[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible Study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Last week Brandon shared that I would tell you guys what we all needed to learn from the angels. Thank you Brandon.
But seriously, today we are going to talk about what you and I can learn from the angels in their worship.
And I'll go ahead and tell you, going into this study, my first thought was, well, the reason we need to talk about this one in particular is because the frequency in which we mention and see the Bible mention the angels regarding their worship.
And yes, I do think things are worthy of speaking on when it comes to their frequency because that's God telling us, hey, this is very important.
But I will tell you though, the more I got into this, the more it wasn't the frequency that struck me and challenged me. But for me in particular today as I got into this, the more it humbled me and challenged me to realize that when I see how the angels worshiped, the one thing that I took away from every one of those moments was this.
I've got to do better.
I find myself at times, and I'll share with you a few examples that in my worship I'm more concerned about what other people think.
There's times where I'll start a song and then halfway through the song I'm like, wait, I don't even know what I just sung. Like, I know my mouth was moving and words were coming out of my mouth, but the heart and the mind were not actually engaged in what I was singing.
I can even tell you there's certain times that I walk in kind of half hearted and it takes about halfway through the service for me to even get a glimpse of what I need to get a glimpse of and do what I need to do.
And so today as we look at this picture of the angels and their worship throughout scripture, I pray that it all challenges us in a way that I believe why it's there for us to get a better picture of God's majesty and his throne. Because we're going to dig into Revelation 4 here in just a second. And as we dig into this text, I'm telling you, it challenges you.
But what I hope we all take away from this is this, the different barriers that we all have when it comes to worship, all of those barriers will be diminished when we make a point to get ourselves around and before God's throne.
I have a question I want to ask you to start with today. And it's a very odd question. It's not a question I've ever asked myself until this past week, but it's this. Where in the world did you learn to worship?
Now, some of you, you might say, well, from my mom and dad. I grew up in a church, and I remember seeing how they, you know, when I was little, would sing. And so maybe that's the way I know there's maybe some of you here that you didn't grow up in a church. And so you put on Christ, and later on in your life, you walked into a church building and you kind of just did what everybody around you did.
I know for me, there's been a lot of different barriers and different things that I think of that impacted me in a good way, some of those in a negative way when it comes to my worship. I don't know if any of you can relate to this, but when I was younger and I went to a Christian school and a Christian high school and went to a Christian college, that for a lot of that time, that if you were somebody that really sung out and you were very enthusiastic and very passionate in your singing, it was almost viewed as you were odd or you were doing something weird or doing something wrong.
And I'll tell you partly, one of the most encouraging things of the many things when we came here to Madison was I sat in that little section where the Kesters are sitting right there. And I'll never forget our very first Sunday when we start singing. And hearing the youth sit up here so unhindered in their worship was such an encouragement and so incredibly refreshing to see.
I've shared with you before how I have a family member that I remember during worship, noticed that would, like, sing, but you could very, like, faintly hear them sing. And even though it was faint, I could tell, I was like, man, they can sing good. And by the way, I'm not saying if you sing good or sing out that that's a sign or a line of delineation as to whether or not it's True worship or praise. We're gonna get to that in just a second.
But I did ask. I said, hey, why doesn't this person sing out very much? Do you know what the reason is? And he said, well, Andrew, when she was little, she was on a school bus, and they were singing different songs. And one of the songs that she was singing, somebody leaned over and said, why are you singing so loud? You don't have a good voice.
That happened in elementary school.
I think about somebody else, and maybe, you know, these folks that I've said to them before, hey, why don't you sing out more? You've got awesome voice. And by the way, selfishly, a little bit, it helps for someone like me that can't find a key or you talk about harmonies, I'm like, I don't know what y'all talking about, but, like, to get on key, it helps to have that other person. And they said, well, I would, but I just, like. I don't want other people to think that I'm trying to do something, and I don't want other people to think that I'm, like, trying to show off. And that's not what I'm doing. But I just don't want other people to think that.
What do all of the things that I just mentioned right now have in common?
Other people's perception.
