Worship and Revelation

It's a great pleasure to be here.

I brought my wife with me.

Can't get along without her.

She's the one that tells me what I did right and what I did wrong.

Forty-seven years, my wife Sybil over here.

Glad you're here, honey.

My son is also here, Mark Griffin.

And we're glad to have you, buddy.

I want to speak on worship today.

And I want to speak on the connection between worship and revelation.

Without revelation, there's no worship.

I think worship is the most important thing that we find in all of the Word of God.

Because if we will examine the Bible closely from cover to cover, we find that that is the central theme.

Now, I realize we've heard about the scarlet thread.

The blood of Jesus Christ that is absolutely, absolutely essential.

But when we look at the purpose of the blood of Jesus, that was to restore man to God.

It was for the purpose of worship.

We were created to worship.

There was worship even before the beginning of time.

When man wasn't, there was worship in heaven.

And there is worship in Revelation in heaven.

After this age, there is worship.

There has always been worship.

There is worship, and there always will be worship.

And what this book is about, it's about worshiping the living God.

It is the finest occupation of the human soul to be able to worship God.

So that's what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about worship.

Turn with me to John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

And we'll begin there.

Look with me in verse 15.

Remember the woman at the well when Jesus was with the woman of Samaria, had met her at the well, and the rest of the disciples had gone in for food.

He was there alone.

And he was talking to her about the living water.

And the woman in verse 15 said to him, Sir, give me this water, the water that he was talking about, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here.

The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, You have said well, I have no husband.

For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband, in that you spoke truly.

The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive you're a prophet.

I think I'd have said the same thing.

How did you know this about me?

She said, went on to say, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father.

You worship what you do not know, but we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews.

For the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

For the Father is seeking such to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

We know in the New Testament, God is seeking two things.

He has come to seek through Jesus Christ.

He has come to seek and to save that which is lost.

And he has come seeking worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

Those two things throughout the New Testament, you will find that is the reason Jesus came.

So that all mankind could worship him.

And in Scripture we find that in the end times, all nations will bow their knee and worship God the Father.

This woman here noticed that he knew something about her that he shouldn't have known.

And the moment she had revelation that he knew something that only God could know, a stranger to her, the moment she saw that, she realized that she knew that this must be God.

She knew that he had something to do with God.

And it wasn't Jesus Christ that first mentioned worship.

If you read through this again carefully, she mentioned worship first.

The moment something was revealed to her spirit, the moment she knew something was supernatural, she mentioned worship right off the bat.

Because revelation brings the heart of worship to the individual.

That the moment something goes off on the inside of us, we are created in such a way to respond to the Lord.

So we see that revelation then is the foundation of true worship.

For example, in Joshua chapter 5 and verse 13 and following, it says this, and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

And behold, a man stood opposite him with the sword in his hand.

And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries?

Number one, if I had been out there where Joshua was, and there was a big guy standing there with a sword in his hand, I wouldn't have gone up to him.

I would have probably run.

But Joshua walked up to him and said, Who are you for?

Us, are you for them?

And notice in verse 14, he said, No.

Is that a strange answer?

No, neither one.

But as commander of the army of the Lord, I have come.

I am not come for you, I have not come for them.

I have come for the will of God.

I have come as commander of the Lord's army.

Notice what happened.

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped.

The moment he got a revelation of the commander of the Lord's army, he fell and worshiped the Lord.

And he said, What does my Lord say to his servant?

And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.

And Joshua did so.

The moment he got the revelation, he worshiped.

In Matthew chapter 14, verse 32 and 33, when Jesus and Peter were walking on the water.

Matthew 14:32

And his disciples were in a storm.

They were in the boat.

Remember, and they walked back to the boat.

Jesus and Peter climbed back in the boat.

And the moment they climbed back in the boat, it says, and when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Then those who were in the boat came and what?

Worshiped him, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God.

The moment they had a revelation of the supernatural power of Jesus Christ, all they could do was worship the Son of God.

Revelation 5.14.

The 24 elders were there in heaven, and they were listening to all creation worship God and talk about his worthiness.

The four living creatures said, Amen.

And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever.

Why?

Because they had a revelation of the living God.

Now, Joshua, the disciples, the 24 elders, they worshiped what they had seen.

But we find through scripture that in some cases they saw in their spirit before they actually saw Jesus himself, the Phoenician woman who had a sick daughter, for example, went to Jesus, already believing that Jesus could heal her daughter.

And when she got to him, she fell on her face.

She worshiped the living God.

She had not seen him, but in her heart, something had already been revealed to her, and this revelation of who Jesus was caused there to be a response in her that caused her to worship and to bow down before him, even before she had seen him.

