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🎧 Episode 40 — Costly Worship - #Faith4TodayPodcast · #Faith4TodayPodcast

• 0:00
  The prophetic is operated, its purpose, its design is to re
• 0:05
  engage the heart of God's people in union back with God.
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  Also, worship has a way of causing us to take our emotions,
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  to take our preferences, to take how we feel in the moment, to
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  leave our worry aside, to kill our pride, to offer a sacrifice
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  of praise that reconnects us, reorients us, reunites us with
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  the Father. Welcome to another episode of
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  the Faith for Today podcast. My name is Matthew, I'm your
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  host, and today we are in episode #40 talking about costly
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  worship as we examine John chapter 12.
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  Our hope and prayer today in this episode is that you would
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  walk away not only with inspiration from the truths of
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  Scripture, but able to integrate it into your everyday life of
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  faithfulness and loyalty to King Jesus.
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  Listen, we we're going to recap a message.
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  I'm going to share some bonus content and then respond to
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  three questions that we have this week.
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  Now to let you know kind of what's coming.
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  I'm going to be talking about John 12 today.
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  Even though the sermon that we preached that that this is
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  podcast is launching deeper into is based on John 12 and John 13.
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  I'm going to do John 12 this week.
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  And then in episode 41, I'm going to talk about John 13 and
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  the idea of humbly serving and caring for others, that the
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  service that we give to the body of Christ ministering to each
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  other. Today we're talking about costly
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  worship and we're talking about what it means to a minister to
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  the Lord and pour out our love and our worship towards him.
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  In the sermon, we looked at one of the most powerful and really
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  a beautiful moment in John's gospel.
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  It's when Mary anoints the feet of Jesus.
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  Now, in Jewish culture, feet lowly, dirty, and even
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  dishonorable. And yet Mary doesn't hesitate.
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  She humbles herself, kneels at Jesus's feet, and pours out a
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  year's worth of costly perfume. She honors him not as a king in
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  worldly power, but as the suffering servant who's about to
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  give his life as a ransom. It's a striking reminder that
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  true worship always flows out of humility.
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  And real humility it will. It cost us something.
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  What Mary does is really extravagant.
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  It's sacrificial worship. And that's really the point.
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  King David once said, I will not offer the Lord anything that
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  that doesn't cost me something. Mary's devotion wasn't about
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  paying Jesus back. It wasn't about it was really
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  about giving him her. Best.
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  But John contrasts her with Judas, with this version of
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  religion that Judas had that kind of was masked in his greed,
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  kind of behind false concern for for the poor.
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  In fact, pride has a way of doing that.
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  It pollutes our best intentions, turning virtues into vice,
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  humility into offense, generosity into self-interest.
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  Mary's act of worship breaks every cultural expectation that
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  there would have been. She goes beyond hospitality,
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  beyond what's socially acceptable, and offers Jesus
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  something beautiful and prophetic.
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  An expression that says you alone are worthy.
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  You alone are the ones who's come to save.
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  You are the lone, are anointed as king.
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  And that's what worship is. It's costly, it's humble, it's
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  it's honoring to God. It's not about appearances.
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  It's about it's not about checking the right boxes.
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  It's about pouring out our lives in devotion and affection to the
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  One who poured out His life for us.
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  All right, let's get into some bonus content.
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  One of the first things I want to mention is that in John 12 in
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  verse one, it gives kind of a time frame of when this.
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  Encounter happened, right? It's after.
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  Lazarus has been raised from the dead.
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  It's also before kind of the the Last Supper.
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  And so there's this period of time.
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  In fact, it says that this event of Jesus having his feet
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  anointed with oil and washed with with or dried with with
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  Mary's hair, that Mary does this beautiful act that happened six
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  days before Passover. Now Passover was a festival of
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  liberation, of sacrifice, of remembrance of God's
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  deliverance. And I think the fact that the
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  fragrance was filling the house kind of contrast this stench
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  between John 11 when when Lazarus tomb was smelly and
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  awful. And here this moment where now
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  there is life in Lazarus life and Jesus is about to go to the
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  cross himself. And so the in preparation for
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  his burial, here we have this beautiful fragrance that brings
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  about fresh life because it signals life overcoming death.
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  A fitting prelude, if you will, to the cross and the
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  resurrection that were to come. And the the the costly perfume
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  kind of echoes the cost of a Passover lamb set apart as
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  precious, soon to be sacrificed. The the idea of how they
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  celebrated Passover was not a cheap affair.
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  It it cost them something to even celebrate and remember the
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  Passover. And so even in their celebration
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  of Thanksgiving and remembrance, there was a cost that it was
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  like, like that animal could have been food for them.
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  That animal could have been sold, that animal could have
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  provided many things. Yet they took it in a moment of
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  celebration, of, of remembrance, of real worship, and they, they
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  offered it in celebration and Thanksgiving to God in
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  remembrance. And so this idea of Passover as
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  the backdrop to what Mary was doing at the feet of Jesus is
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  kind of a beautiful, kind of a side note, kind of a bonus kind
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  of look at what was happening. An interplay of all of the
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  scriptures coming together to kind of paint a beautiful,
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  beautiful picture here in this moment of worship and sacrifice
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  of extravagance that Mary was bringing.
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  Another element, kind of of a kind of a backdrop, if you will,
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  to the to the cultural understanding is, is that this
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  particular culture and the ancient Near East culture, it's
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  an honor shame culture. Here you have Judas criticizing
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  Mary for wastefulness. In an honor shame culture,
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  public opinion matters deeply and a waste of wealth could
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  bring kind of a sense of dishonor not only to her, but to
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  her house and to those that were even witnessing the ACT.
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  But Jesus defends Mary, reframing her actions as
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  actually honorable worship, kind of aligned with God's purpose in
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  this moment, not human measures of efficiency there.
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  But there are things that feel like, well, that's not
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  practical, that's not efficient, that's not worth it.
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  Well, it kind of goes against the grain.
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  In fact, I think that one of the realities of following Jesus and
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  being formed in the ways of Jesus means that the speed at
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  which our culture runs is not the rhythm and the pace that
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  love is formed in our lives. I don't think that we can be
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  formed by love at a fast pace. I think we have to slow down.
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  We have to do some things that are counter intuitive if we're
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  going to align with the purposes of God.
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  They're going to often require a reframing and a reforming of the
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  way in which we operate and live in our in our culture.
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  And what Mary does is kind of flips the cultural script.
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  What looks shameful, a woman breaching the norms, pouring out
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  wealth, even letting her hair down was actually seen as true
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  honor in this moment in in God's Kingdom.
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  She risked ridicule in honored in order to honor Jesus.
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  And I think that there is kind of an interesting tension there.
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  I don't think that it's upsetting cultural norms just to
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  upset cultural norms and be like anti establishment, but but
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  rather being willing to risk going against the grain of
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  normalcy in order to still honor Jesus.
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  I think that's kind of what we do.
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  I think that's a little bit of being a prophetic people that
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  the people of God are called to be that there are moments in
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  time where we go against the cultural norm in order to honor
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  Jesus as king. We we go against the grain of
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  what would be expected or anticipated in a way of honoring
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  Jesus and in worshipping him. I think those things are there.
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  That doesn't mean it's always counter cultural, but often it
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  is. Mary does this beautiful act of
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  of pouring out perfume, worshipping and adoring Jesus,
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  kind of doting on him a little bit.
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  But it's this prophetic act, an act to declare you are the
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  suffering servant, you are the anointed 1, you are the king and
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  was pointing to God with rich, rich devotion.
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  I think that's what worship does.
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  Worship points us prophetically to who Jesus is.
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  It connects our heart back to him.
