They won't wait.
24:36 If they waited a little while, they'll get the tabernacle. God will tell them how to worship him. All right? But here
24:42 they chose a lie. So therefore, God is very concerned when you worship him this
24:48 morning that you worship him in spirit and in truth. Not just the music that
24:54 makes you emotional, not just the tears that fall from your eyes. It's the truth that's important to God. So, but the
25:01 hour is coming and it's now here when the true worshippers of God will worship the father in spirit and truth. The
25:07 father is seeking such people to worship him. But what do you mean by worship in spirit and truth? The hour is coming and
25:14 is now here. All right. If you look at this new worship which is different from
25:19 the worship in Jerusalem and in Jerusalem, the hour is here. Who is
25:24 here? Jesus is coming. Right? So the the worship is new. It's
25:31 present where woman is is also coming. Right? Akandatang the new movie next
25:36 week. How can it be here and coming? That means part two also you watch cereals Korean cereals now and is coming
25:44 then you understand this all right and then it says the hour whenever Jesus talks about the hour means is not is not
25:50 your birthday the hour means he's the hour of his death so Jesus is here is
25:56 referring to his death so when the spirit of truth is basically worshiping God in the person of Jesus that's why
26:04 Jesus said destroy this temple in three days I will raise it what do you do in the temple You worship God. And so
26:10 therefore, Jesus is the locust of ultimate worship. No one ever seen the
26:16 father, the only God. Who is at the father's side? He has made him known. What is worship? Worship is revelation
26:22 and response. Who is the ultimate revelation? What god looks like? Jesus.
26:27 So all the worship that we actually have today, we focus on Jesus. That's why Jesus said to him, I am the way, the
26:32 truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. And you talk to non-Christian friends and say your
26:38 Christians are very bad. Buddha cannot go to God. Hindus cannot go to God. Everybody bas Jesus. You are
26:44 so so so bigoted. Isn't it? But the point that that if you want to worship
26:49 God, fine. If the Buddhists want to worship God, fine. The Hindus want to worship God, fine. But God cares how
26:55 he's worshiped. He must be worshiped in spirit and in truth. And God is determined. This is my son. I sent him
27:02 all the way. He was killed for your sin. You worship here, you want to worship elsewhere, that's too bad.
27:10 So when we talk about worship, it's like a picture of a fire. You put in a log
27:17 and then you burn. The log is the revelation of truth. God's person, God's
27:22 deeds, God's will in the person of Jesus. You cannot honor God unless you honor Jesus. And the fire is our
27:29 response, our praise, our joy, our worship. And so the center of our
27:35 worship is actually the word. The word is worship. Preaching the word is the
27:42 central part of worship. Some people say, "Oh, you know, we don't have much time for worship. We don't have time for
27:48 the Bible or the preaching." You're wrong. The preaching is worship. Singing
27:53 is not worship completely. the singing and the worship with the word together
27:60 as long as it revolves around is revelation that is actual worship in any if you go to England you will find those
28:06 big pews you know in the in the churches next to the big pews which very high up there's actually a glass uh a holder of
28:15 hourglass and they used to when preachers started preaching he'll turn the hourglass upside down so the sands
28:20 will start going down the trick is you have to finish your sermon before the turn the The sand empty isn't it? All
28:27 right. If you finish before means you are lazy preacher. Okay. And the congregation likes you when you're
28:33 preaching well. He'll come up and then turn the glass again. I think this church nobody will turn the
28:38 glass. It is in ancient worship in Jewish times
28:44 it is the word and people respond to the word. It's completely different to other worship. You go to Egyptian society the
28:51 prophetus will go into a trance. It'll be aesthetic worship. You know they the
28:57 Chinese call yapsana. All right. Uh if you look at the Greeks, they also have a picture of that. They see the woman is
29:03 in an ecesthetic trance. That is emotional aesthetic worship. Some of our
29:08 churches are coming frighteningly close to this. What happens in real worship? We hear
29:14 the word. We understand the word. We consider the word and we respond to the
29:20 word. That is worship. Whether it be song, scripture reading or preaching, we
29:27 hear, we understand, we consider and we respond. How do we respond? Actually, response is physical. Can be physical.
