Worthy
Transcript
Well, good morning. How are we doing, church? Yeah, so good to be with you guys. Like Matt said, my name is Tim. My wife and I and a team of folks are getting ready to be sent out around this time next year to plant Citizens Church in Charlotte, right on the east side of Uptown. And so we are, in a lot of ways, where Mill City was, what, seven years ago, six years ago now.
Just getting ready to build a team and great support and all of that to be sent out. And so excited. It's good to be with you guys. Let me encourage you real quick before we dive into God's word. You guys, what you are doing here matters, not just in West Columbia, South Carolina, but across the southeast and across our country and around the world. So for us, as we get ready to do what you guys are doing, to do church planting, it is such an encouragement to get to be here and to see you guys worshiping and celebrating the risen and ruling King Jesus.
And so keep it up because you are having more of an impact than you know through the way that you are living and following and pursuing our Lord. So Spencer and I were friends back in Louisville at seminary together. And so he called me on Friday and I knew when that call came that this might be what it is going to be for. And so he let me know, hey, there's about a 30% chance that you're going to be up there on Sunday if you could come preach for us. And then I woke up Saturday morning to about a 90% chance. And then about four o'clock yesterday, he said, there's a 100% chance you are preaching for us.
But the good news for us this morning is that whether we have two days or two months or two years to prep a sermon that God's word, he says, will never return back to him void. Amen. It's the good news that God's word is still true and it's still good. And so we're going to stumble through it together. And as Matt said, sit under its authority because God is true and he's good and he knows better than us. And so that's what we're going to be doing this morning.
Psalm 99, if you got a Bible, if you need one, there should be some on the rows. If you grab one of those Bibles, it's page 287. Page 287, Psalm 99. We're going to start there and then we're going to hop over eventually to Isaiah. But here's where I want to start us this morning.
So A.W. Tozer is a theologian who in the 1960s wrote a book called The Knowledge of the Holy. And this book, it's a little over 100 pages, kind of became an instant classic on the attributes of God. And in this book, Tozer just walks through the different attributes of God. But here's how he starts.
And this is where I want to start us this morning. His very first sentence, his whole thesis for the book. This is what he writes. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Not what we do for a living.
Not where we went to school. Not how good our college football team is, which, amen for all us Gamecocks. Right? Not who our family is. Not how much money we have. Not where we live.
Not our zip code. But the most important thing about us is what we think about God. Because what we think about God is going to impact and affect everything about how we live and move and have our being in the world. All right? So if you believe that God is just some distant sky fairy who's here just to kind of bless your life with whatever you want to do, that is going to affect how you live.
Right? You're going to walk around in a certain way. You're going to act in a certain way. Alternatively to that, if you believe that God is some great policeman in the sky who's watching and waiting and he's just like, boom, sin, got it. It's going to affect how you live. It's going to affect how you live and move and have your being in the world.
And so all I want to do this morning for us is to talk a little bit about, hey, if that's true, if the most important thing about us is what comes into our minds when we think about God, then what do we think about God? What are we supposed to think about him? Who does the Bible say that he is? So we're going to start in Psalm 99. Matt already prayed for us. Let me pray one more time.
Father God, thank you for your word. And thank you for the privilege that it is to get together. And thank you that you are good and that you're powerful and that you're sovereign. And as we're going to see this morning, that you're holy. That you dwell, set apart, distinct, separate from the rest of creation, but you're active and working and moving. Thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for what he's done for us on the cross. God, let us be encouraged. Let us be challenged. Let us be equipped by your word this morning to go do every good work that you have for us. I love you. Pray all these things in Jesus' name.
Amen. Psalm 99. We're going to start in verse 1. Here we go. Psalmist writes, The Lord reigns, but the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim.
So this is a dual reference. So on the one hand, the psalmist is talking about the Ark of the Covenant. And so the Ark of the Covenant was something that the Israelites kept in a part of the temple called the Holy of Holies. And on the Ark of the Covenant, there were two angelic beings called cherubim that were carved. And the Israelites knew that God's presence dwelt in the Ark of the Covenant for them. And so what he's talking about there is that God sits enthroned upon the cherubim as he's talking on the one hand about the Ark of the Covenant.
And on the other hand, he's talking, hey, in a very real sense, God is enthroned upon everything. That he is above the angelic beings. That he's above all of creation. That he is above all things and all people. Keep going. He writes, Let the earth quake.