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  I think when we talk about prophetic, it's not just
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  predictive elements. All throughout the Old
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  Testament, even in the predictive prophecies, they were
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  at its root meant to draw people back to the heart of God, back
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  to real worship, honor and following Yahweh, draw them back
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  into covenant obedience in keeping with the covenant of
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  Yahweh. And so anytime the prophetic is
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  operated, its purpose, its design is to re engage the heart
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  of God's people, any union back with God.
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  So worship has a way of causing us to take our emotions, to take
• 10:35
  our preferences, to take how we feel in the moment, to leave our
• 10:38
  worry aside, to kill our pride, to offer a sacrifice of praise
• 10:43
  that reconnects us, reorients us, reunites us with the Father.
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  That's what worship does. So worship is a bit of that
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  prophetic act that that reorients us and re engages us
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  with with Lord. I think ministering to the Lord
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  in our worship is really a a prophetic act.
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  It points others even to the only one who's worthy of such
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  expression and extravagant affection.
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  Like the song that we sing, the expressions with our bodies,
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  that the way we live our life, the the liturgy that we live
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  out. Like all of this is meant to be
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  an expression of affection to God.
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  It is an extravagant expression to God that others would look at
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  and be like that feels a little ridiculous, feels a little
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  overkill. It doesn't feel like that's
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  necessary. Well, I think it's necessary
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  because he's worth it. Worship, at the end of the day,
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  is describing and ascribing worth and value to God in who he
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  is, what He's done, and what he's all about.
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  His purposes, His life, his character, his, His essence.
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  He's worth it. And we talk about worship today.
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  I think it's important to know that the Bible talks about
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  worship as more than singing. However, it's not less than
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  singing either. Worship is more than just
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  singing songs, but it's not less than that either.
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  In fact, Romans 12 talks about this, this living liturgy, if
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  you will. It says it in Romans 12/1.
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  It says, therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of
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  God's mercy, I urge you to present your body as a living
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  sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
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  This is your true worship. And then he talks about not
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  being conformed to the patterns of the world, but be transformed
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  into a new way of living, a new way of being human, a new way of
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  representing God on the earth in a way that is pleasing and good
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  and wonderful in the will of God.
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  And So what we have linked here in Romans 12 is a is kind of a,
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  an understanding that your whole being, your everyday life, your
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  ordinary existence is worship to God.
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  When you offer it up to him as a means of grace, as you a means
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  of, of encountering his grace of his presence as as you OfferUp
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  your life as a way of, of honoring God all throughout the
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  New Testament. And you see, we don't work to
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  show ourselves approved unto man, but rather we work to be
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  pleasing to God because man isn't our boss.
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  God is our boss. We're we're doing as everything
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  unto the Lord Colossians says so we take our everyday normal life
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  and and we live it as a liturgy of of worship and ascribing
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  value and honor and understanding of of trust in God
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  of worship to God of honor to God.
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  We have this phrase we want to live a God honoring life.
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  What is that? That's your life is worship.
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  So yes, everything in our life is connected to worship.
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  How we study scripture, how we treat other people, how we value
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  the things that God values, how we live with character that and
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  integrity that reflects God himself and reflect those
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  things. All of that.
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  What what is that? That's living your life as a
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  pleasing sacrifice and aroma and a fragrance to God.
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  This is how the Bible talks about worship, sacrifice,
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  pleasing to God, holy, acceptable sacrifice,
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  sacrificing. This is all biblical language
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  for worship. Now it's also though expressed
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  with our words so, so it is still singing, but it's also
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  more than singing. Psalms 100 and verse 4 says
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  enter his gates with Thanksgiving, come into his
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  courts with praise, give thanks to him and bless his name.
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  How do how do you bless someone's name?
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  I think you, you speak well of it.
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  You even just say Lord, I bless who you are, I bless your name.
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  You are Yahweh, you are God, you are Savior, you are King, you
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  are Lord, you are I bless your name, I speak well of your name,
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  I exalt your name. So what is Psalms telling you?
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  That with your words and with your mouth, you praise and honor
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  God and that's how you get into His presence.
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  Where is God? He's enthroned.
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  How do we enter into the throne room?
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  With Thanksgiving and with praise.
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  That's how we get in. That's that.
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  That what gives us entrance to the very space where God, God
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  is. So there is an understanding
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  that in song, in worship, in praise, we are coming into a
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  place of God. But the same is true with our
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  everyday life. The presence of God goes with
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  us. We can experience him.
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  We know he's there. And when we take our normal
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  everyday life and offer it up to God as worship, there is
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  something hallowed and pleasing to God that He receives our life
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  as worship to Him. So worship is more than singing,
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  but it's not less than singing. Hebrews 13 verse 15 says this.
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  Therefore, through Him talking about Jesus, let us continually
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  OfferUp to God a sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of our
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  lips giving thanks or confessing His name.
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  So Hebrews is giving us instructions.
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  The New Testament is giving us instruction to continually
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  OfferUp to God a sacrifice. That is praise, work That is
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  praise. That is what is praise that is a
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  sacrifice. It's the fruit of our lips that
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  confess His name. So when we speak well of His
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  name, when we come and extol him, when we are singing songs
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  about God to God, we are praising Him for what He's done.
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  I do think there's a difference between praise and worship.
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  Praise is a song that describes what God has done.
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  Testimony songs, songs about his faithfulness, songs about how
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  he's come through, songs about how he delivers like it's what
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  God has done. Worship is songs that are about
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  his character, about his name, about his worthiness.
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  So when we talk about what God has done, that's praise.
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  When we talk about who God is, that's worship.
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  So, so praise doesn't mean fast song and worship means slow
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  song. Praise is about celebrating,
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  remembering, singing about what he's done.
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  Worship is singing and describing and ascribing worth
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  to his name, who he is, his character, his nature.
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  So praise and worship are a part of our lives.
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  And so here's Hebrews saying, come with a sacrifice of praise.
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  That is the fruit of your lips giving.
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  God thinks confessing his name. A song here is a song as a
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  sacrifice. Singing is a sacrifice.
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  It's like a sacrifice of the Old Testament where they would
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  sacrifice a lamb sacrifice, a dove sacrifice, different
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  things. It was an act physically done to
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  ascribe worth, value, and praise for God, a set of Thanksgiving
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  to God for what he's done or or a an offering that you bring
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  because God is worthy of it. That's what a sacrifice is and
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  what it was intended to do. Hebrews takes Psalms 141's
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  equation very literally. Psalm, Psalm 141 says this.
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  My prayer may it be set before you as incense raising of my
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  hands as the evening offering so sacrifice and offerings up to
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  God are listed here as a as an incense that burns before God
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  and a raising of my hands in the evening that there is something
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  that I'm doing to bring. So when Hebrews 13 and verse 15
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  says let us then continually OfferUp to God a sacrifice of
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  praise, that is the fruit of our lips that confess his name.
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  So we don't offer bulls and animals anymore that that was an
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  old covenant way of worshipping God in addition to.
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  Song they would sing songs and praise God.
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  All all of those things are true in the Old Testament.
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  But here it's not just bulls and animals.
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  No, Jesus was the the sacrifice and so we sacrifice our praise
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  to him, which is our lips giving thanks.
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  So you see Hebrews 13, I think Harkins back to Psalm 141 of, of
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  what it looks like words meaning fruits of our lips are incense,
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  sacrifice to God. There's continuity.
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  What what Psalm 141 saying metaphorically Hebrews is
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  declaring as normative Christian sacrifice.
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  So, so Psalm 141 was a, a metaphor, if you will, of what
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  worship would have been. And the continuation of that in
• 20:49
  Hebrews is, is declaring that that kind of worship, singing
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  praise, what was like incense before the Lord then, is now
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  normative as the Christian sacrifice.
