Worship History | Ps. Lindsey Brenner

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

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Hello and welcome to Celebration Church.

My name is Lindsay.

I'm on staff here with the church.

And we have been in a series called Summer School.

Who's been enjoying summer school?

It's been awesome.

We've been able to deep dive into some incredible topics and do it more in a classroom setting instead of you know more teaching, less preaching.

So it's been very fun.

A quick couple of things about me.

Yes, if you've been wondering, I am pregnant.

So this is my public confirmation.

You don't have to feel weird if you see me.

I am pregnant with our fourth child, so pray for us.

We're uh going into our 12th year of marriage.

In fact, funny enough, last year I was on platform preaching, same time, and I said on stage that I was, it was we were celebrating 12 years, and I got through both services, and then afterwards, very softly and kindly, my husband was like, You know, it's only 11 years.

And I was like, You didn't correct me between first and second service.

So that was that's not true, but I'm confident that this next Sunday we will be celebrating 12 years.

Um pray for us because we are going into the major leagues with four kids, two boys, a girl, and this one on the way is also a girl.

So that will be fun.

Um, and also the worship team, I don't know if you noticed, but all of us are pregnant, so you're gonna need to pray for Vinny, who's gonna have to figure that out for the next couple of months as we're all in baby town.

So summer school.

Um, just like school, when we dive into topics and learn about things, oftentimes it opens up to us areas in which we can dive deeper.

And so I loved it for that reason.

I I left when Pastor Vinny preached, and I was like, wait, I gotta fill in some gaps here.

And so I've been learning and it's and it's opened up some hunger in spaces that I didn't fully understand.

So I hope it's having the same effect on you guys.

And in fact, we decided to provide a few resources so that you guys could also be equipped differently.

So you you may have seen the book resource table out in the lobby, we've mentioned it.

We also have a digital version of that same list for the people listening online, so you can scan that QR code and see that Amazon list of those books.

Also, we have the question jar out there in the lobby, and we have a digital way to submit as well.

And this is just if you have things that have popped up during these last few weeks of talking, or if you have questions or things you've always pondered about the Bible and faith, ask away.

We we for for sure have not arrived, but we would love to be on journey with you and talk to you about things that maybe you're wondering.

Also, um, tomorrow night, we have our first ever live audience edition of our podcast called After the Message Live.

So we're gonna record at the office with a live audience and um have questions, dialogue, discussion.

It's gonna be really awesome because in Sunday morning you can't really have the discussion component.

So that will be tomorrow night.

If you want to sign up and be there, please sign up.

Okay, so I went to college um originally for architecture, and I did a couple of years, and then I realized by God's prompting that he was leading me to worship, and I did not know what you do for that collegiately.

I don't even know if that's a word.

But I ended up entering, um going to a college for theology, and my focus was specifically on worship.

So I went through a few years of learning Old Testament, New Testament worship, words of worship, Hebrew, Greek.

I got to do the full dive.

And during this time, um, I realized not only did was God leading me towards worship, but there was so much to unpack, and it really just enlivened in me a passion for worship.

So passion, so worship is is and will always be my passion.

I've been in a lot of different areas of creative and graphics or whatever, and I love it, but it's not my passion.

Worship is my passion.

Um, so this morning, when I had an opportunity to decide what are we gonna talk about, I was like, well, I want to talk about worship.

So that's what we're gonna do.

I titled today worship history.

So class is in session.

Okay, so we're gonna start with this simple question.

And in a class format, I want to hear from you guys.

Don't be shy.

Let me hear, you don't have to raise your hand, but you can.

That's fine.

But let me hear you, um, we're gonna start with the simple question.

What is worship?

Acknowledging.

Okay, what else?

Reverence.

I don't even know if I'm spelling this right.

Reverend.

Surrender, these are great.

Anything else?

Okay, adoration.

These are awesome.

It's always when you have to write for people that you question everything.

Okay, this is a great start.

Worship history.

What is worship?

If you ask, you will get a lot of varying answers from anybody you ask today.

That was no different in the Bible.

If you were to ask somebody in the Bible, what is worship, you were gonna get a different answer, depending on where they fell into the timeline of God revealing himself through worship.

So this morning, what I would love to do is talk through that.

This timeline.

Okay, so I've created a chart, and you'll see that as we unpack and ask a few central characters or central figures of the faith this same question, what is worship?