The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he. So if you're the type of person who writes in your Bible, you want to underline that, highlight it, start, whatever you got to do.
Holy is he. That's going to be a key where we're going this morning. Verse four. The king in his might loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt the Lord our God. Worship at his footstool. Here we go again. Holy is he. Underline it. Highlight it.
Star it. Verse six. Moses and Aaron were among his priests. Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord and he answered them. In the pillar of the cloud, he spoke to them.
They kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. Oh, Lord our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. Verse nine. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain. Here we go one last time.
For the Lord our God is holy. Third time. God is holy. So in Psalm 99, the psalmist is proclaiming how great and mighty and awesome our God is. And he goes and says he's holy. He's awesome.
So last summer, my wife and I had the opportunity to go visit her brother and sister-in-law who live just outside of Calgary, Canada. So over kind of on the west part of Canada. And they live just a few hours from Banff National Park, which I don't know if you've ever heard of Banff, but it's one of the most beautiful places in the entire continent, especially. Maybe the world. I don't know. But it's wonderful and great.
And so one of the things that Banff National Park is known for, it's in the Canadian Rockies and it's known for its beautiful lakes. So it just has a ton of incredible lakes. And so we went to visit some of these. And one of those lakes is called Moraine Lake. And so Moraine Lake is tucked back about five miles from the main road. So you have to kind of drive this curvy road and then you park in this little parking lot.
And then you walk up this little hill and this is what you see. This is Moraine Lake. Yeah. And I'm not a big nature person. I talk about this a lot at Midtown. I just, it's not for me.
I don't understand. I can just look at pictures. I don't need to go see it. Totally fine. So I'll tell you how my wife, like a normal person, reacted.
So we walk up the hill and we see Moraine Lake. And she literally grabs me on the arm and says, oh, wow. Isn't it incredible? And I'm like, totally. Yeah. Listen, her response is a little picture of what the psalmist in Psalm 99 is saying.
Our response should be to the bigness and greatness of God. He says, look at him. Exalt him. Worship at his footstool. Why? Because he's holy.
Because he's distinct. Because he's set apart. Because he's wonderful and beautiful. The way that theologians often talk about this otherness, this incredibleness of God, is an attribute called his transcendence. His transcendence. It means that he's above us.
That he's separate from us. That he's distinct. That he is outside and around and away from his creation. And yet he's distinctly working and active and in the middle of all of it. That he's other. That he's unique.
That he is distinct. That he is set apart. There's no one like him. God is incomparable to anything or anyone else. No one is on the same playing field as our God. He stands alone.
That's what it means by transcendence. And the chief way the Bible, specifically Psalm 99, talks about God's transcendence is through his holiness. Right? So I love the way that Psalm 99 reads. So the psalmist is just going along.
And he's like, God executes justice and righteousness. And by the way, he's holy. And oh yeah, and the priest. And he forgave. And he avenged wrongdoings. And by the way, he's holy.
Like it's just flowing out of him. He can't contain it. God is holy. He's holy. He's holy. I can't not talk about the holiness of God.
Now for many of us, when we think of God's holiness, we think about morality. Right? So we think, all right, God is holy, so that means he's upright. Or he's good. Or he's morally pure. Or morally perfect.
And that's part of it. But the biblical idea of holiness is much bigger than that. The biblical idea of holiness is much bigger and richer than just morality. So in the Old Testament, the word that we have translated as holy is the Hebrew word kadosh. Kadosh. And what it means is it means sacred or set apart.
Kadosh means that God is sacred. He's distinct. He's other. God's holiness means that he is transcendent. He's outside of. He's totally unique.
There's nothing like God. And we see this set apartness of God through attributes of God that he alone has. Right? So theologians often call this his incommunicable attributes. They're attributes that you and I don't have that God alone has. So his eternality.
Right? So God is eternal. God has always been. He always is. And he always will be. There's no place in time that God has not been.
And he's immutable. He's unchangeable. God is always the same. You and I change based on whether we're hungry or not. Right? God never changes.
He's always the same. He's always been the same. He always will be the same. He always is the same. God is omnipotent. He's all powerful.
He sustains the entire universe. He holds all things together. Do this with me real quick. Everybody take a deep breath in. Then let it out.