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  So what is Hebrews doing? Hebrews isn't undermining and
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  saying we don't worship anymore. That's an Old Testament thing.
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  No worship is something very instilled and ingrained in the
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  New Testament context that is continued as normative in
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  Christian sacrifice and gatherings there.
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  There's a communal ethic at play here.
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  Just as the Psalm kind of pairs prayer and gesture.
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  Someone for everyone, Incense, prayer, praise, sacrifice,
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  gestures, things that you're bringing to him.
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  Hebrews pairs praise and good works, The full orb spiritual
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  sacrifice to God. Christ is the our mediator and
• 21:42
  through him our high priest. We bring this sacrifice, we
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  bring a sacrifice of praise through Jesus to the Father.
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  Everything we do that is worship is done through or in Christ.
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  And because we are in Christ, our life is praise to God.
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  Our song is worship and incense and beauty lifted up to heavens
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  to God. Our giving is a gesture.
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  Our financial giving is a gesture of praise and honor that
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  we bring to or through Jesus who receives it as the high priest
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  and bringing it before the Lord. Some 107 verse 22 says let them
• 22:29
  offer Thanksgiving sacrifices and announce his works with
• 22:34
  shouts of joy. So what Roman says is our lived
• 22:39
  sacrifice. Hebrews uses the backdrop of the
• 22:44
  Psalms and other Old Testament understanding to normalize the
• 22:50
  Christian worship and experience even in a New Testament context.
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  In other words, worshipping to the Lord, ministering to the
• 22:58
  Lord through song and worship is a normative part of the people
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  of God. Again, Psalm 141 and verse 2.
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  May my prayer be set before you as incense, the raising of my
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  hands as the evening offering. In a liturgical setting.
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  This is a Psalm to be sung in the temple context, meaning
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  Israel already understood song itself as a part of sacrificial
• 23:27
  worship. So when you look back at the
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  story of God's people, it was already normal in a temple
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  context, the gathering place of God's people, to bring worship
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  and sacrifice. It was normal.
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  It was understood that there would be song and singing in
• 23:49
  context with offering up a sacrifice to the Lord.
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  The psalmist identifies prayer and a gesture, hands lifted up
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  with incense and sacrifice. Worship in song is the
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  sacrificial liturgy, not just commentary about what worship
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  is, but it's it's actually coming.
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  A song is itself sacrificial. Liturgy and worship David all
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  all throughout the whole time. David music and praise are
• 24:20
  sacrificial services for him. An early Sacramento equivalence,
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  if you will. In other words, singing songs,
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  worship to God in his temple. Ascribing praise and value is
• 24:33
  Sacramento in nature. It's not just the communion,
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  it's not just baptism, but the gathering to sing and worship is
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  Sacramento in its understanding, in the biblical framework of
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  first Peter 2 and verse 5. I'm using all sorts of
• 24:51
  scripture. You're getting Old Testament,
• 24:53
  you're getting New Testament. Why?
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  Because some of sometimes we try to think that worship is just
• 24:59
  how we live our lives and we don't really need to worship and
• 25:02
  sing anymore. And that's just not true.
• 25:06
  There was a, I don't know if he's on TikTok or Instagram that
• 25:10
  was kind of going viral. There was a guy preaching and
• 25:13
  saying, nowhere in the New Testament do you find that
• 25:18
  singing and music linked to worship in the corporate
• 25:23
  gathering. And I think that that's just not
• 25:27
  true. I think that that worship and
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  music is indeed linked to the New Testament.
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  Obviously we see Hebrews giving us a clear understanding that we
• 25:36
  are to do that. The fruit of our lips, giving
• 25:39
  thanks, that's our words, giving thanks to God, sacrifice and
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  worship. Using the understanding of
• 25:44
  Psalms as a backdrop that introduces what sacrifices were,
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  what praise was. Those things are continued and
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  carried on into the New Testament era of God's people
• 25:58
  gathering. But first Peter 2 and verse 5.
• 26:00
  This is as you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual
• 26:03
  house, are being built to be a holy priesthood, to offer
• 26:09
  acceptable spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.
• 26:17
  So first, Peter and Hebrews agree that there is sacrifice
• 26:22
  that we offer to God through Jesus, and that sacrifice is
• 26:28
  spiritual, it's acceptable to God, and it is a song.
• 26:33
  It is our life and it is our song.
• 26:37
  The church kind of becomes a place where Psalm 41 is
• 26:43
  continually fulfilled. So Peter is saying that the
• 26:46
  church, the gathering people of God, he is where Psalm 141 where
• 26:51
  hands are lifted, incense is offered to the Lord that pleases
• 26:55
  him in form of prayer and Thanksgiving from our lips
• 26:59
  giving thanks. It says in Hebrews these things
• 27:02
  are being tied together as continually fulfilling.
• 27:04
  Psalm 141 we as the every believer is a Levite of David's
• 27:10
  Tabernacle, meaning we are a holy priesthood.
• 27:14
  Every believer is a Levite of David's Tabernacle Levites in
• 27:20
  David's Tabernacle, the dwelling place of God's presence, were
• 27:24
  appointed to sing and. Offer sacrifices.
• 27:30
  So if you are a follower of Jesus, you are part of the royal
• 27:35
  priesthood, A Levitical group of people in the Tabernacle of God,
• 27:40
  the dwelling of God. Where does God dwell?
• 27:43
  He dwells in his body, in his church, in his family, in his
• 27:50
  people, marked by his spirit, marked of his.
• 27:53
  Presence. And what did the Levites of
• 27:55
  David's Tabernacle do? They were appointed to sing and
• 27:59
  sacrifice to the Lord. Spiritual sacrifices?
• 28:03
  What kind? Well, Hebrews already told us
• 28:05
  what kind of spiritual sacrifice is.
• 28:08
  First, Peter 25 tells us that we offer spiritual sacrifice that
• 28:11
  are acceptable to God. Hebrews tell us what spiritual
• 28:14
  sacrifices are. What are spiritual sacrifices
• 28:16
  of? According to Hebrews that we
• 28:17
  read, they are praise and deeds of love to God.
• 28:22
  There is a shape here. We're we're an understanding
• 28:25
  that first Peter canonizes Psalms 141's move, worship and
• 28:30
  song and gesture is a priestly sacrifice.
• 28:34
  That's what we're seeing. Psalm 141 is is, is is being
• 28:38
  reiterated by first Peter as something that that we are to do
• 28:43
  a measuring rod, a canonization of what the people of God do as
• 28:47
  a priest we worship and song and gesture of of of offering to
• 28:52
  him. And then finally Acts 13.
• 28:56
  Now this is kind of where it all kind of all comes together in
• 29:00
  story form in Acts chapter 13. It says this verse, verse one
• 29:07
  and two as they referring to the church gathered in Antioch as
• 29:13
  they were worshipping the Lord and fasting.
• 29:20
  The Holy Spirit then said set apart for me Barnabas and Saul
• 29:23
  for the work to which I have called to the work at which I've
• 29:28
  called them. Now the the word here for
• 29:33
  worshiping the Lord. Well, that's not singing.
• 29:36
  That's not no, no, here, here it is.
• 29:38
  The church in Antioch was gathered to worship that word
• 29:44
  worship means priestly service, meaning incense, sacrifice,
• 29:50
  temple ministry. So what does Psalm tell us?
• 29:53
  That is what is the Old Testament tell us that the
• 29:55
  priestly worship is. In other words, it's prayer,
• 29:59
  it's lifted hands, it's sacrifice to God in in Antioch.
• 30:04
  It this, this it's Psalms 141. It's prayer song as an incense.
