We Worship God by Being Overcomers

Good morning family, it's good to see you all. I wonder how many times it'll take for us to get it in our heads. They say that the more you repeat something, the more likely you are to remember it.

It's one of the benefits of the fact that we hear the memory verse so many times over each Sunday, so that we don't forget it. I was sitting there thinking, every time I heard this command, do not neglect or take lightly the discipline of the Lord. And I imagined a time when the Lord would discipline me, allow me to go through some form of discipline, and how would I respond to that? Would I value it? To take something lightly is to not value it.

And when the Lord disciplines us, allows us to go through some trial or... I mean, discipline is a part of the Christian life. I hope you know that. Discipline is a part of the home.

All of us, if you had a good father, you were disciplined by your father and mother and children. I'm sure you know this, that discipline is part of your home. And it's a part of God's family as well.

If your relationship with your father in heaven doesn't involve some discipline, there's something wrong in your relationship. He's a father who loves you, and it's out of his love that he disciplines us. And when he does discipline us, how do you respond? How will you respond? And I thought about, what did we hear, 20, 30 times? Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord.

Value it. It's a mark that he loves you. He cares about you.

He wants you to have no regret in eternity. He wants to give you all of the kingdom. And if he sees you taken up with something else, if he sees that there's a place in your heart that's occupied with something on this earth, where it should be occupied with something of eternity, he's going to discipline you.

He's going to allow you to hit a roadblock. He's going to allow you to hit a brick wall. He might allow you to get sick.

He might allow you to lose your job, or he might do anything, because he cares about one thing. He wants every part of your being to be filled with his Spirit, with the Spirit of heaven. He loves you, dear family, dear brother, dear sister, dear child.

Your father in heaven loves you so much that he will even discipline you. And when he does, don't regard it lightly. Don't take it lightly, because every child whom the Father loves, he disciplines.

I'd like you to turn with me to the book of Haggai. I hope you know where it is. If you don't know where it is, you can work backwards from the Old Testament, from Malachi, and then Zechariah before that, and then Haggai.

Third last book of the Old Testament, Haggai. And we'll look at a couple of verses in chapter 2, and I want you to think about this question, especially for you children, and if the children understand it, I think all of us adults will understand it as well. If you have a rotten apple in a basket, along with a bunch of other good apples, think about this with me for a moment, think about this picture.

If you have one rotten apple in a basket with a whole bunch of good apples, what do you think is going to happen? Because there's 19 good apples and one bad apple, let's say, or even 99 good apples and one bad apple, what is going to happen? That bad apple is going to make all the other apples bad. It's not because there's 99 good apples, somehow that will overcome the bad apple. This is a law in nature.

The way I understand it, there's a gas called ethylene that when a rotting apple, when an apple is rotting, it gives off this gas, this ethylene gas, that is contagious and goes into all the other apples. One bad apple will corrupt an entire basket of good apples. So same with human beings.

Remember the days of COVID? Have we long forgotten that? When they said keep your six-foot distance and whatever it was? If you have one sick person and everybody else is healthy, what's going to happen? If that sick person doesn't get better, eventually all the others around them are going to get sick. It's just a law of nature. Disease spreads to other people.

Health does not spread. You can't spread health. You can spread disease.

You can't spread health. And there's a beautiful picture spiritually for that as well, that sitting in a good church where a lot of other people around you are healthy spiritually, is not going to make you healthy spiritually. It's a good environment, sure, and it's nice, but that individual health of the apple or the person is dependent on you and yourself.

It's possible to sit in a church where everybody else is spiritually minded and not be spiritually minded. And the danger for us as elders is that a carnally minded person, carnally means worldly minded, all they want to think about is this world. How can I make more money? How can I have success on this earth? How can I have pleasure and enjoy my life here on this earth? That's all they want to think about.

No time to think about spiritual things and their eternity. And such a person can sit in a healthy church where everybody else is spiritually minded and thinking about eternity while we enjoy the things of this earth. God has given us the things on this earth to enjoy.

I love playing sports as you know. I love doing various activities, earthly seeming activities, but the one thing that captivates my mind and my affections is eternity. Because this pleasure and this little bit of what we get to do here on this earth is soon going to be gone.

And then eternity matters. So I say that, I've been thinking about that for my own life, not to judge anybody else. And each of us must think about that for our own lives.

Dear brother, dear sister, it is possible. In a church like this at RLCF where I am absolutely convinced, I know I can say, as I meditate on it, I'm not here, we're not here to brag or anything like that. I know the Lord is here.

We're seeing him do amazing things in our own lives, in our marriages, among our young people. God is moving. But it is possible to sit in a church like this where a lot of people around us are healthy spiritually.

And that health will not spread. That spiritual health will not spread. In Haggai 2, we read in verse 12, If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches bread with this fold, So here's holy meat and bread that's not holy, and they touch each other.

Or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy? And the priest answered, no. It was obvious to them. You cannot take a holy thing and touch an unholy thing and make that thing holy.

In fact, it works the other way. The thing that was holy, that touched that which was unholy, becomes unholy in itself. There's other laws in the Levitical law that talk about a priest that, even though he's sanctified and holy, touches a dead person, his own relative.