The Bible would say that any of us could breathe just there and then because God gives it as a gift. He is the one who gives breath to our lungs. He sustains all things and he holds all things. I learned this a few months ago. It blew my mind. Did you know that there are over a hundred billion galaxies in our universe?
A hundred billion. So we live in one, the Milky Way. There are a hundred billion other Milky Way type galaxies in the entire universe. And the Bible says God holds all of it together. He's omnipresent. That means God is always everywhere fully.
So there's nowhere in history that God has not been there fully. That means right now this morning at what 11.05 a.m. Here at Mill City, God is here with us and he's present fully. Just like he's on the other side of the world caring for people and feeding people and loving people fully. And he's not distracted. He's not a little bit here and a little bit there.
He's always everywhere fully. God is omniscient. He knows all. He knows everything. I think about this. God has never had to learn anything.
God's never been surprised by anything. He knows everything that will happen and everything that could happen. God is sovereign. He's in control. He rules and reigns, which is good news. I don't need to be in control of my life.
Amen? God is. He's sovereign over all things. And if you're tracking with me, if you're thinking correctly, your mind should be a little bit blown right now. Right? Like words just don't really cut it when it comes to describing the holiness and magnificence and awesomeness of God.
We can't wrap our minds around his holiness. Tozer, who I quoted earlier, said it really well. He said, we know nothing like divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire his wisdom, but his holiness he cannot even imagine.
God's holiness is a dimension of God that consumes his very essence. So to be God is to be holy. That's what it means to be God. Here's how theologian R.C. Sproul talks about it. He says, So let me say something that you might not agree with at first, but let me show it to you from scripture.
So if you have a little pause, that's okay. Just trust me. We're going somewhere. Let me prove this to you. God's holiness is the most important thing about him. God's holiness is the most important thing about him.
God's holiness is the most important thing about him. Which if you're following with me, that might raise a couple of questions, right? Like, are we sure? Right? Like, I've heard God is love, right? So if we took a poll around this room, I said, show of hands, who thinks God's most important attribute is love?
I think most of us would raise our hands, right? After all, 1 John 4. God is love. And is he love? Yes, absolutely. But God's love is not the most important thing about him.
His holiness is. Let me show you. Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6. Turn over there. If you're in our Bibles, it's page 330.
330. Isaiah chapter 6. It'll be on the screen as well. Let me show you this from Isaiah. So Isaiah is a prophet in the Old Testament, and he has this encounter in the throne room of God, and he writes about it in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1.
Isaiah writes, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. So I don't know what picture you have of angels, but mine is not six-winged creatures, right?
Like, this is intense. So Isaiah is in the throne room, and these seraphim are flying around with six wings. Verse 3. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. So seraphim are flying around the throne of God, and they're shouting, Holy, holy, holy.
So in English, we have different ways of communicating emphasis, right? So if you write something down, and you want to emphasize it, you want to say, this is what I'm, this is what's most important. This is what I'm talking about. You might underline it. You might highlight it. You might make it bold or italicized.
You might put an exclamation point. You might use a bunch of emojis. I don't know whatever you do, but you emphasize it with something. The same way when we're, when we're talking, when we want to emphasize something, I've been told, especially when talking to my wife, which I'm working on, I repeat myself a lot. She says not to do that. I'm trying, right?
We repeat ourselves a lot. It's a way of saying, hey, what I just said is important, so I'm going to say it again. Coincidentally, that's also how the Hebrew language works. That when they wanted to emphasize something, they didn't have punctuation marks like we have punctuation marks. And so to emphasize something, they would repeat it over and over and over again. There was another thing they were doing when they repeated it, and that was they didn't have a way of taking things to the superlative degree, right?
So if I'm trying to describe something as being higher than something else, I might say, this is high, this is higher, and this is the highest, right? Or you have big, bigger, and biggest. We have ways of saying this is the most. This is the superlative. That's what they would do in the Hebrew language, is they would repeat something. And so what's happening here in Isaiah 6 is the seraphim are flying around the throne room of God, and they're saying to each other, God is holy.
No, wait, he's holier. No, no, no, wait, he's the holiest. And you have to get this, Isaiah. The most important thing about him is that he is the holiest, that he stands alone, that he stands apart, that he stands separate and unique and distinct. He's holy. He's holy.
No, no, he's the holier. No, he's holiest. They're emphasizing this to him. And if you read scripture, the holiness of God is the only attribute ever used in the entire Bible three times in succession. It's the only one ever used. Holy, holy, holy.
