Nominal Christians

Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to John chapter two. Good morning to you. I Know what the Psalmist means now when he says I was glad to be among the congregation of the living. I've had my doubts even this morning whether I'd make it to the congregation of the living But it's good to be back and see your smiling faces and Jane and I are really thankful for your prayers I did I was a sick fella. I wasn't playing hooky I had to flew and pneumonia at the same time so In fact, Jane said I shouldn't try to do too much this morning and I did so I had to Take a cat nap in there while you were worshiping We are we're in the gospel of John and we're studying Jesus Christ and counter with a number of people and In each one of these encounters Jesus Christ is introducing something new now We saw that probably most easily and readily last week when Bernie talked about how Jesus Christ brings us the new wine of the Holy Spirit People went to some waterpots for old purification and they came away with the new wine What I think is a symbol of the Holy Spirit? What is interesting in these chapters is that theme of Surprisingly finding something new is going to tie all of these stories together Beginning in John chapter 1 verse 34 going all the way through the middle of chapter 5 Jesus Christ will have an encounter with the number of different people And each one of them will come to Jesus Christ looking for something Sometimes I need to know what they're looking for And he invites them to come and to see if maybe he can give them What they're looking for and in each Incident he will offer them something new Some of them will receive the new gift that he offers them and others will not But in the offering of something new He also causes away from something old Something that we're comfortable with and familiar with maybe Even though we know it doesn't satisfy as something that's hard to let go And perhaps the thing that is most difficult for any of us to let go of is our religion But in this little pericopy this little section this little story this vignette that is before us this morning That is exactly what Jesus Christ will ask us to do To give away to yield up To take our hands off the old religion that we're comfortable with To receive something new It's an unsettling story and unsettles us on a number of fronts because it appears to be and I imagine to the people in Christ time somewhat offensive what Jesus does But listen to John as he talks about Jesus Christ cleansing the temple and offering us something new beginning in John chapter 2 verse 13 The pastor of the Jews was at hand in Jesus went up to Jerusalem In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons And the money change of sitting there And making a whip of chords he drove them all out of the temple with sheep and oxen He poured out the coins of the money changes and overturned their tables And he told those who sold the pigeons Take these things away Do not make my father's house a house of trade His disciples remembered that it was written zeal for the house will consume me So the Jews said to him What sign do you show us for doing these things Jesus answered them Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up The Jews then said it is taking 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days But he was speaking about the temple of his body When therefore he was raised from the dead His disciples remembered that he had said this And they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them Because he knew all people And he didn't know one to bear witness about man For he himself knew what was in man