• 30:10
  It's a prayer song that is like incense, rising to God,
• 30:13
  ministering to God. The implication is simply this,
• 30:18
  that they're gathering in Antioch wasn't just casual
• 30:22
  prayer, it was actually former liturgical praise, singing
• 30:28
  psalms, lifting hands, fasting, an embodiment of their worship
• 30:33
  to God. It's, it's the church is doing
• 30:37
  what King David instructed the Levites to do, which is what
• 30:41
  Peter tells us we're to do as a royal priesthood and a holy
• 30:45
  nation before God, praising him, offering spiritual sacrifices of
• 30:51
  praise, the fruit of our lips giving thanks, the hands of our
• 30:55
  of our body lifted up in praise, the in fasting.
• 30:59
  We are living with our body, as Roman 12 says, offering it as
• 31:03
  acceptable worship to God. This is the implication and the
• 31:08
  understanding. This is what God is after, this
• 31:12
  kind of worship. To him, worship is twofold.
• 31:18
  It is liturgical and it is holistic.
• 31:22
  Life as your sacrifice is liturgical.
• 31:26
  This is the the set. Apart Act of song, of prayer, of
• 31:30
  sacrifice, of Scripture reading aloud, of incense of of the
• 31:35
  temple, the ekklesia, the gathered people of God for
• 31:39
  service and purpose. It's in the Old Testament, it's
• 31:42
  the Tabernacle, it's the Temple, it's it's David's Psalms In the
• 31:46
  New Testament. It's Acts 13, Hebrews 13.
• 31:49
  It's Revelation four and five. The church singing in heaven.
• 31:54
  This is worship. It's liturgical, it's sung, it's
• 31:58
  red, it's prayer, it's incense, it's hands lifted, it's knees on
• 32:03
  the ground. It's all of the Psalms and the
• 32:06
  instructions in the psalms of what praises with the symbol,
• 32:11
  with the clapping of the hands, with the shouting, with the
• 32:13
  blowing of the trumpet, with, with the the, the, the musical
• 32:17
  timbrels and the instruments to God all offered to him as
• 32:23
  praise, as worship, as a spiritual sacrifice.
• 32:26
  We, the people of God, are a holy people, a priesthood, and
• 32:32
  we gather to minister worship to the Lord, to bless his name.
• 32:42
  It is worship that is liturgical, but worship isn't
• 32:45
  just song. It's more than song, but it's
• 32:49
  not less than song. It's more than song.
• 32:52
  It's it's holistic worship, meaning it's life lived as a
• 32:56
  sacrifice to God. This is the Romans 12/1
• 33:00
  presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, which we've
• 33:03
  talked about in Deuteronomy. It's the Shema, it's obedience.
• 33:08
  It's living God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and
• 33:11
  obedience. It's offering every act in your
• 33:15
  life to God as a way of honoring God with every part of your
• 33:21
  life. It's holistic.
• 33:22
  Worship to God is both singing and life as a sacrifice.
• 33:28
  It's liturgical, the corporate gathering coming together to
• 33:33
  honor, to bless the name, to thank God, to worship and
• 33:37
  ascribe worship to him. And it is holistic.
• 33:40
  And so in the New Testament is there singing?
• 33:41
  Yes. Sing psalms, hymns, spiritual
• 33:44
  songs to one another, making melody in your hearts of the
• 33:47
  Lord. It is the church in Acts
• 33:49
  gathering, worshipping God. How are they worshipping the
• 33:53
  prayer hands lifted, going. It's Timothy of being instructed
• 33:57
  by Paul that men would lift holy hands in the sanctuary as they
• 34:02
  pray to God, as they offer incense with their words out
• 34:06
  loud to God among the brethren. It it it all of this?
• 34:12
  In other words, it it's not either or, and oftentimes we
• 34:17
  fall into those two camps, church people, either we think
• 34:20
  worship is just singing or we think worship is just our life
• 34:24
  lived before God. It's not either or, it's both.
• 34:29
  And both are biblical. Both are not opposed to each
• 34:33
  other. They're complementary to each
• 34:35
  other and both demonstrate the presence of God in real time to
• 34:41
  the world around us. Both are necessary for your
• 34:45
  formation and your growth. Both are a part of the Bible's
• 34:49
  instruction on what it looks like to love and bless God.
• 34:54
  It is our life and our songs poured out to God in a way that
• 35:00
  fills the temple with his presence and praise.
• 35:04
  The last thing I'll say is in this in this category, Mary
• 35:12
  washing or or pouring out this oil, this anointing, this, this
• 35:17
  oil all on Jesus's feet. The the scripture says that the
• 35:20
  fragrance of this perfume, it filled the room.
• 35:25
  We we know that the fragrance cost something.
• 35:30
  That's why, you know, again, when we talk about sacrifices,
• 35:35
  worship as sacrifice, that by nature means it costs something,
• 35:40
  something is killed. So it costs us in terms of our
• 35:45
  generosity, it costs us in terms of moving out of our comfort
• 35:49
  zone it. Costs us in terms of killing our
• 35:52
  pride. We sacrifice our pride to
• 35:55
  worship God better, to exalt His name, to not glorify ourselves
• 35:59
  to not. Stay in our comfort zones, but
• 36:02
  to move in His direction. This is a biblical framework,
• 36:05
  but one of the things it says is that when she poured out the oil
• 36:07
  on his feet that that fragrance filled the entire room.
• 36:13
  The house being filled. I think it recalls temple
• 36:18
  imagery where incense would fill the holy place like an Exodus
• 36:23
  3034 through 38. That the incense, the smell of
• 36:28
  the sacrifices, the smell of the worship brought to God, the
• 36:33
  smell of the generosity and the cost to describe worth and honor
• 36:39
  to God, That it filled the whole place.
• 36:42
  And there was something I think John was hinting at that Jesus
• 36:47
  himself is the true temple and he was being consecrated for his
• 36:52
  sacrifice that would come and be pleasing to God, making a way
• 36:58
  for us to experience union with the Spirit and presence of God
• 37:05
  that would come and remain with. Us bringing us to His body to be
• 37:13
  a temple of God, to display His glory and presence on the earth.
• 37:18
  This is the biblical understanding.
• 37:20
  I think John's hinting at that with giving us the detail that
• 37:24
  the smell filled the room, just like the incense in the temple
• 37:29
  would be filling the space like Exodus 30 tells us.
• 37:33
  I think it's a beautiful, beautiful picture of a Jesus of
• 37:39
  us, of experiencing his presence of, of of course, the, the idea
• 37:45
  of, of coming to the Lord and, and bringing something right.
• 37:49
  So we talked about financial giving as a sacrifice, right?
• 37:54
  Like the, the financial cost to worship here for her was a full
• 38:00
  year's salary, a full year's worth of wages poured out in an
• 38:06
  act of adoration, worship, and devotion to Jesus.
• 38:10
  And for us, we kind of want to argue that even 10% of our
• 38:14
  annual income isn't deemed necessary to God in terms of the
• 38:19
  requirements and things like that.
• 38:21
  And, and I understand the arguments and I have my own
• 38:24
  opinions. And I, I think biblically the,
• 38:26
  the idea of percentage giving is very clear, whether or not 10%
• 38:30
  is explicit. Similar to every time you get
• 38:34
  into present, every time you gather as a church, sing 3
• 38:37
  songs, and that's not prescribed, but it's not undone
• 38:41
  either. In other words, what happened as
• 38:45
  a pattern in the Old Testament is continued in the New
• 38:48
  Testament in terms of praise, worship, Thanksgiving.
• 38:52
  And I think the pattern of generosity in the Old Testament
• 38:56
  is continued and even exponentially grown in the New
• 39:01
  Testament. And so the amount isn't my
• 39:05
  point. My point is the motive that it
• 39:10
  doesn't matter what it is we're bringing to the Lord.
