Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're in a series in the book of Revelation. We're gonna spend the next 26 weeks doing a deep dive into both how to read and how to interpret this amazing book. Enjoy.
Darren Rouanzoin: Are you caught up in the chaos of the world, or are have you learned to live from the reality of heaven? This is the question I wanna answer today. It comes from Revelation 4. So are you caught up in the anxiety of culture in the world or have you learned to live from heaven's perspective? It's not often we think about that.
Another way you could ask the question though is how do you remain faithful to Jesus in the midst of the chaos we live in? Is there a practice, a spiritual discipline that within the church that aligns our soul to the reality of heaven? If so, what is it? That's what I'm gonna look at today and answer. But in order to do that, we need to go to revelation.
So grab a Bible, go to revelation chapter 4. If you brought a Bible, just let me see. I wanna see the the work that you did carrying those in. Well done. Gold stars for you, extra jewels in the crown which we'll read about today.
See what happens to those crowns. Verse 1 of chapter 4, this is from Revelation. The Apostle John writes, after this I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. Alright. Let's pause there.
I wanna give you a review real quick. A review of Revelation. So if you're new with us and you haven't been with us last several weeks, we started Revelation many weeks ago and we're looking at this book. It's called the Revelation of Jesus Christ. That word revelation comes from this Greek word apocalypse which translates to the unveiling.
This book is really not about showing you something new. It's about showing you what's been here all along. It's about pulling back the curtains of what you see to be exposed to what is ultimate reality. The things behind the things that you see. And this book is written in a genre.
Say genre matters. So the genre is apocalyptic literature. So it's a part apocalyptic which has a lot of implications for it. It's part epistle meaning it's written to a group of churches that would exist 2000 years ago. The 7 churches in Asia minor which we just read about for the last several weeks.
And then it's also prophecy. It's declaring the things of God for the current day 2000 years ago and present day and future. This book is past present future but it's also written to a specific group of people for a specific purpose. The structure of the book matters. Say structure matters.
Structure matters. I'm helping you become good readers of the scriptures. Structure matters because structure provides meaning. When you read revelation, you wanna read it chronologically because that's how it's written and it is written like literally chronologically but the way we see the book is not to be read chronological. In fact, if you approach it like this event happens then this event happens and this event happens.
You'll miss the whole point of the book. I know that's news to some of you. And here let me just say this. Listen, I know a lot of you come from other places that have taught revelation and my assumption is you have some bad theology. Forgive me but it's true.
Most people have no idea how to read this book. There's it's quite contested all over the place but looking at it intentionally with some consistency the way we've read all of scripture through an exegetical process, you'll see that the structure provides meaning and the way John writes us in empowers us to see the meaning in a different way. The primary encouragement to the reader is not to trust and obey, but to listen and to look. Especially look, John is telling us we are having a hard time trusting and obeying Jesus Christ in our life because we are not listening and looking. Correction, we are listening and looking.
It's just that we are not listening and looking at the right things. For example, this week alone, I have some images of the articles I've read just this week to provide a context of chaos. There were natural disasters, hurricane Milton. We had tornadoes because of the hurricane. There's wars going on in the Middle East.
There's flooding still in South Carolina from a previous hurricane. There's the crisis and the bombing all over the Middle East and, I just read today go back to that comment because I think this is hilarious. There's a comment you can see. I don't know if you could last night or tonight, but apparently like a once in a lifetime visible thing that you can see in the sky. All to say there are cosmic forces out there.
There are powerful forces or tragic forces that are all around us all the time and that's just naming the outside articles going back to why this matters. Is those things were going on at the time this was written. And going back to the structure, I'm gonna come back to that one second. The key to the structure of the book is this simple word we just read in verse 1, open. The word open, it need You need to have an imagination of double clicking the mouse on a computer screen and a new window pops open and it takes you to an entirely different page.
So we just got through reading the 7 letters to the the 7 churches and now a door opens and that word lets you know this is a different scene. And here's the structure of the whole book of Revelation. We did this at the beginning. I'm just giving you some review. So we have the prologue, we have the 7 churches and now we go to a new section which is gonna reveal the lamb and the unseals, how he unseals the scrolls.