29:35 The word shaha for worship in the Old Testament 172 time, 99 times for worship. The rest of it is a physical
29:41 term. It refers to bowing, lifting hands, shouting, being still. It's a
29:46 physical one. And I I I had a lady tell me this the other day. She was here from a charismatic church and she's starting
29:53 to move her hands and people and somebody told hey this church people don't lift hands
29:58 I say hello worship is a physical term if you want to lift your hands go ahead that's not
30:05 you don't knock the neighbor in the eye if you want to dance before the Lord carry on you know so so it it's a
30:12 physical thing we have to express ourselves all right yeah you could do that too if you want to keep awake
30:19 as an act of worship You keep your eyes. Don't sleep during the worship or whatever you do, don't sleep. All right?
30:24 So, we responds by our will and our emotion. We we we have the word preach.
30:30 We have the word sung and then we consider the truth of what is sung and what is preached. And when we consider,
30:36 we decide in our hearts, is that right or wrong? If it's right, I'm buying into this. Then the emotion comes out. If
30:42 it's wrong, the emotion won't come out. So, the emotion comes out because of the will. and the wheel comes up because of
30:47 the response to revelation. That's how worship is. So you look at
30:54 some songs are quite good and some songs are not quite so good. So we need to improve the quality of worship and
30:59 that's not the sound of the drum. The quality of worship is you look at this song which I used to sing. I love you
31:06 Lord and I lift my voice to worship you. Oh my God. Now you know why never in a
31:12 worship team. Take joy my king in what you hear. Let it be a sweet sweet sound in your ear. Then the chorus. I love you
31:20 Lord. I love you Lord. I lift my voice. I lift my voice to love you to worship you. Oh my soul rejoice more. I mean if
31:26 you wrote this song for young woman. Let me ask you the couple of women sitting there and your boyfriend saying to or
31:33 this girl this fellow comes and grabs your leg. I love you darling. I lift my voice to praise you. My heart is so excited about you. Be happy my darling.
31:39 Let my song be a sweet sweet sound in your ear. Would you marry him?
31:45 shaking your head. Why are you shaking your head? Would you marry him?
31:52 Why not? Doesn't look handsome enough. Maybe he's worth a billion dollars. Would you marry him then? No. You'd be
31:60 like those red shirts who walk through town, they they cover their face. You know why? They all got paid 100 bucks,
32:06 right? No, you wouldn't marry because you don't know why he wants to marry you. He doesn't know why you want to
32:11 marry you. just say like that. How do you know his you know his reasons? We need to have reasons. If you look at a
32:17 song that we we we we did a couple of weeks ago, we taught the church this song forever. The moon, the stars, they
32:23 wept. The morning sun was dead. The savior of the world was fallen. His body upon the cross. His blood was poured out
32:29 for whom? For us. The weight of every cost was curse was upon him. One final
32:35 breath he gave. The heaven looked away. The son of God was laid in darkness. The battle in the grave. The war and death was raged. the power of hell was forever
32:42 broken. It describes a gigantic cosmic battle, right? And after that, because
32:47 we're so excited, then forever he is glorified. Forever he's lifted up. Forever he's risen. He's alive. He's
32:53 alive. You sickness with great emotion, jubilation, triumph, excitement. It builds up to crescendo. Why? Because of
33:02 this. Because of that, forever he is glorified. If you sing this this all the
33:08 time, I think you are mad because it's just pure emotionalism. Uh that's the
33:14 problem with modern worship. Modern worship is focused on human beings. If I am worshiping God and I'm singing all of
33:21 this, this is the limit of my experience. Okay? I can only describe God with my
33:28 experience and my words. Imagine your son at the age of three comes and
33:33 describe how good you are. Daddy, you are cuddly and soft. Hey, hello. You are
33:40 cuddly and soft. Bten, that's all you are. Bten is more than cuddly and soft,
33:45 right? So, if you actually say that you are the one doing the worshiing, then
33:50 your quality of your worship is limited to the extent of your experience and the wideness and the depth of your horizons.
