======================================================================== KISSING CHURCH： ALL OF LIFE WORSHIP by Sam Caldwell ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of living a surrendered and devoted life to Jesus Christ in all aspects, personally, in family life, and in the church. It delves into the seven realities outlined in Psalms 2:10-12, challenging believers to integrate these commands into every moment of their lives, creating an atmosphere of worship and devotion. The goal is to have a 'Velcro kiss' with Jesus, where every action and thought is tied back to the glory of God. Duration: 45:47 Topics: "Surrender to Christ", "Devotion in Daily Life" Scripture References: Psalms 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Proverbs 22:6, Matthew 18:20, Colossians 3:17, James 4:7, Ephesians 5:19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of living a surrendered and devoted life to Jesus Christ in all aspects, personally, in family life, and in the church. It delves into the seven realities outlined in Psalms 2:10-12, challenging believers to integrate these commands into every moment of their lives, creating an atmosphere of worship and devotion. The goal is to have a 'Velcro kiss' with Jesus, where every action and thought is tied back to the glory of God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Psalm number two. We've now been studying this psalm for three sessions. This is the third one. And I have to admit to you, this is one of my favorite psalms. This psalm has everything we need in it to follow Jesus, to be totally devoted to him, to give our lives completely into his hands. And you all might have noticed that since we started working through this psalm about three weeks ago. Remember, it begins with, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? We talked in the first sermon about a raging world, a raging world. And then we talked in the second sermon about a soaring Christ. Christ is soaring over this whole world. And today we'll talk about a kissing church. The last three verses are about a kissing church. But did you all notice that in the last three or four weeks as we've studied this, the world has raged even more vehemently against God. Every single week there has been a major shooting in our country coming up to just this last week where the shooting was just 10 miles from here in Yarmouth and then up in Bowdoin. So we're not talking about something abstract when we open this psalm, are we? We're talking about something happening right around us. The world is raging. I was, I think, sort of compelled to open to this psalm because of that Nashville shooting. But then every week as we've studied it, there's another major shooting in our country. And we just see the world losing its mind and raging around us. So I do believe that the Lord has brought us here. There is a reason we're studying this psalm. Let's read it. And we're going to end our study of this psalm with this topic today, the kissing church. We don't only need to know that the world is raging around us and that God provides all the answers in a soaring Christ, soaring over it all. But now we need to know our duty. Our duty is to be the kissing church, to be the worshipping church, to be the church that follows God's beautiful commandments. And you could call this sermon, if you like, kissing church, all of life worship, all of life worship. And that's, I believe, the stakes of the last three verses of this psalm. We're talking about not just that we all have to get baptized or say we believe in Jesus or something, but we're talking about commandments that put us in a place where we have to give all of our lives to the worship of God. Amen. That's, those are the stakes of Psalm 2 verses 10 through 12. But let me read the whole psalm for you and we'll get it in context and then we'll go deeper. Psalm 2. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Listen, be wise now therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Amen. I'll pray one more time. Lord, it is so important that we understand the commands at the end of this psalm. So Lord Jesus, please open them to us. Please open them up to us, Lord. Please open our hearts to receive them. Please open our minds to understand, Lord. We submit this time to you. Please get me out of the way, Lord. Please help us to hear from Jesus and Jesus alone. Lord, your word is glorious and it's so true and it's happening all around us. Lord, let us see it clearly for your sake. Amen. Amen. The Kissing Church, all of life, worship. The Kissing Church, all of life, worship. We've seen that Psalm number two has three sections. Look at them again with me. Section one is verses one, two, and three. And there the psalmist stated the problem. What's going on in this world? Why are the heathen raging? And the answer was, everybody has set themselves against God and his Christ. That's the problem. And then we see God's response, verses four through nine. God the Father