one of the little part time hobbies I have is exploring old churches I have said to my wife at times if I hadn't been a preacher I might have liked to have been a church architect Because I love to crawl in old cathedrals and old churches and Places of worship I've done it all around the world I've been in the majority of the great cathedrals in Europe and Many in South America and here in the United States and there's something absolutely marvelous About an old church especially a cathedral They're just treasure troves of stained glass and art and gargoyles and sacred furniture and You go in these old buildings and you head in your heart and immediately are lifted up They are majestic structures that draw you upward to God into the majesty of what he's doing here and in his kingdom in the world They remind us of generations who've gone before us and you feel connected to them You realize that these great men and women that you've read about in church history actually sat in those pews and preached from those pulpits and were part of an Every day life and a real world that you now share is your warp and move from existence And it's easy to get lost in those things which I think is the wonder of cathedrals I know that every time I go to our national cathedral in the Washington of all the churches that I've been in it is my favorite It's just one magnificent place of worship. I feel so small And God and the things of God around me pictures and the images and the Remembrances of all the important events in our life as Americans that have taken place in that National Cathedral of Peter and Paul they seem to dwarf Everything about me and my little life And they remind me that there are two realities one that I live in day-to-day and and a greater reality a spiritual kingdom That perhaps manifests itself best on the Lord's day on Sundays One of the things I love to do in those places is to just meditate and pray You can hear the noise of the busy 21st century outside but in that sanctuary which means holy place It's as if you enter into another world pretty soon in this vast complex of of architecture and artwork and stained glass. It's soon just you and God You looking up at him and him looking down at you But there's a danger in all of that Because I'm sure that that's not true of me. There are people all through history Who have loved to go to places of worship and encounter God in the majesty of his house And I am told that there was nothing more majestic in the old world than Herod's temple 46 years The text tells us it took to build this place. It was the third temple Solomon's temple have been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and then 70 years later there was what we call the second temple a small version an unimpressive little building That's talked about in Ezra and Nehemiah and then Taking off of that building and expanding it and and and improving it was this Temple of Herod Herod the evil man of the stories in the gospel did one good thing in life He built God The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob a house of worship a house of sacrifice that was the envy of many nations Who were on the earth at that time And people would go there to encounter God in fact that's how they Had to encounter God in those days they had to go to the sanctuary They had to offer up sacrifices and was only in that way That they could come into contact whether they were Jew or Gentile with the living God But the danger that confronts us and these houses of worship confronted them as well and soon That temple became Their religion It became not just an instrument by which they were brought to God it began to replace God It was the temple that they trusted in And it was their rituals and their rubrics and their and their Ceremonies that that kind of shaped the way they thought about life About God About the future And Jesus was intent on changing that And offering them something new That's what we'll find again in all of these stories These stories that begin in chapter two and end in chapter five or kind of book ended by encounters in a place called cana And in between those bookends People will code to Jesus Christ looking for something new Even though they don't know what it is Like Nicodemus Who come to Christ at night wanting to discuss theology And in particular the wonders and signs that Jesus Christ has been doing And find out surprisingly that he does not understand that he must be born again After that, there's a Samaritan woman at a well Who grows to draw water And wants to argue about which temple God really meets people in And Jesus Christ tells her that she needs the Messiah And that he is the Messiah There'll be a royal officer who just wants his son healed and finds eternal life There'll be a man who is lying by the pool of Bethesda wants to walk again Jesus offers him something even better than that These people will encounter Christ in a surprising way and he will offer each one of them something unsettling Something new Something surprising Today in this text that we're looking at Jesus encounters people in Jerusalem that you and I would call nominal Christians nominal believers Believers in name only And they will they will manifest the three marks of any nominal Christian there Their worship will be defective Their understanding of religion is antiquated And their faith is dead In Jesus Christ will offer them himself to solve all three of those problems What makes this this text so relevant and so pertinent and yet at the same time So unsettling is it strikes at the heart of every single person This guy ventured to say that before someone encounters the living Christ They are a nominal believer in one form or another And the worship is defective Their religion is outdated and their faith is dead Until Jesus Christ gives them himself This new wine of the Holy Spirit And makes all things new So let's look at those three things that That characterize nominal Christians the reason perhaps this This text means a lot to me is that for 27 years in this world I was a nominal Christian I believed I was a Christian I bore the name of Christian And had you asked me if I was a Christian I would say well of course I am I'm a Catholic

But as I encountered Jesus Christ In an evangelical church years and years ago I came to the conclusion that I was not a Christian But there were things wrong with my worship And my religion and with my faith So let's look at these three things and look how Jesus Christ Solves the problem of nominal Christianity first He purges our worship verse 13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons And the money changers sitting there And making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the coins Of the money changers and overturned their tables And he told those who sold the pigeons Take these things away and do not make my father's house a house of trade or a house of merchandise His disciples remembered that it was written zeal for your house Will consume me Now this is an unsettling scene. I know it is And the thing that's unsettling about is that Jesus doesn't do it once. He does it twice Jesus actually purges the temple two times The first time is recorded here in the gospel of John The second time is recorded at the end of Christ's ministry and Matthew and Mark and Luke So he does it at the beginning of his public ministry and at the end of his public ministry The accounts are different the reasons he gives for doing it are different the things he says are different But in each case he purges the temple and reminds them That his house is a house of prayer And not a place of merchandise and trained and and and worldly activity The thing that's unsettling about this is it looks like Quite frankly Jesus Christ loses his temper But God doesn't lose a temper Because he doesn't have one to lose temper comes from a sour and irassable and unsettling happy soul and God possesses A heart and life of joy God never loses his temper. He's always control of his emotions and his actions God may be settled and purposeful and dignit and even the wrathful judgmental, but he never loses his temper And he has the right And the authority is God to purge any and all of his houses of worship This temple by the way is designed according to God's own instructions than the book of Exodus It's his and he has the right to do it as he pleases and as he sees fit to maintain the purity of his religion The main reason Jesus does this is because it fulfills the scripture Look at verse 17 as disciples Remember that it was written zeal for your house will consume me They're referring to Psalm 69 Verses six through nine Let not those who hope and you be put to shame through me O Lord God of hosts Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me O God of Israel For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach that dishonor has covered my face I have become a stranger to my brothers and alien to my mother's sons For zeal for your house has consumed me and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me Jesus will remind the people that his father's house is a house of prayer. He's quoting from Isaiah chapter 56 When he says here that his house is not a place of trade or merchandise He's referring to the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 14 and on that day There shall be inscribed in the bells of the house Holy to the Lord and the pots in the house of the Lord Shall be as the bowls before the altar and every pot in it in Jerusalem in Judah shall be holy to the Lord of hosts So that all whose sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat for the sacrifices in them There shall no longer be traders or merchandiseers in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day Jesus cleanses the temple the beginning of his ministry at the end of his ministry. I think to remind us Of a most important thing that We must guard our worship From worldly influences that would distract us or serve as barriers