So we never read that God is love, love, love. We never read that he is grace, grace, grace. We never read that he is compassion, compassion, compassion. Now, is he love? Absolutely. Right?
First John 4, 8. God is love. But get this. His holiness is actually what defines his love. All right, so y'all tracking with me?
God is not just love. He's actually better than just love. He's holy, holy, holy love. That means he's the author of love. He's the one who defines love. That means his love is like nothing you can ever imagine.
Nothing you've ever experienced. Not only is God grace, but he's holy, holy, holy grace. That means his grace is distinct and unique and set apart. We've never experienced anything like it. It's incredible. Not only is God compassion, but he's holy, holy, holy compassion.
His holiness is what defines all of his other attributes. It's what makes him God. It's what makes him unique, that he has all of this about him that is distinct and unique and set apart. He's holy. It's who he is. God is holy, holy, holy.
So let me give you one important implication of this, what this means for us. This means God is not like us. This means God is not like you, and he's not like me. He's not like any of us. God is God. So the Bible tells us that God created man in his own image, right?
The Imago Dei is what theologians call it, that you and I, we are reflecting God. We are made in the image of God in a unique way, right? So we can do things as God's image bearers that other aspects of creation cannot, right? So you and I can love, and we can create culture, and we can create art and beauty, and giraffes don't, right? You and I can build culture. We can build societies.
We can make laws. We can grow the world. We can have dominion over things in the earth, and trees just stand there and look pretty and give us oxygen. But you get the point, right? We're unique. We're just, we're reflecting God in a unique way.
But what can happen is when we hear this, that we are created in the image of God is we can begin to believe the lie that because we are like God, that God is like us. Let me tell you this morning that you are like God, but God is not like you. He doesn't think like you do. He doesn't reason like you do. He doesn't live and move and dwell in the world like you do. He's holy.
He's distinct. He's set apart. He's unique. And if we're not careful, if we begin to believe that God is like us, that comes with a lot of false, fake ideas of who God is. Right? So we begin to believe that God is like some really great human.
Like he's like us, but he's stronger than us, and he's more powerful than us, and he's bigger than us, and he's faster than us, and he's faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. That's God. Like, no, that's Superman. But close. No. It's not.
God is not like a better version of us, or we can begin to believe that he's like a great grandpa. Right? Like God is the world's greatest grandpa, that he's up there in the sky with a big white beard, and he's just saying, yeah, keep it up. Keep going. Good Job. We can begin to think that because we are like God, that God is like us, but God is not like us.
He's separate. He's holy. He's set apart. He's unique. Now, the most helpful way I've found to understand this is to think about the Son. Right?
So God's holiness, in a weird way, let me try to stay with me, is like the Son. So the Son is unique, right, at least in our solar system, and it's immensely powerful. Right? The Son is powerful. The Son, in many respects, is our source of life. It makes life continue on in the world.
You can take this metaphor, and you can say that the whole area around the Son is also holy. Right? So the closer you get to the Son, the more powerful and intense the Son gets. Because the Son is so powerful and good and generates so much life, this also makes it dangerous. Right? But if you are not of the same essence as the Son, and yet you get close to the Son, it is not good news for you.
But this is not because the Son is bad. It's because the Son is too good. Right? The Son is too powerful. The Son is too distinct and set apart. So the Son is not dangerous because it's bad.
The Son is dangerous because it's so good. It's so powerful. So if you and I, who are not of the same essence or nature as the Son, get close to the Son, it is not going to go well for us. In a very small way, that's a little bit of what God's holiness is like. All right, so Hebrews 12 says that God is a consuming fire.
That means if we're impure, if we're not of the same essence of holiness, His presence is dangerous to us. His immense goodness makes it dangerous for anything to get close to Him that's not His equal, that's not holy like He is. And this is a problem for us. And it's a problem for Isaiah. Look back, verse 3. Isaiah 6, verse 3.
And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called. And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me. For I am lost.
For I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. So have you ever been somewhere where they've gotten with someone that you love and they've gotten really bad news? Right? So an instant death of a loved one that came unexpectedly.
Or something happened and someone's being rushed to the hospital. Whatever it is. And whenever they get that call, their response is not half-hearted. Right? It's not, oh man, that really stinks. Usually what happens is they have a visceral, emotional, bodily response.