33:57 Isn't it? And that doesn't justify God because the the real God is much bigger
34:03 than our experience or horizons. So it's not sincerity. God doesn't want you to come and use baby language to
34:09 honor him. All right? I am the subject of worship. The problem modern worship
34:14 is I am the subject. Yes. I pattern my worship to satisfy myself by taste in
34:19 music. Opinion on the sermon must be not boring or complicated. Must have lots of slides, you know. Uh service not too
34:26 long. how I feel about service. Is it good or guilty or bad? My satisfaction,
34:31 my blessing. I've seen so many people come out of worship, you know, especially if he's jumping around singing. Oh, that was a great worship.
34:37 You know, what was he preaching about? I don't know. Don't know. You know, I this is when we
34:44 are subjects of our worship. We cannot be the subjects of worship. Right? Uh this is Romans 11:36.
34:52 God is the subject and the object of our worship. For him, through him and to him
34:59 are all things to be glory. To him be glory forever. When do we worship God? How do we worship God? It is from him.
35:06 Through him and to him. He's the beginning and the end. Now imagine
35:12 another young girl, okay? A boy. I must teach the boys how to tunk up the girls, right? All right. So all the boys who
35:18 are singles, you pay very attention, okay? If you are a subject and the girl is the object of your worship and what
35:25 you do is that you tell her, "Oh yeah, can I give you bodybuilding club membership?
35:31 One year free I buy for you." Uh I think the only one interested will be Susanna
35:38 in the gym. All right. Or I give you tickets to Terminator movie. Or I give
35:44 you a sports car. Wow, that's a bit better, right? Or I give you comics to read. Tell me which girl would be happy
35:50 with this. Any girls will be happy with this? You'd be a strange girl to be happy with this. If the boy was clever,
35:58 not only the girl is the object of your worship, the girl is also the subject of your worship. What do you do when you
36:04 come to her? You go to her and you say, "Listen very carefully, young man there."
36:10 You read to her the poetry which she wrote. You you you you buy the dresses
36:16 in her fashion. You you buy her the clothes or the shoes that she designed,
36:21 the food that she likes. In the end, you want to marry her. You buy a diamond from the shop of her father shop,
36:29 right? I mean, which girl wouldn't marry you like that after that? Because you really love her for whom she is she she
36:36 is. So when see girl is the subject and the object. When you worship God, God is a subject as well as the object. It's
36:44 like a birthday party. When you go to a birthday party, there's an initiation of the party, the invitation of the party,
36:50 the host of the party, and the birthday boy himself. When you go to the worship meeting every Sunday, God initiates the
36:58 worship, God invites you, God is the host, and God is the one having the party. That's right. So when you
37:05 actually have pastor Rama come up here, call to worship. Is not I, Pastor Rama
37:11 sits here and says, "Hey, I call you a desine to worship." No. When he gives a call to worship, know who's calling you
37:17 to worship? God is calling you to worship. And God is putting his spirit helping you worship him himself. All
37:24 right? So you understand that this look at the verse here. It says, "Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth to declare
37:32 your pray." Some of us come here, our lips are like sewn together, frozen. So
37:38 you pray what? Lord, open my lips and my wife will declare your praise. Open my
37:44 lips. Okay. Lord is object. Sing to the Lord. So if we can take God as object,
37:51 God is object of our worship. We sing to the Lord. But we tell of his salvation.
37:57 We declare his glory, his marvelousness. What is this? God is subject. Right? So
38:04 we come to worship God as object. We adore, we praise, we sing, we proclaim,
38:09 we confess, we give offering, we thanksgiving, commitment. But God is also the subject where we praise in
38:15 terms of talk about his plans, his words, his grace and his story. Worship is also participation.
38:23 Koreans say I come to watch worship. You never come and watch worship. One of the problems with this church and some
38:28 people have come from other churches which are more energetic. They always tell what wrong with your church people. They're like statues.
38:34 They're sitting down there. You preach prey. They don't you know they hardly lift a finger. maybe to put in a pocket
38:40 to take some money out. That's about it. Worship is participation. Passivity is
38:46 not right. When you actually sing, maybe that's the fault of the the worship team. They're too good. All the time
38:51 you're listening to their music. We should be listening to whom? Your singing. I know some of you sing like
38:57 frogs, but it doesn't matter. All right. When you sing, you sing together. You uplift each other together. The loudest
39:03 sound I want to hear in this room is not the drum. It's your horrible voice.