He has to be cleansed now. He can't come and perform the rites in the temple because he's been contaminated. Verse 13, then Haggai said, if one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean? And the priest answered, it will become unclean.

It's what I was just explaining about the apples and health. You can spread disease, you can't spread health. And the priest said, it will become unclean.

Paul put it this way, if you turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It's why it's so important that you watch out for who you hang out with. I've seen people who have suffered spiritually because of the friends they chose to spend time with and hang out with.

They were doing well spiritually, and then they became close to some worldly minded people. Sometimes they call themselves Christians too, but their mind is also set on the things of this earth. While attending church on Sunday mornings and doing the minimum that they think God expects of them.

And people who were once running well spiritually and doing well, started to hang out more with more worldly minded people, and they backslid. 1 Corinthians 15, we read in verse 33. Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals or good character.

You might have good character, things might be going well and God might be working in your life, but you hang out with bad company, it will corrupt that good character. So dear family, become sober minded as you are, be sober minded. When you interact with people in this world, whether they call themselves Christians or not, when you find that spending time with certain types of people or how you spend your time at home, is corrupting your mind, be watchful, be careful.

If it's relatives who are earthly minded, be watchful. You know around this time, Thanksgiving and Christmas, we spend time with a lot of our relatives maybe. Be careful that that company that you keep, yes, spend time with them and all of that, but be sober minded.

Be watchful as you walk in this world. Become sober minded as you are and stop sinning. Stop sinning.

You like that word there in the New Testament? Stop sinning. For some have no knowledge of God and I speak this to your shame. Who is he writing this to? Believers.

This is a church that Paul planted in Corinth and he has to tell them, stop sinning. Now Paul says earlier, the secret to the way he lives his life and how he stops sinning. Let's go back and read in verse 30.

I want you to see how Paul looks at his life and how he has this character that's free from the things of this world and it's not corrupted and Paul boasts about something here, which I want you to see. Verse 30. Why are we also in danger every hour? I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Here we see the secret to Paul's life of overcoming. Overcoming the world. I die daily.

Let me ask you, you look back on yesterday, dear brothers, dear sisters. You had a full 24 hours. Okay, maybe you slept for 8 of those hours.

You had 16 hours perhaps of being awake. Did you die yesterday? Did you die yesterday? The world is on a journey, on a pathway of how to have more life. Enjoy life.

Do more of this and more of that and more enjoyment, more money, more pleasure, more success. The Christian life, Paul shows us, was a way of dying. Dying to myself and what I want to do.

My own wants, my own desires. Husbands, in your relationship with your wives, did you die yesterday? Wives, in your relationship with your husbands, did you die to yourself and wanting things your way? This was the secret to Paul's life. I die daily.

And then he goes on to say, if from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, if there's no future, if this is all the life we're living, then sure, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. It doesn't matter. And sadly, there are many Christians who are living that life of what can I do today for myself? How can I get more out of today for myself? How can I get more out of today, out of this situation for myself? Not with the perspective of eternity.

Let's turn to the book of Revelation chapter 2. There's a lot of people in Christendom who are taken up with ministry and the working in the ministry and things that we do for God. And I want us to spend a little bit of time thinking this morning in the words that I share about what is it that God really wants out of us? What does God want out of your life? It's very important for us to understand that. For you young people as well, at a young age, if you can know what does God want out of my life? Most churches will tell you God wants you to have a ministry.

What is your ministry? What is your gift? Find that out and do something for God. You can easily be misled and taken up with those things. I hope you leave this meeting, not from words I say, but something that the Holy Spirit deposits into your life knowing what is it that God placed you here on this earth for.

Let me tell you, it is that you will be an overcomer. Remember this, if it means writing it down or putting it in your phone or reminding yourself often, God has placed you on this earth to be an overcomer. In Revelation chapter 2, as we look at this, you'll see that there is one word that is consistently written to every church and that is this word, overcomer.

Be an overcomer. I want you to be an overcomer. But as we look through this, I want you to see that even in the churches in this time, in the first century, in Asia Minor, these seven churches that are a picture of churches in general, we see that within the church, quite often, more often than not, there were problems in the church.

With five of these churches, there was something that God was concerned about to the point where he said, I'm going to have to take away my presence from your midst. Take away that lamp stand. Take away my presence from your midst.

But in the midst of that, you see that with three of these churches, with two of them, there was no rebuke that the Lord had. That's the church in Smyrna and the church in Philadelphia. With two of them, the church in Ephesus and the church in Laodicea, the church in Ephesus was a pretty good church, but they were full of ministry and their works and all the things that they were doing, but they left their first love.

It wasn't about devotion to Jesus. Then there's the church in Laodicea where there was nothing good that the Lord could say. With the other three churches, what you see is that there was a group of people within the church that God could actually commend.

We're talking about this bad apples among good apples or unhealthy people among healthy people. Let's read this here in Revelation chapter 2, verse 14. Well, he starts by telling them, this is the church in Pergamum, verse 13, that he says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast my name and did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one, who was killed.

Here was a member of their church, perhaps the former leader or somebody who was martyred. Imagine if somebody from RLCF one day was martyred and we would know, man, that brother was here and he died for his faith. What a strength that would be for us.