So what is worship?

I always like to say this.

Worship is love sickness.

It is being in love with Jesus.

So in love with him, you can hardly stand yourself.

And throughout the Bible, worship was a visible and active response to the presence of God.

A visible and active response to the continuing presence of God.

Not just a one-time thing 20 years ago or five years ago, but a continuing response to the continuing revealing of who God is.

A continual response to the presence of the living God.

That's worship.

The English word for worship comes from an Anglo-Saxon word.

Worship.

Meaning that we worship what we value.

We worship what we consider to be worthy of worship.

It's worthy ship, worship because we recognize and have a revelation that he's worthy.

It's not just head knowledge.

There is a revelation in our heart that he is worthy and that he is valuable.

We will only worship what is valuable.

For example, I had a 49 Chevrolet.

That was my very first car.

I hate to tell you how old I am by telling you that, but I was excited.

A 49 Chevrolet, Hot Water 6, we call it.

I had it blocked in the back end so it was lowered.

I had it bullnosed on the front.

I had it painted burgundy, and I had a big old Japanese beetle painted on the gas lid cover on the outside.

A Japanese beetle.

I don't know why.

I just like the looks of it.

I liked that car.

Everywhere I went, I talked about my 49 Chevrolet.

To this day, I wish I hadn't sold it.

I wish I still had that thing.

Great car.

I'd still be driving it around, I think, knowing what I know now.

But I talked about it all the time.

When you're around people who have just met the love of their life, can you keep them from talking about it?

A fellow finds a girl and all he can do is just blab about this lady that he's found.

The same way with the girls.

All they can do is talk about the guy of their life.

We value that.

And because we value it, there is a response in us.

We are built that way by the Lord.

So what we need is something to respond to.

We need a revelation of the greatness of God, and we will respond because we are made that way.

We value who He is.

There will be a response.

Talking about value.

Back in the 70s, like 76, 75, 76, something like that, when at Shady Grove we were just beginning to worship, where there was a great sense of God's presence in the congregation.

And we were just a small group of people at the time.

99% of the people were raising their hands and they were worshiping the Lord and tears would be running down their face.

It was just sweet.

But I noticed of all the people, there was one fellow back there that was a friend of mine.

And he wouldn't do anything.

He just stood up.

That's all he would do.

He'd stand.

And everyone else would sing and he'd wouldn't sing.

Lift their hands, he didn't lift their hands.

He just stood there.

So one day we were out to lunch and I said to him, Hey, um, why is it when 99% of the people are singing or responding, you're just standing there?

He said, Well, you've got to understand, I'm of English descent.

And the English people are just reserved.

Just the way we are.

You know, like the Irish, they have a quick temper.

English, we just are not moved.

We just reserved.

But I love it.

He said, I really do love it.

That's great.

That's great.

Okay.

As long as I know you love it, everything's okay.

About two months later, we ended up, just the two of us, going to a Dallas Cowboy football game.

It was one of those squeakers.

We had to win the game in order to go on.

It was that crucial in the season.

And would you believe that Roger Stauback, the quarterback at the time, dropped back with one of those long passes, half the football field.

I don't know who caught the ball.

All I know is it went right over his shoulder, right into the breadbasket, just as he was stepping across the goal line with just a few seconds left on the scoreboard, and the stadium went ballistic.

I mean, jumping up and down, stomping on the stadium seats and hollering, we won.

Did you see that?

And my friend was right in the middle of every bit of it.

And I started to.

The moment I lifted myself up to jump up, I felt an impression of the Holy Spirit.

Don't do anything.

Sit there.

I said, okay.

What?

So I sit there.

And then I realized what was happening.

And the guy was going on.

Did you see that pass?

And he looked at me again and he said, Are you okay?

I said, Yeah, I'm fine.

Are you sure you're all right?

I mean, why aren't you jumping up?

Did you see that?

And I said, Yeah, I saw it.

Well, something's got to be wrong.

I said, No, nothing's wrong.

I'm just of English descent.

You know, we English, we're reserved.

You know, like the Irish.

I repeated it to him, like the Irish, have a quick temper.

We English are just reserved.

But I love it.

I really do.

And this guy, this guy was sitting there and he looked at me, and a little grin started right here, and it went all the way up to his ears, and he said, Pastor, I got it.

I've got it.

The thing is, if we could just come to the place where we could value what Jesus has done, we can value what God the Father has done in our lives.

If we can value that more than we can value football or television or whatever else we're interested in, that we can value him.

See, that's the thing.

When we begin to value the fact that the blood of Jesus liberated us from our sin, liberates us from our addictions, liberates us from depression, that we have freedom in him, that he has come, that we might have life and we might have it more abundantly, that he's come, that he might destroy the work of the enemy in our life, that we can be everything that God created us to be.

