Why Christians don't have clowns in Worship

[0:00] All right, if you'll open your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 10, we're going to pray, and we'll read through the scripture as we go through the sermon this morning. So Leviticus chapter 10, and let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, unless you come and open our eyes, unless you open our hearts to want to hear, to want to see, what we're doing is in vain.

[0:24] And so we pray, Father, for the move of your spirit. We pray that you would convict hearts, that you would open eyes, that you would draw our hearts and our minds and our affections to you. Father, help us to understand that this is reality.

[0:45] Help us to understand your word, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. I don't know if you've ever been a part of a worship service. I'm pretty sure you probably have, where you've been there, and they've done something in that worship service, and you walked away, and after it was over, you begin to just sort of think in your mind. It's like, you know, I'm not sure that they should have done that. That is something that I don't know. I don't know the answer, but man, there's something about that that seems off, something about that that seems a little not right. And you know, maybe it wasn't as big a deal as somebody driving a motorcycle out onto the stage, or maybe it wasn't as big a deal as a pastor dressing up as a clown and pantomiming his sermon. Some of you are going like, what? Or maybe it wasn't as big a deal as calling off worship in order to rake leaves. But whatever happened, you were uncomfortable with what took place.

[1:47] And here's the thing. What we must know is, how do we worship? How should we worship God?

[1:58] And the answer to that question is never, well, I think. That is never the answer to the question.

[2:09] It's always, God says. And that's what we want to look at this morning. And what happens to Aaron and his four sons teaches us two lessons about how we are to worship. And those two lessons are that worship requires obedience and worship requires the heart. Let's take a look at this first lesson.

[2:38] It's in verses one through three. And here's the text, right? It says this in verse one, now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, now how would you like for that to be your name, Nadab and Abihu, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire or strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded. What happened? Verse two, and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord. Verse three, then Moses said to Aaron, Aaron, this is what the Lord has said among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. In what Aaron's sons did, there is a part of what they did, which was in obedience to God, because having a censer and having incense was a thing.

[3:46] It was something you are to do. As a matter of fact, if you look at the tabernacle again, this picture shows the interior of the tabernacle. And you'll notice the altar of incense. Now these three pieces of furniture, the table of showbread, the lampstand and the altar of incense, they're made of gold, right? They're overlaid with gold. And the altar inside is to have fire and incense brought in and placed upon it. And the incense is exactly what you think it is. It's something that burns, that puts off smoke and a smell, right? And part of the reason for that is that they were to fill the tabernacle with the incense as it would go under the veil and it would cloud the Holy of Holies. So when the high priest would go past the veil, it was cloudy in there because you can't see God and live. So these boys were supposed to be bringing incense. That's one of the things that they were supposed to do. But the problem comes that they were offering incense with fire that was unauthorized. It was strange fire. Now there's a lot of what you could say theories about exactly what this was and why this was such a bad thing. And the fact of the matter is, is we don't know. We don't know why this was such a bad thing except for the very next phrase in Leviticus where it says, which he had not commanded. Which he had not commanded. The problem with their worship was that they added to the worship of God something that he did not command. They had an idea of something that they thought would be a good idea and God was not happy with it. They wanted to worship God in a way that God had not commanded. And beloved, it is sinful to worship God in a way he hasn't commanded.

[6:00] It is sinful to worship God in a way that he has not commanded. And we understand that from the very next verse because fire came out and consumed these two young men. This word for the fire consuming is exactly what happens in Leviticus chapter 9 verse 24 where the sacrifice is on the altar and God sends out this fire from the tabernacle and consumes the sacrifice. Remember what the sacrifice is? Like it stands for you. You as the worshiper, you as the Israelite would bring your animal, put your hand upon its head, confess your sin, transfer your guilt to the sacrifice. And the sacrifice being laid there is consumed by the fire of God. But you and I should have been consumed. This fire of God is his wrath. It is his anger. It is his holiness. It is his punishment.

[7:00] And he takes it upon the sacrifice instead of the worshiper because of the idea of substitution that comes in with Jesus. So when these young men go into this place with unauthorized fire doing that which God has not commanded us to do, the fire comes out and consumes them. That is God's wrath.