39:09 together it becomes beautiful. It becomes melodic. And so Jason's job and
39:14 the worship team job is to help you sing together to glorify God. Participation
39:21 is not coming the whole week and going to Bible study all every single day. But participation is responding. Some of
39:27 these negro conference uh churches are very good. You say something good, the brother will stand in the back preach it brother or amen or hallelujah. this just
39:35 here. No matter what you preach, there's something wrong with your neck.
39:43 Worship is participation. All right? We should read scripture together. We should shout together and
39:49 jump together. And the other one is is emotion. The joy the only emotion in
39:54 worship. Everybody come to church and and suddenly no matter what happened, they they give you this plastic smile.
39:60 Praise the Lord. You know, we train our Tamil kids so well downstairs. Every time you see them, praise the Lord.
40:06 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. I mean, get a grip. You know, after a while, I don't believe them anymore.
40:12 Right? Because it's onedimensional. I'm sure you have problems in life just like me. Isn't that all right? There's a
40:19 penitential nature of Eastern spirituality. You see in Eastern Orthodox Church where they're
40:25 really respectful. They're very reflective and they reflect on the deep recognition of a hin sinfulness of human
40:33 beings. We don't see that. We are a very frivolous church. We come every praise the Lord. You we're all jubilant all the
40:39 time. Uh you know Marva Dawn from Regent College writes we lack such an awareness
40:44 because we dumb down the truth about God in a false effort to feel better about ourselves. Isn't that right? Because
40:51 it's only one dimension. All right. She writes, "We do not have enough of God, especially the truth of his wrath in the
40:57 midst of his love to experience the exhilarating freedom of confessing our sin and the joyous beauty of
41:05 be the joyous beauty of forgiveness." You know, worshiping God is like sweet and sour pork. You got sweet and you got
41:12 sour, right? That's what life is sweet and sour. You look at Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6
41:17 is the other passage where God is seen in seated heavenly throne and it's an
41:23 rapturing picture of God. And then you know what Isaiah says?
41:29 Woe is me. I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of
41:34 people of unclean rips. My eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts.
41:40 Translated in Chinese save all. I'm in trouble. I see such a go save all. I'm
41:46 I'm dying. See, that's sweet. That's sour. The sweet part is one of the
41:51 seraraphins flew to me having in his hand a burning cold that taken from tongs from the altar. He touched my
41:56 mouth and behold this has touched your lips your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. And because they say
42:03 for because you are in deep trouble, God comes and give you the grace and the grace becomes sweeter because of the
42:10 sourness of the wrath of God. And we have a whole picture of God there.
42:16 So the gospel in worship is basically two paradigms. The greater we grow in awareness of God's love and holiness,
42:24 the greater we grow in awareness of our own sinful flesh. And when we have these two things diverging, the power of the
42:30 cross, his grace and his love becomes greater and greater and greater. But then we live in a world where we are
42:38 stagnant in our awareness of God's holiness. We come in with a frivality and lack of reverence and we God is like
42:43 our buddy. body Jesus. And so therefore, as we stagnate in our awareness of God's
42:49 holiness, we minimize our aware of his holiness and therefore we stagnate in our awareness of our sinful flesh and we
42:56 elevate our own sense of righteousness. That's why you come to church. Everybody is legalistic. You know, I just had a
43:02 woman tell me that, oh, I agree with your sermon. You the other day that fellow leading worship, nothing was
43:08 happening. He was like boring. Let's go and rebuke him. You know why? Because she had an innate sense of
43:13 righteousness. That's why legalism infests all our churches. You know, the book of Psalms
43:20 has the longest book in the entire Bible. And a lot of the songs in the Psalms, we don't sing anymore. You know
43:26 why we don't sing them anymore? Because they're very sad songs. They're lamenting songs. They describe a range
43:33 of emotions that we're not used to. Uh you know, we need to be bold to insist that the world is experienced
43:39 realistically, not in a pretend way. All feelings can be brought to God. Whether you're you're you're doubtful, anxious,
43:46 feeling abandoned, sorrowful, fearful, angry, guilty, all these feelings should
43:52 be brought to God because they're not beyond his control. Imagine if you're
43:58 upset, you're married, you're upset, your wife, your your wife is upset, and