• 39:13
  The motive is to bless him. The motive is to honor him with
• 39:20
  financial giving. The motive isn't to feel better
• 39:23
  about ourselves because we helped, you know, do and meet a
• 39:29
  practical need. The goal in being generous and
• 39:33
  bringing financial gifts to the Lord through Jesus and through
• 39:39
  his church is simply. Because we love him, because
• 39:43
  we're devoted to Him, and we don't want the pull of greed to
• 39:48
  pollute our hearts of devotion to God.
• 39:53
  And I think that when we live in that way, there is something
• 39:57
  beautiful in in our midst. And I shared in in the the final
• 40:05
  service in this message, kind of at the end after we had
• 40:08
  worshipped a little bit, I mentioned that there are four
• 40:11
  things that I see that continually cause us to have our
• 40:16
  devotion distorted or pulled away in from an act of humility
• 40:23
  and worship to God. Four things that I think
• 40:25
  threaten our worship to God. That that distorted, that that
• 40:30
  caused us to be. Pulled away in our devotion.
• 40:32
  The first I mentioned is wrong. Priorities where we prioritize
• 40:36
  things in in unbiblical order. The second is greed.
• 40:42
  A mammon will absolutely Money can absolutely distort and pull
• 40:48
  away your devotion to God wholeheartedly.
• 40:52
  I think the third is this idea that singing and worshipping is
• 40:56
  feminine, that somehow we're going to lose our man card if we
• 41:00
  worship God. I don't think so.
• 41:03
  In fact, most of the commands as it listed to the scriptures
• 41:06
  where men lift up your hands, these were men coming to offer
• 41:10
  sacrifices. So worship is is biblically
• 41:14
  masculine. Are there emotions experienced
• 41:18
  in worship? Sure, but emotions while might
• 41:22
  be more generally experienced by the feminine.
• 41:27
  Feminine being, masculine beings still have emotions.
• 41:32
  They experience them different and in different degrees, but
• 41:34
  they're still there. They're still part of our
• 41:36
  masculine human experience. And so I think sometimes we feel
• 41:40
  like worshipping God is so unmanly and I just think that is
• 41:43
  absolutely BS. I think that one of the sexiest
• 41:48
  things a man can do is actually learn to be expressive of
• 41:53
  praise, adoration and affection. And so when you begin to be
• 41:56
  expressive and vocal about your affection and devotion to Jesus,
• 42:02
  that will train you in being expressive and.
• 42:07
  Articulate of your affection to your spouse should the time
• 42:12
  arise and then finally the the fourth thing that kind of pulls.
• 42:16
  Away our devotion and worship to God is worry.
• 42:21
  I think worry especially for again, generally speaking, the
• 42:26
  female mind and experience. Again, it's not only women
• 42:31
  worry. I'm just saying that often that
• 42:34
  is a dominant thing that you see in the female soul.
• 42:38
  A sense of worry and worry tends to like disrupt or distort or
• 42:44
  cause us to focus on the wrong things.
• 42:47
  Worship causes us to focus on God, on his ability.
• 42:51
  On his faithfulness. And when we worship, worry
• 42:56
  begins to wilt away. And so I think worship is the
• 43:00
  antidote to all of all of these things.
• 43:03
  But but these are four very, very practical things that pull
• 43:07
  away our devotion to Jesus, that distort a humble expression of
• 43:13
  praise back to God. Now, you might sit there and
• 43:18
  say, you know, pastor, isn't all worship music just manipulative?
• 43:23
  Isn't isn't it just trying to like create some emotional
• 43:27
  experience to get people to do things that act a certain way?
• 43:31
  I think it's a very cynical way of looking at it, and I don't
• 43:33
  think it's a very accurate way. Think about it.
• 43:38
  Music, poetry, art is intended to move you emotionally.
• 43:45
  It's actually designed to elicit emotion from you, to articulate
• 43:51
  emotion that is within you. So worship and music, while it
• 43:56
  is meant to move you, that's not the same as manipulating you.
• 44:01
  And to those that would say worship and music kind of
• 44:04
  manipulates a mood, no, I don't think so.
• 44:08
  It does help. Set a tone and an atmosphere and
• 44:10
  A and A and and an experience. I think those things are right
• 44:14
  and good. But all music does that.
• 44:17
  I mean, why? Why?
• 44:19
  That's part of the blessing and benefit.
• 44:22
  Of music is that it helps. Us Have you ever watched a movie
• 44:25
  without music to it? I think it it doesn't help you
• 44:29
  engage in the full experience and I think worship and music
• 44:34
  even in the corporate gathering of the people of God.
• 44:38
  It's meant to move our hearts hear me to and toward devotion
• 44:45
  to God to express love for God. It's not manipulating some sort
• 44:49
  of expression or. Trying to create some like,
• 44:52
  that's a really cynical view, an unhealthy view.
• 44:55
  That's a very arrogant take on it, and I think that we need to
• 45:02
  look at music and worship as an understanding of art and poetry
• 45:06
  that that actually is meant to move us.
• 45:09
  That's how it's designed. That's that's the whole point.
• 45:12
  But it's not the same as manipulation.
• 45:14
  I think that speaks to a motive that is out of our scope of
• 45:19
  human understanding, to be honest.
• 45:23
  The last thing I'll say is this, you know, worship fills the
• 45:29
  room, it fills the temple, it fills the space, it has a way of
• 45:33
  filling the atmosphere with the sense of God and something
• 45:39
  happens to us in worship. But the thing about Mary, for a
• 45:42
  minute she went and poured out this oil on Jesus feet and the
• 45:47
  scripture says she dried it with her hair.
• 45:51
  Which meant this, that everywhere Mary went, she
• 45:56
  smelled like Jesus from from that moment on until he was
• 46:01
  crucified. And and and and and and buried.
• 46:06
  She smelled like the Savior. She smelled like she had been in
• 46:09
  his presence. You ever been?
• 46:12
  I, I love smoking and barbecuing and, and, and, and grilling.
• 46:17
  But you walk inside. I walk inside after being out at
• 46:20
  the smoker and, you know, working on some ribs or a pulled
• 46:23
  pork or whatever it is. And I walk into the house.
• 46:26
  My wife can smell the the the the smoke, the incense if you
• 46:31
  will. It lingers with you a little
• 46:34
  bit. I I think that when the people
• 46:36
  of God gather to worship, to sing, to honor Jesus, to bless
• 46:40
  him, to live A to live your life, a sacrifice to God that's
• 46:46
  pleasing to him and obedience with our minds, our our, our,
• 46:49
  our, our, our hearts, our souls, our emotions, all of it.
• 46:52
  And when we come with financial gifts of of blessing the Lord to
• 46:57
  honor him, to ascribe value and worth and devotion to him, when
• 47:01
  all of those things are present, I think we walk away smelling
• 47:06
  more like the Savior. There's something that happens
• 47:09
  in the gathered people of God when we're worshiping and
• 47:12
  singing that, that we walk away having been touched by Jesus.
• 47:17
  I think that's what worship does it.
• 47:20
  It causes us to walk away with the fragrance of heaven, the
• 47:23
  fragrance of the life of God, the fragrance of the love and
• 47:27
  the mercy of Jesus. Causes us to walk away with the
• 47:31
  fragrance of heaven and our Savior each and every day.
• 47:36
  I think worship matters. Worship is a big part of what
• 47:41
  John 12 is teaching us. Worship is costly.
• 47:45
  Worship makes requires you to live with humility and kill your
• 47:50
  pride. Worship is a life of action and
• 47:54
  service to God. Worship is songs and expressions
• 47:59
  of Thanksgiving to God, and it marks us as people of.