[7:26] Worship for us ought to be only in those ways that God has commanded us to do. Now there's an important question that we have to answer here and maybe you're thinking about it. Maybe you're not. But if you're not, you probably should. And that question is this. Okay, Brady, great. But you're reading from Leviticus. Okay, like that's Old Testament stuff. Okay. Old Testament, dark and scary. New Testament, fun and light. Right? Old Testament, dark and scary. Jesus, happy, happy all the time, time, time. Right?

[8:04] I mean, we're in the New Covenant. We're in the New Testament. Why would our worship be so scary-like compared to what's happening here among the Israelites? Does this principle still stand with where we are? And I would say to you, yes, I think it does. And I think you need to think about the idea that the Old Covenant is Mount Sinai. Think Mount Sinai. Think Moses is the mediator. Think the Old Covenant. Think of the New Testament as the New Covenant worship of Jesus Christ, the mediator.

[8:38] Think of it as Mount Zion. Right? I'm telling you that because I want to read a passage to you. It's a little bit lengthy, but I think we can get through it. In Hebrews chapter 12, beginning of verse 18, this is talking about Mount Sinai, Old Covenant. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a tempest. Remember when God comes down in Exodus 19 to give them the law, the top of the mountain is covered in this massive cloud, dark cloud, thunder, lightning, scary stuff. Right? Verse 19, and the sound of a trumpet and a voice of, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them. Very frightful. Verse 20, and they could not endure the order that was given if, even if a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.

[9:31] So nobody could break through and go to the top of this mountain. And verse 21, indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. That's worship at Sinai.

[9:48] But the writer goes right into talking about worship at Zion. He says in verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable, innumerable angels in festal gathering. Okay. All of a sudden, this sounds a lot better. Okay. It sounds a whole lot better. And to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Okay. This is sounding better all the time.

[10:19] Verse 24, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant into the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. You see, you got this worship over here that has blood, but this worship over here has blood as well. This worship at Sinai is the blood of all of these animals, but the blood here at Mount Zion is the blood of Christ. And so you have these two kinds of worship. And over here, it's dark and scary. And if you don't do things exactly right, God punishes. Is that still the same way?

[10:54] But listen to verse 25. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape, when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. In other words, as Moses warned them how they ought to worship and said, listen, this is what's going to happen. He's the mediator on earth. Christ, our mediator from heaven speaks through his word about how we ought to worship. And because it's worshiping of Christ, the substance and not the shadow. Yes, the principle stands. What God has commanded is what we should do and nothing more. We do not determine what we do together in our worship services by what we want or what we conjure up or what we can create. Instead, it ought to be that which God has commanded because Christ and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ is greater than what the old covenant could ever have.

[12:07] So what does that mean for us then? Well, I've often said this very same thing in lots of different scenarios and situations and Bible studies that we've had. And many of you, you understand and know, and you've heard me say these things before, but today what I want to do is I want to give you then things that I know that the Lord has commanded us to do, right? I'm not going to belabor all of them, but I just want you to see them. And there's, I got a list of them, I think up here. Yeah, there we go.

[12:33] These are the things that he's commanded us to do for worship. He's commanded us to pray. First Timothy chapter two, verse one, he's commanded us to read scripture. The public reading of scripture ought to be a part of the worship and the life of the church. First Timothy 4.13, the preaching of the word ought to be a part of the life and the worship of the church. Second Timothy 4.2, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16. Now, let me tell you something about singing just so that we can all be on the same page. The Lord is concerned with the content of what we sing. Let me say that again. The Lord is concerned with the content of what we sing, not the style or the instrumentation. This verse is not meant to say that instrumentation ought to be a certain thing or stylistically it ought to be a certain thing.

[13:29] This is meant to say the content ought to be a certain thing and it ought to be biblical. You see, it says psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. What we don't want to do is sing things because it makes us feel good. Now, it might evoke emotion, but we want to be sure that first and foremost, it's biblical and represents God correctly because there's a lot of songs out there that do not represent God correctly.