I know, for me, one of the things that if the staff knows this very well about me, I'm a very easily distracted person. Squirrel. Like, that's how I am with everything.
And one of the things that happens to me sometimes when I'm singing is I will see the lyrics and sing, but I have to purposefully try to get myself focused. And so for me, one of the things that helps me at times is to close my eyes. To close my eyes, to not look at anybody else, to not even look at the words, but to try to picture the very thing we're singing. Maybe because it's so deep, maybe it's because of something you've experienced before where the song reminds you of a difficult time or a joyful time. But then again, my mind keeps going. Well, I don't want to do that because I don't want other people to think again. Other people's perception. What about you with this one?
What about the fact that maybe you're like me at times where you feel like an absolute hypocrite when you worship?
I can't tell you. So many times I'm like, who am I to be able to stand before his throne and sing These songs, knowing who I've been, things that I've done.
Like, even recently, I thought about, all right, I'm sitting on a pew with my kids, and I lost my temper at one of them this morning, talked disrespectfully to my wife, and now I'm singing a song like, that doesn't seem right. And I struggle with that. And maybe if you're in the room this morning, you felt that way, too. Did you know in Psalm 73, David said this, Lord, I desire you at all times.
And I hear that. I'm like, really? Like when you were desiring Bathsheba, because what about that one?
And then he says in Psalm 73401, he said, well, Lord, I bless you with my mouth at all times.
Really? Like when you put Uriah on the front lines and when you were an absent father, when your daughter needed you the most, like, what about those times?
Because I've kind of viewed worship at times almost like what some people call penance, where it's this that I'll sing out and I'll praise in order to, like, outdo all of my negative things that I've done. There is not enough worship and praise to fix and forgive what I've done, because that's what we're gonna get to today. Worship is not about me.
I can't fix me. And the reason I do worship, with my hypocrisies and all, is because I need the one that I'm worshiping, too.
Maybe for some of us, a barrier is this, that we end up serving to God what we'll call leftovers.
We give everything else our best, our best energy, our best focus.
You know, I know for me, as I've gotten into this text, the one thing that I took away from it more than anything is times like this, in times of worship matter more than I could even explain.
And you think about the priest in Malachi's day when they just kind of tried to fit in, worship wherever and do it how they wanted to do it. You know what God said about it?
He said, when you try to just give me what's left, I hate that kind of sacrifice.
You know why? Because we don't give bad gifts to people we love.
Do you remember the first time that you were in love? Not in love, but in love. Like that one.
Like, I remember getting sticky notes and writing the cheesiest things that I don't want to mention in this room on sticky notes on the inside of a Honda Civic.
And there were so many Sticky notes. She couldn't see out the window. And because she liked Rice Krispie treats, I put on there, you're a treat. You know, it was gross, things like that. But my friends said to me when I was dating her, andrew, man, since you've dated her, it's just been so, like, you've gotten kind of weird. I'm, like, weirder. You know, Like, I've always been weird, but there was something different about me. Why?
Well, because you're in love.
When you're really in love, there is a difference.
We don't give leftovers to the ones that we love the most.
Or maybe for some of us, it's this. We worship in the wrong direction. There's a book that I read in preparation for this lesson today that made this statement, and I think the second chapter that I thought was so good. And he said, this worship is never really started. Worship is aimed.
Worship is never really started. Worship is aimed.
That our worship is directed towards God. It's aimed in his direction.
And you think about all of this in context with the definition of worship. And there's a lot of different ones we could mention, but because of our text today.