having access to God If you notice in this text that these people are selling sheep and oxen and pigeons and they're exchanging money now That was necessary because of the sacrificial system When people came in this case for Passover They had to bring an acceptable sacrifice. It had to be a sheep or a goat or if they were poor a pigeon or turtle dove and it had to be an unblemished animal Couldn't have any Defects to it and so these sacrifices had to be temple certified Originally this market that sold these animals was across the valley Kidra on up the hill to place called the mount of Allah's where Jesus Christ would send his last evening in prayer alone before he went to the cross But because that was inconvenient and because quite frankly sometimes These dear people would buy an unblemished lamb or goat or animal on the mountain By the time they got over to the sanctuary had fallen and scraped itself on a rock or sprained an ankle or broken a leg and And they had to start all over again that the priests About two decades before Christ's public ministry decided they would move that merchandise mart into the temple now Where would you put a place In a holy building that we're going to be sheep and goats and oxen and turtle does well. Why not the court of the Gentiles Because they're unclean people anyway And that's exactly where they had it in the court of the Gentiles So that when the nations of the earth came Into the temple to encounter the living god their place had been polluted And smelled like a barnyard In the temple there were certain courts The court of the Gentiles the court of women the court of men The court of the Levites then the priest and then the holies of holies were only the priest would go the high priest one time a year And through these various layers of of entrance people had access to the living god to the glory of God dwelling in the temple And so the Jews decided They would use the court of the Gentiles as the place to market these animals and exchange money and run their business Jesus took an exception to that Not only because it turned a holy place into a place of business But it took away the one sacred space That the Gentile had to encounter the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Now you say pastor How can you find a corollary today Well, I would say it's easy to find that corollary Because the reason why these priests brought these animals into the court of the Gentiles was for convenience sake I believe that in the beginning they had every intention of doing this with good motives to make it easier for people to find their sacrifice And go immediately into the courts and atone for their sins It was for convenience sake The only problem is they didn't consult the word of God Whether or not God would approve of this And obviously he did not And I think there's a there was a corollary here for us in our churches There is kind of an unwritten rule for us. It seems in this 21st century that That if we can make it easier for people to come to church Then more people will come and more people will worship God and that is not true It's not difficult for people to come to church now

But we tend to want to make it easier all the time We want to have services on Saturday night And count that as the Lord's day because then people can go to church and then sleep in on Sunday morning or go golfing or Water ski or hunt or whatever they want to do on the Lord's day We want we want the sermons kind of Drum down to kind of a spiritual pep talk So that nobody's offended and everybody can understand exactly what we're saying and accept it We want our music to be a lot like the music we listen to on the radio because people like that and We think that if they have to sing old hymns and recite ancient creeds they'll just say oh, this is boring And they'll leave and with good intentions We're trying to make it easy for people to come into a holy place, but you know folks as soon as we do that The place stops being holy See what Jesus Christ was listening carefully what he was doing was removing barriers for people Who wanted to encounter God And what is the greatest barrier in our worship? What is the one thing That constantly wants to step between you and the living Christ every Sunday morning in this holy place It is the world the noise and the clutter and the frenzy And the activity and the busyness the Bainness and even profaneness of the world That keeps you from worship Now let's be honest Because Jane and I We discovered this years ago. He was it was weird when I was first a pastor Jane and I would go all week long without an argument But when we got in that car to go to church something possessed that woman

And my four children And I'm like I don't know if this has happened to you and maybe you would argue like a dog in a cat on the way to church I mean, I'm telling you truth folks general testimony. There were many times The kids were crying Jane was crying and I said stay in the car to keep control of yourselves. I got ministry to do

