 Gracious God, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank you for the blessed privilege again that is ours this morning to just come and worship, to be instructed, to be exhorted, to be admonished, to be encouraged, to be stirred in our hearts in the very deepest recesses of our souls. Heavenly Father, bless this hour of worship. Bless this dear brother, John Dee. I pray that you would just mightily speak through him, give him words of utterance that he's never pondered, perhaps even. You would just work through him for your glory and your praise here this morning. Amen. Father, I do pray for a purging of any dross that might exist in his life, and I know you've worked through him in very mighty ways for many years, and I just pray that it would continue this morning. May he be filled with your spirit, and may your name be praised in Jesus' name. We pray. Amen. God bless you. Thank you. O worship the King, all glorious above, and gratefully sing his wonderful love, our shield and defender, the ancient of days, pavilion in splendor, and girded with praise. Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite, it breathes in the air, it shines in the light, it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rail children of dust, and feeble as frail, in thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail, mercy's how tender, how firm to thee and a friend. Good morning. It's a real privilege to worship with such a diverse and yet unified, I trust, body of God's people. This summer, my wife and I visited Switzerland on a trip to Europe with our family, and we visited Sumaswald in Canton Byrne, and those of you who know the history know that that was the concentrated place where the Anabaptists lived. It's one of the few places in Europe that they actually know who Anabaptists are. There's an Anabaptist walking trail around the town. We visited the Troxelwald Castle, where Hans Hasselbacher, the last martyr of the Bernese Anabaptists, lived. In 1671, persecution was renewed in Switzerland, and the authorities in Canton Byrne were determined to completely exterminate Anabaptism or make them conform to the Reformed Church. These people included my wife's relatives. My wife was a shank, and there are many shanks still living in that area, and I think she's the 13th generation from the ancestor she had there. And at this particular point, 700 Bernese Anabaptists made the 240-mile trek to the Palatinate in Germany. The refugees included my wife's 81-year-old ancestor, Michael Shank Jr., a senior. He was 81 years old. He left his sick wife behind, apparently in the care of relatives. She was too sick to make the trek, and he also left 14 children behind. The group included Michael Shank Jr., a 32-year-old, with his wife and four children, ages 1 to 11. And one of those was 9 or 10-year-old Christian, who was the actual ancestor of my wife who came to this country. When they arrived, we have a little bit of a clue, the deprivation this group experienced. They arrived with two comforters and six pieces of coin, and we don't know how much they were worth, but probably not an awful lot. There's no horse listed, so we're assuming that they made this trek pretty much on foot. Why? They had an overriding priority. It was their devotion to Christ, which is the essence of worship, which we want to talk about this morning. What is worship? Probably next to love is the most misunderstood word in the Christian world. What is worship? Well, the word worship comes from the contraction. It is actually a contraction, and the contraction is here, because in there should be these two letters, worth-ship. That was the old English term, worth-ship. It had to do with values. You see, most Christians define Christianity in terms of morals, and that's good. Christians are honest, Christians are pure, Christians are kind. Yes, Christians are moral people. I don't want to minimize that in the least, but after you have focused on your morals, you have not yet quite reached the point of worship, because worship has to do with what you do between two things that probably both are legitimate, which is the most valuable to you. That's what worship is all about. It's about values. It's not particularly, well, I think out of your values come the morals that we're concerned about, but values is what worship is all about. Hebrews chapter 11 says almost nothing about the people's morals. In fact, some of the people in that chapter had real moral failures, but the thing that unifies the people in that chapter is their value system. They look for a city that had foundations whose maker and builder was God, unseen. Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ. The reproach of Christ, something nobody would want in the flesh. He esteemed the reproach of Christ of more value, get this value statement, than the treasures in Egypt. Now that is quite a value statement. So worship has to do with values. Worship has to do with faith. I really believe a person who doesn't have his value system right cannot be called a great person of faith, because faith has to do with believing that those things we do not see are more valuable than anything we see. And so the question we're asking this morning is, are we people of faith? Have we just attended to our morals and let our values basically be the same as the values of the people out there? That's the question. In a conversation, what sparks your passion? May I just put this in here yet? I believe that your passion, the thing that gets you the most excited, is in fact the thing which is the most valued to you. Have you ever been in a conversation where they were having a discussion about something and here was a person sitting off to the side not saying much at all until you said some subject, fishing. And all of a sudden this person comes alive with stories, with passion. This person you thought maybe couldn't even talk. He's worshiping fishing. That's the number one thing on his value scale. My question this morning is, what pushes your button and excites your passion? Is it business? Young fellas, is it your car? Is it hunting? Is it recreation? Is it entertainment? Is it money? Whatever it is that gets you the most excited and your wife and your family and your business partners all know what that is. Whatever that is, that is what you are worshiping. Because worship has to do with the thing to which you give the greatest worth. Jim Wallace said, that which commands my time, that which commands my time, my thoughts and my energies is the thing that I in fact worship. I've always been challenged by the example of Robert Murray McChain. That wonderful evangelist who died at the age of 29, after he'd done a tremendous job of evangelizing in Dundee, Scotland where he lived. This was his statement, I know of no man on this earth that I know better than Jesus Christ. I know of no man on this earth that I know better than Jesus Christ. David said, one thing have I desired of the Lord that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his tabernacle. One thing, I think that's what made David the person he was. He was able to focus on one thing, the one most important thing in the entire universe and keep his focus there through all the vicissitudes of life. Faith is the ability to maintain a focus on unseen reality as more important than any tangible thing. The person who can keep his focus there on those most valuable things, when all these other things are competing and they never take his primary focus off of that most important unseen reality. That is the true man of faith. Everything else becomes a means to an end. It never becomes an end in itself. And that was my first point, worship defined. Worship defined is what is the most valuable thing to you as indicated by what gets you the most excited, what the people around you know you talk about most, what everybody knows when they push that button, they're going to get the greatest and most passionate response out of you. Whatever that is this morning, that's what we're worshiping and that's the challenge we want to leave with you. And it is a challenge to all of us because these things, they seem real to us and they take our attention off of that unseen reality. So what determines our worship? How can we deal with this issue? I want to refer just a little bit to Isaiah. It seems that that focus of Isaiah didn't completely focus or wasn't completely on that unseen reality like it should have been, even though he probably was the most holy man in Israel. It seems like his focus or his confidence was on that King Uzziah, who was a very good king. If you study 2 Chronicles 26, he did powerful deeds, he was a righteous man, he made Israel great and I think Isaiah had tremendous confidence in Uzziah and that's where he tended to focus for the success of his nation, but we all know what happened. When Uzziah became strong and if you read 2 Chronicles 26, he became very strong and the nation became very strong and he had a very awful lot to be proud of and he became proud. And he went into the temple and said it's not good enough for me to be king, I want to be priest too, and so he tried to offer incense and he was stricken with leprosy. And Isaiah had to spend the rest of that man's life hearing him cry, unclean, unclean, unclean, and then he died. And when he died, Isaiah's focus turned to God exclusively, to the exclusion of everything else. And so we're talking about this morning and we're going to be talking about a focus on Christ doing the same thing. When Uzziah died, Isaiah's focus turned to God to the exclusion of everything else. He saw the Lord high and lifted up. He observed that presence of God that everybody marveled about, filled the temple with so much glory one time, people all had to leave when Solomon dedicated the temple. He saw that that glory was nothing more than the hem of the garment of the Lord. The Lord himself was way above the temple, just a little bit of his hem of his garment to train of his garment was hanging in the temple. And then he saw six seraphim. The word literally means burners. These were seraphim that were burning in their zeal for God and his glory. So much so, they covered their face with their wings. They covered their feet with their wings in humility and covered their faces in reverence. And then with two wings, they were instantly obedient to God. And all the time they were crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. What do we mean by holy? Absolutely unique in perfection and excellence. So worship begins from this example of Isaiah. It begins with a true perception of God, which means we've dealt with all the distractions. They've all become secondary. And somehow we have managed to achieve God's glory as primary. And we maintain that focus. That's worship. Choser said, if you could ever extract from an individual what he thinks about when he hears the word God, what actually goes through his mind, you could with accuracy predict everything about that man's life. If I were to ask you what comes to your mind, if you were to ask me what comes to my mind when I think of the word God, that would be the most telling thing that you could ever learn about me or about you. John's message began with a vision similar to Isaiah. His message in Revelation began with a vision of Christ. I'm just going to read it. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like the son of man, clothed with a garment down to his foot, and gird about with his paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were a flame of fire. And his feet likened to fine brass as if they burned in a furnace. And his voice is the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars. And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. And his countenance was as the sun shined as in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. That's where John's vision began. A true vision of Christ, as you heard from this passage, has a shock and awe effect. You'll never be the same if you ever get that vision. Jesus becomes the all-consuming passion of the life. It's the end of self. Somebody has said the beginning of all true revival has resulted from a fresh vision of Jesus Christ. The world is too much with us, my friends. The world is too much with us. We have to finally establish that one priority, that unseen priority that transcends all other values and not only gain that, but maintain it out in the work of day world, in the kitchen, wherever. Maintain that focus that Jesus is the only thing that is ultimately real and everything else has to somehow be a means to that end. That's true worship. Let's just sing that little chorus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Let's sing it again. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. The Bible says we have to hunger and thirst after righteousness, which is another word for Jesus. Hunger and thirst, a discontent with everything in this world that is unlike Christ. The hunger and thirst, we are constitutionally made for worship. Nothing else will really fill that place in our life except worship. If we try to fill it with some other thing, it will wreak havoc constitutionally. I mean even physically. People who try to put other things in their place lower their immune system and introduce all kinds of negativity and even into their physical body because you were not made even physically to worship anything else. I often illustrate it this way. Suppose you decided for whatever reason you needed a handful of stone dust and you didn't happen to have it, but there were stones in the driveway. So you went to the driveway, you brought in the stones, turned on the blender, and put the stones into the blender. Are you going to have stone dust? No, and you're not going to have a blender either. The blender was not made to crush stones. You were not made to worship anything else except Jesus. Put Him first in your life. I'm preaching to myself too. That's why I'm so passionate. That was the key to the Wesley's tremendous power with God. If you study their hymns, there's one thing you have to say about Wesley's. In spite of the infant baptism, in spite of their identity with the Church of England and some other things that I disagree with. There's one thing you have to say about the Wesley's. They had a passion for Jesus. Thou, O Christ, art all I want. More than all in thee I find. Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me? I want a principle within a watchful, godly fear, a sensibility of sin, a pain to feel it near. Help me the first approach to feel of pride and wrong desire, to catch the wondering of my will and quench the kindling fire. I mean, these men had a burning passion for Christ and His character. Now, how is this focus acquired? How many of you have read William Law's wonderful book, wonderful classic, a serious call to a devout and holy life? Raise your hands high. Every hand really should be up. If you don't have a copy of it, I think David Berset's table's gone. He sells it. One of the most significant books that was ever written on this subject. In fact, it was the key to the revivals of Wesley and Whitfield. He doesn't get much credit, but they were all reading William Law. And you don't get very far in his book till he makes an extremely important point. That spirituality is a matter of intent. If you want to, if you are a spiritual person, it's because you consciously decided to be a spiritual person. If you are not a spiritual person, it's because you never consciously decided to be a spiritual person. You are just as spiritual as you want to be. That's his point. So the first thing we have to do is decide to set our focus on Jesus. Make a conscious decision that it'll be what the Wesley said. Thou, Christ, art all I want, more than all, in thee I find. That has to be a matter of intent. And then I would suggest singing. That was another significant part of the contribution of the Wesley's. Singing. The Bible says, come before his presence with singing. You know, in the old days, the kings, people came to inquire of the king. They never