And this is the two ones that are mentioned the most. The first one in the Hebrew means this. To bow down or to prostrate oneself in homage. Then one of the most common used ones in the New Testament, proskineo, which means to kiss. Some translations say to kiss towards. And my dad used to always remind us of that, that that's what worship is. It's kissing towards God. And the reason he would remind me of that is I remember certain Sundays we would get in the car and I would say things like, dad, I didn't really like that song because it was, like, really old and I didn't know what it was talking about or meaning or, dad, I didn't like that song because it was really new and no one knew it and it was kind of awkward in the room. He goes, oh, that's okay, Andrew. It wasn't worship. We weren't worshiping you. So he always made it very clear that worship is not about you. And this says to kiss towards and to have reverence. A gesture expressing, excuse me, differential respect, such as a bow, to fawn, to kneel, to crouch, to prostrate oneself in homage. So with all of that in mind, I want us to approach Revelation 4 and what I want us to do before we get into this text, I want to tell you why I picked this one. Because there are tons of texts that I could have chosen to talk about angels and their worship and what we could learn from them. Here's why I picked this one, is this is one of the most unique times in Scripture because there's angelic beings. And as most scholars point out, there's not just angelic beings worshiping God in this text, but glorified humans worshiping. The picture Revelation is trying to show us here is that we are part of the people that are in this audience.
We are in this throne room.
And the reason why I also picked this one is here's what I've done with Revelation and other times of worship throughout Scripture. Well, it's easy for them to worship that enthusiastically, and I can see why they would bow down because of what they're seeing. Like, I don't get to see things like that is kind of what I've always thought. But it was so interesting. Commentary after commentary kept pointing out, you and I have experienced even more than the angels. I'm like, what are you talking about in this question? One of our Young At Heart members mentioned this to me. I thought it was really good. He said, andrew, would you much rather be an angel or a human?
I was like, well, I hadn't really thought about that. I don't know. Well, at first I would have said, well, an angel. He said, but the problem is, if you pick angel, the moment you sin, you're cast down. The moment you rebel, you're cast down. But today, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, if we mess up, we experience his grace over and over and over again.
What I'm saying is you and I have so much to sing about, to praise God about.
But I also want us to, as we try to get into this text and visualize as the scripture read was read this morning, Wesley mentioned, hey, let's try as best as we can to put ourselves in this room. But that's kind of a challenge because have you ever been at a moment where you've, like, been to the Grand Canyon or, like a beautiful place, and you got out your phone, you're like, hey, I want to show you where we've been. Can you look at this? And they're like, oh, that's great. You're like, no, it was so awesome. You see it? They're like, yeah. And you're trying to describe to them what something that you can only, like, really take in in person.
The reason I say that is we have to understand this Revelation rule before you get into Revelation. And it's this. The symbols that we're about to see the pictures that are gonna be portrayed by John.
These are far less than the reality themselves. You have to know that going into Revelation, it's kind of like you trying to show someone your phone and trying to get them excited about what you were excited about, which they can't because you're not there. And the reason I say that, when he shows that these angelic beings are shouting, holy, holy, holy, y'all, it would blow the roof off this place. The symbol is always less than reality. And when it shows that they were bowing down in humility, I'm trying to give us a picture of the humility that's in this room, but I can't do it. The symbol is always less than the actual reality. And the reason why that matters is Revelation 4 is one of the most pivotal chapters in the entire book. Here's why the point of Revelation 4, and he's going to say it here in just a second. He said, before I give you these symbols, before I give you these pictures, before you almost get bogged down, and what does the, the, the table mean? What does the lamp mean? What does this mean? He said, we first got to understand this, we got to worship.
And here's what he's trying to help us understand, that the book of Revelation is not meant to be there just for us to try to decipher and to figure out ourselves. As one commentator put it, Revelation 4 shows us what this is all about. It's not something you figure out. He said, that's why it says in the text, they were like glass, they were like Jasper, they were like this, they were like a trumpet. He said the point of Revelation 4 is to help us understand this. It's not that you're gonna figure it all out, but it's supposed to generate awe inspiring worship that when you read what you read as best as your human mind can comprehend, your jaw drops. He said, that's the point of the text, so let's get into it. And so this is what it says. This is after this. I looked, and behold, a door was standing open.
And the very first voice I heard to me was like a trumpet. Come up here, I will show you what must take place after this. So he's saying, hey, I'm going to show you some stuff. In fact, in 2024, you're going to probably have a Revelation class and you're going to try to figure all this out. But what I want you to understand needs to be done first is you got to worship.
Because if you can get your mind around having a worshipful spirit. It'll change everything. Here's why. Because there is one on the throne.