• 48:06
  God all right, that'll do it for our bonus content driving a
• 48:10
  little deeper, let let's take a a look at just three questions
• 48:14
  today and I'll do my best to respond in a helpful and helpful
• 48:18
  way Here's the first question. What role does our personality
• 48:23
  play in our worship? I understand there are biblical
• 48:26
  instructions for worship, but. How does our personalities,
• 48:31
  which God gave us, come into play, if at all?
• 48:35
  So I've often said that God gets to define what worship is to
• 48:40
  him, not us, based on our opinion or perspective.
• 48:46
  Again when you read the. Old Testament, A lot of what I
• 48:49
  did on our bonus content is I looked and examined some
• 48:52
  scriptures in the Old Testament so that we understood the
• 48:55
  language, the verbiage and the framework for what worship was
• 49:00
  to God and then showed how those things had continued in their
• 49:05
  discussion and application in the New Testament.
• 49:09
  So bottom line, the Bible tells us what worship is, what proper
• 49:14
  expressions of worship our and those are regardless of our
• 49:20
  personalities. Yes, we are each unique before
• 49:24
  God, but not using our uniqueness to determine what
• 49:30
  ultimately God commands or desires of us.
• 49:33
  So you may not feel comfortable, it may not be your personality
• 49:38
  to go share your faith. However, as disciples we are
• 49:43
  called to all spread the message of Jesus.
• 49:47
  How we do that might have some nuance difference, but the
• 49:50
  command to spread the word, to bring to bring light Into
• 49:55
  Darkness is a command for all of us, all believers.
• 50:00
  The same is true for worship. So when God says lift your
• 50:03
  hands, he's not saying lift your hands if you're short.
• 50:05
  He doesn't say lift your hands if it's a you know, if if you're
• 50:10
  a, a female, he doesn't say lift your hands only if you're a man.
• 50:13
  He, he instructs us to lift our hands before him in worship, to
• 50:17
  sing songs of praise and worship, to use instruments in
• 50:24
  our worship, to be gathered together, to minister to God, to
• 50:29
  bless his name. And we do that uniquely as us,
• 50:35
  but not defined by us. Here's kind of how this can get
• 50:41
  distorted really easy. You might sit there, think based
• 50:45
  on your perspective, that God wants you to be happy.
• 50:50
  No, God will give you joy of the Holy Spirit regardless of
• 50:54
  circumstance. And happiness is often a
• 50:58
  byproduct of good things in our lives.
• 51:02
  It's a good emotion that we experience and feel as a gift
• 51:05
  and benevolence of God. But the idea that God wants me
• 51:08
  happy isn't an accurate perspective.
• 51:11
  No, God wants us to glorify Him and walk in His ways.
• 51:16
  How do we glorify Him? Our life that's lived as a
• 51:20
  sacrifice, which is worship, holistic worship and sacrifice,
• 51:25
  Sacrificial worship. That is our singing, a
• 51:28
  liturgical way of gathering together to ascribe value, honor
• 51:34
  and praise in order to bless His name.
• 51:39
  And we kneel in reverence, not because we like kneeling, but we
• 51:46
  kneel in reverence to the recognition that number one,
• 51:50
  he's king and I bow before him. And I kneel in worship because I
• 51:56
  recognize that his presence is in the room and there is an awe
• 52:01
  in my heart towards him. I don't kneel because I like to
• 52:05
  fact. I I've used it as an
• 52:06
  illustration I that expression and posture of worship.
• 52:12
  Is 1 physically I don't like to do, but it's not about me.
• 52:19
  It's about ascribing value and honor to to him Now I know
• 52:23
  people in my life that I love, that are mature, that honor God
• 52:28
  who are reserved in how. They express their life, but in
• 52:33
  express, but when it comes to worship, they are expressive
• 52:36
  physically and they are responsive to the Spirit's
• 52:40
  presence in their life, meaning sometimes there's tears.
• 52:43
  Even though they're reserved people, they still recognize His
• 52:47
  presence and and in awe of Him. I know people who are soft
• 52:53
  spoken in life. That's their personality.
• 52:56
  They're very soft spoken. They don't speak first in a
• 53:00
  group. But they still worship out loud.
• 53:04
  They still lift their voice in song.
• 53:06
  They still are willing to bless His name.
• 53:08
  They still pray out loud. It's not a matter of
• 53:12
  personality. It's honestly a matter of
• 53:15
  obedience and doing. The things that the Bible has
• 53:19
  instructed us are worship expressions.
• 53:23
  So we give, we sing, we bow, we lift our hands, we clap, we can
• 53:29
  dance, we can shout, we can at times cry, we can have
• 53:34
  instruments, and we can come and live.
• 53:40
  Our lives in obedient surrender to Him.
• 53:43
  So our personalities often can play into some of the
• 53:47
  expressions, but they are not the litmus test for what God
• 53:51
  says worship is. And all of that is a part of
• 53:56
  part of our lives, part of what we do, and so sometimes what we.
• 54:01
  Call. I I have to say this too
• 54:02
  sometimes. What we call.
• 54:04
  Our personality is really just immaturity that we've labeled
• 54:09
  personality. It's, it's just sometimes it's
• 54:14
  actually unhealthy patterns that we've just said.
• 54:18
  Well, that's. Just how I am.
• 54:19
  That's no, it's, it's, it's actually brokenness that
• 54:23
  continues to show up in your life that hasn't been healed by
• 54:25
  Jesus yet. And so that's not always the
• 54:28
  case. Again, I, I, not, not everybody
• 54:33
  has a gregarious personality. That's OK.
• 54:36
  You may not be the loudest in the room, but you can still lift
• 54:39
  your voice out loud. And, and there are things again
• 54:43
  that sometimes we say our our personality, but really it's our
• 54:46
  insecurity covering up something in our lives.
• 54:48
  And so we want to be healed. We want to be whole, we want to
• 54:51
  be mature followers of Jesus, but we need to understand that
• 54:55
  it's the fruit of our lips. It is a sacrifice of praise that
• 54:58
  we bring to him that we gather, we sing, we worship, we extol
• 55:02
  his name, we lift him high, we sing praise.
• 55:05
  It is not about style and preference.
• 55:08
  It is about obedience to Scripture, and in so doing He
• 55:13
  inhabits that His presence fills the room.
• 55:16
  There is a fragrance of heaven, if you will, that is
• 55:20
  encountered. It is our act of worship that is
• 55:24
  like incense burning. In the very presence of God, Can
• 55:31
  you elaborate on the phrase? Pride can turn any virtue into a
• 55:36
  vice. Yeah, I mentioned in the message
• 55:38
  how I came across this post and it was actually a promo for a
• 55:44
  theological course, a topical course that they were doing on
• 55:48
  the subject of pride and kind of virtues and things like that.
• 55:53
  And, and they just made that statement and it just hit me
• 55:56
  like a ton of bricks. Like, Oh my goodness, that is so
• 55:59
  true. How there are areas in our life
• 56:01
  that we can live and we know, man, like that's a virtue for
• 56:05
  us. Like, man, I'm, I'm never going
• 56:06
  to cheat on my wife. But if we live with pride long
• 56:10
  enough, we create blind spots and the enemy can come in and
• 56:14
  turn that virtue into a vice that causes us to stumble.
• 56:17
  And fall and. Man, we, we can find ourselves
• 56:20
  addicted. I will never get addicted to, to
• 56:23
  prescription drugs until you get injured and you have to take
• 56:30
  pain medicine and that pain medicine.
• 56:33
  Then you you begin to convince yourself that you're you're
• 56:35
  you'll be able to stop anytime and it's just this one more
• 56:37
  time. And your your willpower is
• 56:40
  enough to control it until it's not.