And there was this brother Antipas who used to be a part of that church in Pergamum, yeah, in Pergamum, who was martyred. But then he goes on to say, I have this, a few things against you because you have there some, wasn't all of them, but there was some, there was a group of people within this church that had a false teaching. And as a result of that, Jesus says, all of you must repent.

The fact that you have a faction within this church that has taken up with some false teaching, that's going to corrupt the whole church. Pergamum, some of you in this church have this false teaching and that some of you is going to spread. Some of you hold the teaching.

So, also verse 15, some of you have another false teaching, therefore repent, else I am coming to you quickly and I will make war and God will come and use a sword in the church. Going on to verse 24, the church in Thyatira. A lot of good things that, in the case of the church in Thyatira, the majority of the church was unhealthy and a few were standing strong.

In the case of Pergamum, it was a small group of people that were unhealthy. God said, watch out, I'm coming. In the church in Thyatira, the majority were unhealthy and a few were pure.

Because he says, verse 20, I have this against you that you, and it started with the elder, the messenger tolerated the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray. Here was an elder in the church who allowed his wife to control the church and to teach false teaching. I gave her time to repent and really the rebuke was to the elder himself.

He says, you haven't dealt with it. You love your wife more than you love me. But he says in verse 24, I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, here was a minority within that church who have not held this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you.

Nevertheless, what you have, hold fast until I come. What about the church in Sardis? Let's look at chapter 3. Here was another problem where the minority in the church was healthy, but the rest of the church was unhealthy. He says, listen, chapter 3, verse 1. I know your deeds, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.

Here's a church where everybody around them thought, this is a living church. God is moving here in this church. You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die. For I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent.

Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come. But you have a few at Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white. Here was a few.

Now if you study church history, and I've read books, and I can't say I'm a deep student of church history. I often do read about it though, and there are a couple of books that I've read that speak about church history, and you'll see how God moved in churches. Once upon a time there were churches that were living, like the church in Sardis, and Thyatira, and Pergamon that we read about, church in Ephesus.

And it started out well. All of these churches were planted by the apostles. Things started to go well, but somehow these other things came along, and their paths started to be a little bit distracted.

They were taken up by different things. But within that church was a core group of people that were concerned about the name of God. Their devotion to God was pure, and they were burdened, I believe, by what they saw around them, the direction in which the church started to head.

And that burning within them caused them to be at unrest like these few in the church in Sardis. And eventually over time they started to realize, I can't stay here anymore. These churches started to be taken up.

They were good once upon a time. I remember when the Apostle John was here, the Apostle Paul was here, and he preached truth. But now things have been watered down.

Now it's about how can we get more people in. We've widened the gates. We've made the way a little bit broader so that more people can come in.

And they started to be concerned about what they saw. And eventually the time came where if the church didn't start to head back towards Christ, they left. And another church started out of that, a small, pure group of people, whose only concern was the name of Jesus, not a name for themselves.

And that was where the presence of the Lord was. And then eventually that little group started to grow and flourish. And again they started to be distracted because they got a name that they are alive, like the church in Sardis.

I wondered, how did the church in Sardis get this name that they were alive? I believe it because they were alive once upon a time. There was life in that church. But that name, that reputation became something for them.

Their ministry, the fact that people respected their gift, became something for them, and then it just became a name that they were alive. And they weren't actually alive. But the few in Sardis left.

Said, Lord, we don't want the name. We don't care about that. We want your presence.

We want true life. And that started another church. Throughout history you see this move of God where out of the big denominations, out of the big name churches came out a remnant that were following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

You've heard me say this before. What is the mark of a bride? If you were to go to a wedding reception, and a bride and a bridegroom just got married, and you saw a bunch of women. Maybe nowadays you see who the bride is.

They say don't wear white to a wedding because the bride should stand out. But let's say there were a lot of women there dressed in white. How would you know who was actually the bride? See, this is what's going on in Christendom today.

That there are a lot of people that seem to be dressed in white, but there is only one that's actually dressed in white. There's only one bride of Christ. How will you know? And if you were sitting in a reception and you wanted to know who the bride is, among all the other pretty looking women in that reception, how would you know which is the bride? You look for the bridegroom, and next to him will be the bride.

And let's say there's a wonderful party going on. Everybody's having a good time, and they're enjoying the food and conversation, and everything's great. But you notice the bridegroom starts to slip out.

He says, no, I'm not comfortable here anymore. He starts to leave. And then you'll know who the bride is because the bride will leave with him.

What excites the bride is not the party. It's not what's going on and all the celebration. It's the bridegroom himself.

And my dear church family, here is how we will know that we are part of the bride of Christ. What is it that excites you? Is it doing things for Jesus? Is it some ministry that the Lord gives you? Is it some blessing He wants to give you? Has the Lord been good to you and blessed your business, and blessed the work of your hands, and blessed your family, and blessed your children? Is that what captivates you? Or is it the bridegroom himself? Is it Jesus himself who captivates you? If not, I want to tell you in Jesus' name out of love, you may not be a part of the true bride of Christ. Now, I'm not telling you something that I'm not examining my own heart over.