In this next verse, what he's doing, he's trying to show you what the centerpiece of this, this throne room is. And it's the one. Now, he doesn't say two, he doesn't say five. He says the one that is on the throne. Here's why this matters.
I don't care if you're an atheist, a monotheist, deist, any ist or ism.
One thing that we all have in common, every human being establishes thrones.
We put something, someone on a throne.
The question we have to ask is, who is on that throne?
And as we think about that, that's how we live. We put things on thrones. But the problem is we know maybe there's been a time where I've put my job on a throne, my family even on a throne. Families, we can teach God, but they can become a God. Maybe what we do is we put a relationship on a throne. And it's kind of like that phrase, whatever you and I idolize outside of God, we eventually demonize. It's the idea that if you put anyone or anything on a throne besides God, it will fail, it will fall short.
And so you and I can't live. We can't see ourselves, we can't see other people properly until we establish the fact that. That there is a throne and there is one that is seated on that throne.
But then he says this, and around that throne were 24 thrones, and seated on the thrones were 24 elders. Why 24? Well, 24, of course, is a multiple of 12. And 12 in scripture was a symbol of completeness.
But 12 also referred to 12 tribes, 12 apostles, all of whom were different. And here's why this matters. That one of the things commentators with revelation are trying to help us picture is that this is people from all different walks of life, okay, from all different backgrounds, from all different areas coming together. But here's what they have in common. It says they are clothed in white garments, and they have gold crowns on their head.
The white garments is kind of what Isaiah 61:10 refers to, which we call imputed righteousness, which is the idea that we are cleansed. We are made clean not because of anything we've done, but because of what Christ has done for us.
And I love when David Hargett mentions in the PR class a lot, are you righteous? And a lot of times everyone's like, no, no. He goes, no, that's not what the Bible says.
Yes, we didn't earn that righteousness, but that is something he puts on us.
And then the next thing he says is that we have golden crowns. We're going to come back to these crowns in just a second. They're called Stephanos crowns, which are different than royal crowns. These are crowns of victory.
So are you picturing it? There's one on the throne, there's the angelic beings that we're going to get to in a second. But so far we've got these glorified human beings with the white robes, the golden crowns on their head. And here we meet the angelic beings. It says this on each side of the throne there's four living creatures full of eyes. There's one like a lion, one like an ox, one with the face of a man and an eagle in flight. And if you were with us in week one, we talked about that the different faces of those angels have very deep spiritual meanings. That of course, that the face of a man was a picture of wisdom, of God has unbelievable wisdom. The lion was a picture of the kingdom God has established and his reign and his rule in our life. The picture was of an eagle, which is the all seeing eye of God. God can be over here, God can be over there. The ox was a picture of the suffering servant Jesus Christ. But here's what's neat about all four of these is God, through the wisdom and the power of the Holy Spirit gave us four different gospels that all reflect all four of these different attributes. Think about it for a second. You've got Matthew, which focuses on the kingship, the kingdom of God, that lion part of God. Mark focuses on him being a servant, the suffering servant, that ox. Luke focuses on what you see over and over again through the Gospel. The son of what man to give us that picture that yes, he was deity. But like the things you and I experience and the heartache we experience, he experienced that too. So the man part. But then you get to the Gospel of John. John is that eagle gospel. It says in the beginning, right? In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He's saying God was over here, God was over there, God's here now. He's in all the things. We see all of these things all throughout Scripture. That's what he's saying is happening in this throne. That's who God is. This is the same picture of the cherubim that's guarding the Garden of Eden. That's gonna be Done away with. Right. When God reunites heaven with Earth. But then it said this.
Those creatures, if you'll notice, there's a few things that are happening. One of those things that's happening is they have six wings.
In week one, we talked about two of those wings were there to cover their face because they couldn't look on the holiness of God. The other two wings were to cover their feet because they didn't want to stand on the same ground God was standing.
But then what about the other two? Well, the other two wings were just to keep them off the ground and to keep their wings going so they could keep worshiping.
But what about the eyes?