We're gonna see a pattern where they're gonna there's going to be a description of worship of where to worship, the place of worship, the type of sacrifice that happens in worship, and then the priesthood or priest that um we'll explain what priest is, but the priest and priesthood of worship.

You're gonna see that common thread through these different central figures.

And we're gonna go chronological, Old Testament to New Testament.

Don't worry, we're not gonna ask everybody, but we are gonna ask a few important figures.

Um, and so we're gonna start with all the way back in the Old Testament, with drum roll, please.

Abraham.

Abraham.

Okay, so Abraham, when asked what is worship regarding place, we see Abraham worshiping through what was referred to as an altar.

Okay, Abraham worshiped at an altar, that was his place of worship, because God would would would reveal himself to Abraham.

And in these revelations, God would not only reveal a part of who he is, a part of his character, a title, maybe provider or healer or something along those lines, he would reveal who he was to Abraham, and then to mark and memorialize these encounters, then Abraham would build an altar out of stone to mark that place.

That would then be the place in where he worshiped.

Um so in this relationship, before God meets Abraham, he doesn't know about the true and living God.

It requires an encounter.

And then Abraham responds by building an altar.

Abraham also had an encounter with God multiple times.

So these encounters happened in multiple places.

Altars were built in multiple locations, but they were very specific.

So what I mean by that is God revealed himself to Abraham, this altar was made.

That became a specific place of worship.

It didn't change, okay, based on those moments of revelation.

They were marked, memorialized.

Um, a couple of examples of this that we see in the Bible is actually God first revealing himself to Abraham in Genesis 12.

Abraham builds an altar to the Lord after God reveals who he is, calls him, and says, Go, take your family, go to a land that I will show you.

And then he promises, gives him a promise of future descendants and land.

That's another characteristic that we see when God reveals there is also oftentimes a word of promise or instruction.

Okay?

Then later in Genesis 22, we see that Abraham is in a moment where he is being asked to sacrifice his son, and God provides an animal in place of that, revealing to Abraham in this moment that God is God provider.

I am God provider for you.

So he gives Abraham a promise and a blessing about his future descendants.

Abraham builds a stone altar and this mark and memorializes this moment of worship.

Got it?

Okay.

And I hope, I hope this is, does this make sense really quickly?

I hope for those people who like organized organized charts and lists and graphs, this will help you.

Um I'm visual, so this is hopefully gonna take us somewhere.

Um, something I'd like to say is in the reason why we're gonna go through these different categories is that when we focus on what worship was, it will help us unlock later a deeper and more complex, complete understanding of what worship is for us today.

So these systems, understanding these people's context of worship will really help us see what the true answer of worship is today.

So we're going somewhere, so buckle up with me.

Okay, so everybody got it?

Stone, multiple locations, but very specific.

Moving on to sacrifices.

Okay, and sacrifice during for Abraham, he wash worshiped God through animal sacrifices.

Okay, why animal sacrifices?

Rachel referenced it and we had a good laugh because I was like, did you read my notes?

Like, what's happening here?

You are giving them a preview.

But animal sacrifice, to understand this more, you have to go back to Genesis 3.

Adam and Eve, they sin.

The fall of man happens, sin enters the world and it infects everything in God's divine creation.

So, in response to that, what we see is that God, as soon as man sins, sets into motion a means in which to redeem this man.

After they sin, they feel shame, they realize their humanity, and they realize that they're naked.

So, what God does is he provides for them physical clothing himself.

But in this interaction, we also see that he provides spiritual covering as well.

And it's very symbolic in nature.

So we're gonna read Genesis 3, 21 together.

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

It does not say that God found a sheep, sheared it, wove garments of wool, and clothed them.

It says he covered them with the skin of an animal, which means, and you guys can respond, the animal had to die.

This introduces for the first time in scripture this concept of atonement, covering the sin and sinner through the death of an innocent substitute.

Because sin fractures our relationship with God.

But atonement brings us back into right relationship with Him.

So God clothed the sinner, covered their sin in shame, and this satisfied the required justice with a substitute.

God put this into motion, not man.

God initiated this.

He provided, chose the animal, killed the animal, and covered the sinners.

This is actually the first recorded death in the world.

And this is why and how animal sacrifice came into play as an act of atonement and worship.

So now, by this time, when Abraham comes along, animal sacrifice has been passed down as a means of worship and atonement for a while.

Um, so that's why for Adam, for Abraham, we see that animal sacrifice was how he worshipped God at the altars he built, but that God initiated and established.