44:04 and then the first person she should consult with is your neighbor. How do you feel? Marel
44:11 upset because the one whom she should be consulting would be you. All the good things in life, praise the Lord. Come
44:16 and see me, but all the bad things will talk about somebody else because because you don't trust Merrill to be matured
44:23 enough to take care of your problems. Same with God. God wants you to bring your problems to him. Experience him in
44:30 a totality of the human experience which is sweet and sour. Right? So, so this is
44:35 KL Truman who is basically professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary. Let me read to
44:41 you. But to admit that these feelings they are normal part of one's everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one
44:48 has failed in today's health wealth and happiness society. And of course if one
44:53 does admit them one must neither accept them nor take any personal responsibility for them. One must blame
44:60 one's parents, soothe one's employer, pop a pill or check into a clinic in order to have such dysfunctional
45:06 emotions soothed and one's selfimage restored. So often when we ask pe people to come
45:13 forward to be prayed because they're depressed, hardly 0.1% of congregation
45:18 come up because the rest are all praise the Lord. You know the rest of you like cartoons.
45:24 You're not real life people. Real life people suffer from these things. We dead. Why do we say we praise the Lord and we dare not show? Because we've
45:31 bought this idea that we cannot accept it. These are signs that you're a loser.
45:37 The present US president, everybody else that's not him, loser. He's a winner. Uh
45:43 that's the biggest cartoon you can see. All right. You go to White House, it'll be just only one dimension. Uh he
45:50 writes, "Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is or at least should be
45:55 all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our
46:01 worship?" So we're not railed in our worship. We should have times where we're quiet, whereas times where we are weeping, times of which we're sad and
46:07 depressed and abandoned and need to express them in the richness of the psalms which God has given us. I mean,
46:14 we should be able to say, "Follow me." But I am a worm, not a man.
46:20 You you you guys. One, two, three. But I am a worm. I'm
46:27 not a man. See, I kind of hear you. You know, I am a worm and not a man. How
46:33 many worms here? No. No worms. Only me. What's wrong with you guys? Scorned by
46:41 mankind. Despised by the people. We should be able to say there's words of scripture we should not be afraid that
46:48 that that that shows the breath and depth of our spiritual experience and we bring this to God. God today I feel like
46:55 crap instead coming if you don't acknowledge all these feelings you come to church you become a hypocrite. That's
47:01 a church specializes in being hypocrites because we're all great. How are you great? Everything's great. You know if
47:08 you don't feel well I don't feel well. I'm struggling going through things. Don't catch on me. I want my space but
47:14 when I want you I'll ask you to come and then we become a healthy church. We don't buy into this health well society
47:20 which is artificial and is basically caricature of real human beings. What else? Worship styles. We have
47:27 worship wars. You can kind of imagine the amount of times that people come to me. Oh, you know the the sound of the
47:34 drum is so loud. I have to leave your worship. I'm going to another church. You know why can't your church only sing
47:39 hymns and say why can't I only sing hill songs and we got this worship wars does it matter how you worship in terms of
47:46 the style of the music if you look into the scripture you will not see a single style mentioned you know very odd is
47:54 you know why huh country not in Bible if you look at Bible you won't see but you know why because the
48:00 the reason you see worship is re revelation response who should you respond to you responds to the beauty
48:08 and the excellence and the love of God, not the music which conveys the love of God. You respond to the person of God.
48:16 He is delightful. So if you think that only this is good or only that is good, then you're basically immature and at
48:22 worst divisive in church. So we should have a variety of music that caters to
48:28 all sorts of taste. But the important thing is what the music says.
48:33 The truth is most important. Should it be planned or spontaneous? Some people
48:38 like you to come up here and a long prayer emotional and then make sure you
48:43 don't have a piece of paper. Where's Pastor Rama? You see spontaneity is not necessarily
48:51 sincerity isn't it? And you know pastor Rama always prepares his
48:56 his prayer isn't it? They say oh how come like that I go to the other church in you know charismatic church on the
49:02 spot. more. This fellow got to go and prepare one week went this man.