That's the one I've always been kind of curious about. Why all the eyes on this being? Well, the eyes reflect the fact that if you see truly what you need to see, you can't help but worship.
A failure to see the world around you is going to connect in worship for sure. But in other areas of life, too, that if we don't see that God is on a throne, we won't worship. If we don't see the true blessings that are around us, if we don't see the fact that God is doing something, we won't worship that there's a direct connection between our sight and our worship. What he's saying is the angels are taking all of this in. And when I mentioned that question earlier, would you rather be an angel or a human being? Think about this for a second while. Yes, an angel, if they sin or rebel, they're cast down.
But think about the fact that right now, in heaven and all around us, there are angels, multitudes, the Bible says that have not sinned and have not rebelled.
I can't fathom that.
Like, I rebelled this morning. We all rebel, right? We all. The Bible says we all fall short of the glory of God. So what does that tell you about what the angels are seeing that is not causing them to rebel?
What they are seeing has to be absolutely breathtaking. Again, the symbol is always less than the reality. And here's what they're doing.
It says this all day with their full eyes. All day, all night.
They never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is to come.
What's amazing is they're singing all night.
I don't know about y'all. I've been to some long worship services. I've been to some long singing services, but I haven't sung all night. But it's interesting. They have no rest, but yet there's no unrest. Why? Because of where their worship is directed towards. Because again, worship is not just started. Worship is aimed. And when your life is aimed in a worshipful direction, you will notice there's a direct connection between your rest and your weariness.
Worship is not just started, it's aimed. So here's a few things we can learn from the angels in their worship. We're going to come back to this text. Number one, that there's a direct connection between nearness to God and worship.
In fact, I had six slides here that I had to delete the other day because I didn't want you all to be here forever. But what you'll notice about the angels in their worship as part of you seeing this text is one of the things is this. It was very spontaneous.
And I think about that for us, don't we maybe need to take more time throughout the day when we see God's work, when we see God's blessing? Or maybe we're in a time of distress and we know that worship can change the temperature in a room to stop what we're doing right then and there and say, kids, what just happened? The way God blessed us, I can't explain. Let's stop and give him thanks. Before we move on any further or right now, we are going through something very difficult. I can't navigate it, but here's what I can do. I'm gonna choose to worship and hope. Somewhere along the lines I figure out the direction we need to go. But you also notice the continual nature they're always in. This mindset of wanting to worship. It says, all day and all night.
But also notice in this text, it says, holy, holy, holy, the one who is and is to come. You'll notice five times in the book of Revelation, it gives what is called an exclamatory statement of worship. The reason I say that, it's not holy, holy, holy.
He said, that's why the sound of him even inviting us was like a trumpet, like you could feel it.
And when I see the angels and I think about their worship and their enthusiasm, and I hear a phrase like who was and is to come? And them shouting that. And then you read Luke 2:14. It says, suddenly there was with them angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God, saying, glory to God in the highest on earth. Peace among those who is pleased. Revelation 5:12 says this with a loud voice. They cried, worthy is the lamb. Job 38. They shouted for joy.
There's a few things that taught me, and one of those is this, that following God is not boring. Following God is not dull. And one of the people we can just ask are the angels.
They're seeing, yes, certain things that we cannot see, but yet we at times experience even more.
Like when I read that the birds of the air are going to cry out if I don't. Well, I don't want them to beat me to it.
I have so much to be grateful for.
You know, I know you might be visiting with us this morning and notice that we are singing.
And I've been thinking a lot about singing in relation to this text that we're looking at today. And, you know, if you were to ask me, andrew, why do y'all sing? What I maybe would have first mentioned to you was, well, you know, in Ephesians 5:19, in Colossians 3:16, there's different examples throughout the New Testament as to why we sing, which we do need to mention.
But I almost feel like at times the first thing that I went to was the instruction. Yet I go throughout all these examples of worship in Scripture. And yes, they worship because they were instructed to at times, but most of their worship was started here's why. Because they were before the throne and no one even told them.
What I'm saying is, what if we could all get to a place? I know I need to get there, I'm not there yet, that I don't even need to be told to worship.