The Lord has given me a ministry to fulfill here on this earth. But I have to test my heart often that that ministry never becomes a replacement for the bridegroom himself. And that RLCF will never become taken up by what we do, and what God does through us over Jesus himself, the bride.

You know the bride because she leaves the reception when the bridegroom leaves. Let's take this to heart. God wants overcomers.

So who is it that is the bride of Christ, these overcomers? Let's turn to 1 John chapter 4. I'll come back and look at some of these verses in Revelation 2 and 3, where we'll see God's call to the church is to be an overcomer. 1 John 4, it begins by saying in verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Don't believe everybody that says, I'm a Christian.

Don't believe everybody that reads from the Bible, or prays in the name of Jesus, or has a thing called a church. Don't believe everything that you see that's going on in the name of Christendom. Now, a lot of people will immediately say, hasn't the Lord told us not to judge? And it's important that we never judge anybody.

Do not judge, lest you be judged. Because in the measure in which you judge, you will also be judged. So there is such a thing as judgment, which we're not supposed to do.

But there is such a thing as discernment. And I hope you know the difference between judgment and discernment. Judgment means that we look down on somebody else.

We think, oh, look at that bad person, because they believe some false doctrine. Or look at that backslidden church, or that false doctrine in that church, and we point a finger at them. Discernment means that I don't allow, I'm not here to judge that person, but I don't allow that person to have an influence on me.

Discernment has to do with what I allow to happen to me, not about that person. God will be that person's judge if they're teaching false doctrine. If that is a false spirit, God will judge that spirit.

But I must have discernment to know whether I'm going to allow that spirit to influence me, or my marriage, or my home, my children, or this church. And so each of us has a sphere of influence. If you're single, you have a sphere of influence.

That's your life. You must be careful, dear young people even, over what you allow to influence you. That's discernment.

You'll hear a lot of people saying a lot of things every year or every few months. It seems like there's some new doctrine that's come up. Something new that people are taken up with and fascinated by.

Some new great fad in Christianity. And you, dear young people, you must know whether that's true or not. You must discern whether you're going to allow that teaching to influence you.

And the only way you'll know that is to know God's Word. That's why there's one book that the devil doesn't want you to read. He'll love if you read any other commentary or other fancy book.

There's one book that he doesn't want you to read and that's this book. And that's why also most of these fads, most of the false teachings are not based on God's Word. Today you have preachers that will preach.

Maybe they'll open the Bible but the Bible just stays open on one page and that's it. And everything else is psychology and ideas that they've copied from somebody else. So they've come up with some new idea.

Know God's Word. And if you see a preacher that doesn't show you everything that they teach from God's Word, you ought to put a question mark. That's what John is saying here.

Do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Now if you have spiritual maturity, you'll be able to know God's voice.

But for most of us, I believe that's probably true about all of us, and it's true about everybody here on this earth, we need to know God's Word. How will you know whether a spirit is from God? Know God's Word. Dear children, that's why we want you to memorize God's Word.

Meditate on God's Word. Hide it in your heart so that you will be able to test the spirit. When you hear some new teaching going on in Christendom and you think, well, a lot of people are flocking to this church, and everybody's talking about this new theology and this new thing.

How will you know whether it's from God or not? You say, where is it in God's Word? Do the apostles teach it? Do the apostles practice it? Is it there in the teaching sections of Scripture? This is how we know God's Word. Test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Do you believe that's true today? That there are many false prophets in Christendom? Many. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the Spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming. And now it is already in the world.

You are from God, little children. And here's how you know that you are from God. You have overcome them.

Here's where that word overcomer comes in. You have overcome this because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. I want you to now read further down in chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. This is verse 4. Whatever is born of God.

A lot of people talk about being born again. Are you born again? Are you a believer? The Word of God is very, very plainly clear. Here is the proof that you are a child of God.

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is a simple way to test whether you are truly a child of God. Are you overcoming the world? In Christendom a lot of people are taken up with casting out demons and evil spirits and evangelism and building churches and youth ministry and prison ministry and drug addiction ministry.

These are all wonderful things. But here is the simple mark of a group of people who are children of God. If they are truly born of God, they will overcome the world.

It's a simple test, fathers. Have you overcome the world? Is the spirit of the world, does the spirit of the world have no room in your home? Does the spirit of the world have no room in your home? Well, does it have any room in your heart to begin with? Do you love this world at all? How will you ever be able to keep the world out of your home if the world has a place in your heart, the love of this world? Whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Whoever is born of God overcomes the world.

Think about that, parents, for us overcoming the world. Have we overcome the world? Are you ensuring that the world has no place to get into your marriage, into your home, the things of this world? I tell you, that is more difficult to do than any other outward ministry. In a church, in a Christendom that's so taken up with this ministry or the other, one of the most difficult things to do is actually overcome the world, to overcome the love of the world in our hearts.

And this is how we overcome the world. I talked about Paul saying, I die daily. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 10.

If you don't get anything else out of this message, I hope you'll just get this. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. That's the real mark that the Spirit of God is in you, is you're overcoming the world.

Hebrews 10, we read about Jesus and the Hebrews is the book of the New Covenant that describes the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, worship involved sacrifices. You came and you sacrificed a bull or a goat or doves, turtle doves, whatever it might be, grain offering, those different types of sacrifices.