comes in and says, here's my answer, my son, my son, my son. He points us to the reigning and soaring Lord Jesus Christ. And then the third section of Psalm two is verses 10 through 12. And we could call that our response. So we have the problem, God's response, and now our response. So the thought here is, what are we supposed to do? If this is true of the world that it's raging, and this is true of God that he gives his son, what are we supposed to do? What should our response be? And it's given right here. Here's going to be the two points of this sermon. First, I want to look at seven realities set out for us in these three verses. Seven realities. And I want all of you to ask if you're living in them. And then secondly, I want to talk about all of life worship. I want to ask if we're living in these realities in such a way that it touches every single sphere of our lives. Okay, so we're going to look at these seven realities. And then we're going to talk about worship in the whole of our lives. Everybody with me? Amen. Okay. There are seven vital realities in verses 10 through 12. And the psalmist is actually commanding us to step into these realities. Before I enumerate them, I want to say this to you all. I'm going to give these things to you, but I can't hold your hand. I can't show you exactly how these seven realities apply to you. These are massive commandments. You could call them really general commandments. Like look at the first one in verse 10. It says, be wise. Okay, but it doesn't say anything more specific. So that command is going to come to you, brother, and to you, brother, and to you, brother. And I can't be there. I can't be in your soul. I can't be telling you exactly how that applies to your life. Right? So I want to call upon all of you to search your soul. As we read this section, you have to figure out how these massive, booming general commands come into your heart and how you yourself need to be obedient to them. Okay? The first reality is this. Stop being kings and judges. Look at verse 10. It says, be wise now, therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth. And I think the first thing that the psalmist is doing is he's knocking all of us off of our high horses. He's speaking to people who believe they are kings, people who believe they are judges. And he's saying, come on, be wise, be instructed, get off your high horse. What made you think you were a king? What made you think you were a judge? And he's saying, get off there. Stop that. So here's my first challenge for you. Do you still think you're a king? Do you still think you're a judge? Are you the lawmaker? Are you a big man? Are you someone who's in charge of your life? Or have you come to submit to Jesus? Because the first thing that happens when we submit to Jesus right here in verse 10 is we say, you know what? I'm no longer a king. I'm no longer a judge. I submit my life totally to him. Can anybody testify to that fact? Before I got saved, I thought I ruled the world. I thought everything I thought was right. Everything I said was right. I was so full of pride. I was the judge in my life. I was the king of my life. I actually, I'm just confessing this. I thought I would be famous. I thought, you know, can you guys go back to the day before you were saved? Do you remember thinking, oh yeah, I got this. I'm a king. I'm a judge. But now take that into your Christian life. Are there still elements in your life where you say, well, I'm king in my family. Well, I know what's going to happen. And I know how to get out of this mess. So I'm a judge. I can, I can maneuver all this. Right here, the psalmist says, you're done with that way of thinking. You're no longer a king. You're no longer a judge. You better get wise. You better get instructed. You better get small. You better leave that pride. Amen. Do you all see that? That's the first reality we're called to walk in. And there are seven of these, so I'm going to go somewhat quickly through them, but that's so important. First, we get knocked off of our high horse and we're no longer kings and judges. Second reality, he says, be wise. Everybody see that in verse 10, be wise now, therefore, oh ye kings. Okay. That word in Hebrew literally means something like be circumspect. Look around you, be attentive, or it means something like this. Get the lay of the land. That's such an important thing. There are many of us as Christians who can basically hide our heads in the sand. And we don't ever pick our heads up and look around and say, what do I need to take care of in my life? How's my spouse doing? Okay. How are my kids doing? Okay. What do I need to take care of at church? What's the state of the world? What's going on around me? That's what the Psalmist is calling us to right here. Be wise. It means look around, be attentive. So let me ask you that. Have you done that? Have you got your eyes off yourself? Have you got your eyes into the place where you can say, have I called my mom? Have I called my dad? What's going on there? Am I running my house in a godly way? Am I using my hours in a good way? Am I redeeming the time? You see, that's what being wise means right here. It means getting the lay of the land, looking around, being attentive. What would the opposite of that be? Well, navel gazing, just looking at myself, right? Just playing on my phone, just never getting my sight off of my own personal junk. The first command he gives us right here is look outward, be wise, think about those around you. So are we doing that? Okay. Third reality, be instructed. Look at verse 10. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth. This literally in Hebrew means be chastened, be corrected, or realize that you were wrong. Just pause for a minute and say, in the last week, have you been corrected? In the last week, have any of us here said, you know what, God taught me something? Amen. He showed me I was wrong. He showed me stop going that way, go this way. So put those two commands together. Isn't that amazing? The first one is look around you. And the second one is make sure you're being corrected. You all know that Psalm that says, blessed is the one whom the Lord chastens. There's a blessing on being corrected, on getting to a place where day by day, week by week, corrections are coming, chastening is coming, repentance is coming. If there's anyone in this room who just says, no, I'm pretty good. You know, everything I do is really good. I've got it together. That could very well point to unhealthiness in our Christian life. If we're healthy Christians, then this is happening. Look at it again. You're being instructed. You're being chastened. God is speaking to you. He's correcting things. Fourth reality that we ought to live in. Serve with fear. Look at verse 11. It says, serve the Lord with fear. Serve the Lord with fear. Here it gets even a little more difficult, doesn't it? Literally in Hebrew, this would be, be a slave. That's how we translate that first phrase. You all see it? Serve, it's be a slave. Can we all honestly say in our Christian lives, I have become a slave to Jesus. I am completely enslaved to him. Or do you say, no, I repented and believed and I got baptized, but now I sort of serve him like 15% of the time or 50% of the time. Here it says, become a slave. May that all go through your ear that was described in Leviticus, right? And it drives through your ear. And as that happens, you're signifying to the whole world, I belong to my master. I belong to Jesus and to Jesus only. This is such a strong phrase in the Hebrew. I wish I could bring it out to you somehow, but it means become a slave. I think there are many Christians who just treat that so lightly. We say, yeah, I know the Bible said, oh yeah, James, he was a slave. He was a servant or something like this. But are you, are you a slave to God? Have you enslaved yourself to God? Meaning everything. He owns everything. He can do to me whatever he wants. I don't agree with all of Francis Chan's preaching. I think he's really gone off the rails in many different things. But when I was newly saved, I heard him say something that really stuck with me. He said, have you got to the point in your Christian life where if God were to say to you, walk on your hands, right, like this, upside down for the rest of your life, have you got to the point where you would say, I'll do it? I'll do it. Whatever he says, that's enslavement to God. He owns me. Whatever he says, I'm going to do it. Look at the verse again. It doesn't just say become a slave, but it says, serve the Lord with fear. And this particular word is talking about internal reverence. So it's saying, become his slave, and there's something going on inside of you, deep in your heart, a deep internal reverence. So you're not just an outward slave. You're not just a Pharisee slave. You're not just a hypocrite slave. But deep in your heart, you're revering him. You're fearing him. Okay. Fifth reality. We're going through these somewhat quickly, but I want you to just hear them sort of pummeling your soul. There are these commandments just coming at us. The next one is what? Verse 11. And rejoice with trembling. Rejoice with trembling. Literally the word rejoice there means spin around or go in a circle. So I'm going to embarrass myself for you all, but this is what this looks like. Okay. Do you all act like this to God? You go, oh, yes. The Lord. Anybody ever done that? Have you all seen the sound of music? Isn't it in the fields where they're all just sort of dancing like that? That's literally what the Hebrew word means. It means you spin in a circle before God. You're just reveling in him. You're loving him from all angles, spinning and spinning, rejoicing before him. Isn't that beautiful? And then it says rejoice with trembling. Now the psalmist switches the words. He talked about fear and that was internal fear. But now this is external fear. This is where people can actually see