came into his presence without a gift. You never rushed into the presence of a king and said, king, I want. No, no, no, no, no, no. You brought a gift. The best gift you could bring. And you offered that gift. And then you were in the presence of the king with your requests. And God has very clearly told us what the gift is that brings us into Christ's presence and come into his presence with singing. Come before his presence with singing, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Meditate on the word of Christ. And it's interesting that the passage in Colossians connects that with singing. Notice, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. If you want to develop a passion for Jesus, meditate on the words of Jesus. On the story of Jesus. And then sing that meditation because it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. You know, the Charismatics often say to us that the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit is tongues. And I'm not here to make negative comments about speaking in tongues. I'll let that be what it is. But that's not really what the Bible says. It says, be filled with the spirit speaking to yourselves. And there's where it should be in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So singing is a very important part of coming into the presence of Christ with intention, with meditation on who he is and combine all that together. And you can find your focus finally on Jesus Christ. So that was worship determined. That was my second point. How do you how do you get this to happen? My third point is worship demonstrated. Worship is that worship demonstrated. So how is worship demonstrated? Well, it's demonstrated by the cross. The cross is the is the place where all true worship begins. Because you see, if I can make this thing work like it's supposed to, I like to think of the cross this way. Just draw cross. This is your way right here. This part right here is your way. And that part is Christ's way. So you're going along on your way. And all of a sudden you realize that your way intersects Christ's way or rather his in your sex with you. And the question is, what do you do? You continue on your way. Or do you defer to Christ's way and say no to yourself? Say no to your flesh. Say no to your dreams. Say no to whatever it was that was motivating you and you turn. There's a reason why Jesus said we must take up our cross daily, because all day, every day, we are making decisions. And all day, every day, we must allow the way of Christ to intersect with our way and self goes on the cross and Christ goes on the throne and we change. The word salvation literally means salvage. This is the salvaging process. Christ constantly is intersecting with us. And as we constantly defer to him, say no to the flesh and take his way. He's able to do the work in our hearts that he wants to do. And our attitude toward him becomes true worship. But if we say Jesus is number one in our life and we're going along this way and we just always keep straight on going and Jesus is saying very clearly to us, no, don't buy that car. No, don't do that to your hair. No, don't put that on your dress. No, don't do this tonight. Go preach to somebody or witness to somebody or help somebody. Do that instead. If we don't hear that. I think the worst hypocrisy is people who say they love Jesus and that they worship Jesus and they'll meet on Sunday mornings and they'll put a band up here and they'll playing and go on and on and on and make a huge noise about their worship of Jesus. But this never happens. This is the essence of true worship because we're putting self secondary and everything else secondary and we're putting Jesus as number one all the time, every day, all day in every decision. That's the secret of great men of God. That was the secret of Robert Mary McChain, that was the secret of the Westleys, that was the secret of those Bernie's Anabaptists. I mean, imagine 240 miles on foot leaving everything behind, including your wife and 14 children because of your devotion to Jesus. And yet we live in such a spoiled society and I'm part of it. That is hard for us to think of any sacrifice. We have to have the car we want. We have to have the house we want. We have to have everything we want. And Jesus is saying, are you willing to take up your cross every day? The cross is the symbol of true worship. You worship to the extent that the cross is a reality in all the decisions of your life. That's how much you worship. By that definition, most of what people call worship is not worship. It's not worship at all. There's no cross. There's no elevating of Jesus above self. There's no surrender. There's no sacrifice. The cross focuses us on Christ. And that's why we say that the cross is the symbol of true worship. It focuses on Christ practically, not just in words. But people who watch our lives can see that Jesus is cutting across the important areas of our life all of the time. And we are making hard decisions to put him number one in our lives. This is nothing more than what Jesus himself did. He says in John 15 verse 10, if you keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. But listen to this, even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love, he's not asking us to do anything different from what he did. And if you read John 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, seven