And the worship under the Old Testament was these sacrifices. But once we come to the New Covenant, you see that everything has changed, that now it's no longer about sacrifice because you read here. Let's begin reading in verse 1. For the law, since it was only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, so those sacrifices under the Old Testament were just a picture of the reality of worship.

Think about seeing, let me give you a little example. Let's say a woman is engaged to be married to a man and she hasn't seen him. He lives in a faraway country, she's engaged to him and all she has is a picture of him.

That's what she's, she looks at it often, she has it in her purse or puts it somewhere and every morning she wakes up and this is the man I'm going to get married to. It's the picture. But once she actually sees her bridegroom, the picture is not as important.

The bridegroom himself is there now and this is the analogy that we're told here in Hebrews 10 verse 1 of true worship compared to worship in the Old Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, what you had was a picture of worship as they did all those sacrifices. Yeah, they thought they were worshiping but it was just a picture.

And that picture is a picture of true worship but now that Christ has come, we must know what true worship is. If worship for you still consists of singing, still consists of what you give in the offering box and you think well that's worship, that's still the picture. What does true worship mean in the New Covenant? It's so important for us to understand that.

We're told very plainly here, since it has only a shadow of good things to come and not the very form of things, the law can never by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make perfect those who draw near. So let's use today's example. Let's say you show up here every Sunday and you sing the songs loudly and you feel like God is here and you feel like what the world calls praise and worship, you feel good about yourself.

He says that you could keep doing that every Sunday but that's not going to make you perfect. If you feel moved in your spirit when you sing here and you sit here and you listen to the messages and you think oh that was a great meeting we had, that's not going to make you perfect. Otherwise, verse 2, would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshippers having once been cleansed would no longer have had consciousness of sins.

But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore when Jesus comes into the world he says I'm doing away with sacrifices and offerings.

Sacrifices and offering you have not desired but and here we get to true worship. A body you have prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.

Is it possible that all the singing we just did, what did we sing for about 25 minutes or so? We sang and you got up here and said your memory verse, you're sitting here listening. All of that God says I'm not pleased with it. You might as well have gone and done something else with these two hours that you were here.

What a serious word that is. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. This is the new covenant.

We talk about the new covenant very often. Dear family, it's so important that we know it. That worship in the new covenant has nothing to do with these activities that you do.

That's the overflow but that is not the essence of worship. Ministry, singing, evangelism, prayer meetings, Bible studies, saying your memory verse, coming and listening to a sermon. That's not worship.

And yet I would say that 99% of churches probably think that that is worship. And we're in danger of falling into the same trap. What is worship then? Verse 7, behold I have come in the scroll of the book.

It is written of me to do your will oh God. This is it. You've given me a body.

I was telling you earlier and dear young people I hope you'll get it. Children I hope you'll get it. Because if you get it at a young age it will change your destiny.

It will change the way you allow your life to go. You will allow the Holy Spirit to lead your life into a path of devotion to God. He's given you a body.

And in that body He wants to be glorified. He wants you to worship Him in that body. And that's why now worship is a 24-7 thing.

I hope you didn't come here to worship. I hope you have been worshipping all day long for the last week. And today is just another day of worshipping God together with everybody else.

And that worship will continue when we go down and have lunch together. And it will continue this afternoon with whatever you do. And it will continue this evening and start over tomorrow morning when you go to school.

And you have finals this week. And you have to go to work and do a job where you don't know if your boss is going to be happy with what you do. And you don't know if they'll let you go.

But in the midst of all of that you're worshipping. This is the purpose for which God placed you here on this earth. Dear children, dear young people, dear brothers, dear sisters.

He's given you a body in which to worship Him. And worship is very simply in every situation you say, Father, I just want to do your will. Whether your will is for me to go out and reach the lost in some way.

Do some ministry that's out there. Or your will is to do some ministry within the church. Your will is to home school the children at home.

Your will is to do a bunch of dirty laundry and clean dirty dishes and cook food. Your will is just to go to work every week. Work from whatever time you need to show up to whatever time you're done working.

So that you can provide for yourself and not be dependent on anybody else. But in the midst of all these outward things, you're worshipping. See, worship is not determined by what your earthly calling in life is to do.

What you do on the outside has nothing to do with worship. That's just different gifts, different ministry. Different things that God has called different people to do.

Just like each member of the body has a different function. But worship, if I could use that picture of the body again. Worship is to ensure that you as a member of the body are so connected with the head that you know what your purpose is.

That your purpose on earth is to be devoted to the head. To make sure that connection with the head is strong. That you're hearing from God.

Oh children, it's so important that you hear from God. Have you wondered why it is that for all of us here on this earth, myself included, we all have jobs, a responsibility to do. We spend sometimes six days in the week where we don't see each other face to face.

And we come back here on a Sunday morning. If this, what we're doing right now. Praying, singing, listening to God's word, sharing, whatever.

If that was worship, I'll tell you what we would do. We would be here 24-7. We would live in a commune.

And we would all do everything together. Always be together. Always 24-7 praying.

And somehow we would find a way. God would provide a way. He would bring the food from the ravens.

If that's what God wanted us to do. But this is the new covenant. That worship is something in spirit.