it. Like, can you see my hands trembling? People can actually see it. There's some sense that if you really fear God, then people around you know it. They know because they try to turn on this Netflix show and you say, sorry, I can't watch that. Or they try to tell you to go over there and you say, no, I can't go over there. And they can actually see your body trembling. They can see that this fear of God you have has external effects. That's what that's talking about. So put those together. We're spinning around in a circle with external trembling. That's a beautiful Christian life right there. Sixth reality that we have to walk in. Put these together with me. Come on now, put them together. The sixth reality is kiss the son. See it in verse 12. Kiss the son. That's not talking about King David. That's talking about the son of God. That's talking about Jesus Christ himself. And it's telling us to kiss him. And notice the few phrases that follow it. Look at it. Kiss the son. Why? Lest he be angry and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Oh, that's not a wimpy son of God, is it? That's not a wimpy Jesus, is it? I want everybody to hear this today. This is saying you better kiss the son or else when his wrath is just, just comes just a little bit. Not when hell comes. Not when final judgment comes. But when his wrath is kindled just a tiny bit, you're gone. You're dead. This is a powerful Jesus. This is not a feminine Jesus. This is not just a little wimpy Jesus. This is a picture of you better get down and kiss him. And the alternative is you fall off that cliff right into hell. It's so strong what it says right here. If you don't kiss him, he will be angry and you will perish. This is the idea of you're going along in the way and you just disappear. You're gone. So that that doesn't happen. What does the psalmist say? Kiss him. Kiss him. Kiss Jesus. And there are as far as I could find two major words for kissing in Hebrew. One is just like kiss you and I'm gone. Kiss you and I'm gone. This one is not like that. This word is I kiss you and I fasten myself to you forever. Isn't that interesting? So think about that. There is a Judas kiss. Is there not? There's a Judas kiss where you go up to someone and you say, I love you. And what are you actually showing? I want them to take you and kill you. I'm out of here. There are so many Judas kisses in the church of God. Are there not people who just come in for a minute and they kiss or people you meet on the street and they say, yeah, I love Jesus. Of course, I know I've known him my whole life. Oh, so do you hang out with Christians? Well, no, I hate Christians. Oh, so do you follow his command? No, I don't. I don't really care about that. But they give him a Judas kiss, don't they? Just a little peck on the cheek, just enough to mock him. But this word here is so amazing. It means, like I've said, to kiss, but then to attach, to fasten together or to give a continual kiss. Do you give Jesus a continual kiss? You know what it's a lot like? It's like a wedding day kiss. Remember that? A wedding day kiss. You all know that time when it's the minister says, you may now kiss your bride. And then through that kiss, what are you signifying? I'm going to kiss once and take off. No, you're going to kiss there and you can continue kissing. And you're now in a beautiful, blessed marriage where you're able to kiss your whole life long. This is the sort of kiss we want to give to Jesus. I kiss him and now I fasten myself to him. And if that doesn't help you, you could think of this image of Velcro. You know those Velcro shoes that people like me need because I don't know how to tie my own laces. So you get Velcro, right? You just go and it's stuck, right? And it's hard to peel it back. This is exactly what this kiss is in Hebrew right here. Kiss the son. Velcro kiss him. Get stuck to him. Get, you know, just stuck to him, fastened to him, continually kissing him. And I can promise anyone here that you start kissing Jesus Christ like that. You Velcro your life to him and you're not ever going to want to take it off, are you? You want to stay there. You want to stay there. You want to stay with Solomon. What does he say? Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. You just want to stay there. You don't want to cheapen that kiss with Jesus, do you? You don't want to mock him, do you? There's one more thing here. Seventh reality we're meant to walk in. And it's simply to put your trust in him. Look at the end of verse 12. It says, Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. That's so beautiful. This too is a word that we cheapen. We say, yeah, I trust him. Yeah, I believe in him. This in Hebrew literally means take shelter in him. Seek refuge in him. Get up underneath him. Get up under the shadow of that rock. So let me ask you that today. Are you one of those who take shelter in Jesus? Not just that you, for a moment, you say, I trust him. I believe in him. But he's your