I'm so constantly. And we're so constantly in the throne room of God that all we can do is praise him and thank Him. Does that make sense?
And so I want to give you some reasons, and we're going to get back to Revelation for why I love the fact that we do sing.
One of the things that I love is that it gives a voice to everyone, but also that encourages. It expresses the Spirit's work in our life. I was talking to Siegfried about this this morning, and he made a good point. He said, you know, we don't talk about the context of Ephesians 5:19 a lot. He said, you know, in the way that wine would impact someone as they get drunk in a negative way. He said, the Spirit and his work is so powerful that you can't help but burst out into song.
But the other thing that I love about singing is it helps us to remember God's Word. I know I'm probably like a lot of you that I grew up learning the apostles by singing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and Letter to the room. Right. No skin. That's the new Testament. All right. I did that earlier, too. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Right? You go through all of those, and it's the song. The Judges, God called them one by one. You know, Peter, Andrew James, you know all those, right? All right. You got all the different songs. I learned those, and I know the songs. But it's funny, when we're at mkc, I'll ask the teachers, like, can y'all start that song for me? Cause I can't remember how it goes, but once it gets started, I'm good.
The beauty of song is that it helps us remember things that ordinarily we couldn't. The other reason why I love we sing is that when we're singing, it allows you to be taught, but also to teach every single song we sing. What is it? It's a sermon, if we think about it. But singing also does this singing helps express and engage our emotions.
Did you know that before we had songs of faith and praise, this was the early churches and the Hebrew people's songbook. It was the Book of Psalms. They didn't have. What is it, 728B? They didn't have that, but they had Psalm 78 and others. And you'll notice in your Psalms that there's Psalms of what are called Descent and Psalms of Ascent. Those were viewed as psalms for the journey. It was the idea, if you were going to a weary place, something that brought back maybe some negative feelings just to get you through that, you would sing that psalm. And that's why the Hebrew people called the Book of Psalms the Soul Songbook. Because when I don't know what to sing, there's a psalm for that. But then the Psalms of Ascent were the songs of joy that I don't know how to express my joy fully. But, God, I'm gonna let you navigate as we sing this together. And they would sing those songs as they would go on their way.
But the other reason why I love the fact that we sing is it helps express our unity here.
Because I want you to think about this for just a second. If we polled this room about every topic in the world, I'm talking biblical, non biblical, all sorts of things. Do you think in this room, every single one of us would agree on everything?
No, but yet what did we do? This morning, all of us sang together.
All of us talked about and sang about Jesus sacrifice, how he rose from the dead. It's kind of like that statement we hear a lot. What unites us is way stronger than what could ever divide us. That's the Power of what Christ does.
That's why I love when we sing.
But I want us to get back to this next thing. And it says this, that when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders, it says this. They fall down.
Some translations say they bow down or they hit their knees before him who sits on the throne.
If you were with us in our spiritual disciplines class that we did on Sunday nights, I was asked to teach on prayer and the prayer postures and fasting. And we covered a lot of the different prayer and worship postures. So some of this is not going to be new to a lot of you that attended that class.
But with each posture, the posture reflects something going on in the person. Okay? It's a reflection of something. It has a meaning behind it. And with these postures, I'm going to come back to this again.
If you don't do these postures, it's not wrong. But if someone does these postures, it also doesn't mean it's wrong. Does that make sense? And so I'll focus with this one for a second. Bowing down shows up 74 times in scripture in regards to worship. Not just bowing in general, but specifically to worship. And this was a symbol and a picture of humility. It reflects one poor in spirit we put up here. Spiritually bankrupt is the idea, hey, I couldn't save myself, but I know the one who can. I bow my heart as worship. As you know, I'm crying out for mercy to be filled with God's attitudes. We see this even in the definition of worship. This is what the Old Testament, the Hebrew and the Greek. One of its meanings is to bow down, to prostrate oneself. You go into these different texts in the Book of Revelation to see the angels themselves. It says, angels and elders bow down before the throne and worship God, saying Amen. The 24 elders bow down and worship in front of the one who sits on the throne. The apostle John bows down at the feet to worship. And here's what's interesting about this one. He's falling down at the feet of the angels to worship them. They're like, no, no, you don't worship me. You fall down and you bow down to him. That's why we talked about, we don't worship angels. We worship the one that created the angels. And that's what John is saying. He's trying to worship them. He's like, no, no, you don't bow to me.