It's in your spirit that you'll worship God. Fit within the body that he's given you. Jesus told us this in John chapter 4. Let me make it simple as you're turning there.

Dear children, this week a number of you have finals, I believe. Some of you are facing difficult trials. This week some of you will go to stressful job situations.

This week some of you moms will wonder how you're going to make it through this week. Because there's so many things that need to be done. It's an unending pile of things that need to be done.

In the midst of all of that, I pray, dear family, that you won't miss out on the fact that God wants you to be a worshiper of him. If you have a stressful week outwardly or a very easy week outwardly, it doesn't matter. You can be a worshiper.

God wants you to be a worshiper. He can take you to the other side of the world. Be a worshiper there.

He could sit you and you could get sick this week. I'm not hoping that for any of you. But even if you were laid up in bed with a fever and a raging headache, you can be a worshiper.

Because worshiping God has nothing to do with your body anymore. And what you do with it? Be a worshiper. If you can allow the Spirit of God to overcome the world in your body, in your spirit, doing God's will, you'll be a worshiper.

John 4, Jesus said. Now it's interesting that Jesus talked about worship. The first time to anybody.

Now he said to Satan, you read in Matthew 4 when he was in the wilderness. You who worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. But the first time that I know of that God meant that Jesus mentions the word worship to somebody is to a woman who's been divorced five times, living with a man that she's not even married to, and she's just going about her everyday work.

She's just going to the well to get water for whatever it is she needs to go back home and do. She's got a job to do. Beautiful picture of how Jesus introduces worship in the New Covenant.

There you are, sister, brother, child, going about your everyday life thinking, what's the point of this life? Now she comes in the middle of the day to get water, most likely because she doesn't want to be seen by anybody. She's likely scorned by everybody else in her town. As a woman, ah yeah, her, the promiscuous one.

One can't keep a husband. She's always moving on to the next husband. In the midst of that, Jesus says, I want to show you what worship is.

It has nothing to do with what your past has been like. Maybe you messed up your whole life. Maybe you're in a sinful situation right now.

God wants to change that. But you can be a worshiper if you're willing to turn. And she starts to talk about worship.

She says in verse 20, our fathers worshipped in this mountain. She says, we Samaritans think that worship is done here in Samaria. And you Jews say, worship must be done in Jerusalem.

Which is it, Jesus? Verse 21, Jesus said to her woman, listen, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. That means it won't be in this building. It won't be in some cathedral.

It won't be when the music is playing a certain way. It won't be when we're gathered for the prayer meetings. Yes, the outward circumstance doesn't matter.

You worship what you do not know, verse 22. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews.

But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers, new covenant worshippers, will worship the Father in their spirit and truth. And for such people, the Father seeks to be His worshippers. Dear family, this is what God is looking for this week.

This is His purpose in your life. Be a worshipper. Don't let the circumstances that are waiting for you this week prevent you from being a worshipper.

Have you thought that it's difficult to be a worshipper because your boss has yelled at you? Or because you're sick? Or because the children are sick? Or because you feel like you can never catch up in life? And you think, oh, if only I could just, I can't wait for Sunday. We can go and sing with everybody else. See, that's where that hypocrisy comes in.

A lot of people are waiting to be worshippers of God till they come here into this place. And think, well, I can finally worship. No.

I pray that you leave this place excited to be a worshipper. That that worship will grow. You will know Jesus more intimately.

You'll be a worshipper of Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit. And if your worship has not consisted of worship in spirit, it's not been worship at all.

You can say, well, I sang far above all. He is Lord. Jesus shall take the highest honor day by day and with each passing.

You sang all those songs and you were so moved emotionally in your soul. And God says, if you're not giving me your spirit, if you're not willing to obey me and do my will in your spirit, then I take no pleasure in that sacrifice and that offering you offered me. But what makes our praise meaningful, what makes our singing to Him and our listening to Him and our sharing meaningful, is that we say, Lord, my spirit is yielded to you.

I only want to do your will. You've given me a body. Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12. Let's read the last verse of verse 36. Romans 11, verse 36.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

And that's not some mystical thing. See, I've heard songs about this verse. From Him, through Him, to Him are all things.

To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. That could easily become just like a lingo.

Just a word we say. From Him, through Him, to Him are all things. He says, what does that actually mean? It's more than just words.

It's more than just singing far above all. From Him, through Him, to Him are all things. What are you going to do about that? Chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, give God your body.

This is your spiritual service of worship. The only way you can worship God today, in truth, is by giving Him your body. As we sang, far above all, He is Lord.

Did you picture yourself saying, Lord? For that to really be true in my life. You are Lord. You take the highest place.

For me, it's not Jesus sitting on some throne above and I'm falling down. Yes, that's part of it. But today, in heaven, we will fall down.

We'll cast our crowns before Him. We'll bow down before Him. And that will be meaningful then.

But today, how are you going to worship? Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Yes, it will happen in the physical sense in heaven. But today, how are you doing that? Today, what does it mean for every knee to bow and every tongue confess? Is it simply raising our hands? Or some people say, well, let me actually kneel and think somehow I'm worshiping God.