And then we get to our Advent series. I can't wait for it. The cosmic conflict, we're gonna talk about our nativity scene. You know, baby Jesus with the dragon, the beast out of the sea, the beast from the land, all those fun things. Merry Christmas to all and to all good night.
Invite your friends. It's gonna be epic. That is the nativity scene from the apocalyptic literature approach. John's retelling the Christmas story, but he's also telling the story of the church. He's also telling the story of Israel.
He's also telling the story of Eden. So how does revelation work? It works in that way where there is a scene he's referring to in history, but also pulls back and draws us to the past and it pulls us into the future. You have to see is it one or the other? Yes.
It is. And then it goes on to the bowls of wrath and the fall of Babylon. Oh, there's a fly in here. Perfect. Satan's distractors.
The man on a horse and then we get to the ending. Anyway, that's the structure. Let's keep going. John looks and he sees a door open into heaven. Heaven is really important in this book.
Heaven is really important. Not in the ways you think though. It's not important like the way you used to think before you came to this church or maybe you corrected your theology before here when you were taught, you know, believe in Jesus so that you can go to heaven when you when you die. That's not good theology at all. That's not the message of Jesus or the gospel.
Jesus' message is heaven's invading earth. Good news, the kingdom of God, God's fear, his heavenly realm is available here and now. And the resources of this space, this the resources of God's rule heaven is now available for you. And it is now and it's not fully here and it will be once and for all when Jesus comes back. You with me on this?
John is taken up, sorry. So, I was distracted. I thought somebody was knocking on the door. I was like, is that you Jesus? Come in.
You're welcome here. I know you're here. You're not outside. Get in here. That was last week's sermon if you missed that.
One scholar writes this, heaven is the sphere of ultimate reality. I wanna use this theme today. Ultimate reality. What is true in heaven must become true on earth. This is the lord's prayer.
Thus, John is taken up into heaven to see that god's throne is the ultimate reality behind all earthly appearances. Why does this matter so much? Why does this matter? Well, in 1976, father John Powell, a priest psychologist wrote a helpful book called fully human, fully alive and the subtitle of the book was a new life through a new vision. Father Powell argues that if we are to change to grow, there must first be a change in this basic vision or perception of reality.
We need to understand what reality is if we want to change because our perception of reality is limited by our own experience and worldview. Do you agree? Anyone here married? How how many of you know that to be true? That there's an event, and then there's your reality, and then there's their reality.
And you could experience the same event and have 2 different realities. Do I have amen, hallelujah? Anyone newly married? Let me help you out. Okay.
I still am struggling with this because the goal of marriage is not to convince them of your reality, but to try to understand their reality and integrate that into your reality. In what might feel at first like compromise, but eventually, it will be a celebration. But I'll tell you this, learn from experience. The goal is not to convince them that you're right. But I wanna say this, there is an ultimate reality, a capital t truth that we will all experience at some point.
Some of us will have a revelation. We will be exposed. We'll have a deep awareness that Jesus is Lord, and he's been raised from the dead. And we will live our life in response to that reality. Some of us won't know that in this life, and then one day we will be confronted with that reality and it's too late.
But the point of today is not to convince you of that. The point of the day is to convince you to live from reality because not living from reality has a major consequences to your life. And so, what John will argue in this text is what will encourage the church that's experiencing chaos to how what will encourage the church to remain faithful to Jesus to the end in the midst of all that's going on? In the midst of political opposition, religious persecution, cosmic forces working against you amidst all sorts of things? What will strengthen your faith?
What will strengthen your faithfulness? What will bring shalom into your present experience? Today, you might feel like it's a podcast. A podcast will give you those results or maybe practices. If I could just do the spiritual practice, if I could just make sure I'm at soul cycle every morning at 5 AM, if I could just do the juice fast and take my multivitamin, or if I could just fast or if I could just read my bible everyday or just have the right practice, I'll be healed.
That's not gonna work. It's not gonna be the right program, the right policy or politician. What is it? A clear vision of reality. This is what you have to see.
And what I know is familiarity breeds contempt. And you're all familiar with this idea, but you never you rarely enter into it. You rarely live from it. Even in our best worship sets on Sunday, you rarely scratch the surface of what Jesus is drawing you into. So Lord Jesus have mercy.