When we begin to realize that, when we begin to realize that, we get so excited we can't hold it in.

I gotta tell somebody.

But the heart of worship.

Teach people to hear God, to see God, to get excited over what God is doing in their own personal lives.

And then as personal worshipers, private worshipers, we can come together as a body like this, like you have, in this beautiful time of worship.

And you can come together and hang on because the presence of God will fall in such a way that God will begin to do things that there's no other explanation for it except that God did it.

You know what I'm saying?

And to me, that is worship.

True worship happens when we are continually impressed with who God is.

This is living much like children with a continual sense of ah.

Look at what God is doing.

Listen to what God is saying in this moment.

But we have this tendency to want to hold up and not do anything.

And God says, no, no.

When you have this revelation, the desire you have to smile and grin and clap your hands and tell someone, just go ahead and do it.

It's okay.

It is okay.

Judson Cornwall said this: worship is a natural response to an awareness of God's presence.

It's a natural response to the awareness of God's presence.

And A.

W.

Trozier wrote in a book on worship, he said this, that worship is feeling God with the heart.

So, what is our need then?

Our need is to have revelation.

What is spiritual revelation?

Spiritual revelation is a word that we get from God.

It's hard to explain, but it's something that goes off inside of us.

And we know when God has impressed us with something, we know that.

And that's what spiritual revelation is to me.

In Matthew chapter 4 and verse 4, Jesus answered Satan's charge and he said this.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So what we're seeing is that he's not saying that we don't need bread to live.

He's conferring that.

He's saying, yes, you need bread for your physical body.

But if you have bread only, all you're doing is existing.

You're existing like an animal if you only have bread.

But we really live because we're created in the image and the likeness of God.

We have to have the living word in order to really live.

I don't want to exist.

I don't know about you.

I don't want to just exist.

I want to live fully everything that God has given me to live for.

Don't you?

And so we have to have this living word.

The word that proceeds is the word rhema, not logos.

And rhema means spoken word.

A spoken word.

One of the commentaries that I read said that rhema is a word that breaks the silence of our heart.

It breaks the silence of our heart.

In other words, one moment we're depressed, one moment we're down, one moment we don't know sure what it is that God is wanting us to do.

And suddenly a word comes from the Spirit of God and speaks into our heart, and we have vision, we have hope, we're excited about where we're going because we've heard from God and we know if God spoke it to our heart, he can do it, and I get excited about it, and I want to respond to him, to his love.

Y'all follow?

It's that Rhema word.

Also in Matthew 16, he speaks this to the church.

When he says, Upon this rock, I will build my church.

What rock was he talking about?

Peter had just confessed to Jesus that he was Christ, the Son of the living God.

Everyone else was giving their idea about who Jesus was.

But now then Jesus says, Who do you say that I am, Peter?

Peter said, You're the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And he said, Peter, flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you.

But my Father who is in heaven revealed it to you.

And then that's when he says, Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

What was the rock?

The rock was the revelation word, the spirit of revelation to Peter's heart.

And because of that, he can make that declaration and could worship the living God.

To give you some idea of this, let me just take you back to Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

I really want to try to seal this in your heart by the Holy Spirit.

And Genesis chapter 1 is a tremendous illustration of what I'm talking about.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 1, verse 11.

Genesis 1:11

Then God said, Let the earth bring forth grass.

The herb that yields seed, the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth.

And it was so.

Let me ask you a question.

Who did God speak to?

He said, Let the earth.

And out of the earth comes the herbs and the seed-bearing plants.

What was the seed-bearing plants and the trees dependent on?

The earth.

Can't live apart from the earth.

It's planted in the earth.

Roots go down in the earth.

God spoke to the earth.

Out of the earth came the plants.

And the plants were then dependent for their sustenance on what God spoke to.

God spoke.

The earth brought it forth, and what was brought forth was dependent on what God spoke to.

The earth.

Y'all got that?

With that same principle, look at verse number 20.

Then God said, Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures.

So God again spoke to the water and said, Water, bring forth living creatures.

And it brought forth living creatures, fish, that you take the fish out of the water, and the fish can't live.

The fish is dependent upon what God spoke to for its existence, its sustenance, its life.

Y'all follow what I'm saying?

You with me?

The fish has got to have water.

Then he spoke to the air.

He said, Let birds fly above the earth, across the face of the firmament of the heavens, in the skies.

And the birds are dependent on the skies in order to be able to live.

They fly high.

They look down.

They take their prey.

They exist there where they couldn't exist other places.

They're dependent on the air to fly.