No, He says, give me your body. I've given you a body. Did you lay your eyes, brothers, sisters, children, when you said, far above all, Jesus shall take the highest honor.

Did you say, Lord, I will never again use my eyes to look at any evil thing. You've given me a body. This is practical.

Did you give Him your tongue? Did you say, Lord, you've given me a tongue. I will never again use it to speak evil of anybody else, to gossip about somebody else, to use a harsh word towards somebody else, especially my spouse or my children, to speak in a harsh way with an evil tongue. Well, I give you my tongue, Lord.

That's what it means to say you are Lord. And you deserve the highest honor. You've given me ears, Lord.

I will never listen to any gossip. I will never give my ears to listen to any evil thing. And so on.

I will never go and do anything evil with my body. He has given you a body. And that's the only way you can worship Him.

And if you're not worshiping Him in your body, all the other things you say and do outwardly are meaningless. He's given you a marriage. Those of you that are married, husbands and wives, are you jealous over your marriage? Are you jealous over thoughts that come in? That's that body.

He's made the two one in marriage. When you're married, now it's not just your body that is a means of worshiping Him. It's your marriage as well.

Is your marriage a worship to God? You and your wife truly being made one. We're in the midst of conflict. Even though you're two very different people.

This is the mystery of marriage. It's that God takes two people and He doesn't allow them to agree about everything, but in the midst of their disagreement and difference of opinion and difference of personalities, He makes them one. So that in that one being, He can find worship.

He finds a husband that's laying down His will and saying, Lord, not my will. I want to seek the good of my wife. I want to seek your glory in my marriage, Lord.

I want it to be so that never once do I ever speak in an unkind, harsh way with my spouse because we want our marriage to be a worship to You. And wives saying the same thing to their husbands. Lord, preserve our marriage so that it will always be an expression of worship to You.

Your homes, husbands and wives and children now being made one, where there's such a reverence for God or the way we speak about each other and speak about others or speak to each other, it's honoring to God. Your home as a tool of worship to God. Let's go back to Revelation 2 and 3 and you'll see this giving your body to God is what it means to be an overcomer.

How you will overcome the world. It's not casting out demons. It's not going out and getting rid of the darkness out there.

It's getting rid of the darkness in our own hearts that the world has no place in our hearts. And this is the word you'll see consistently. I just want to show it to you before I close.

Revelation 2, verse 7. The last part of verse 7. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. I want to encourage you as we look at these 7 examples that you will make it the passion of your heart. Lord, I want to know what is this? To eat of the tree of life.

I'm sure you've read these verses before. But do you know that God doesn't give that to everybody? There's a few. To him, to the ones who overcome, I will grant to eat of the tree of life.

And how have you thought about that verse before? You think, well, okay, I guess, maybe I don't have to eat out of the tree of life. It's okay. I don't want to overcome.

Overcoming is not as, or eating of the tree of life is not so precious to me. That's why I want to do my own will. I'm not as passionate to overcome.

I pray that the Lord will open our eyes to see what does it mean to eat out of the tree of life. Dear brothers and sisters, this is reserved for a very few, the bride of Christ, to eat of the tree of life. Is that precious to you? Do you even know what that is? I pray that it will become precious to us.

Lord, you said, when you said this is sort of like the true Christianity, a very few, the cream of the crop as it were, will experience this. When you hear something like that, you think, Lord, it's in my Bible. I want that.

I want to eat out of the tree of life. It's not guaranteed for everyone. I want to eat out of the tree of life.

Lord, what is it going to take? He says, be an overcomer. In the situations that you're going to face this week, overcome, deny yourself, choose that way of the death, and you will be an overcomer. Verse 11, He who has near to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. Again, not given to everybody. There will be a select few who will not be hurt by the second death.

Which means that most people will be hurt by the second death. What is it that makes you sure that you will not be hurt by the second death? He who overcomes. God wants you to be an overcomer.

Let's skip down to verse 17. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. That means that most Christians are just eating the not hidden manna.

Imagine that if you went to Jesus and he spreads a table in front of you, and you see all this. Anything that Jesus serves will be great, I'm sure. And you're eating all of that.

But then there's hidden manna. That Jesus says, He says, in the midst of all the noise of people busy eating, He quietly says, hey, I've got some secret food for any of you that want it. And very few are listening to that.

You said secret food, Lord? Hidden food? Where is it? He says, come, I want to show you. Is there a passion in your heart, dear brother, dear sister, to eat of the hidden manna? Or are you content with the manna that everybody else gets? This is a personal thing. It's not something that you hear on a Sunday morning through a sermon.

It's you walking in fellowship with Jesus and He takes you into the secret room and says, I've got a stash of really, really good food. I believe with all my heart that the hidden manna tastes far better than the open manna. And I want that to Him who overcomes.

I will give some of the hidden manna. And I will give Him a stone, a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows, but He who receives it. That's Jesus calling you by a name that nobody else knows.

You know, each of us, if you're married, you probably have a little secret name that you call your wife or you call your husband. It's just like, when you hear your husband call that, that's a term of endearment. When you hear your wife calling you that, it's a term of endearment.

Maybe you have those secret names. Sometimes it's in your own language if English is not your first language. And I've thought about this verse like that.

