The Worthiness of Jesus

I want to read to you the context, so we'll read verses 11 through 14 so we understand what we're looking at today and the context is We're looking into heaven this morning, and we're hearing the song That the Saints sing in heaven. Let's read verses 11 through 14 And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands Saying with a loud voice worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing and Every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing and honor and glory and power Be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the lamb forever and ever and The four beasts said Amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth forever and ever Amen Amen, this is a glorious passage And like I said, we are looking into heaven today and we're hearing what the Saints sing in heaven The topic of today's sermon is this the worthiness of Jesus The worthiness of Jesus And I have three simple points for us today first, what does worthy mean second Why is Jesus worthy and third? What is he worthy of? So this is in many ways a simple sermon But if you catch a glimpse of this of the worthiness of Jesus this will fuel your Christian life This will really swell your heart with joy just to follow Jesus with love and compassion the worthiness of Jesus Our first point this morning What does worthy mean anyway? Anybody want to brainstorm that with me? What is worthy mean? Anyone tell me Amen deserving What's that Good enough. Amen The term worthy means valuable or deserving Absolutely. Think with me. Where do we use that word worthy in our everyday speech? We say that an actor a really good actor is worthy of what of an Oscar We say that a really good musician is worthy of a Grammy we say that parents are worthy of honor and Grandparents are worthy of honor because of all they've done in their lives Or just yesterday. My wife and I were driving through Yarmouth and we saw the clam festival happening and I said Kiara, it's it's worth it. We should really go And she said no it's too many people and you know There's one thing that makes the clam festival worth it for me. Have you all seen this this little drink? It's tangy. It's Amen, who said that? Amen That just that little lime Ricky that makes it worth it for me and I was telling Kiara. It's worthy. It's worth it But alas, she didn't let us go so you all can talk to her later. Okay Worthy we use that word worthy. And why is it so important that today you get a glimpse of Christ's worthiness Because if you're a Christian and you're in school You might have someone come up to you and mock you and say Why are you following Jesus? And what should you remember in that moment? He is worthy If you find it hard to raise a Christian family and you're trying to bring the Bible into your family But maybe you have a tough week What should you remember? He is worthy If you're out in the workplace and you're trying to uphold Christian principles and you're trying not to swear and you're trying to be good at your job But it gets hard. What should you remember? He is worthy. He is worthy And what about this when we try to grow in the Christian life you might say I know I'm only giving 30% to Jesus. I know I'm only giving 40% and maybe in this vacation I take in August I just want to I want to pray 15 more minutes per day I want to spend some time in that seat by the beach just giving some prayer and praise to my Lord What should you remember when you try to make that resolution? He is worthy He's worthy of it. Do it by all means. He's worthy of whatever you have to give him Amen That's what worthy means. That's our first point Now with this second point, let's dive into our text together. Look at verse 12 My second question for you is why is Jesus worthy? Why is Jesus worthy? Let's read verse 12 one more time saying with a loud voice Worthy is the lamb that was slain Now notice that this is said with a loud voice I believe when we get to heaven We're gonna hear this much louder than you're hearing my voice right now through this microphone and these speakers We're gonna hear choruses of saints saying this with a loud voice Worthy is the lamb that was slain. Why is he worthy? There's really only two words here that tell us why he's worthy He is the lamb That was slain Let's focus on those two words for one minute. Think about this with me. This is so important It's so important that we should say it with a loud voice. No Worthy is the lamb Would you all be followers of a lamb Has anyone here ever had a really mean boss? No, yes My first boss, I won't tell you what restaurant it was at But it was in the middle of Portland and I was a dishwasher and that boss He just was not very nice and he would just sort of whip us into shape as we were working We all knew we had to give him respect we all knew he was in a sense Worthy why because he had our paycheck But did we want to give him honor? Did we want to call him worthy? It was pretty hard pretty hard to respect him Is our Jesus a harsh boss is he a mean guy No, not at all, what is he called right here in our text he's called the lamb When you remember that your Lord is a lamb What should you remember? Remember that he's not harsh Remember that he loves you Remember that he is meek and lowly Remember that he is perfect and spotless Remember that old hymn that says Jesus