[13:57] If you want a list, I'll be glad to give it to you. The next thing is the Lord's Supper. We're commanded to do the Lord's Supper. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, beginning of verse 23, it talks about as often as we come together, we're supposed to participate in the Lord's Supper. And this is not something you're supposed to do by yourself at home with your family.

[14:20] This is something that the church does when it gathers, right? Baptism. We're supposed to have baptism as a part of the life of the church, Matthew 28, 19 through 20. But then we have Christian fellowship. And I just want to camp on this for just a second.

[14:40] There's so many verses I could have gone to to bring this out, but this is one where Paul's talking to the church at Thessalonica and says to encourage one another, build one another up just as you were doing. One of the things that's to be a part of the life and the worship of the local church is Christian fellowship. And Christian fellowship does not mean food. Okay. I know as Baptists, I know as Baptists, we think fellowship is equal to food, but it's not. Christian fellowship is when we partner together. It's when we spend time with one another. It's when we show hospitality to one another. It's when we are involved in one another's lives.

[15:30] Let me just say it this way. When you think about who your closest friends are, the people that you go to, to talk to, to get advice when something's not going well, they should be people that are in this room. And if you're like going, well, I'm uncomfortable with the people in this room, then you need to spend more time together. You need to show hospitality and have them with you so that you can become comfortable with them. Because a part of what we're supposed to do is to encourage one another, to admonish one another, to bear one another's burdens, to love one another. And how can we do that if we don't spend time together? All of this is a part of the life and the worship of the church that we're commanded to do. And in this particular area, let me just encourage you to do two things and then I'll just move on. One in terms of Christian fellowship is have some spiritual conversations with somebody. You know, there's a great group of you that show up early to service and it's awesome. And you guys are great. You talk and you share and you greet one another. And all I'm saying is take that to the, just one little step and ask this question. What's God teaching you? What's God been teaching you this last week? Or how can I pray for you? How can I be praying for you? Is it wrong to talk about the weather, the sports or whatever it else is you talk about? No, not at all. But don't let that be the only thing. And the second thing I would say is invite one another to your homes. Be together. Because you see, all of these commandments from the Lord, all these elements of worship that he's commanded us to do, yes, he is the supreme, omnipotent, powerful, righteous God that deserves worship. And he's commanded us to worship him in a particular way. But he's also done it for our good. The preaching of the word is for our good.

[17:52] The singing of the songs is for our good. The praying together is for our good. So think about these elements of worship. Think about how worship requires obedience.

[18:05] And which one of these elements do you struggle with the most? And ask the Lord to change your heart. Ask the Lord to change your heart about that element. Because worship requires obedience. But there's a second lesson. The second lesson is this, is that worship requires the heart.

[18:27] Worship requires the heart. Now this is verse 4 through verse 20. And before we jump into it, I just want to lay the foundation here. Remember that chapters 1 through 7 was just sort of law.

[18:39] Chapter 8, some actions started happening because Moses consecrates Aaron and his sons. Chapter 9, as priests, they begin the worship of God. And on this very same day, what's happened to Nadab and Abihu happens. So this is all within the same day, right?

[19:00] And so let's take a look at what happens once his sons have been killed by the Lord. Beginning in verse 4, Moses called Mishael and Eliphaz, the sons of Uzel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, Come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp.

[19:21] So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said. Now that's the cousins. The cousins came to carry their cousins out, okay?

[19:33] Verse 6, And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes lest you die, and wrath come upon all the congregation.

[19:50] But let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewell the burning that the Lord has kindled, and do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.

[20:03] And they did according to the word of Moses. Now what's happening here is that his sons have both just been killed by the Lord. There is grief in his heart.

[20:18] And what Moses is telling him is, he's not saying don't grieve, but he is telling him do not do the ritual grief things.

[20:30] You see, they had a ritual of grief. This ritual of grief involved them taking and letting their hair just go and hang loose. They would tear their clothes, right?

[20:42] They would take a, their shirts were a little bit like a t-shirt, where it's just got a collar, you know, no buttons or anything like that. And they would tear it. And then they would sit in sackcloth and ashes, and that's the way that they would mourn.