Bring us revelation. Let's go back to chapter 4 verse 1. You ready? Yeah. Youth, I love seeing you up here with your Bibles.
Most of you have your Bibles well done. Percentage wise, you outdo all of these adults. Great job. He's leading the way. Verse 1, I'm gonna read it again.
After this, I looked and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I I had heard I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the spirit and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat on there sat there had the appearance of Jasper and Ruby. A rainbow that shown like an emerald encircled the throne.
Surrounding the throne words 24 other thrones and seated on them were 24 elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns on of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and pearls, peals of thunder. In front of the throne, 7 lamps were blazing. These are the 7 spirits of God.
Also in front of the throne, There was what looked like a sea of glass clear as crystal. This is the image of heaven. Remember heaven is ultimate reality in the God's throne is the headquarters for reality. This is the operating system. This is the the HQ for all things functioning in the cosmos that we can't see behind the curtain.
We have a vision and there's a throne. Here's a an artist drawing from Seth in our church who drew this as we we lay out. We this is a visual representation of the throne room, the rainbow, the 7 burning lamps of flame, you have the 24 elders circling, you have the sea of glass, you have all these lightning and thunder, you have all these all this imagery and what you have to understand is when John writes this, he's not just describing to you poetry. He has immersed himself which is all of apocalyptic literature in the old testament language. All of these images are borrowed from the old testament.
This is nothing new. This is all language we've seen before. So the throne room is from Ezekiel chapter 1 and the ray and and all sorts of images of the throne. Isaiah 6, we have Isaiah encounter a throne room. We have images of God's throne and now we go to the rainbow and the rainbow comes from what?
Where is the first mention of a rainbow in the scriptures? Noah. And what does it represents? Oh, it's on there. Promise of mercy, faithfulness and a covenant with all creation.
It represents shalom and peace. Around the throne of God is his promises fulfilled for all creation. Yes and amen. I want you to think about these things we're gonna list as resources you have access to. You have access to the shalom of heaven.
That the peace he promises for all creation to to function the way was intended to function in the first place that's available. Right now, when you pull back the currents. Now, don't think of heaven as some far off distant place. No. It's all around us.
It's present. We move from the rainbow to the 24 elders. I love this. You know, people debate this and here's the thing. What is what are the 24 elders?
Well, it's represent represents various things. There's 12 tribes of Israel of the old testament. There's the 12 apostles. It's the old and new covenant together. And also if you go to first chronicles, you read about the 24 elders as a symbolic representation of the priesthood at the time of David.
And then during the time of the temple, it represents the priests who took turns serving in the temple. So it symbolizes the worship and service of God's people throughout all time. Does it represent the 12 tribes of Israel and the apostles? Does it represent the priesthood? Yes.
But also one thing that I will continue to remind you of is that revelation is written with the backdrop of Rome. So every time you read something, you're remembering the context matters. Say context matters. You're doing good Bible class. So here's what we do with context.
Were was there anyone else who had a throne at the time of Jesus? I'm sorry. Yes. At the time of Jesus. At the time that this was written?
Who is the emperor at the time that this was written? Do you remember? Not Nero, Domitian. Domitian was the emperor. Did he have a throne?
And it was simp it was presented everywhere on different coins. It was it was on artifacts that you could see. It was in the Colosseum. It was in the senate. He had a throne everywhere, that he sat on.
But did was the 24 significant to Domitian? Yes. He had 24 bodyguards. There you go. There's AI generated image right there.
Demetian anywhere he went had 24 bodyguards surrounding him. So this is a counter image. This is, oh, you you think it's this. I'm a pull back the curtain and there is a throne. You you've heard of the throne in Rome.
No. No. No. There's a curtain in the center of the cosmos, the center of heaven, and it's not Demetian on the throne with a bunch of bodyguards. It's it's we'll see it's the lamb who was slain.
Jesus, the lion of Judah. You hear the roar of the lion coming from the lamb who was slain. This imagery is so rich and lightning and thunder wears that mentioned Exodus 19, Mount Sinai, God's manifest presence and power comes before the people of God as they make covenant. Here's an image again AI from Exodus 19. Is this amazing?