Jesus having a secret name for you that He calls you. His bride. A secret name that He calls you that nobody else knows.

When He calls that, only you answer to that. Why? Because you're an overcomer. You're walking with Jesus in His death and you're experiencing His victory.

Skip down to verse 26, chapter 2. He who overcomes and He who keeps my deeds until the end, to Him I will give authority and He shall rule with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces as I have received authority from my Father. Here again is authority given from the Father to Jesus that He gives to a select few. The same authority that the Father gave to Jesus, He now says, I want to give it to you, my bride.

I want you to be able to act on my name. You know that my wife, Megan, can act on my name. We have everything shared together and so she can represent me because she's my wife.

She has that power of attorney. We call it on this earth and that's what I see here. Jesus saying, if you're my bride, you're an overcomer, I'm going to give you the same authority that my Father has given me.

As my Father has given me authority, I'm going to give you authority. Do you think that Jesus is afraid of the devil? I think every one of us will say, of course He's afraid of the devil. Sorry, the devil's afraid of Jesus.

Do you think the devil's afraid of Jesus? Of course he is. But you know that that same authority that Jesus has over the devil is the one He wants to give to a select few, the overcomers. Chapter 3 verse 4. You have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments and they will walk with me in white.

This is a phrase that's been going through my mind that prompted me to share these thoughts. I picture myself walking with Jesus in white. Because God has kept my garments pure, not allowing it to be stained by anything else here on this earth.

They will walk with me in white. This is the prayer of my heart, especially this last week. Say, Lord, I want to walk with you in white.

I don't want a ministry, I don't want a reputation, I don't want this, I don't want that. I don't even need you to answer all my earthly needs, Lord. Give me this walk with you.

I want to walk with you in white. He says, he who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments and they will walk with me in white. Dear brothers, dear sisters, dear children, let the rest of Christendom be taken up with all the other activities.

You make it the passion of your life. Lord, I just want to walk with you in white. This week, I just want to walk with you in white.

I could be there doing a job that seems mundane and boring and heavy and everybody else could be upset at me and how I'm doing my job, but Lord, let me walk with you in white. And you know that no matter what your earthly circumstance looks like, you can walk with Jesus in white. This is worship.

Pray, Lord, I want to walk with you in white. Make me an overcomer. Verse 12, he who overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it anymore and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from my God and my new name.

See, these are all things that we don't fully understand. We don't see the full picture. What does that actually mean? That God is going to, Jesus is going to write his new name on me.

I say, whatever that is, Lord, that's what I want. I don't want, I don't want to be able to do this or ask for that or anything else, Lord. You'll take care of all of that, but give me your new name.

You said that it's for a select few. I want that. And so, Lord, I give you my body as a living sacrifice to be an overcomer.

My new name, your new name on me. Verse 21, he who overcomes I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne. You know, I love that God, Jesus gave this call to overcome even to a church like Laodicea.

He says, I'm going to spit you out of my mouth. I'm about to spit you out of my mouth because you're lukewarm. You're neither hot nor cold, you're lukewarm.

I'm about to spit you out of my mouth, but I'm giving you one more chance to repent because I don't want to spit you out of my mouth. I want you to sit on my throne. I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with me, my Father.

Isn't it beautiful? Dear brothers, dear sisters, dear children, that no matter what it's been like even up to this point, God offers you the opportunity to be an overcomer and to sit with him on his throne. Alright, one last verse. Chapter 21.

I'll just read these verses and we'll close. Revelation chapter 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there is no longer any sea.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. Here you see the overcomers. The work is finished.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them and they shall be his people and God himself will be among them and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away.

And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he said, Right, for these words are faithful and true. Then he said to me, It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things.

And I will be his God and he will be my son. But the devil will come and say, Nah, take it a little easy. You can still love the things of this world.

This is just Santo. She's a little radical. It's too out there.

Goes on to say, Isn't it sad that there's a verse 8. After this wonderful promise where God was saying, I'm going to make all things new. I'll wipe away every tear but there will still be some who will be cowardly. For the cowardly and the unbelieving.

Say, Nah, I don't think you're right. For the cowardly and unbelieving. He starts with that.

And then a whole bunch of other ones. Abominable, murderous, immoral persons, sorcerers, idolaters, liars. Their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death.

Dear family, God has promised us amazing things. A new city. A life of overcoming.

He says, it is done. It's finished. As I overcame, you too can overcome.

Let's make that the passion of our lives. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we go into this week, I pray Lord that you will show us what you've given in us, in our words.

I don't believe I sufficiently described it clearly enough. Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit will make it clear to us. The calling to be a worshipper of yours.

To be an overcomer, Lord. This is what you're looking for. Those who will overcome by giving our bodies as a living sacrifice to you.

Worshipping you in spirit and in truth. Being content, Lord, with whatever circumstance you allow us to have here on this earth that we will worship you in our circumstances. May you find here, at least among us who have listened to this word, worshippers.

We believe you will. We thank you. Even our children, Lord, as they go into this week whatever they might be facing, I pray that you will open the eyes of their hearts, simple and pure.

You've hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent. And you've revealed them to little children. I pray that you will reveal even to our children this life of overcoming and worshipping you in the body that you've given us, in spirit and in truth.

Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.