Right? A lot of times they break down. They can't stand anymore. They just start weeping. You think about the good version of this. So whenever you get good news.
Right? So Spencer and Anna. Right? Whenever their child is born. I'm sure there was so much excitement. So much joy and laughter.
New life has come into the world. And when you go to a wedding. Right? Whenever the bride is walking down the aisle. Everyone always turns and looks at the groom. Right?
Why do they do that? They do that because they're looking for his emotional response. He can't help it. This woman that he loves, he now gets to be with forever. Or everyone's favorite YouTube videos of soldiers returning home from war. Right?
Have you guys seen these? It's usually a school assembly and a kid is there in front of everyone. And they're kind of hanging out. And then their mom or their dad who were overseas walks in the room. And they just break down and lose it. And start crying and weeping.
And you at your computer start breaking down and losing it. And crying and weeping. It's a visceral, emotional, bodily response. We can't help it. Something has happened that is great and wonderful. We've seen something or heard something that has happened.
And we just can't be the same. That's what's happening to Isaiah here. He sees God. He sees the holiness of God. The throne room of God. And in a very small way, those experiences we have are what's happening to Isaiah.
He sees God. And he sees the throne. And he sees the train of God's robe filling the temple. And seraphim are flying around saying, Holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah's only response is, Oh no. I'm in trouble.
Right? If this is who God is. If this is how great he is. How wonderful he is. How awesome he is. How holy and majestic he is.
I am in trouble. I can't be near him. I'm not of the same essence as him. I'm not of the same level as him. He's holy and I am not. I'm unclean.
And I dwell among a people who are unclean. And I can't be near God. The whole story of the Bible, church. The whole story of the Bible is that we were made to be near God. Right? You and I, from Genesis 1 to the very end of time, are existing to be near God.
To dwell with him in perfection. To dwell with him in holiness. To live with him forever. And so what do we do with that? What do we do with the reality that God is holy and we're not of the same essence as him so we can't be near him and yet we were made to be near him. Let's see what God does about it.
Isaiah 6 verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. From the altar of God comes Isaiah's forgiveness. Right?
From God himself, from God's holiness, Isaiah is made holy. And for those of you who know your Bible, you know where this is going. Right? 740 years later comes a man named Jesus who is fully God and yet willingly humbles himself and comes to earth as fully man. Born of a virgin. Living and experiencing all of life yet was perfect and without sin.
Was the only one who is the same essence as God. Holy. And yet he, in his holiness, goes to the cross and willingly gives up his life. takes our unholiness, our unrighteousness, our uncleanness upon himself. Three days later, gets up out of the grave, defeating Satan, sin, and death so that we could be given his righteousness and holiness. Same story. From the altar of God comes our forgiveness.
From God's holiness, we are made holy. So I want to land the plane this morning with the Tozer quote we started with. So he writes at the start of his book what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Because seeing God for who he really is affects everything about us. And so, that's kind of two responses this morning. For some of us, we need a little bit of an Isaiah 6 response to seeing God.
We need a little bit of a, oh no. Right? If God is like this, if he's holy, if he is distinct, if he's set apart, if he's righteous, then there's no good deed that I can do. There's no work that I can muster up. There's nothing I can, it's not a scale, it's not, well I hope my good outweighs my bad a little bit. It's not a, well I hope I followed enough things, or I hope I did enough right things.
No, God is not of the same essence as us. He's distinct and set apart and holy. And so we cannot go near that holiness except by the imparted, the given holiness of Jesus to us. He has to give us his righteousness. And so, for some of us, we were walking around with a view of God like he's just some great grandpa, or he's like some magical sky fairy, or he's like some policeman in the sky. We need to hear, hey, hey, God is bigger than you, and he's better than you, and he's holy, and he's righteous.
Jesus, you don't earn your way to him. You don't do enough good things to get to him. And so some of us this morning, we need to see God, and we need to go, oh no, I'm in trouble. Is there any help for me? And we need to see that that answer is in the person and work of Jesus, who loves us, and died for us, but didn't stay dead, but got up out of the grave. So some of us, we need a, God is holy, and I'm not, and I'm in trouble.
Jesus is there, and he's the answer. He's the redeemer. He's the one who calls us back to God. And for others of us, we need a little bit of different response. We need a response of gratitude and thanksgiving. So there's one other place in scripture that we see the throne room of God being surrounded by the seraphim, and that's Revelation 4 and 5.