You bow to Him. In fact, another example, if you remember, In Daniel, chapter 10, in Daniel 10, it says this. Daniel says, then I heard the sound of his words. And as I heard the sound of his words, I fell down on my face with my face to the ground. He's like, my face, my face. All right, my face was to the ground. And then look what it goes on to say.
Then he said to me in verse 12, fear not, Daniel, for from the first day when you set your heart to understand, you humbled yourself.
The picture of bowing was a picture of humility.
And I don't know if y'all noticed, but in our songs today, there was a lot of representation of those different postures. You have one here that we're gonna sing in just a little bit. David urges us to worship and bow down before our Lord and Maker. We see Isaac, he worships the Lord bowing himself to the earth. Job, he arose. He tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell to the ground in worship at the dedication of the temple, when all of Israel saw how the Lord first came down, the glory of the Lord on the temple, they what bowed their faces to the ground. Second Chronicles said that this is like in Hezekiah's day. All who were present with him bowed and worshiped. Matthew 2. The Magi fell down and worshiped Jesus. This is another reason why we sing and why we worship, because it also engages the physical. Have you noticed before that with everything in our walk with God in the Bible, there is always a physical reminder or a physical connection to something spiritual. We did it this morning. We broke bread.
And was there anything special about that bread? No, but what did that bread represent? The blood of Christ and the body of Christ. Do you remember when the children passed through the Jordan river, what did they do? They set up the 12 stones. Was there anything special about those stones? No, but what did those stones do? They represented something. The same thing with these different postures. Each one of these postures represents something different. And when we sing, think about what you're engaging.
You're engaging your lungs.
Some people say this, Andrew, you just gotta learn to sing from your stomach. I don't even know what that means, but some people do that. I don't know how or what that looks like or how you. I do that. And that's not the right sound that comes out. But we sing with our voices, our lips, our tongues.
But you go throughout Scripture, and this is not the only time you see this. And again, I want to preface this with just because you may not bow or do Any other worshipful posture or prayer posture, it doesn't mean it's wrong for you to not do that. But also because someone else does, it doesn't make it wrong either.
I know for me, when I was at Robertsdale, I told you about when Dawson had been in the hospital for a few days with her one of her longer seizures. That Johnny, one of our elders, he was, I think, 80 something years old. He walked in and he got down on his knees and he just started praying. And then I also noticed that, like, anytime someone came forward, he would hit his knees and just start praying for that person. And I eventually got the guts to ask him. I said, hey, like, what made you do that? Because, you know, like, personally, I'll go ahead and tell you. When I saw him, I was like, man, this man's like much better human being than I am. I want to get even lower than he did. And he said, well, and I don't want anyone to think they have to do it. But he said, you know what? It kind of was, is like I just. Nothing told me to. I just felt like I needed to.
And then the other thing he said, he said, maybe it comes back to. I remember Jesus in the garden when he fell down, and the Bible said he was prostrate in the garden. And I kept thinking, if Jesus put his face on the ground. And I love this quote, he said, I feel like sometimes I need to go and dig a hole.
You know, you go through Scripture and you see, oh, come, let us worship. Bow down, let us kneel. Before the kneeling, there was a sign of humility and respect. We see in First Corinthians 14 says, the secrets of their heart are laid bare so they will fall down and worship God. Exclaiming God is really among you. He was actually saying, as people are having this debate about tongues, he's like, no, no, listen. If you actually bow and they are in humble spirit, you'll know that that's real worship. What he's saying is, a humble spirit is a sign of worship. Not, am I being seen? But then you have this one, one Timothy two. And if you look at my heading in an esv, I think it's the same in most Bibles. The heading says instructions for worship above. First Timothy 2, it says, therefore, I want the men everywhere to pray. Lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing the lifting. And the raising of hands to heaven was saying, hey, God, what I have is yours, it's not mine. I'm giving it to you.