You think, oh lightning and thunder. No no no no no. This would be terrifying. This is the image of Exodus 19. Come to meet me in the mountain.
They're like, yeah. Right. You go, Moses. We'll stay down here. He's slow to anger, rich in mercy.
No. That looks terrifying to me. I'll take my chances with the bull. 7 lamps blazing represents the 7 spirits of God. There's only 1 spirit.
It's Zechariah 42 has a vision of a lamp stand. The 7 lamps equals God's spirit. Why is the number 7? 7 is the number of complete God's spirit of completeness. His fire purifies and heals so much rich symbolism.
And then we get to the sea of glass, my favorite. What why is the sea of glass? Well, the sea is representative chaos throughout the entire literature of the old and new testament. The sea represents everything that separates us from God. If you go to the old testament, Genesis chapter 1 verse in the first three verses you see that creation is about there's God speaking creation and there's this void, this chaos in creation and the rest of the creation narrative of Genesis 1 is God bringing order to the chaos.
And then we get to Genesis 3 and there's this creature who's part of the chaos, the serpent. He undoes the work of God in Eden. He's the serpent. He's the adversary, And he's written about throughout the old testament, the Leviathan and Job is the sea monster of chaos. We will see in Revelation 13 that from the sea, which at the time revelation was written, everyone was terrified of the sea.
There's a beast that comes out of the sea undoing creation, mocking the holy trinity. The dragon, the beast from the sea, the beast from the land, the unholy trinity. That's a nod. Do you see what's going on? We'll get there in a couple of weeks.
I can't wait. Just keep pulling you along. Chaos. Chaos is everything that separates us from God. Right?
Throughout the whole narrative of scripture, you have this idea of chaos in the world and God bringing order to the chaos. So think of those pictures we took we already saw the the hurricanes, the flooding, the war, famine, human trafficking, absolute chaos working against God's beautiful creation. It entered in in Genesis 3 through our rebellion against God's way, Sin and the vandalization of shalom shalom, everything working the way it was supposed to be in the first place is hijacked through the enemy. And then the rest of the story of uh-uh of the bible is God working to redeem what was lost in Eden. And once and for all, it happens because of the cross.
And Jesus takes what was given to the enemy and gives it back to the church. And now we are working on behalf of God with God to restore creation back to its in, original intent which we meet in revelation chapter 21 and chapter 22. That's when God marries earth once and for all. And heaven, the space, ultimate reality where God's will is reality, Mary's earth, and there's no more sea. Sorry, surfers.
But in your own life, the chaos you've embodied. Has anyone had a habit that maybe you inherited from your parents whom they inherited it from their parents? That you feel cursed, that you are continuing in this addiction. You're continuing in this reactive anger because the anger is separating you from your loved ones. That addiction has separated you from the life you hoped for because you're still dealing with this thought process that drives you towards behavior that disconnects you from your spouse or your kids.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Or what about the anxiety you've carried because your parents were anxious and you've just known nothing but anxiety. And when you think about Shalom as this space that's available, you're like, that feels like a miracle. Do you know the good news is that miracle's available right now? That you can learn not so that you have it when you die to live from peace now.
That is good news. There are some things that won't get healed because that is the not yet reality of the time and space we live in, but we can draw from the resources of heaven now. At the 8 AM last week, a woman got healed of eye issues she had for 3 years. She wasn't wearing glasses in the last service this morning, and she told me that she not only couldn't see out of her right eye, but she had a a paralysis on her face from a stroke and that as a byproduct of praying for her eyes also got healed. Did we have to work our way to make that happen?
John didn't even know when he prayed it happened. He didn't say, can you see better now? He just went on to the next person to pray, and eyes could see something happened. Do you not know this is what Jesus is inviting you into? He's inviting you to recognize that we all know the reality of chaos.
How often our circumstances threatened to undo the work of God in our life. I was taking the bread and the juice at the 10 AM this morning, and I was wrecked by John's leadership as he says, we live with an unshakable kingdom through how do we get there? Through the blood of the lamb. As somebody who wants to prove my value and worth to God by working, I don't get to earn my way to him. I just have to say thank you.