49:08 I watched the movie recently uh with my wife and it's called how not to propose
49:13 and the whole story is about the boy and the girl who the boy obviously loves the girl and he's finding opportunity to
49:20 bring up this proposal one-time deal to propose to the girl and it's got to be just right a romantic moment by the
49:27 fireplace when she's in a good mood not a bad mood but it rained she got sick
49:33 you know so the the thing is postponed all the time you know and then she's preparing and he's writing it all down
49:39 and then only in the middle of the forest he's he's actually rehearsing the proposal to a couple of bears you know
49:44 see how the bears like it you know now if the lady found out that he spent
49:51 so much time preparing his vows do you think she'd be upset and think he's disingenuous or insincere or he thinks
49:57 he's very sincere which one do you think sincere isn't it so William you better prepare your vows you know you're
50:03 getting married next year right so it's not too early to prepare your vows If you prepare your vows now, it means
50:09 you're really serious about your wife, right? So nothing wrong in writing down your prayers because you really want to
50:16 do it well. Maybe your English a bit check so that you copy from somewhere the Anglican prayer book, right? And do
50:23 it well, isn't it? Right? Preparing for worship. This is Exodus 19. When God was
50:29 coming to meet his people in the mount si, he asked them prepare three days. Look, read. When Moses told the words of
50:35 the people to the Lord, Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Let them wash
50:41 their garments and be ready for the third day." God gives them three days. He gives you seven days. Come to wait
50:47 church late some more. Late, you know your service is late,
50:52 11:15. I see people walk in at 11:30. And then the worst thing, you know what? They come, say, "Sorry, Peter. Hey,
50:58 you're not worshiping me, right? You're worshiping God. You want to say
51:03 sorry, say sorry to him. I couldn't care less whether you came in at the last video or whatever. It's not my church. It's his. So don't ever apologize to me.
51:12 You see, and we're not the kind of church that locked the door, so you cannot get in. All right? It's between
51:17 you and God. You see, whether you come in or not, I don't care. You can worship outside. So God is not special, right?
51:22 You can worship, you know? So, so the issue is preparation. It's good to come
51:27 early and prepare your heart. You know the passage will be preached on John 4.
51:32 We tell you a week in advance at least you take it and you meditate because when you meditate upon it you will be
51:38 blessed. Okay. Then the ultimate response in worship is a change in
51:43 behavior. Disciples came back. They marveled. They was talking to woman but no one said what do you seek or are you
51:50 planning to talk to her? So why are you talking to her? So the woman left her water jar and went away in town and said
51:56 to the people come and see a man who told me all the things that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? Here's a woman
52:02 who is a scarlet woman who sleeps with anybody, right? He's got great needs and she's
52:08 going to carry a pale or a jug on top of her head for miles and miles miles. You
52:13 try to do that. You recently USJ had water cut, right? Carry pale also
52:19 cannot. I see so many people, you know, complaining why government can't just stick a hose into my pipe and then just
52:25 transfuse the water through, right? You know, they do that in other countries. trying to carry pale everywhere. So
52:30 difficult carry pale one one street and you know this woman has to carry the the jar for miles and miles and miles. This
52:37 water represents her life and all she's interested is in living water because she wants a tap in her house, right?
52:44 That's what she understands about the living water. You think she you know so so what happened to her at the end of
52:50 this story? She's not hugging onto her water jar. You know what happened? She left the water jar behind because there
52:56 was something that was more important. Remember why we worship? Worship is giving response to for God for all his
53:04 worth. So now she found a new treasure. Who's the new treasure? God. If you see
53:11 this woman still hanging on to her water bottle. You think she's been transformed? But so many of us are here still hanging
53:18 to our water bottles. We come to church and all we're thinking
53:23 about is our water bottles. Where is our next meal? What's happened to my job tomorrow? What about my family? What
53:30 about my problems? Just hanging to her water. She has forgotten completely about her water bottle. And what does
53:37 she do? As
53:42 she went off in the town and committed her life to telling everybody about
53:48 Jesus Christ. There must be a change in our behavior. You can't be worshiping
53:55 God here and say fantastic worship. We see amazing grace and tears streaming
54:00 down your eyes and you're dancing away as prescribed and yet you're living with someone in a sexual relationship at home
54:08 out of marriage or you are adulterer. How can you do that? That is not
54:15 worship. When we worship, when we lay our lives down, our hands down, it is a
54:21 reflection of the sacrifice of our whole life. Romans 12:1 says we are to give
54:27 ourselves as a living sacrifice. If you do that, Isaiah says, "When you spread
54:33 your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers,
54:38 I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. You can tape the message, recite the message, memorize the Bible,
54:45 but it's no use. I will close my eyes to you.