hiding place, right? You hide up underneath him. So beautiful. So beautiful. So you're all putting all those pieces together. I've given you seven different realities. First, you stop being kings and judges. Two, you be wise. Third, you be instructed. Fourth, you serve the Lord with fear. You become a slave. Fifth, you rejoice with trembling. Sixth, you kiss Jesus. And seventh, you put your trust in him. You take refuge under him. Have you done those things? John Piper said this, and I think it's so true. He says, if we take all the commands in the Bible seriously, we're going to find that the Christian emotional life is very complex. Isn't that helpful? Think about that. Even if we all were to follow those seven things I've just enumerated to you, what would it result in? First, it would mean that we're pretty rich and complex people, wouldn't it? We're rejoicing, but it's with trembling. We're kissing Jesus somehow. We've laid down our pride. We're wise. We're instructed. I mean, how are you going to do all that at the same time? We can sum all this up and say, if you're living in these seven realities, then what you have is a surrendered, devoted life. Can I say that again? If you're living in all of these seven realities, then you would have to have a surrendered and devoted life. So what I want to do for the last part of this sermon, and this is very important, is I want to talk about a surrendered, devoted life. I want to talk about all of life worship. So let me just give you a few points here as we close. All of life worship, the surrendered, devoted life. Again, think of those seven realities. You put them all together, and to me, it starts to look like, have you all seen those rubber band balls? You know a ball that's made out of rubber bands? There's a band here, and there's a band here, and a band here, and then you get this wonderful ball that actually bounces, right? That's what we're doing with all these seven commands. We're wrapping them around our life, and we're doing this, and then we're doing this, and it amounts to this reality in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, where it says, whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Amen? You all catching what I'm saying here? You try to follow all these commandments, but we could sum them up like this. Do all to the glory of God. Do everything to the glory of God. Let those commands wrap around you like little elastic bands around every single part of your life, and every part of your life now is getting surrendered to God. Everything you do is saying, okay, is this devoted to Him? Is this full of fear? Does this involve a kiss of Jesus Christ? That's what we're talking about here, and I want to talk about that as we close in three different ways, personally, in your family, and in the church, okay? Let me explain why we're talking about this, because I think these are the stakes of Psalm 2. I think the psalmist is trying to get us into the place where we can't escape the commands of God. We can't say, well, for this hour, I'm just going to lie on the couch and watch something inappropriate. We can't do that if we're actually taking seriously what it says here. The only way we can live as Christians is to say every part of me is now devoted. Every single thing I do is devoted. I have to consider every single hour of my life as devoted to Him. Those are the stakes of this right here, but another reason I want us to go over this is this. When I've talked to many of you and many Christians in other contexts, and when I ask a simple question of how are you doing spiritually, do you know what the answer is almost all the time? Can anybody guess? What I hear 99 out of 100 times is, well, I'm struggling in my prayer life and I need to read the Bible more. So listen, I'm asking people how are you doing spiritually, and their mind goes to one thing, my prayer life and how I read the Bible. But what the psalmist does right here is he's not just looking for our prayer life and how we read the Bible. He's looking for every single moment of our life to be completely surrendered to God. You see that? So when someone asks you how are you doing spiritually, we ought to think, well, how am I in my job? How am I doing with my family? How am I at my church? How am I using my spare time? What are the shows I'm watching? You see, it's all of life worship that the psalmist is after right here. Personally, let's just ask a few questions about our personal lives here. Personally, are you kissing Jesus when you're alone? Do you have that Velcro kiss of the Lord? You could ask yourself questions like this, do you live an integrated life where everything in your life ties back to the fear and love of God? Ask this question, do you have a clean conscience with everything you do when you're alone? Yeah, I can watch that and my conscience is clean. Yeah, I can do that for the next hour and my conscience is clean. Ask yourself this question, are you happy in the Lord? Ask