And then we realized something You can't get up at the last minute Be throwing your clothes on and doing your makeup in the car and be fussing at the kids in the wrangling about this and Run up to the church and as you turn off the engine you turn on worship it can't happen Doesn't happen And so we began to do certain things in our schedule Where we set aside Saturday night to get ready for church and we we began to do an amazingly radical thing when we got in the car We prayed That no one else would join us in the car as an uninvited guest And you know what? Things began to smooth out And I actually arrived with my family to church in the spirit for a change There was so much noise in our life And so much clutter And so much activity That we found that we were not ready or able To worship the Lord And I know we like certain things And I know we want the church to be comfortable But I'm telling you loved ones I'll never convince you of this the Holy Spirit will have to do that But the more we make what goes on in this place like the world The less we will encounter the other world That wants to meet us in this place We and our pastors and our Our children and this place must be set aside and kept different Because of the the barriers that worldliness presents to those who would really worship God This is I think what God has set aside the Sabbath day four So that you and I can detox from the world for 24 hours Let all of that stuff be flushed out of our system So that when we rise up on Monday morning to go out and to be worshipers and witnesses and workers for God in the world we've experienced The kingdom of God another world another reality The world of the new wine in the spirit who brings it And we've been renewed and refreshed on the worship day And that was not happening in the temple It's not happening in most of our churches in America And Jesus Christ was determined That this place that he calls my father's house It's interesting that Jesus Christ does not have a disdain For this majestic cathedral This temple he calls it my father's house a place where God the father met with his children And communed around The image of his own son's blood and sacrifice So that he could introduce Sunday by Sunday or here Saturday by Saturday Peace my peace this kingdom of God that was at hand in Jesus Christ I don't know how else to put it. I know I'm not doing a good job explaining this I'll blame it on the medication But I plead with you to give this a hearing in your soul That maybe the best thing you could do for your family and yourself for one day Is to leave the world behind I'm telling you it'll be there in all of its manifest misery and wretchedness on Monday morning Just leave it behind And give your soul permission for one day To enter the kingdom of God To come into a holy place and let God flush All the merchandising and all of the noise and all of the activity and all of the frenzy Out of your soul give yourself permission To make that a Sabbath day a day of rest And you will find in this beautiful house of worship here And encounter with God waiting for you every Sunday morning Now in addition to The purging our worship Jesus Christ reminds us that our religion is passing away Here's the second thing that he talks about the passing away of our religion in verse 18 So that you said to him what signed you show us for doing these things Jesus answered them Destroy this temple and in three days. I will raise it up The Jews then said it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days But he was speaking about the temple of his body When therefore he was raised from the dead His disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken Jesus purchased this temple and the Jewish leaders say Show us a sign Show us some miraculous portent some miracle that convinces us that you have the authority to do this now What Jesus didn't tell them and I wish he had Was that the cleansing of the temple was a sign It was a sign of a biblical prophecy being fulfilled From Malachi chapter 3 behold I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple And the messenger the covenant in whom you delight behold his coming says the Lord of hosts But who can endure the day of his coming The new can stand when he appears for he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller soap He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver And they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord As in the days of old as in the former days Jesus Christ is fulfilling this prophecy like a refiner's fire of fuller soap He has suddenly the Lord come to his temple and he's purifying They are sacrifices their whole system known as religion Jesus said Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Well, of course, that's a cryptic statement meant to be so And they naturally said look It's taken 46 years to get to this point and quite frankly that wasn't even finished yet It would be finished about a year before it was destroyed in 69 AD But Jesus Christ said note here's what I'm saying you want to sign You want to sign that I have the right and the authority to purify your worship and to change your religion here's the sign After I raise Lazarus from the dead You will kill me And I'll take a nap a sleep the sleep of death for 36 hours And then I'll wake up from that like a man wakes up from a nap I will rise again and then you will believe That I am God that God is with me and that I am the Messiah Because he said you have a great misunderstanding You forget that this religion known as Boise C ceremony Of which this great temple is a part is only an instrument in the hands of God. It's a tool God uses To bring you from sin and into his presence that you might be purified and made righteous But soon this instrument will not be necessary anymore I will be God's new temple And then when I am this old one will be destroyed You know it wasn't wasn't long after he cleansed the temple the second time that That the disciples became a little unsettled about how Jesus Christ twice now Went into this sacred place and cleaned house And so it says in Matthew chapter 24 that as they were leaving the temple The disciples came to point out for him the building in the temple and all of its splendor But Jesus said to them You see all these things do you? Truly, I say to you there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down