54:51 True worship is a change in your behavior. And it you're so excited about
54:56 God that you leave your water bottle and you tell everybody. It's like this bunch
55:01 of senior people in our church, you know, uh Andrew Coup or Johnny Cheng,
55:07 the Johnny, I remember Sun. Yeah. Every time they find a new restaurant,
55:14 cheap and nice, you know what they have to do? They have to come and catch out me. I'm trying to leave my weight off
55:19 and they kind of catch me. Oh, this place very good bakut and all that. And you know why? If it's good, you go and
55:24 enjoy yourself. But they don't. They catch out you and me. You know why? Because they find something exciting and
55:32 satisfying. Having your friends come and share it is the ultimate joy. How have
55:38 you met someone who finds a very nice curry me and he never tells anybody every day he eats the curry me all by
55:44 himself doesn't tell his wife doesn't tell his brother doesn't tell his friends and certainly not me and every
55:49 day he just goes there has this panin on his own that's not worship worship is
55:56 telling everybody about this panin or this academy and we all come and join together that is and and and that's why
56:03 uh um John Piper says worship is the fuel of missions Passion for God in
56:09 worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can't commend what you don't cherish. So we don't get sent off
56:17 in distant lands as missionaries. Oh, because I have to obey God. Though you go there because you're so excited about
56:22 God, you want to tell them about it. Why you to go so far? Well, they haven't heard about me, about him. That's the
56:29 only reason you should be going. Uh let me end with a parody. years ago,
56:35 billionaire Howard Hughes dies at 70 on a flight to Texas hospital. And Howard
56:41 Hughes owns multiple casinos as well as aeronautical companies. And then at all
56:48 these casinos, they actually had a minute of silence where all the crap
56:53 tables and all dice were all stopped for one minute. At the end of the one minute, someone got up and said, "Let's
57:02 roll the dice." He's had his minute. I think sometimes we are Christians are
57:07 like that at the end of the sermon and he says
57:12 he's had his one hour or two hours in church. Let's roll the dice. Let's go
57:18 back to our lives. Let's go back to the things that we really want to do. Let's go back to hugging our water bottles
57:25 because that's what life is all about. But if you remember what I've said, you we are reflecting human beings. We will
57:33 reflect what we worship. If you worship money, you'll be dead. You know why? Because there's never enough of it. If
57:40 you worship health and wealth, you are on a losing battle because you will die a death of a thousand cuts. Because we
57:47 all get older. Let's not just go home and roll the dice.
57:54 Let's learn what it means to really worship in our lives. Let's pray.
58:01 Father Lord, we just thank you for your word. And I'm going to ask that when we talk
58:07 about worship, we are so far behind. Uh our worship
58:13 does not measure up and we can't just fall back and saying we're we love you.
58:20 We're sincere because you really care how we worship. We pray for each and every one of our
58:27 lives that we be careful how we live, how we worship, how our lives have been
58:33 transformed and we come before you. Teach us to be honest and transparent.
58:38 Teach us to even take feelings of despair, abandonment, and pain. To be unafraid to say that we feel like a worm
58:46 this morning. We feel we don't live up to your word. We feel your word makes us feel so small and yet the enormity of
58:53 the grace given to us by Christ lifts us up again. It's a sweet and sour
58:58 experience. It's experience of a true and living God. So we pray this morning. You dismiss us, fill us with your
59:05 spirit, the spirit of truth that we know the whole truth about you that we may respond and respond appropriately. We
59:12 ask for Jesus sake. Amen.