• 56:43
  And it now has become a vice in your life because there was an
• 56:46
  arrogance about your your willpower that wasn't enough for
• 56:52
  the temptations and the pull. Of the enemy so So pride has a
• 56:56
  way of causing us to overestimate our ability to
• 57:01
  resist the enemy. Pride makes us overestimate our
• 57:06
  ability to resist the enemy. Let's take Peter as a case
• 57:11
  study. Peter was like, Lord, I'll never
• 57:14
  deny you. And she's like, no, no, before
• 57:16
  the rooster crows, you're going to die.
• 57:18
  Me. Peter's like, no, no, everybody
• 57:19
  else might desert you. I'm not going to desert you.
• 57:21
  What happened to Peter? The virtue of his faithfulness
• 57:25
  and loyalty to Jesus became a vice that caused him to stumble.
• 57:28
  Why? Because pride entered his heart
• 57:32
  and was a part of his story. It creates.
• 57:35
  Pride has a way of creating these blind spots.
• 57:38
  A blind spot, by definition, is a spot in your life that is a
• 57:43
  weakness that you can't see. On your own so brought pride
• 57:50
  will blind us to vulnerabilities that the enemy wants to exploit.
• 57:58
  I talked about how. Pride is a distortion of honesty
• 58:02
  about ourselves. It's a dishonesty.
• 58:06
  Pride is a distorted honesty about our view of ourselves.
• 58:10
  It distorts an estimation and an evaluation of our ability, of
• 58:17
  our security, of our capability, of.
• 58:20
  Our righteousness of our virtue, even it will distort us and
• 58:24
  cause us to be dishonest, which is why we become heroes of the
• 58:28
  word but not doers of the word. Because we've deceived ourselves
• 58:32
  and we were dishonest because of pride, thinking we already do
• 58:36
  that enough so we don't do it some more.
• 58:41
  That's how pride shows up. That's how pride gets in and
• 58:45
  turns virtue into a vice. Pride is our human strength to.
• 58:50
  Determine the best way for us to live.
• 58:54
  It's our own purposes, not God's glory.
• 59:00
  In the Old Testament we see kind of a picture of Lucifer getting
• 59:06
  kicked out of heaven because of pride, saying I will ascend, I
• 59:10
  will be like the most. High I I I.
• 59:14
  And one of the things that says in Isaiah and also in Ezekiel,
• 59:20
  when you pull these passages together, it talks about the
• 59:23
  merchandising, the abundance of your trading in the
• 59:27
  merchandising of those things, meaning that there are things
• 59:31
  that belong to God that Lucifer was just siphoning a little bit
• 59:36
  out of, like if I'm a store. Owner.
• 59:40
  And you work for me and someone came and buys an item and they
• 59:45
  give you $10.00 for the item and you put $9 in the cash register
• 59:50
  and you take $1.00 for yourself. That's merchandising this,
• 59:53
  that's what the scriptures talking about is what happens
• 59:55
  with pride. And so Lucifer, who was this
• 59:58
  worship Angel in heaven, if you will, like an Archangel of, of
• 1:00:02
  worship. In him were these timbrels and
• 1:00:04
  instruments, this being of beauty and praise.
• 1:00:08
  Was taking glory that belonged to God and should have passed
• 1:00:11
  through him to the Lord and it was taking a little glory for
• 1:00:15
  himself and started to believe his own press relief.
• 1:00:17
  I'm I'm pretty beautiful. I've got great skills I can do
• 1:00:20
  that and begins to overestimate and to turn his own purpose
• 1:00:23
  started taking glory that belonged to God for himself.
• 1:00:27
  We see this in Lucifer's life. We see in first Peter chapter 5
• 1:00:34
  where Scripture says that that that with that that when you
• 1:00:38
  live with pride, then you are resisted by by God says without
• 1:00:44
  humility that there's pride that grows in our life and we are
• 1:00:47
  like held at a distance from God says God resists the proud but
• 1:00:55
  gives grace to the humble meaning you, you in me.
• 1:01:02
  We in our pride in our distorted honesty about ourselves can be
• 1:01:10
  kept at arm's distance from the grace of God, which we need as
• 1:01:15
  an empowerment to live a godly life.
• 1:01:18
  We are left to ourselves and are void of God's grace being at
• 1:01:23
  work in our. Lives when we live in pride.
• 1:01:26
  Humility, though, releases the grace of God to sustain us, fill
• 1:01:32
  us, cover us to live a God honoring life.
• 1:01:37
  Pride causes us to live a life that dishonours God.
• 1:01:41
  Humility releases a grace in our life to help us live a life that
• 1:01:45
  honours God. When you are walking in pride,
• 1:01:49
  you eventually move from being virtuous.
• 1:01:52
  To having a vice in your life. And so there is a danger.
• 1:01:57
  In fact it goes on to say in in first Peter 5 God resist the
• 1:02:01
  problem. It gives grace to the humbles.
• 1:02:04
  And be be aware that the enemy of your soul is looking like a
• 1:02:09
  roaring lion for someone to completely devour.
• 1:02:14
  The enemy wants to devour your spiritual life, your life and
• 1:02:18
  honoring God. And he does so wherever pride
• 1:02:22
  allows us to get in the way. And I've already mentioned that
• 1:02:25
  one of the ways that our devotion to God is, is is
• 1:02:29
  distorted is through greed. When we are greedy and not
• 1:02:35
  living a life of generosity, where financially we are
• 1:02:39
  utilizing the financial resources to bless and honor
• 1:02:43
  God, to worship God with the bringing of financial offerings.
• 1:02:50
  We are opening the door to the devourer coming in because we're
• 1:02:55
  living thinking that we get to control this rather than God.
• 1:03:00
  And so we and our pride. Hold.
• 1:03:02
  On to resource rather than in humility.
• 1:03:04
  Offer it to him as a sacrifice of of praise.
• 1:03:08
  And what happens? The enemy comes in and devours
• 1:03:12
  our lives in one way or another because there is no virtue.
• 1:03:17
  That pride can't turn into a vice in your life and yourself
• 1:03:23
  will or your willpower is not the same as the Spirit's power
• 1:03:28
  that you need the grace you need to.
• 1:03:31
  Walk. In the spirit, so that, as
• 1:03:34
  Galatians says, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
• 1:03:41
  Greed, idolatry, anger, wrath, violence, immorality, sexual
• 1:03:49
  deviances and sins. All of these are acts of the
• 1:03:53
  flesh. So when you are living with your
• 1:03:55
  willpower. Because you don't have the
• 1:03:59
  Spirit's power, because pride has kept you at distance from
• 1:04:03
  the grace and the Spirit of God being at work in your life, then
• 1:04:07
  you are powerless to walk in the Spirit.
• 1:04:10
  Which means you are left to only walk according to your flesh,
• 1:04:17
  and destruction is right around the corner the longer we walk in
• 1:04:21
  our flesh. Here's the last question.
• 1:04:26
  Other than cynicism, what are some other red flags that
• 1:04:31
  indicate that you might have pride hiding or growing in your
• 1:04:35
  heart? This is so good a great
• 1:04:38
  question. I I mentioned in the second
• 1:04:42
  service, our 1045 service, that one of the things that was
• 1:04:47
  evident in Judas's life was that he was cynical about worship
• 1:04:53
  that Mary was bringing to Jesus. He he, he got a scoffs at this.
• 1:04:58
  Well, I mean, this money should have been, this perfume should
• 1:05:01
  have been sold and turned into cash and that cash given to take
• 1:05:04
  care of the poor. That's what it should have done.
• 1:05:07
  He was very cynical because he was prideful, and his cynicism
• 1:05:12
  and pride kind of blinded him to the beauty of what real worship
• 1:05:17
  and devotion to God looks like. Now we know that there are
• 1:05:21
  plenty of admonitions throughout the the Scriptures, especially
• 1:05:26
  the New Testament and Jesus words about taking care of the
• 1:05:29
  poor, of loving the poor, of serving them, and especially the
• 1:05:32
  poor that are within the household of faith, really
• 1:05:36
  taking care of the brothers and sisters in Christ.