And what I owe. What I, again, all of these have in common, this same thing. It's a picture of humility.
Again, who. What have we put on that throne? Worship has to take place in an atmosphere of humility.
And so what I want us to do today, I tried to find a picture of the throne room in Revelation 4. And again, I'm trying to give you guys a picture with words. And John is too, that no words can fully describe.
And I even tried AI and got some weird stuff like everybody had three arms. So I was like, no, we're not doing that.
So this was the best one I could come up with of Revelation chapter 4.
And so here's what I want us to do. Mike is going to lead us in Holy, holy, holy.
And we're going to sing this together.
And I want us to think about those white robes that God has put on us that we didn't deserve. The crown that we are able to wear that we didn't deserve, deserve. And I want you to picture yourself in light of that throne this morning and maybe think about the barriers that you've put in place of your worship. Or maybe think about this morning. A heart of gratitude to express what God has done. If you need to close your eyes, close your eyes. If you need to just sit there in silence, sit in silence.
But I really want us to think about His Holiness and how set apart he is connection with us and what that means for our lives. So I'm going to sit down and we're going to sing this song together. And then I'll get back up and finish the lesson.
[00:40:37] Speaker C: Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty early in the morning our song shall rise to thee Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God in three persons Blessed Trinity Holy hope Holy, holy all the saints adore thee Casting down their golden crowns around the crystal sea Cherubim and seraphim Falling down before Thee who was an art and evermore shall be holy, holy, holy Though the darkness hide thee Though the eye of sinful men thy glory may not see Only Thou art holy there beside Thee Perfect in power, in love and purity Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty All Thy word Shall praise Thy name In earth and sky and.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: Sea.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: Holy, holy, holy Merciful and mighty God in three persons.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: If you continue with the worship, it says they don't just fall down before him. It says they laid their crowns before him.
I mentioned earlier that those crowns had very specific meaning and they were called Stephanos crowns. During this day, there was two different types of crowns. There was crowns of royalty and there was crowns of victory. This is a crown of victory. The Stephanos crown was the crown that would also be given to people if they won, like the marathon back in the ancient Olympic Greek Games, and it would be put on their head. And whenever they wore that crown, they would actually wear it around as, hey, we're victors.
But what you notice here in this throne room, as they're wearing these white robes, they fall down to their knees, they take off that crown, and they give it to him. Why? Because they are understanding something. The victory that they are enjoying is because of him.
I want to ask you a question that I asked you at the very beginning. Is that question of who is on the throne.
And maybe for some of you, this morning you've been putting something or someone else on a throne.
Maybe for some of you, there's different barriers that really held back your worship. Maybe it's like me, it's other people's perception. Maybe for some of us, it's the fact that we make something else of God. I don't know what it is for you, but maybe you need to confess that and ask help for that. This morning, your song is probably a lot of our song.
Maybe you're here this morning and you know there's something you need to lay down at his feet, so. Because if you think about, when it comes to laying down your crown, just because you and I sing something, that doesn't mean we're actually doing it.
And this might sound silly, but I could go up to Lorianne and be like, hey, I know you've had a hard day and everything with the kids. I hug you.
Well, that's great and all that. I gave those words.
But also, what does she need?
You see it all throughout Scripture that the heart and the hands have got to be connected. Maybe in your own life, what's happened is they've become disconnected.
And you don't want your singing just to be singing.
You want it to be doing.
So if you're here this morning and you want to put on the righteousness of God, you can go into that watery grave of baptism, be made completely clean. And here's what's beautiful. He doesn't save you just from something we talk about all the time. He saves us to something, and that's victory.
Maybe you're here this morning and you've made that decision, but other things have stood in the way of who needs to be on that throne.
Don't let another moment, don't let another day go by without making that right. We would love so much to pray for you. You can walk down here or you'll notice every single Sunday, early service and late service. We have our shepherds that stand at all the exits. They can meet you and pray with you there. Love you very much. And if you have a need, come while we stand and we sing this song.