chapters in a row, you'll find in every one of those chapters a statement like this. I don't do anything but what my father tells me to do. I don't say anything but what my father tells me to say. My meat is to do the will of my father. I do always those things that please him. And I want to talk a little bit about pleasing. Is there a difference between pleasing and obeying? If you obey, you've simply done what you've been asked to do. It's the person who sees Christ's commandments and says, oh, I guess I have to surrender and, you know, that's the attitude. But they do it. They obey Christ. There's no joy in it. Pleasing is something altogether different. All parents know the difference between obeying and pleasing. Pleasing is obeying as the parents go to town and to say, Johnny, I want this done before I come back and they come back and it's done. Pleasing is while mom and father in town, Johnny says, I'll do this. But you know what? I would really like to bless mom and dad. And I heard dad say he'd like to have the garden weeded. Oh, I hate to weed the garden. But I'm going to have a delightful time weeding the garden because I'm going to be rewarded by that smile on dad's face when he gets home. That's pleasing. And we are not really worshiping. I don't believe until our response to Jesus has risen to that level. That this becomes a special gift that we keep over and over and over to Jesus. And we find delight in giving him that gift. David did that one time. Do you know that God never commanded anybody in Israel to build him a temple? Never. He commanded them to build a tabernacle, gave them specific instructions how to build it, and he was perfectly happy. That's all God would have ever wanted as a place for worship. But David got this idea of building God a magnificent temple. So he went to Nathan and he said, Nathan, I'd like to build a temple. Nathan said, do all that's in your heart. And then Nathan in the night was spoken to by God. And he went to David the next day and said, David, God says you're not to build the temple. But God has something more to say. He's asking you, did I ever ask for a temple? And the answer is no. And God says, David, I am so pleased that you wanted to build a temple for me. Just to please me, no command whatsoever, just to please me. I am so happy you want to build a temple. I'm not going to let you build it, but I am so happy that you wanted to do it, that I'm going to build you a house. You will always have a king on the throne from your family. That's where that promise was made, when David decided to do something to please God. And what's the result if we have that attitude toward Jesus? You know, that verse that I just quoted to you, John 15.10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I kept my commandments in the body of my father's love. That verse is followed by this one. I have said these things unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. Oh, I love that those two verses and how they're put together. If worship does not make Jesus the primary focus of all your life, it is not true worship. That's the takeaway this morning. I want you to leave with that ringing in your ears. If your worship does not make you make Jesus the primary focus of your life in all your decisions all day, every day, and we'll never do this perfectly. God knows that, but he also knew that David wasn't perfect, but he was a man after God's own heart because he always wanted God's will, even though he failed miserably sometimes and had to repent. If worship does not make Jesus the primary focus of all your life, it is not true worship. What I've been describing to you fits us to truly see Jesus like John saw him. You know, we all see what we're fitted to see. Did you know that the Bible says, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. The law of seeing is have you prepared to see? Do you go out into the night sky or look at the night sky and all you see is stars? If you've prepared yourself, you will see more, you will see constellations. And they'll begin to have a blessing to you. And I could talk to you about some constellations, but you don't see constellations unless you're prepared to see them. When you go walking out in nature, do you see medicinal herbs? Or do you just see weeds? All I see is weeds. Why? I have not fitted myself to see the others. I went on a walk with my friend, Roman J. Miller, who was a biologist in the woods, and I've never forgotten that walk. To me, a walk in the woods is just a walk in the woods. I enjoy the trees, I enjoy the whatever is there. I enjoy the fresh air, I enjoy the smell of the woods. I enjoy some things about the woods. But on that walk, he told me about almost every tree, how to identify what the leaves look like, the qualities of that tree, what it could be used for, the various plants, the names of the flowers, what medicinal value some flowers had. And we got through that walk, I thought, no, this is interesting. You see what you're fitted to see. And if you take up the cross, you will become fitted to see Jesus. And that song that we just sang and the things of us will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace because there will be a glory. Attend your life and the things that are happening in your experience because of that, OK? Worship will separate you from sinners