We won't turn there. Let me just talk to you about it. So in Revelation 4 and 5, we again get a glimpse of the throne room of God, and seraphim are again flying around the throne, but this time, it's not just Isaiah that's there. The throne of God is surrounded by all of those who put their faith and their hope and their trust in Jesus, and the seraphim are flying around, and the throne is surrounded by all who trust in Christ, and the seraphim are shouting, holy, holy, holy, and you know what the people's response is? It's not, woe is me. Their response, Revelation 5, their response to seeing the holiness of God is not, oh no, I'm in trouble.
Their response is, worthy is the lamb who was slain. Oh, wow. God's like this, but yet Jesus has come, and he was slain on my behalf. He gave himself up on my behalf. We're not saying anymore around the throne, woe is me because God is too holy. We're saying, worthy is Jesus who made a way for us to be here and to be in the presence of God where we were meant to be forever.
Until that day, until that day that is guaranteed for all who trust in Christ, until that day, we get little glimpses of that worship every time we gather on a Sunday. Every time we gather and we get to sing about who God is and what he's done, we're reminded, oh yeah, worthy is the lamb who was slain, and one day we're going to be around the throne of God worshiping and celebrating him forever. And so this is just really good reminders and really good practice. We get to celebrate Jesus now. We get to take communion. So as the band's coming up, every week when you guys gather, you take communion.
And communion is a way of remembering on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and he broke it. He said, this is my body given for you. And in the same way, he took a cup of wine, and he said, this cup is the cup of the new covenant, sealed by the shedding of my blood. For every time you eat this bread and you drink from this cup, you're announcing my death until I return. And so you guys take communion every week. You take a piece of bread and dip it in the juice, and you're reminded of what Jesus has done for you.
And you remember that one day he's coming again, and he's going to rule and reign forever, and he's going to make all things new. And until that day, we remember, and we practice, and we rehearse, and we remind ourselves of what Jesus has done. It's the gift of communion. If you're a Christian, just a second, we're going to invite you to take a minute and pray, confess what you need to before God, and come and take communion. Be reminded of what Jesus has done for you. If you're not a Christian, we would ask you not to take communion, but rather than take communion, we invite you to take Christ, to believe on him, to see God in all of his holiness, and say, I'm in trouble if I don't have Jesus pleading on my behalf.
I invite you, you can come talk to me, you can talk to Matt, you can talk to Raz, who's upstairs, you can ask us, hey, what does it mean to put my faith and my hope and my trust in Jesus? Because I see God's holiness, and I'm not like that. I need help. I'd love to talk to you about what it means to put your faith in Christ. But I'm going to pray for us, and then we get a chance to celebrate.
Church, see this as a celebration. Jesus has died, but he didn't stay dead. He rose again. He's coming back. Pray with me. Father, God, we are so grateful.
God, I'm so grateful. Revelation 4 and 5 is our future. It's not uncertain. It's not maybe. It's not I hope. It's a guarantee.
It's not only a guarantee. And one day, you're going to return, and you're going to make all things new, and you're going to rule and reign forever like you already are. I'm going to be surrounding your throne, singing and worshiping, seeing your holiness, seeing your distinctness, your set-apartness, your greatness, and our response. It's going to be, yeah, we're sinners, but worthy is the lamb who was slain, who gave up his life. He didn't have to, but he wanted to. He went to the cross.
He took our sin, our unrighteousness, our uncleanness, our shame, our guilt, our brokenness, our running and rebellion against you. He took all of that on himself. He became unclean so that we could be given his righteousness. We could dwell with you forever. And so, have we forgotten that? This morning, God, would you remind us?
Would you enliven us back to the good news of the gospel through your spirit? Now, if there's anybody in here this morning who says, yeah, my response is, woe is me. I don't have Jesus pleading on my behalf, but I want him. I want to put my faith and my trust in him. I want to turn from being an enemy of God to be welcomed into the family. God, would you, by the power of your Holy Spirit, work in power and work in might?
You're good. Thanks that we get to celebrate how good you are throughout the week and then we get to gather together on Sunday and just sing. Take communion and remember how good you are, how good you've been, how good you will be. I love you. I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
You guys can take a minute and then take communion when you're ready.éré's community today.