And then in verse number 24, God said, Let the earth, he speaks to the earth again, bring forth the living creature according to its kind.

Cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth, each according to his kind.

And it was so.

Guess what?

The cattle then were dependent on the earth.

God spoke to the earth, cattle came out of the earth, and as a result of that, they had to have the earth in order to live.

But notice in verse 26.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Oh.

Who did God speak to?

He didn't speak to the earth, like people try to tell us.

He didn't speak to the air.

He didn't speak to the water.

God spoke to himself.

And he said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.

And man came from God.

And because man came from God, our sustenance is in God.

Our spiritual being, who we really are, the essence of man must have God in order to sustain themselves and to live.

They must have God because we came from Him.

So if we have to have God, we must have every word.

His spirit, his word, His life, and we have to have every word that comes from God in order for us to really have life and to live.

That's the basis of worship.

So then, what do we do?

I mean, we know that we've got to have it.

How does revelation really come to us?

I want to close with this passage.

Look with me in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15.

Ephesians 1:15

Paul's prayer to the Ephesian church.

He says, Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith, Paul says to the Ephesians, in the Lord, Jesus, and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you and my prayers.

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, watch this.

This is his prayer request for the Ephesians, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Paul knew that they couldn't be the church without the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The eyes of your understanding, and this is how they got wisdom and revelation.

That the eyes of their understanding being enlightened that they might know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, that they might know.

He prayed that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened.

This word enlightened is an interesting word in the Greek.

It is photizo.

What does photizo sound like?

Photo.

Photizo, photo, photograph.

So here's the picture of it.

The picture is, at least in my generation, we had the old box cameras.

We didn't have these digital things.

But they work the same way.

But we have the old box camera, so you can think digital or boxy, whichever way you want to think.

And so you've got this box right here with the film in it, and it's closed up in darkness.

Let's no light whatsoever.

If it gets in, it exposes the film, right?

So then someone pushes the button.

You see what you want to take a picture of, and you push the button, and the little shutter flies open like that, just in a millisecond, shh, and closes.

In that shh moment, light goes into the film, right?

And impresses the film at the back of the box, and it's back in darkness again.

His prayer was that I want all of you to be like a camera.

I want you to all open your spirit, man, to the revelation of my spirit.

That's what you're going to live by.

That's what's going to cause you to go on.

I want you to be like a camera and be aware that I'm wanting to speak to you.

And in a moment, suddenly something happens.

Our spirit opens up like that.

And the light of God goes poop, poop inside.

I got something.

I got something.

I heard from the Lord over this matter.

What do you know, God?

I can hardly believe this.

And suddenly my eyes have been enlightened.

And now I know something because I've had a camera moment.

God pushed my button.

His prayer for the Ephesian church would be that God would push their button and light would come in.

And we'd see something.

Have a word.

My prayer for you is that you will have a word.

You will live with a word.

Worship comes from a continual exposure to the Spirit of God who wants to speak to your heart important things to you.

That there's no other way for you to know it.

And how do you know when you get a revelation?

I want to give you two reasons you know when you've gotten revelation.

Number one, you'll say, Why didn't I think of that?

Isn't that right?

And you'll say, What?

Why didn't I think of that?

And number two, there is a freshness to it.

It's fresher than anything else you've been hearing.

Said, wow, that is so refreshing.

And when you have that word, that is the basis of worship.

Would you stand with me?

I'd like to pray with you that you would have this same enlightenment of the eyes of your understanding that Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christian to have.

How many of you feel like you'd like to move to another level in hearing the Spirit of God to your heart?

How many of you would like to move to another level?

How many of you believe it's really necessary?

You do.

I know, I know.

Dear God, I come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ right now.

And I pray for every person in the sanctuary.

That, Lord, you would move them to another level, that there would be a sensitivity in their heart to the moving of the Holy Spirit.

Be open to the awareness of you speaking to them.

That God, you would move them to another level in this area.

God, that they would hear with new ears, that they would be alert.

That, God, that there would be this sense of waiting upon a word from you.

That whenever the word comes, Father, that you would let them recognize that it is a word from you, that it doesn't create any pride in their lives, that it's not opposed to your printed word.

It is not opposed to who you are.

It is not opposed to glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let them see that, Lord.

And let them be refreshed in the word that would just open up their heart to a fresh way of living and to an exciting life.

God, I pray for that anointing to come on them right now in the name of Jesus Christ.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, open the eyes of our understanding.

Open it now, Lord, where that every day we will be able to experience a word, an ongoing word, an ongoing revelation for your glory.

I pray in the name of Jesus.

In the name of Jesus.

Now just receive it.

Just receive this anointing.

Receive this awareness right now.

It is yours.

Receive it.

And all the people said,