30 AD they would kill Christ and he would raise up the temple of his body In 40 years later He would use a general of Rome to level this temple for good Without one stone left on another Why? Because it was no longer necessary Then no longer had to go into the temple as a way to find God Jesus said I am the way I am the truth I am the life no one comes to the Father except through me Prior to the crucifixion and resurrection the only way to find God Was to go to the temple that's where the glory of God well That's where God was physically among his children his sons and daughters in the world That's where the unconvert of the Gentile and his own court could Come from uncleanness to cleanness and experience and atonement and a new life with God But once Christ raised himself from the dead That old instrument was no longer necessary And he said that he and his flesh would be the new temple The place of atonement the place where we meet with God For the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory The glory of the only begotten God full of grace and truth Jesus Christ possessed the glory of God in himself Just as the temple possessed the chicana glory of the Old Testament It was in Christ that people would come and have an encounter with the living God so that the author of Hebrews Talks about the temple of God's flesh in Jesus Christ a curtain Through which we have access to God who is the anchor of our soul This is always a difficult thing for us to reckon with it's hard for all of us whether we're evangelicals are not Is it the thing that we we have used as an instrument to bring us closer to God this thing called religion Is really not necessary In fact, it's really not appropriate unless that religion brings us to Christ Who is the one who connects us to God We all prefer religion To a relationship with Christ and you say well, we'll pastor. We don't we're we don't have a liturgy Why we ha we have this living faith with God and and uh and and our our worship show now come on folks We have a liturgy We do the same thing every Sunday that we always do we have a certain format that we follow We're tied to what's in that bulletin God forbid of Jesus comes back one Sunday and it's not in the bulletin He's gonna have to come back some other time when it's in the proper place Because we get comfortable with the rhythm and a routine that brings us to God and Jesus said you know That's fine if that routine and that ritual and that rhythm brings you to me But if it replaces me Then we've got a problem And it's easy easy for people to think that because They're evangelical Presbyterians That that is the door that unlocks Access to God and gives them eternal life Not so it's Jesus Christ Christ alone that this Sanctuary that these great cathedrals that this temple points to Jesus Christ that is the substance of our religion I don't want to be afraid of that word James uses that word in his epistle. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and King To say that we don't possess religion is wrong To say that we depend upon religion For our way to connect with God is correct Leslie lubricant said what Jesus Christ is showing in the imminent destruction of the temple is the end of religion as a way to God and pointing to a person Who is God Who brings us to himself and through union with Christ We have access to God access to the throne We can do that wherever we are where they're in a holy building or not But to do that To have that access to God to have that connection through Jesus Christ We need a third thing We need our hearts to be refined We need living faith You see how Jesus is step by step Reaching down into the core of nominal Christians first. He's purging their worship so that it reflects more of who he is What he's speaking in the word then he Pushes religion to the side so that not only is it no longer getting in the way But it's examined by the merit of whether or not it leads to Christ Or distracts from him and finally he goes to the deepest level And talks about the fact that you can have faith in Christ That doesn't do a thing for you That's why this passage is so unsettling What John tells us next He says it's mind-boggling Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast Many believed in his name when they saw all the signs that he was doing But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them Because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man These are perhaps just my humble opinion My friends these are the most disturbing three verses in all of the Bible These three verses Because here's people who believed in Jesus Christ Because of his signs they saw him doing these things and they said this must be God look at the next verse look at Nicodemus Rad by he says we know that you've come from God can no one can do the things that you don't ask God is with him They believe in Jesus Christ

But he did not give his spirit to them. He knew what was in their hearts And he He left them in their unsaved condition We're going to find out next Sunday morning that one of these people One of these people standing there as a member of the Sanhedrin the ruling body of the temple saying to Jesus Christ What are you doing here? What are you doing you carpenter who gave you the authority to come in here Overrule the Sanhedrin and clean this temple out according to your standards One of those men was Nicodemus And he will come in the matter of a few days under the cover of night and say Jesus we've got to talk about What you've been doing And Jesus is a Nicodemus The only thing we need to talk about is you being born again Because unless you're born again You will never see you will never enter the kingdom of God What is what is Jesus saying here? What's he what's he signifying? What's he illustrating? It's something that I've said from the pulpit here a couple times and it unsettles some people And I'm not trying to unsettle you just hear me That there are two different levels of faith in most people And And they They manifest themselves at different levels depending upon how we see God I call the first god the god of the eyes He relates to us through what has been seen look what the text says when they saw these signs They believed in Jesus Christ The god of the eyes is always a sensual god He's the god who We like to connect with because he gives us goosebumps Have a good feeling He likes ritual and music and candles and robes and all these things that make us feel religious