[20:55] They wanted a visual representation of the mourning of their heart, of the grief of their heart. But Aaron and his sons cannot do that, because the anointing oil of the Lord is on them.

[21:07] In other words, they are most representing the Lord Jesus Christ in this moment, and they need to stay in that moment. So let the rest of Israel do the ritual mourning for your sons.

[21:21] You, stay with what you've got. Hold on. Stay in the tabernacle. Keep doing the worship of the Lord. So they do.

[21:33] And what we see happen is that because of this thing that's happened with the sons, we all of a sudden have this shift in verse 8.

[21:43] And then the Lord spoke to Aaron and said, Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.

[21:57] You are to distinguish between the holy, the common, between the unclean and the clean. And you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.

[22:10] You see, what's happened is that this tabernacle has been defiled because of these dead bodies. Right? These men have done something wrong. They have been struck dead. And now the tabernacle is defiled.

[22:21] And when we get to the Day of Atonement, it's going to come back for us. Right? But the other thing that's going on is that God is like, say, listen, all my people need to understand the ritual status that my people need to have.

[22:36] There's four ritual statuses. You can be holy, common, clean, and unclean. Now, we're not going to talk about that today. We'll talk about that next week.

[22:48] But what he's saying is that because of this, the people of Israel need to know, so Aaron and his sons are now charged with teaching about this. Then the next thing that happens, verse 12, Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his surviving sons, take the grain offering that is left of the Lord's food offerings.

[23:08] Now, let me pause. I'm going to finish reading this, but I want you to notice how often he says to eat. Okay? How often he says to eat. Verse 12, he says, And eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy.

[23:25] Verse 13, You shall eat it in a holy place, because it is your due and your son's due, from the Lord's food offering, for so I have commanded. Verse 14, But the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed, you shall eat it in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you, for they are given as your due and your son's due, from the sacrifices of the peace offering of the people of Israel.

[23:50] Verse 15, The thigh that is contributed and the breast that is waved, they shall bring with the food offering of the fat pieces, to wave for a wave offering before the Lord, and it shall be yours and your son's, and with you, and your son's with you as a due forever, as the Lord has commanded.

[24:09] Now that last verse doesn't say the word eat, but because it's their due, that's the same idea. See, here's the thing. These offerings had parts for the priest to eat.

[24:21] And you only eat the offering for three reasons. You eat it out of joy for what God has done, you eat it as a reward for what you've done for the Lord as a priest, or you do it out of gratitude for what the Lord has done.

[24:35] So that's what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to take and do these sacrifices and eat them the way they're supposed to be done. And you go back to chapter 1 through 7 and see some of that. So Aaron and his two sons were supposed to eat the food and have joy, reward, and gratefulness.

[24:52] Well, what happens? Verse 16, Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up.

[25:03] And he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the surviving sons of Aaron, saying, Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary? Since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you, that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord.

[25:22] Behold, its blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary. You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary as I commanded. Uh-oh.

[25:37] You get the drift? They were supposed to eat, and they didn't eat. And verse 18 is kind of weird, right? You know, the blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary.

[25:48] That comes from chapter 6, verse 30. There are some sin offerings that when the blood's going to go into the Holy of Holies, you don't eat that offering. You burn it all up.

[25:59] But if you don't take the blood into the Holy of Holies, then you eat it. This blood wasn't taken into the Holy of Holies, so they should have eaten it. So just think about this, where we are. You got two sons who did something God hadn't commanded, and God struck them dead.

[26:16] And now you've got two sons who are not doing what God has commanded. And Moses is angry. What will happen?

[26:31] Do we understand this? Verse 19. Aaron said to Moses, Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, and yet such things as these have happened to me.

[26:53] Such things as these have happened to me. What is he referring to? The death of his first two sons. Then he says, If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the Lord have approved?

[27:10] The expected answer is, No. Why? Because Aaron recognizes that his heart is full of grief.

[27:28] And to eat the sacrifice requires a heart full of joy. And so rather than put on a front, rather than put on hypocrisy, he just chooses not to eat.