Another component of these animal sacrifices is that they were clean and pure, sometimes firstborn.

Um, but that was a common theme.

All right, moving on to priesthood.

Before we talk about priesthood, let's define what a priest is.

Priests were responsible to represent God to the people and people to God.

So they were the mediators to bring people into fellowship with God and to help people worship God properly.

For Abraham, during this time, it was called the patriarchal period, which meant that the fathers were responsible to lead the family and all things pertaining to God and worshiping him.

So fathers, animal sacrifice, stone altars, specific locations, but you saw them in multiple locations.

So, Abraham, what is worship?

It's God revealing himself to me, choosing to engage with me, and I respond by building an altar to God in these specific places, sacrificing animals on the altars, and leading my family to worship and engage with God the same way.

That would be his response.

Alright, you ready for next up?

Alright, in the timeline, this has been about seven hundred years.

Okay, if you want to know.

So he understood and practiced very similar things to what Abraham practiced.

But then it shifts, we see this shift right after the Israelites are delivered from their slavery in Egypt.

So as soon as the Exodus happens, um, there is a moment where God calls Moses to Mount Sinai and he goes up and he has an encounter with God.

Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

Ten Commandments.

Apparently, there's a movie with Charles, I don't know the guy's name, but I've never seen it, but apparently that is what people visualize when they think about this moment.

Um in this encounter, something very unique happens.

So God reveals to Moses a vision of a heavenly temple, of what God's dwelling place is.

And then he instructs Moses to build him an earthly version of this so that God could bring heaven to earth and live among his people.

That was his desire.

So in Exodus 25, 8, it says, Let them construct a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell among them.

But, I'm sorry, I thought I cleared my throat before this and it's not happening.

I'm pregnant and passionate and nervous.

So here, this is what you get.

Um, but because they're in the wilderness, they're on a journey to the promised land.

So God is instructing them to build an earthly dwelling place for God.

That sounds like quite the challenge because they're on journey, they're moving.

So talk about the first mobile church.

We know it well here at Celebration Orlando.

Um, thankfully, it's only been 10 years thus far.

They had to deal with this for 40 years.

Um, but yeah, so what we see here is what God instructs them to build is something called a tabernacle.

The tabernacle was a tent and it moved.

It was mobile, okay?

So in this tent version of, this became a tent version of what the vision was that God downloaded to Moses.

Um, even though it was mobile and it moved along, there was a it was a very specific place.

It worship had to be done within the tabernacle.

And the blueprints for this tabernacle were given to Moses from God during that encounter.

And you can read, and if you want to, some light reading or falling asleep material.

Exodus 25 through 31 unpacks an exhaustive list of details of how this tabernacle was supposed to be built.

Types of materials to use, who was supposed to build it, what was to be placed inside, where to put it.

And there was details about how to interact with it, what room you certain people could go with, go into, the in how they could engage it, when they could engage it, what days, what they had to wear when they went there.

It's long and detailed and exhaustive.

Talk about a mobile church, talk about a setup team.

Um, they had to break that down and do it the right way because the people who did not manage it the right way, um, there were bad sacr there were bad um incidences recorded in the Bible.

So if you want to read that, that's also found in those scriptures.

So another very tedious portion of worship within this system was their sacrifices.

Oh wait, before I do that.

Um no, I'm gonna wait for that.

Um another important really tedious part of their worship was through sacrifices.

Once again, we're seeing a progression of definition, and so animal sacrifices were still indeed the means of worship and atonement.

However, now we are seeing it expand based on the revelation that God downloaded to Moses, and there are five types of sacrifices.

This list of sacrifices is equally as exhaustive and detailed as the construction and specifications of the tabernacle.

This list includes who can sacrifice, when, what, when, why, all the answers, but because um, and there were certain days that things could happen.

And but because this was so detailed, so exhaustive, there had to be some people who was going to be responsible for the setup and breakdown, for the management of the sacrifice team, for the management of the cleanup crew of the sacrifice team.

And so that leads me to who.

Oh wait, I forgot these couple of guys.

Still clean and pure, but exhausting details, okay?

So that's gonna lead me to who is responsible for all of these things.

And what we see is no longer is it a father figure, but now we need a whole tribe to manage it, okay?

So when the Israelites were broken down into 12 divided tribes or camps, and they surrounded the tabernacle on their journey to the promised land.

God appointed one of those tribes, called the Levites, to be responsible for mediating the details, descriptions, and specifications on behalf of the people to God and God to the people.