and their trivial values. We've been talking about values. Another takeaway from this meeting is always remember that worship is connected to values and values are connected to faith. This is the very center and heart of what it means to be a Christian. Does your worship separate you from sinners and their trivial values? The Bible says for such a high priest became us or was fitting for us, who is wholly harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. Hebrews seven, 26, is there a clear demarcation in your life between the values there and all that flows from it? And the values there on the heavenly and all that flows from it? Can people see a clear demarcation there? Let me tell you that everything connected with those values is trivial, transient, relatively worthless, unless they are a means to this end. That's the only thing that gives them value. In and of themselves, they're absolutely worthless. They're worse than worthless. Let me illustrate. Suppose Albert Einstein. Had decided to devote his life to cutting out paper dolls, just think about that. What difference that would have made in our world if Albert Einstein had dedicated his whole life to cutting out paper dolls? That's a picture of what's going on with many Christians. Here's this whole value system that has true value, that can make a real contribution to the kingdom of God. It's the place where everything really finally finds its culmination. But this person is over here, fiddling his time away. Oh, big time. People admire him. He's a great businessman. He does all kinds of wonderful things and dazzles people's thinking with all this stuff. But it's cutting paper dolls. It's cutting paper dolls. Worship will take you away from that. And you will use only that which you can use from that to further this interest, to further this focus, this value system. Let's talk a little bit about corporate worship, which is where the focus is to rest here. This is still in this passage we've been looking at about from Acts 2. I'm not going to read it. It said they were constantly together and they were constantly breaking bread. Now, Brother Kurt addressed this last night. I think it's pretty obvious that they were celebrating the communion service constantly. Why? Because that did not allow any part of their worship to deviate from a focus on Jesus Christ, the Eucharist, if you want to use that term, the Eucharist or the communion was the focus and everything else focused in on that. They focused on Christ by a constant practice of communion. I want you to turn to this one. I want you to turn to Luke chapter 24, where we have that wonderful walk on the way to Emmaus, and I just want you to see what happened here. Beginning in verse 28, it says, and they drew nigh into the village whether they went and he made as though he would have gone further, but they constrained him saying, abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. And he went into Terry with them. And it came to pass as he said it, meet with them. He took bread and blessed it and break and gave to them. Do you see what follows? And their eyes were opened and they knew him. Then they go back to Jerusalem. I want you to see what they said in verse 35. And they told what things were done in the way and how he was known to of them in the breaking of bread. I don't know what goes through your mind during communion, but the breaking of bread always is a very, very, very emotional thing for me. Because Jesus Christ is revealed to us in the breaking of bread, the broken body, the sacrifice he made, the symbol that it represents of our unity and all of the things connected with it. Communion, I'm going to tread a little bit on some dangerous ground here, but you take this for what it's worth. I think our Anabaptists made a little bit of a mistake and I don't want you to run away with this and I don't want you to take this as a severe criticism. But I think they made a little bit of a mistake. They were reacting against the mindless practice of of the mass by the Roman Catholic Church and they didn't want to put any particular dynamic on the communion service. So they said it's just a symbol. They got that from Zwingli, by the way. There were other mistakes the Anabaptists made. They weren't perfect. And this one, I think they were overreacting because I want you to notice that in First Corinthians 10.16, it says the cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Oh, so it's a cup of blessing. So something is actually happening when we take communion. We're receiving a blessing. It's not just a symbol. We know it's not a symbol for the person who eats and drinks unworthily because it says he drinks damnation. There's something happening when he drinks. But all my life, I guess, I thought nothing was happening when we partook. Now, wait a minute here. So the only person that gets anything out of the communion, anything tangible happening in the communion service, is the person who's getting damnation. I don't like that. It says the cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? It's not just a symbol. The breaking of bread focused their worship on a constant, dynamic encounter with the person of Christ. It inspired a communion of all of life focused on him and focused on the kingdom of God. I like that. It was a symbol of that, for sure. Corporate worship. According to 1 