[27:50] Rather than putting on a heart of gratitude that he can't seem to conjure up, he just avoids eating the sacrifice.

[28:03] If they had eaten the sacrifice, would God have approved? And the answer is no. God expected the joy and expected the gratitude when that was going to be eaten.

[28:19] So does God approve then of this avoiding and abstinence of eating of this food? And the answer is yes, he does.

[28:30] And we know that from two reasons. Number one, Aaron and his sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, do not die. They do not die. And in verse 20, we see this, that when Moses heard that, he approved.

[28:47] He's in the place of God. And here's the thing, that word approved is exactly the same word that Aaron uses. You see, beloved, here's the point. The point is that though God has commanded us what we ought to do in worship, he never intends for those commands to be done without hearts in the right place.

[29:09] He doesn't want us just to pray because that's tradition and our hearts are not even thinking about it. He doesn't want us to sing songs because our hearts are far from it and we're not thinking about it.

[29:20] He wants us to do these things, but he wants us to do them with all of our heart. It is far better to leave something off than to do something with a wrong heart.

[29:31] And you know, we can have a wrong heart when we come to worship. We can have a wrong heart that comes when we come to worship. And you know what a wrong heart is? A wrong heart is, our heart is going this way while worship is going this way.

[29:46] Maybe you've been in that situation where your heart was full of grief. Your heart was full of sadness. Your heart was full of sorrow. That sorrow upon sorrow seemed to just, going to break you.

[30:00] And you come into worship and the songs that are going on are songs that are celebration and songs of joy and songs of greatness that just don't meet where your heart is. Far better for you in that moment to not sort of force your heart to sing that, but instead to be silent and say, Lord, you know I can't sing that today.

[30:19] My heart is broken and I want to have joy in you and I want to sing for joy, but my heart is broken. Far better for you to pray in worship and say, Lord, I just can't today.

[30:30] But you're worthy of everything that this song says. Sometimes we have wrong hearts and sometimes we have those wrong hearts because of our circumstances.

[30:42] Things that God in His providence brings into our life that we have no control over. And you're going to feel what you're going to feel when those things happen. What we don't want to do is put on a facade, nor do we want to get angry with God and say, I can't believe you let this happen.

[31:03] But oftentimes, we worship with the wrong heart because of our own sin. Because we're not thinking about what we're doing here. We don't want to be here.

[31:15] We don't like what's going on here. And what Jesus said is true of us. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

[31:27] Yes, we need to do what He's commanded, but we need to have the heart for it. When I was a junior in high school, my dad had stepped down being pastor, and we moved to another church.

[31:39] And that church we moved to, Brother Clifton was our pastor. And love Brother Clifton to this day. Just a great, great man of God. It was Mother's Day, and we had two services, and he was preaching on mothers and families and this kind of a thing and had his wife, at the end of the service, both services pray at the end of the service over all of the mothers in the congregation.

[32:04] It was just a really sweet moment. And they went to see their family that afternoon, and on their way back for church that night, because we had Sunday night church, they were in a car accident, and...

[32:17] Wow. I didn't expect that. I'm sorry. Both his wife and his daughter were killed in that car accident.

[32:31] And that night, we had a worship service planned that had a lot of great, celebrative, fun things in it. You know? We had the youth choir was gonna sing, and we had this thing that we had been working on.

[32:44] But as we all showed up to the church, nobody knew what was going on because we didn't have cell phones. As we get there, and our worship leader and our Sunday school teacher were there greeting everybody.

[32:58] They just told everybody what had happened, and we dispensed with the normal, and we just prayed. And why is that? Because it just wasn't appropriate to come and do those things with our hearts torn.

[33:13] So rather than try to fake an emotion and be all happy, clappy, clappy, clappy, we threw ourselves down upon the mercy of the Lord, crying out, God, help us.

[33:31] Because worship doesn't just require obedience. It requires the heart. And so, if we're going to have our hearts in the right place, circumstances, you can't help.