Okay, so these precise instructions needed to be learned, observed, absorbed, and really managed well so their life stayed intact.

Um, that was a very great privilege to be a Levi, but it was also a huge responsibility.

And the last thing, quick note for those who know that there are, there was a temple built.

I'll explain so that this part is still here within the Mosaic period, is once the Israelites made it to the Promised Land, once they raised enough money for their all hands building campaign and could build, they built a permanent location and they called it the temple.

Okay?

Um list of exhaustive specifications, same sacrifice, all this stuff, furniture pieces, you're gonna see very same similar stuff in the temple.

The only difference is now this very specific, specific location is no longer mobile, but it is now permanent.

Okay?

Everything else looks the same.

Okay, so what is worship Moses?

It's exhausting, he would say.

I mean, it's exhaustive in order to worship this holy God, in order for him to be able to bring heaven to Earth, dwell amongst his people, it's gonna take a whole tribe to figure it out, to manage the exact requirements and specifications from God.

And only a few people can even get close to God in this system on certain days, doing certain tasks, wearing certain clothes.

So everything we've seen in this timeline in the Old Testament is to do with engaging in worship, is executed execution related and performing tasks with a lot of details.

Everybody, let's deep sigh together.

Breathe out.

I need it more than anything because I have limited lung capacity.

Also, something we see from Eden till now with Moses is that we see that God continually finds ways in which to be present and engaged with his people, even through sin and humanity.

He's finding ways.

How can I dwell?

How can I be with my people?

Okay, we're gonna move on to the New Testament.

You guys ready?

Okay.

The New Testament, before we get there, I want to unpack one concept that I kind of put together, this idea of building blocks.

It helps me because once again I'm visual and I think maybe I have duplos on the mind or something.

But building blocks, when we get up to the New Testament, I want to make something clear.

The Bible does not go from error to truth, okay?

From Old Testament to New Testament.

It does, however, go from incompleteness to completeness, okay?

So for example, it doesn't go from law to grace because there will always be the law of God.

There will always be a need for justice.

And there's always been grace.

We see that with God putting into motion atonement, okay?

There's there's not, it's not one without the other.

It is the us reveal God revealing the complete picture, okay?

So in the beginning, when I said understanding these three categories in the Old Testament would unlock a deeper, more meaningful, complete definition of what worship is for us today, that is because this timeline is showing to us this revelation, this progression of revelation to understand the fullness of what worship is today.

All right, so that takes looking back all the way to Genesis.

Now, these three categories for sure have deep meaning to us today.

We can't ignore that they existed.

And I'm gonna show you why.

Okay, let's figure out together.

Now entering this the scene is our final central figure of discussion that we will be interviewing and asking what is worship, and that is Jesus Himself.

This is the good part.

Um, okay, so now entering the scene is Jesus, and once again, reminding you this progression of worship, the definition of worship.

When when Jesus arrives, he is born into a Jewish household.

His his parents take him to the temple.

He engages in synagogue and he observes feasts and festivals and sacrifices.

He is part of the observation of the mosaic period, if you will, of worship.

Okay?

So that he does that is still in existence.

But now that we see him in the final three years of his ministry, right before crucifixion and the cross, he's gonna come and unpack the next and final building blocks to bring full revelation to this picture, the full complete picture of what is worship.

So, Jesus, what is worship?

This is where we're gonna get into the Bible.

The beginning part, I wanted to give you kind of a picture and a quick summary.

I promise you it's all scripture.

Go back and look for it yourself to confirm, because that's a good practice to do.

But all of this was a quick summary so you guys could see these themes.

Now we're going to look at a lot of scriptures.

Okay, so Jesus, what is worship?

Um, and when we dive into these scriptures, we're gonna see some pretty provocative things that Jesus says and establishes about worship and how he both figuratively and literally flips over everybody's expectations of what is to come.

So in the first category, place of worship, the Jews of this time, was very aware of a prophecy that there would be a new temple.

So there were some temples in this process once the permanent location of God's dwelling place was created.

And at this period, when Jesus is living, there's a prophecy of a new temple to come.

What they're thinking, based on their very limited understanding, is that this new temple is going to be a physical location and that it's just gonna be grander and more awesome than the previous ones.

Okay?

So that's kind of what their mind is for the, I guess, the new installment of what the place of worship is going to be.

Um, but after, in this scene that I just referenced about Jesus flipping tables, um, in this moment we hear something very different from Jesus about what the place of worship is.