Corinthians, 1431 is the full partition of participation of all, not just a few actors on a stage. It says you may all prophesy one by one. Or did you know that the earliest Anabaptists criticized the Reformed churches because they said you did not practice a 1 Corinthians, 1426 to 33 church service. You have one man get up and preach and everybody else are spectators. That's not a scriptural view of the church. That was one of their criticisms and one of the reasons they gave for not attending the Reformed churches because they said you don't practice a scriptural church service. We're talking about demonstrating worship. And it finds its demonstration finally in a group of people who have put Jesus on the cross out there through the whole week, coming together, making their contributions, celebrating the communion service, focusing on Jesus and reinforcing the principle by which they live, which is true worship of Jesus Christ that puts their worth in the right realm. And last of all, and quickly, worship declared. Worship is an encounter with Christ. This is an encounter with Christ, a very, very powerful encounter with Christ, which we have constantly. And then we come together and we have a true encounter with Christ because we've been doing this all week, every day, all day. How can you not declare it? Somebody described going to see Old Faithful, which is in Yellowstone National Park. I've never been there, but they say every 80 minutes, Old Faithful gives you its show and it lasts for one minute. The water spout is 100 feet in the air and people sit with anticipation on seats on one side of that geyser and just wait for that to happen. And all of a sudden it happens and people walk away and say, did you see that? Can we see it again? I can't wait to get home and tell my friends. Did you know? Oh, I want you to turn to this one, too. Would you turn to Matthew 28? Wrapping up here what we've been talking about. Verse 16, we all know about the Great Commission, we all talk about we need to get out there and tell people about the Lord and on and on and on, and it's all true. Verse 16, then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. Did you know that the Great Commission was given in the context of worship? That was their motivation to go out and tell the whole world because they worshiped him and he had caught their imagination and their enthusiasm and their passion and their value system. And they could not wait to tell the world. What they had found. Only those who worship. And I'm glad this has stayed up here the whole time. Only those who have worshiped Christ have constantly deferred to him in all their decisions, not perfectly, but this is a credible characteristic of them. This is how they respond to Jesus all of the time as an ideal, at least. They will experience, they will have an encounter with Jesus Christ, that those who have not done that will never know. And they will be motivated to tell of the wonderful things that happen in an encounter with Christ. I'd like to conclude by referring to a person that's always sort of captured my interest, his name is Gypsy Smith. Gypsy Smith was born in a Gypsy camp in London, near London. He taught himself to read and write. And by the way, he couldn't read and write very well. Somebody asked Gypsy Smith one time, what do you do when you're reading the Bible publicly and you get to a hard word you can't pronounce and Gypsy said, well, I usually stop on this before I get to the word and I make a few comments. And then I start to read on the other side of it. That's how he handled his reading. But Gypsy Smith got converted and it put a passion in his heart. Everywhere he went after that, he loved to walk up to groups of people and sing a gospel song to them. He just had a passion to sing the gospel. He was known as the singing gospel, the singing Gypsy boy. William Booth noticed him and he recruited him for the Salvation Army. And this man was an evangelist for 70 years. When he was in his late 80s, he died at the age of 87. Right up to his death, he was still preaching the gospel. He'd come to this country, not only preach, but he sang. He sang, oh, that will be glory for me. He's the one that set the nation singing that glory song. His publisher Fleming Revelle asked him. At the end of his 80s, what is the secret to this? That you're still preaching and you're still singing with a passion in your heart. And his answer was, I have never lost the wonder. I have never lost the wonder. He further said, I didn't go through any of your colleges or seminaries. They wouldn't have me. But I have been to the feet of Jesus where the only true scholarship is learned. My friends, my brothers, my sisters, I look over your faces this morning, I see tremendous potential here. If every person left this tabernacle to truly worship, I honestly believe we would see things that we have not seen before. Shall we bow our heads for word of prayer? Our Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you, Lord, for the example, teaching and resurrection power of Jesus Christ. Oh, God, help us to get ourselves out of the value system of this world. And fix our values on Christ and maintain that as we make the decisions in our lives day by day. Bless this congregation. Father, send them out into the world as burning brands of fire for the worth of Jesus in his name. We pray, amen.