But he's not a true god the god of the ears Is the true god he brings us to himself through what we hear How we think What we come to believe and embrace Thus sayeth the Lord He who has an ear to hear let him hear what god the spirit has to say Martin Luther called these two gods the god of glory and the god of the cross And he said that people who like the first one of theologians of glory they love miracles and signs and wonders They like ecclesiastical pomp and circumstance. They like power. They like success But the god of the year is the god of the cross And there in the naked and bleeding Jesus Christ Men hear the good news and they are given one commitment by this god Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved Now I don't need to tell you that because of the way that you and I are Physically and socially and even emotionally constructed the god of the eye is always at first more attractive One one conservative commentator said this about this text These people's belief is based upon things that are seen It's not that faith which is the work of the spirit who cannot be seen but like Other men they see only what they believe so that seeing is believing in their paradigm of thought Jesus said Lots of people see my signs But how many How many believe in me the sign giver You may come to Christ because You've been told that Christ can repair your marriage and he can That he can save your son from drugs and alcohol and he can That he can find a job for you and restore your fortunes and he can In fact coming to god has with it all sorts of Side benefits to it But you know what that's coming to the god of the eyes That's coming to a god because of what he gives you Rather than coming to faith in Jesus Christ for who he is Every single person in these stories in chapters one two three four and five will come with some specific need Something that they see they need In Jesus Christ will open their eyes to see something that they've never seen before As they listen to him as the god of the ear speaks through Christ and in Christ They will come to believe in Jesus Christ and when this divine exchange has taken place they give them selves to Christ And he gives them himself to them Then they are saved but not until that divine exchange has taken place You see what Jesus is doing here We're coming to him on our terms that's what this is all about We're going to worship the way we like it worship God on our terms and he says no No, you won't Now you worship me on my terms after all this worship is for me not for you And we'll come to god through a religion that makes us comfortable in Jesus said no, I don't think so No You'll come to God through me Whether that's comfortable or not and we'll accept Jesus Christ based upon what we see And Jesus said no You won't you'll hear what I say and you'll either believe it in surrender to it or you won't at all This is all about this loved ones This is all about control Are we going to control God or is he going to control us And I think you know the answer We can Construct our worship and design our religions and and express faith on our paradigms and In this real easy the only thing we don't have to do Is let go and let God have us And trust him For what we do not see But what he promises there I think is the essence the difference between nominal faith and living faith That the person who truly believes in Jesus Christ receives the spirit When and only when He has surrendered Himself to Christ And said now Lord Jesus you teach me how to come to you in proper worship And you change anything you want to about my religion Just help at all point to you And give me grace So that I can surrender myself to you And you can give yourself to me A divine exchange I give Christ all that I am And he gives me all that he is

And that's the only way Jesus Christ is going to do business with you on his terms

In his terms other terms of salvation Nothing more Nothing less That's pray Father it is Very difficult for us to not be in control of our life It is the most frightening thing of all It's not hard to trust you with things that we see you doing It's hard to trust you With things that are yet unseen and promises that you have given And sometimes in spite of the circumstances in our lives It's easy for us to come in And to go through the same routine and ritual every Sunday morning It's more frightening to open up our lives And ask you to surprise us day-to-day With your living encounters with us It is fun and even enjoyable For us to construct the worship, the music, the prayers Even the sermons, the way we like them And not come here Thinking only of you It is most easy for us To bring the world in all of its clutter and noise All of its tensile promises and And fake dreams To bring it into this holy place And to never leave the world Even for a morning And yet you have told us that we are not to love the world Or the things of the world For if we love the world then the love of the Father is not in us For all All that is in the world the lust of the flesh And of the eyes And the arrogant pride of life These are not from the Father We're from the world And the world is passing away And all of its desires But the one who does the will of God Abides forever And this is the will of God That they believe in you The only true and living God And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent That we surrender to you And we exchange our life for yours Father, give us by the Holy Spirit In this holy place today The gifts of repentance and faith that we might do that Turn away from the world and faith Surrender to Christ And then meet us And surprise us In a glorious and new way With this new wine of the Holy Spirit That you have poured out for us Give us saving faith We ask Give us new religion Biblical worship So that we can meet you A life-changing way Day by day And know in our experience The living And resurrected Jesus Christ For we ask this in and through The name and work of Jesus By which we pray Amen Would you stand please for Christ to bless us This benediction comes not from the pastor But from Jesus Christ to head of the church Now may the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ The love of God And the communion of the Holy Spirit be yours now and forevermore Amen