So this is right when he clears the temple, he's mad at them for turning his father's house into a marketplace.

John 2, 18 through 22, let's jump into that and read that together.

So the Jewish leaders demanded, What are you doing?

If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.

All right, Jesus replied, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

What?

They exclaimed, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you can rebuild it in three days.

But when Jesus said this temple, he meant his own body.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the scriptures and what Jesus had said.

So a brand new installment here is no longer is this going to be a physical location, but the new temple is Jesus Himself.

Not what anybody expected at all.

It took 26, sorry, 46 years to make the previous one.

How are you gonna do it in three days?

And he is giving them a foreshadowing of his death and resurrection.

I am the new temple, he says.

And later in John 4, we see the moment where he encounters the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman at the well, and she's asking Jesus, where am I supposed to worship?

Because Jews are saying, I have to worship in the temple, but I'm Samaritan and we don't have a temple.

So where, Jesus, where am I supposed to worship?

So in John 4, 20, the woman says, Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is Jerusalem.

Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know.

We were we worship what we do know, for salvation is coming from the Jews.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship worship the Father and in spirit and truth.

For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth.

The woman said, I know that, she said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming.

And when he comes, he will explain everything to us.

Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you, I am he.

So right there, we see that there is no physical temple.

And thankfully, to this Samaritan woman who wants to worship, now she can find out she finds out that she can worship anywhere.

And how different, how completely different everybody thought this was gonna be.

So this last final installment of the place of worship, now because through salvation we accept Jesus, he then becomes the temple living within us, and we carry his temple.

So we are his temples walking on earth.

So carriers, we are the carriers.

No longer are we permanently, like we don't have to stay permanently stuck.

We move, we move about the world, and we are the temples.

So the final building block makes it very clear that when we ask Jesus, Jesus, where do we worship?

He says, anywhere.

There's no place to go.

Wherever you go, I am with you.

You can worship me there.

Done.

All right.

Now in the area of sacrifice.

Jesus, how do we worship you?

How do we sacrifice?

What are our sacrifices?

I'm just gonna read Hebrews 10, and I think it does justice.

I don't need to say anything more.

So Hebrews 10, we're gonna start on verse 1.

The old system, under the law of Moses, was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves.

The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year.

If they could have provided a perfect cleansing, the sacrifices, sorry, I skipped, but they were never to be able to provide a perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.

If they could have provided a worship perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once and for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year.

For it's not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

That is why when Christ came into the world, he said to God, so this is Christ speaking, you did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings, but you have given me a body to offer.

You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.

And then Jesus says, Look, I've come to do your will, O God, as it is written about me in scriptures.

So first Christ says, You don't want animal sacrifices, sin offerings, burnt offerings, other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them, though they were required by the law of Moses.

And then he says, Look, God, I come to do your will.

He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect.

For God's will was for God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Christ once and for all time.

Period.

Then down on in in verse 17, it says, Then he says, I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.

And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

So what we see here, how do we worship?

How do we what do we sacrifice?

Nothing.

Jesus did it.

Once and for all.

It is finished.

It is done.

Could you imagine people hearing that?

Who had to do all of this?

Wait, what?

There's no more requirements for me?

It's done.

Jesus, perfect and blameless.

That representation of the atonement that was put into effect in in the in Eden.

The perfect substitute for us.

So Jesus, how do we worship?

What are our sacrifices?

He would say, nothing is required except me.

You can worship with offerings, but that only comes from your heart.

There are no requirements.

It is done.

So when we we talk about our bodies being living sacrifices, when we talk about offerings, that's a response from our heart.

We are not required because Jesus did it once and for all.

Lastly, is the priesthood.

And just as Jesus here is the final temple, he's also the final sacrificed, he's also the final high priest.

And we're gonna look at Hebrews 4, 14 through 16.

So then, since we have a great high priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.

This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings as we do.

Yet he did not sin.

So let us come boldly to the throne of God, throne of our gracious God.

There we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Jesus, the high priest.

Nothing more.

We now have full access.

Something that no one ever had before through Jesus.

When Jesus gives us full access to God through salvation, accepting Him, we then carry His presence with us.

And actually all believers are now considered priests as well, because there's no need for an intermediate anymore between us and God.

Jesus intercedes on our behalf, and we get to carry his presence through the Holy Spirit.

So if we were gonna say, who then Jesus is responsible?