[33:51] All you can do is, when you come to worship, just be honest with the Lord. Be honest with your brothers and sisters in Christ, and be here in worship, and just go for it. What you don't want to do is that when your heart is torn, to avoid the worship of the Lord.

[34:08] Because you need to be with God's people more than anything. You need to be under the preaching of the word. But oftentimes, our hearts are not there because of our sins.

[34:19] So let me tell you a couple things to do to help get your heart in the right place. Number one, pray for the worship service all week long. Starting today, begin to pray about next Sunday.

[34:33] Pray for David. As David picks the songs, as he practices the music, pray for him. Pray for me as I'm studying the sermons, and I'm writing the sermons. Pray that we would meet God when we come together.

[34:46] Pray for yourself. Pray for yourself all week in worship. You know, it's very easy for all of us to have a mindset that we want to see things be a certain way when we come together.

[34:59] But pray that you can let that go and pray that you can just surrender to the Lord to say, you know, Lord, let me have my heart engaged the whole time. Third, try to grasp God's character.

[35:16] You know, as we're singing these songs, as we read the scripture, as we preach the word, think about God's character. I mean, today you've got a great part of God's character to grasp. He's frightening.

[35:28] He's holy. And he's compassionate. And as you hear that, just respond back to the Lord, because that's what worship is. Worship is revelation and response.

[35:41] He reveals himself. We respond to him. And fourth and final, think about, think about a throne and a table. When you come to worship, think about coming before a throne.

[35:56] Our God is a king, a great king, and he sits upon the throne and he rules all things. And how would you approach a king on a throne? Would you go up and throw yourself down in his lap like Santa Claus?

[36:10] No. You would bow before the throne and you wouldn't speak until spoken to. We ought to have an attitude that says we're coming before the throne.

[36:22] But we're also coming to a table. And what happens at the table? The father sits at the end and all the children fight over one another to get right next to father because they'll get more attention from him.

[36:32] And they want to hear him talk to them and they want to hear him say good things and they want to hear him say I'm proud of you. And they want to hear him say you know I love you and this is what I've done for you. And there's this intimate, there's this closeness that ought to be a part of worship and both ought to be there.

[36:51] But I don't know, maybe you're a little bit like me and you've, you listen to such a sermon and you think to yourself of all the times that rather than singing, rather than listening to the sermon, you've counted ceiling tiles.

[37:04] I used to sit right back over there where you are, Miss Linda, when I was at our First Baptist Church, Mauriceville and Brother Cliff was preaching, I would sit right back there, not with my parents and I would look at the ceiling and I would count ceiling tiles sometimes because my heart wasn't engaged.

[37:22] So why would you count ceiling tiles? Because it keeps you from falling asleep. And maybe you're like me, maybe you've, you hear this and you realize that the worship of God is something stupendous.

[37:35] And you look at your own life and you see the lack in your own life. Maybe it's that you've been the kind of person to sort of judge what's happening on stage. Maybe you're the kind of person that just has made yourself absent from the worship of the Lord.

[37:55] Well, I have good news for you. Your great high priest has gone before the Father with His own blood and He has pleaded for your forgiveness and cleansing.

[38:13] And messed up worshipers like us have hope because we can run, we can run to the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness that we need.

[38:24] So, so Christians, if you find yourself looking and saying, man, I have just not been a good worshiper, then just run to the cross, take it to the Lord, be forgiven. But maybe you're here today and you're not a Christian at all.

[38:40] Maybe you've never trusted Christ and the truth of the matter is is that you've never really worshipped God because you can't. Because you have no relationship with Him whatsoever. You cannot sing enough songs to have all of your sin forgiven.

[38:56] You cannot read enough of the Bible to stave off the wrath of God. And the reason for that is because God is an infinitely worthy God and just one single solitary sin is an infinite offense to God.

[39:14] And what that infinite offense needs is infinitely worthy blood to satisfy. And so maybe you need to come today and admit that you're a sinner, admit that you deserve death and hell and wrath and punishment.

[39:34] Confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Ask Him to save you and change your heart. then you can worship the way He's commanded with your whole heart.

[39:49] Let's pray.