• 1:05:38
  So there is biblical precedence and command to that end.
• 1:05:42
  However, Jesus was was condemning not the idea of
• 1:05:47
  caring for the poor. Jesus was rebuffing Judas's
• 1:05:52
  skepticism. Snark and and cynicism in his
• 1:05:57
  heart that distorted his ability to see.
• 1:06:02
  This is beautiful worship to Jesus as devotion to Jesus and
• 1:06:07
  made it look like somehow his virtue signaling his his his
• 1:06:13
  biblical proportionate Philadelphia, Philly, Karen, if
• 1:06:18
  you will attitude. That he had to kind of try to
• 1:06:24
  like be aggressively or even passive aggressively.
• 1:06:28
  Be just cynical. It was pride that showed up in
• 1:06:31
  his life and, and I mentioned in the message in that service that
• 1:06:35
  for me, I know pride is creeping into my heart and I need to
• 1:06:41
  address it. When I get cynical about other
• 1:06:45
  people, about situations, or even about myself and
• 1:06:49
  Christianity, cynicism can creep in.
• 1:06:52
  One of the ways I get cynicism out of my heart is celebration.
• 1:06:59
  What is celebration? It's praise.
• 1:07:02
  It's Thanksgiving. It's coming with joy and a
• 1:07:08
  delight. It's worship.
• 1:07:10
  So so. Worship is an act of humility
• 1:07:14
  that removes pride from my life. And worship and Thanksgiving
• 1:07:18
  helps clean away the cynicism that exists.
• 1:07:21
  In my life. Why?
• 1:07:23
  Because pride and cynicism are are kind of evidence of each
• 1:07:26
  other They they, they reveal pride, the root of pride in our
• 1:07:30
  heart through cynicism. But that's not the.
• 1:07:32
  Only thing pride reveals like, like I do believe again,
• 1:07:34
  cynicism is an indication that pride is stirring.
• 1:07:37
  In my own heart. And I think that was definitely
• 1:07:40
  the case for Judas when you look at the text, because cynicism is
• 1:07:44
  a distorted honesty around something.
• 1:07:48
  But pride can also be seen in in these areas.
• 1:07:51
  Here's some other evidences that pride could be the root or in
• 1:07:56
  root in in taking root in your in your own heart.
• 1:08:00
  Things like defensiveness. Are you unwilling to accept
• 1:08:05
  correction or feedback from others?
• 1:08:07
  Defensiveness. It's a root of pride.
• 1:08:10
  Pride. Can be seen in our continual
• 1:08:14
  need to blame others. For little things and big
• 1:08:17
  things, it's always someone else's fault, always something
• 1:08:20
  else, never really just owning it on your own, always blaming
• 1:08:26
  others. That's pride.
• 1:08:27
  Pride is seen in how easy it is to justify our actions or color
• 1:08:34
  what we're doing as more OK than what someone else is doing.
• 1:08:38
  So that comparison thing. Pride.
• 1:08:41
  I think pride can be seen in our unwillingness to be moved or to
• 1:08:46
  change. Peter again was unwilling to let
• 1:08:50
  Jesus wash his feet. Why pride, Lord, I No, no, no,
• 1:08:54
  no you can in an unwillingness to receive love and blessing
• 1:08:59
  from others. Is an indication that we are
• 1:09:03
  walking in pride, that we are stubborn and being on, we are
• 1:09:07
  unwilling to be moved towards something that God wants.
• 1:09:10
  I think that's another indication that pride has taken.
• 1:09:13
  Root in our heart. Ultimately, let me say it
• 1:09:18
  another way. I think pride shows up in our
• 1:09:21
  inability or our unwillingness to yield more of our life, more
• 1:09:27
  of our time, more of our resource to God, to his ways.
• 1:09:32
  I think pride can be seen in our demand to be noticed and
• 1:09:37
  recognized for our contribution. Pride can be seen as an
• 1:09:44
  attachment to our insecurities or embarrassments.
• 1:09:49
  What are the things that we're embarrassed by?
• 1:09:50
  What are the things where insecurity show up?
• 1:09:52
  It's really from the root of. Pride.
• 1:09:56
  Pride can be seen in a lack of dependence on God, where we
• 1:10:00
  depend more on our ability than on God's provision or God's
• 1:10:04
  ability. That's can be pride.
• 1:10:07
  I think pride can also be seen in our in, in our decision to
• 1:10:14
  not give thanks or give someone credit.
• 1:10:18
  Again, celebration, Thanksgiving.
• 1:10:20
  It's where pride creeps in. And then the the last, maybe red
• 1:10:24
  flag that pride is growing in our hearts can be seen in our
• 1:10:28
  incessant need to clarify our motives because our actions say.
• 1:10:34
  Differently than what we feel our our motives really are like
• 1:10:38
  when we say like, I don't ever do this, but then we do
• 1:10:42
  something we're just trying to manage and control others
• 1:10:46
  understanding and we feel like we have to clarify it because
• 1:10:50
  our pride doesn't want us to acknowledge the reality of how
• 1:10:55
  we're living right. Like y'all, you know me, I'm,
• 1:10:58
  I'd give anybody their shirt off my back, but man, I can't help
• 1:11:03
  that anymore. I'm not giving a dime to that.
• 1:11:06
  What are we doing? We're trying to qualify our
• 1:11:09
  motives and clarify so we don't get misunderstood or mislabeled.
• 1:11:12
  Why? Because we don't want to admit
• 1:11:16
  the distorted truth that we're believing we, we, we're living
• 1:11:20
  with a distorted honesty. What is that?
• 1:11:22
  It's pride. It's pride in our lives, pride
• 1:11:26
  in our hearts. And so we always have to
• 1:11:28
  clarify. We always need to make manage
• 1:11:30
  our motives. We always need to kind of, I
• 1:11:33
  think that's pride showing up in our lives, trying to control
• 1:11:36
  understanding, control outcomes, control people's opinions, kind
• 1:11:41
  of PR our life a little bit because our lives are telling a
• 1:11:46
  story that we're not ready to believe or we're unwilling to
• 1:11:49
  admit is true about us. So ultimately, pride distorts
• 1:11:57
  our ability to be honest about ourselves.
• 1:12:00
  And that's why we need God. It's when we need the Holy
• 1:12:02
  Spirit and we need loving people to help us see honestly and in
• 1:12:07
  our humility, we can actually worship God correctly, but our
• 1:12:11
  pride will always keep us. From worshipping God.
• 1:12:15
  God sacrificially will always keep us from worshiping God with
• 1:12:18
  extravagance. It will always distort our
• 1:12:22
  devotion to God. Pride will kill your worship.
• 1:12:29
  To God. And that's a really, really big
• 1:12:32
  problem. And I think we see that when we
• 1:12:34
  contrast Mary's response to Jesus and pouring out
• 1:12:38
  extravagant generosity and an act of devotion and adoration to
• 1:12:43
  Jesus. And we see it contrasted in
• 1:12:46
  Judas's actions, in his response to this act of devotion and
• 1:12:50
  worship to Jesus. Don't let pride creep in and
• 1:12:54
  distort. Pull away or disrupt your life
• 1:12:58
  from being God honoring in every way of your life.
• 1:13:01
  Hey, that's it for today's episode of the Faith for today
• 1:13:05
  podcast next week. Remember, we'll tackle John 13
• 1:13:10
  in the second-half of kind of this message that.
• 1:13:14
  Be brought on Sunday All right hey, I.
• 1:13:16
  Want you to know I love you. We'll see you next week.
• 1:13:19
  Have faith for today, friends.