yourself, do you fear God? And when you go about your day, can you continually say, yeah, I'm happy. And having just done that, it makes me more happy in God. Let me give you some scenarios here. How do you use your cell phone? Could you honestly take verses 10 through 12 of what we just read and say, yeah, the way I use my cell phone accords with what I just read. When I use my cell phone, I'm being wise, I'm being instructed, I'm serving the Lord with fear, I'm rejoicing with trembling. Seriously, could we say that? Yeah, the way I use my phone is like that. Or could we say, I waste time, I look at junk, my mind starts to feel clouded, and I just start to forget about my other duties in life. You see that? Let's think about our friends. Here's an example. I go to see a friend. I see her five times a week. Every time I see her, I fight. And I've prayed two times this week. Okay, is that a balanced, integrated life? No. But see, what am I doing there? Trying to be wise. Scan that situation and ask, okay, is that submitted to God? Are those moments lived in the fear of God? You see what I'm talking about? Not just the 15 minutes you get in the morning in the Bible, and then five minutes in prayer. But I'm talking about every moment as you go throughout the day. Think about family. You could say something like this. I don't have much family time at home. We've had our third visit to our family this week. I come to church feeling busy and hurried. I can't listen to the sermons very well. What would we say? Is that following these commands of Psalm number two? No. It's just letting things go haywire, right? So I'm asking us in our personal lives, are we kissing Jesus? Do we have that spirit of all of life worship in our personal lives? Here are just a few more questions we could ask. Do you feel like your life is integrated and happy? Can you connect everything you do back to the glory of God? Or can you say, I just lived mindlessly for four hours and it had nothing to do with the glory of God? A few other questions. Do you feel like you're just going from event to event and then trying to sneak in some devotional time whenever you can? That again shows that we don't have that velcro kiss of Christ, that we're not living in all of life worship. You all see what I'm talking about? That's in our personal life. Now let me ask about our family life. In your family life, when you're with your spouse, when you're with your children, or whoever you have to take care of at home, are you even there kissing Jesus? What did I mean again by kissing Jesus? A velcro kiss where everything ties back to him. Everything is stuck to him. I just want to read you this quote. This is from Catherine Booth-Clyborne. She's the daughter of William Booth, who was the head of the Salvation Army. And she was known for being the first missionary in those days to go to Paris. And we might not agree with everything she did because she actually would preach there on the streets. She preached there because there was no one else, no men there who knew French and who could have reached those people. She lived a bit like Jackie Pullinger, lived completely, well not alone, but with two other women in just a tiny, tiny apartment in the slums of Paris. She lived there a very, very sacrificial life. And she finally married a man. And as they got married, he started to take over the preaching duties, but they kept trying to just swarm Paris with the gospel. And they did. They saw a revival in their days. This is the late 1850s or so. As she gets married, she steps out of more and more ministry. Catherine Booth-Clyborne. And she starts to have, well not just one or two or three, but she had 10 children. And she wrote this amazing book that my wife and I have been reading. It's called Our Children. It's the best book on parenting that I've yet read. It's so convicting, so beautiful, so clear, so graphic. And she has one chapter called Atmosphere that I would encourage every single one of you to read. And what she talks about there, she knew a lot about atmosphere because she lived in dingy atmospheres in Paris, and she had to minister on the streets and whatnot. What she talks about is creating that velcro kiss atmosphere in the home, where everything that happens in the home is tied back to the glory of God. And I want to ask all of you this. In our homes, between those four walls, do we have that sense that we're kissing Jesus? We're doing all to the glory of God. Let me read you what she wrote here. It's so important, and it's just so beautiful. It's an ideal that probably none of us feel like we can quite get to, but let's try by God's grace to get here. Listen to what she wrote. A child is extremely sensitive. When mother and father are quarreling like cat and dog at the table, long before their child is three years old and can express himself, he notices and is influenced by their behavior. You see, we're talking about atmosphere. We're talking about the kiss of Christ in our