doeth all things. Well You know that Jesus is on your side He's not like some mean boss who's gonna flip out at you or get mean at you We have to remember that at all moments We follow the lamb. Amen. We follow the lamb the meek and lowly one Now why else is he worthy? Look at our text worthy is the lamb that was slain The literal Greek here says the lamb who was slaughtered And you all might say I don't want to hear about him being slaughtered I don't want to hear about Christ being slaughtered But at the center of our faith The one thing that makes him so worthy is That he was slaughtered for us You Know We tend to like to follow people who are really powerful, right? We all we want a president who is powerful. We want good public speakers We want people who are slick and who look good But the Bible tells us right here The one reason we all follow Jesus Christ and we give him all worth all honor is that he was slaughtered Do you remember the cross he bore Walking up to Calvary He did that for you Do you remember the nails in his hands on that cross? He was slaughtered for you Do you remember the stripes the lashes on his back? He was lashed for you Do you remember that if the Bible says he was marred beyond recognition He did that for you That's our Jesus and I just want to impress that upon you when you ask yourself. Why is he worthy? Why in the world would I go another month Lord when the Christian life can be so hard Remember those two words. He is the lamb That was slain. I wrote this down here because I want to say this Right, and you could write down this little poem if you like he had to be slaughtered so that sinners could go free He had to be slaughtered so that sinners could go free He was slain to become the Savior of the world That's our Jesus. That's why he is worthy Now again, you might all say that's just too simple, but you've got to take that home you got to think of that every day He's the lamb that was slain Let me tell you a little story to illustrate this point. My wife and I were just flying back from, Texas we went to Dallas Fort Worth to the one of the biggest airports in the country and Right as we came in to that to the terminal We saw a man right about over there that we recognized And I nudged Chiara and said Chiara. Who is that? She said that's Bill Gaither Does anybody know who Bill Gaither is? Amen. Yeah, anybody? Amen Bill Gaither wrote some of the best hymns ever He's 87 years old right now, but he wrote because he lives He wrote I'm free some of the most incredible hymns. I said, yeah, is that really him and We went walking over to him. We're driving Shiloh in the little carriage there Mr. Gaither You've encouraged us so much. Can we please get a picture with you? And he said, okay slow down slow down. Who are you and he was so gracious He wanted to meet me and Chiara and then we said I'm Sam. I'm Chiara and he looked at little Shiloh And he said, oh your parents are treating you. Well, he said, um, it looks like they feed you ice cream So he was such such a wonderful man. So gracious. He let us take a picture I can show it to you all if you like So we leave having met Bill Gaither, you know, really famous hymn writer in the Christian faith and The rest of the day. I'm just glowing and my wife says to me Sam. Why are you glowing? Why are you so happy and I keep saying we met Gaither we met Bill Gaither And she says yeah, but why are you so happy and eventually all I could say was look he wrote because he lives And when I sing that song, I just get happy down to the bottom of my soul. He wrote because he lives And that's so simple But that's what you need to remember with our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the lamb that was slain That's all I need to tell you today He is the lamb that was slain and you have met him if you've repented of your sins And you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. That's way bigger than meeting Bill Gaither You have met the lamb that was slain and he is worthy of all of your affection Amen Amen, I want to give you one final point. What is he worthy of look at our text right here verse 12 Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive Now I want you all to count how many things he's worthy to receive and we're going to end with this point count it with me power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing How many things? Seven amen. Can anyone tell me what does seven represent in Scripture? Little louder Amen the number of completion or perfection So what is john the revelator writing right here when he says that christ is worthy to receive these seven things He's telling us he's worthy to receive everything Completion perfection all that we have jesus is worthy of it I want to quickly go through these seven things and simply ask you. Do you give jesus these things? Okay, this is not going to be a seven point sermon. I'm not going to go for another two hours. Don't worry But these seven things I want to know Do you give these things to jesus look at our text here? He's worthy to receive Let me cover that before I give you these seven things so many people come to church saying I want to receive What am I going to get out of church? Am I going to get blessed here? Does this place have the right ministries for me? Am I going to get what I need here? Am I going to get fed? And