Advent Worship

[00:00:01] Speaker A: One of the last lines of what was read just now from Matthew. [00:00:07] Speaker A: 15, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Their heart is far from me. So they're saying one thing, but their heart. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Reflects another thing. And how does he know that? How does. I mean, Jesus is quoting an Old Testament passage there. Right, But Jesus is saying pharisees and scribes. This applies to your situation. He's saying, you. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Are saying one thing, but doing another. [00:00:45] Speaker A: They're saying that they're honoring father and mother, but they've made a workaround so that they don't have to honor father and Mother. And so Father and Mother aren't actually getting any honor. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Notice. [00:01:00] Speaker A: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [00:01:06] Speaker A: What's in the heart is demonstrated by outward actions. It's actually. [00:01:14] Speaker A: What they're doing that betrays that their heart is out of sync with their lips. Does that make sense? We all have an inner life, an outer life. Your inner life I can't see unless it's displayed on your face. Some of you are smiling now. Well, that gives me a little peek into what's going on inside you. Right, but. Or unless you're just smiling to make me happy. You know. [00:01:46] Speaker A: It might be a duplicitous smile. [00:01:51] Speaker A: We've got this inner and outer life, and the one expresses the other. Our outer life expresses the inner life. But then lying lips or putting on a show undoes that. It kind of breaks that relationship, sort of, so that there's no longer the connection. There are other things that kind of break the outer and the inner life. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Sometimes I think that faith is a head thing, like a head knowledge thing. Like if I just know the right things or believe the right things, then. [00:02:31] Speaker A: I'm good. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Okay, If I know that I should pray in all circumstances and trust God, then do I have to actually pray in all circumstances? And is trusting God something I do with my body or with my. Do I have to vocalize it? Do I? Right, Today in our modern world, we very easily just kind of put everything in our head, and it doesn't come out in. In action. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Well. [00:03:09] Speaker A: The writer to the Hebrews encourages us to keep the faith, and he does so by encouraging. [00:03:19] Speaker A: Real action, outward action. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. Okay, so that's inward so far. The hearts sprinkled clean with a good conscience from an evil conscience. And our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Here's the action part. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. All right, meeting together, that's what we've done. Tonight we're meeting together, but we're meeting together physically. I mean, we came together. You could have said, I'm just going to think about Jesus tonight, right? Or, I know all that stuff. I'm good. Have you heard that? [00:04:28] Speaker A: But you came together, and this is good. And the writer of the Hebrews says, keep doing it. Don't neglect to do that, as some do. It's because all of these outward things, like meeting together and hearing God's Word together and speaking God's word to one another and confessing our sins and singing psalms and actually praying, all of these things serve our faith, and so do things like good works. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Well, what does that have to do with anything? As we prepare for the coming of the Lord. [00:05:12] Speaker A: What do our good works. Usually that when we say that, it's a bad thing, not our good works. What do our good works have to do with anything? [00:05:24] Speaker A: Well, let's consider their opposite. [00:05:29] Speaker A: For if we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment. Consider the opposite of good works, maybe evil works. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Well. [00:05:48] Speaker A: That can harm our faith. If we're deliberately sinning, deliberately doing wrong, working against God's will, that changes us for the worse, that transforms our relationship with God. [00:06:05] Speaker A: For the worse. [00:06:09] Speaker A: But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, sometimes being partners with those so treated. Here are some actions, actions done in faith. For you had compassion on those in prison. [00:06:34] Speaker A: It takes faith to do that, perhaps. Or, I mean. [00:06:39] Speaker A: What gain do you get from having compassion on those who are in prison? [00:06:46] Speaker A: You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. Now, that takes faith. You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. [00:06:58] Speaker A: But that's an outward action. That's the fruit of faith. To count it a blessing to suffer with Christ. [00:07:09] Speaker A: To share in his sufferings. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. [00:07:28] Speaker A: For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. There's another doing word. When you have done the word of God, faith and action belong together. And that's one of the things that worship is for. So here I'm tying it to worship again like I did last week. That's kind of my theme this year. Our theme, if you accept it. [00:07:56] Speaker A: All right? But in worship, we come together. And we don't just hear and think and process and go home, but we unite our voices together in prayer and in song. We unite our bodies, our physical movements together. Standing and sitting. You know, that gets kind of. It's a. Like that. Standing, kneeling, sitting. I don't know. Heard jokes made about that. Like, why a bunch of sheep, you know, that's what we are. [00:08:30] Speaker A: But we join our movements together. [00:08:35] Speaker A: In worship. And what's happening is that our bodies are brought into our faith as well. Even doing something like this, like putting the sign of the cross on yourself, you're bringing your physical movement, your body into your faith, right? Or even just facing the direction of attention, attending toward God, not just with your mind, but with your body. Worship does this for us. Gathering together, right? Meeting together as his people. We all, body and soul are together and sharing Christ with one another. Maybe with a handshake or with a hug. [00:09:19] Speaker A: But we are body and soul worshiping God. And so what does that look like? What does that look like in your life as you serve Christ with your body, as Paul says in Romans 12, offering your body as a living sacrifice, pleasing and acceptable to God. This is your spiritual worship. He says offering your body as a living sacrifice is your spiritual worship, right? We belong to God. Every action, every word, every thought brought under God's rule. And this is the pattern we said last week. But then the pattern gets embodied in the rest of life as we remember, as we turn to God, remember him and give thanks for Christ's coming. That was Christ's movement as well, right? Move. He became the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. You want to see the pattern embodied? You want to see what faith in action looks like. Jesus Christ is the Word in the flesh, the perfect human being and the image after which we're being remade in Him. Thanks be to God. In Jesus name, Amen.