You Must Be Broken To Be Filled

There is no such thing as wasted worship. You probably don't know, but this church gets criticized sharply because of our worship. Some people in there are too loud. I'd rather I'm too loud than too quiet. That's too much worship. That altar, I don't know about that. That's a little emotional. Yeah, you need to get some. Criticizing. Criticizing. There's no such thing as wasted worship. The reason is pride prevents intimacy. Pride prevents intimacy with God. Anybody struggle with that? We've got a persona. We've got, I don't want people thinking too much about me. And prideful comes in. A critical spirit comes in. And I've been waiting to tell you this story for a few years. And it's the story of W.P. Nicholson and Daft Jimmy. W.P. Nicholson was a high-ranking Presbyterian, a theologian, very smart. And of course, Presbyterian coming from John Calvin, the five points of Calvinism and told depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance. He had it down. Theologian, smart, astute. People say, oh, there's a great teacher. But he knew he was missing the fullness of the spirit. He knew he wasn't. Why are all these other people so excited, but I'm not? What do they have, but I don't have? You can only play it off so long. And there was a boy they would call Daft Jimmy. Daft was not a good word back then. And so Daft Jimmy is walking down the street, Salvation Army, playing his tambourine with a little group. And they're just loving the Lord. And they said, but the people aren't affected. We need to pray. And they recognized W.P. Nicholson. They said, hey, hey, hey, would you come pray with us? In the street, all these people. He's, I don't really want to identify with Daft Jimmy. And these tambourine singing Christians, these emotional, younger, I've got an image to uphold. But he was reluctant. He finally went over there and he prayed with them. Daft Jimmy said, I've got a tambourine. Would you walk down the street and praise the Lord? And he knew at that moment, if he didn't listen to God, he would not receive the fullness of the spirit. His pride had to be crushed at that moment. His arrogance, his trust in theology, his trust in what he stood for in his image. And here's who I am. How can I lower myself? Oh, but to go high church, you got to lower yourself. You got to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. You've got to identify with the poor and the impoverished and the lame and the weak. Oh, we've got to get rid of the haughtiness. Come down out of your high ivory tower and begin to humble yourself before God. I don't want to be seen at that altar. Why not? I don't want to be seen engaging in worship and worship mornings, all this emotional stuff. I've got an image to uphold. Then you will never know the fullness of the spirit until God breaks you. And I pray he does. And he talks about when he made that decision, the scales of hypocrisy and Phariseeism fell from his eyes and experienced the joy of the Lord for the first time. This theologian, the joy of the Lord, he didn't care what people thought. Oh, if we could get to that point. Can you imagine? Pride prevents intimacy. Guys, worship has a cost. Worship has a cost. The more you seek him, the more you find him. And the more you find him, the more you want to seek him.