some of those questions are okay But our text tells us right here to switch our way of thinking It's not about what we receive is it? It's about what he receives Worthy is the lamb to receive we shouldn't be saying what can I get out of this church? We should be saying when I go to church, what can I give to him? He's worthy to receive from me. Amen So let's go through these seven things briefly Do you give jesus these things first of all power? power Do you say god can? God can do this god can come through in my family god can come through in this church God can come through in in this community. Do you give him power? Has anybody seen the jesus revolution that movie? It's a very good movie Lonnie frisbee was the leader of that revival that's described in that movie and if you all remember right toward the end of that movie There's a scene where you see that lonnie frisbee gets a little bit prideful And he says these words he says I did this I did this revival Anybody remember that scene? Right in that moment. You see that he got prideful Let us never get that way. We should never say I did this we should say god did this God supplied for this church god all power belongs to jesus Power we give him the power secondly riches We give him riches Now that just doesn't just mean that we tithe or that we give to the church it means more than that It means that with all of our goods with all of our money We use them for jesus If anybody here is looking for a new apartment when you make that decision Make it with jesus in mind If anybody ever tries to get a house and take out a mortgage you do that with jesus in mind And that's giving him your riches Third wisdom Do you give him your wisdom? Do you give him your best thoughts? Are you careful with what you do? Do you give him your wisest plans? You know what wisdom also means you know when to hold back You know when to go forward You know when to go slow You know when to speed up Do you give all of that to jesus? He's worthy He's worthy Number four strength This is so beautiful. Do you give jesus your strength? This is a little bit different from power. Let me just explain to you strength literally in the greek right here is the ability to hold on or tenacity the ability to hold on Has anyone felt in the last month that you could say it's hard for me to hold on Lord, it's hard for me to work that job with integrity Or lord, it's hard for me to go on in the christian life lord. It's hard for me to hold on When you feel that way, this is what I want you to remember He is worthy of your strength You hold on Because he's worthy in this church Hold on because he's worthy as you share the gospel hold on because he's worthy Fifth honor Everybody see that word in the text. He's worthy of honor What does honor mean? If you honor your parents, what does it mean? Well, one of the best things is that you do what they say, right So if we give jesus our honor we do what he says Why don't people go to church Because they don't think jesus is worthy of honor Why might people skip the prayer meeting or the community dinner or why might people just not give more to their church? Because they don't think he's worthy of honor If we think he's worthy of honor, then we try to do what he says. Amen I told you i'm not gonna go for two hours on these so we've just got two more here. Okay The sixth thing that we must give to our lord. He's worthy to receive it is glory glory Glory in the scriptures means weight weight If christ is worthy of weight, then he's worthy of our gravity Of our seriousness If you're a true christian today Then there's something about your life that's serious Because you know that you're carrying burdens. You know that you have the message that'll get people into heaven and get them out of hell You know that your life is weighty If you think jesus is worthy then give him that glory give him that weightiness Seventh and finally What's the last word everybody say it with me blessing. Amen blessing If christ is worthy then he is worthy of our blessing. What does this mean in greek? Literally it is good words good words That means we ought to say lord You are worthy of me never cussing again of me never gossiping again Of me never saying an angry word to that person again of me trying the best I can to get along with my spouse and love and honor her You are worthy lord that my mouth would be full of kindness of blessing of good words Amen amen Let's go over those one more time Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing Amen. Amen. Here's a final application for you all And I hope you've just enjoyed this text. It's so glorious, isn't it? Think that when we get to heaven, we're going to be singing this we're going to be singing this song together Here's an application To vote yourself more to jesus Because he is worthy of everything Devote yourself more to jesus Because he is worthy of everything Let's pray We bless you lord jesus And we ask you lord to make this text real in our lives We need to get a glimpse lord of your worthiness We need to go home saying he is worthy. He is worthy. He is worthy Lord convict each and every one of us in this room that you are worthy of it all For you are lord. You are the lamb Who was slain? We give you all honor all praise all blessing all glory lord today We say you are worthy In christ's mighty name amen