homes. When mother promises toys and never keeps her word, the child puts her down as a liar long before it says so. When hard words and hard looks are in evidence, children, although they may be silent, are deeply impressed. How many children are being silently molded into the likeness of father and mother? Father and mother swear. They will swear. Father and mother lie. They will lie. Father and mother are unkind, even cruel. They will be unkind and cruel. Father and mother worship money. They will worship money. Father and mother drink. They will drink. But let them come into another atmosphere, the atmosphere which the blessed Christ always creates. Wherever he appears in flesh and blood, and the children will open and respond like flowers to the sun. Listen to what she says. Home should be a little heaven. Once the door is open, the atmosphere of love, peace, and rest should greet one. Thousands have been saved from time and eternity, for time and eternity, through the blessed influence of home. Isn't that beautiful? I'm asking you today, do you have all of life worship when you're alone? And now I'm asking, do you have all of life worship when you're in your home, when you're with your family? Are we trying to create that type of an atmosphere where Christ can be kissed at all moments in our homes? And finally, we'll end with this. What about in church? Do we have the Velcro kiss of Christ when we're in church? It's my greatest desire that we would be a praying and a worshiping church, and that when people come in here, they don't see people who pretend to worship and then go talk about sports, or people who pretend to worship but don't really care about Jesus the next minute. We want people to come in here and see, oh, there's a fear of God here. These people actually care. These people are actually devoted to an unseen Jesus. There's a quote I read recently, and I just couldn't find it, but this was the substance of it. It said this, if you want to be effective in evangelism, you need a little heaven that people can come into. Think about that, brothers and sisters. If we want to reach Portland, we need this, this little thing we do here to be a little heaven where people come in. It doesn't mean that they come in and they see that we're all perfect and polished and, you know, good looking or something, but it means that they come in and they can see these people mean business. These people care. These people are not letting up on this gospel of Jesus Christ thing, right? These people actually sing. These people actually pray. These people actually try to live their lives to the glory of God at every moment. If we're going to have effective evangelism, we want to be real here. I praise God that we are. I really do say hallelujah that we are. We might be small, but I pray and I know that when people come through the door, they say, oh, okay, there's reality there. May it be even more, right? That people can come through and say, there's something weird about them. They're trying to kiss Jesus. They're trying to Velcro their lives to Jesus. It sort of bugs me a little bit. Let's read our three verses again. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Would you all please hold me to this, that when I ask you again, how you're doing spiritually, I should be looking for an all of life answer and you should be looking to give an all of life answer. We're not just talking about the few minutes when we pray or the few minutes when we read our Bibles. If we are followers of the lamb, then we're followers all the way. Amen. We're following Jesus Christ and we're following him every moment in our life. We're submitting everything we might put our eyes across on Netflix to him, to his glory. We're asking questions of Christ at every moment in our lives. We're scanning the horizon and asking, does that fit? Does Jesus allow that? Does that include the kiss of Christ or does that make my Velcro come off? You all see what I'm talking about today? May we live just completely devoted, completely surrendered lives to Jesus Christ. That is my prayer for us. We can get there by the power of the spirit. Let's pray. I thank you so much, Lord, for your beautiful and piercing word. Lord, would you please let us not go home and forget it, Lord, but may these seven realities, these commandments just interlace our lives, Lord. May we actually submit ourselves to you, Lord. If anyone in this room is unfamiliar with that word, surrender, may they consider it as they go home. Am I really surrendered? Am I really giving my life over to Jesus? Lord, make us more surrendered. Give us the beautiful kiss, Lord. Amen. Amen. Let's celebrate what we've heard here. Let's sing another hymn. Let's stand and sing to our Lord. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/_6Rw-PryoRM.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sam-caldwell/kissing-church-all-of-life-worship/ ========================================================================