Who is the priest?

He would say, no one else is responsible to connect you to God.

No one.

Not your mom, not the pastor, not the worship leader.

We are all the same.

Just like the Levites, though, it's not only a great privilege, but a huge responsibility because nobody else can do it for you.

Nobody.

In Jesus' fulfillment now of place, sacrifice, and priests, we get to experience the fullness of God and his presence dwelling among us, within us, completely in real right relationship with him today and every day.

So, what is worship?

What we asked at the beginning, what is worship?

This is worship.

These are the final building blocks that we get to live in today.

Amen.

Thank you, Jesus.

So, why then do we find ourselves requiring a temple, a certain place that we have to go to encounter God, or a specific song or a certain setless in order to feel his presence?

Or why do we feel like we need a certain experience or a person or a sermon or a specific day of the week?

We don't.

We have full access.

Why do we limit our limitless access to God?

Don't we realize our cars are temples?

Our cubicles are temples.

These simple, monotonous, everyday moments of our lives can be completely filled with the presence of the true and living God, the creator of the universe.

So when I'm sitting down on the playroom floor, building duplos with my kids, wiping snotty noses for the hundredth time that day, God is there.

His presence can fill that place completely.

Or when I'm walking down the grocery aisle looking for good bogos for the week, also God is there, and his presence can fill that place.

He is there dwelling within us, he's accessible at any point, and he desires to be in complete relationship with us.

Since the beginning of time, even when our sin got in the way, he carved out a plan for redemption and then fulfilled that plan even unto death.

When we get to live in this way, our awareness of his presence completely shifts.

And rather waiting for an experience of worship on a Sunday morning or a day of the week or someone to lead us, we get to lead ourselves into his presence and go boldly before him.

They had no idea what boldly going before him meant.

They couldn't.

Now we can.

So yes.

Worship is acknowledging reverence, praise, surrender, adoration, gratitude.

Worship is all of these things.

Because worship is every day.

It's where we go, it's within us.

We're gonna go into a moment where we're gonna sing a song.

And funny enough, we haven't talked about the music side of worship at all this morning.

It didn't need to be talked about.

But this specific song had been kind of ruminating in my mind this week, and then um it ended up on the set list, not by my prompting.

So that either reflects the fact that we have a good relationship, Vinny and myself, and we were in sync, or the sovereignty of God.

But nonetheless, this song, the lyrics of it really beautifully, I believe, unpack this understanding of this progression of revelation of what worship actually is.

These things didn't go away, but they were fulfilled.

So in this song, my encouragement to you is that look at the lyric, read them, allow God to open that space up, that understanding, that revelation within you, and respond.

But guess what?

Only you can choose to engage, not us.

That's your choice to engage with God.

But he's here, he wants to meet with you, and how beautiful would it be if an entire congregation of believers individually chose to engage the presence of God this morning together.

I'm gonna pray.

God, thank you so much.

Wow, thank you, God, for opening up our eyes, for revealing to us since the beginning of time, your desire to dwell and live among your people, among us.

And even when our sin got in the way, even when our humanity gets in the way, God, you provided a final and complete sacrifice through your Son to restore us and to right relationship with you.

And now, wherever we go, whatever we're doing, you don't see us in our sin.

You see Jesus in his sacrifice.

We accept that.

God, I pray that this revelation we will walk in tomorrow out of this room with God.

That we wouldn't stay in this mindset of it has to be a specific day or a place or a person has to do it for us, God, but we would take this revelation with us into our work lives, our marriages, our families, our friendships, that encounters with people, even disagreements.

We can carry your presence in that.

And we choose to be the temples of your Holy Spirit.

Thank you, God, for this access.

Now, this morning, if you are someone who's hearing about this relationship with God, that you can constantly be with him and have full access to him through the sacrifice of his son.

If you are sitting in this room right now and not quite sure if you have that, or you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a gift for you as well.

So if you're sitting in your seat right now and you want that, you desire that relationship with him, I'm just gonna say a prayer.

You don't have to raise your hands.

This is between you and God.

I'm gonna say a prayer and you can kind of repeat it in your heart.

God, thank you for your gift of your son to bring me into right relationship with you.

God, I acknowledge my need for you.

I acknowledge that my sin in humanity has separated me from you.

So today I believe in your son as the final and complete sacrifice.

I accept it.

And from this day forward, I commit to following in your ways, to making you the Lord of my life for all the days ahead.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Let's worship.

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