All the anger that comes out, all this the anxiety that comes out, all the doubt that comes out, all the insecurity that comes out every single week, and I just say thank you again for your forgiveness. All the ways I feel like I'm becoming the person I don't wanna be. And the way forward is not through performance, but through surrender. Thank you, Jesus. All that chaos subdued, surrendered, surrendered at the throne of Jesus.
Anyone need to hear that this morning? But it keeps going. Could we keep can we keep going? Man, 10 AM. You're it must be because the youth are in here because the youth need the best preaching.
God is setting up this generation. I'm telling you right now. Give it a couple more years. There's gonna be a revival. I believe it in the next generation.
It will be multi generational. Hear this, it's not gonna be the youth leading it. It will be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It will be grandmas and parents and youth leading the next revival. Look at the scripture.
Moses was 80 something years old. Abraham was 70 something years old. It doesn't start there, but seeds of revival will be coming out and we will run this race together whether you're you're retired or you're just getting started in the workplace. We're gonna run this revival together. But it starts with our vision of reality.
Yeah. That was a good segue. Here we go. Revelation chapter 6 part b, it says, in the center around the throne were 4 living creatures, and they were covered with eyes because they just had this they wanted to see what the lamb was doing. In front and behind, the first living creature was like a lion.
The second was like an ox. The third had a face like a man. The 4th was like a flying eagle. I'm gonna skip to a a passage that explains this. This is from Daryl Johnson's book.
He says, there's a saying of the rabbis that may reflect the tradition behind this imagery. Rabbi Abihu in 300 a d taught that there were there are 4 mighty creatures. The mightiest among the birds is the eagle. The mightiest among the domestic animals is the ox. The mightiest among the animals is the lion.
The mightiest among all men. All of them is man. And God has taken all these and secured them to his throne. The 4 living creatures most likely represent the whole animate creation made by God for God. And what are they doing?
Day night, they never stop saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. So all of the created order is now structured around the throne, worshiping God saying, holy, holy, holy. And then there's this liturgy in heaven. Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns.
There you go. You're giving it back to Jesus. Before the throne and say, you are worthy our lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will, they were created and have their being. So heaven as our our image, our our as we look into this open door, we see heaven and the response, the only response to experiencing reality as it is is worship. Worship is the mechanism that gives you the resources, that gives you the access, that trains your being to live ordered to heaven.
Right. So in heaven, borrowed from Isaiah 6, holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is to is to come. And when this happens, as the angels sing, as these created beings, they and I call out. The angels get I'm sorry. The elders get down.
They take off their crown. They lay prostrate and put it before the throne. They give their crowns back to Jesus, and they join into the creation song, you are worthy to receive honor and power and glory. You've created all things. This is John's vision.
Creation is organized around a living worship service. Heaven reveals God's presence, his power, his peace, his promises fulfilled, and creation comes to the center of reality through worship. Eugene Peterson puts it this way. Worship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from the center, this center, the living God.
Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship, we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or diluted lethargy as we are in term, alarmed by specters and sued by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference. People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness epidemic in the world with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.
So when we come on Sundays to gather as the Lord's people, we gather to worship. We don't start with the beat of our worship leaders. We join in heaven service that's already happening. That's been happening, and we will continue to happen. We learn to realign our lives to what's going on in reality, and we begin to submit our lives to the order of creation, the way God intended it to be.
When we gather to worship, there's a service already in progress. You're not late. You just finally realize what's going on. So worship is about realigning with reality. We reorder our lives to truth, which is not you at the center, with not you on the throne, with Jesus on the throne.
And when we learn to reorder our lives this way around Jesus, suddenly, ordinary, mundane, crisis, chaos, circumstances that are not going the way we want are redeemed by his presence. We fill our imagination with his reality, and we bring that reality into the situation here and now. Revelation 4 becomes our glasses, our lens to to see the world. Do you know what I'm talking about? About realigning with reality.
I had this experience. I've shared this before, but I had this amazing experience. I got to take a private jet to Montana. Yep. On a pastor's retreat, some business guy was going there too and he heard he the email was amazing.
He said, hey, I heard you're going to Montana. Do you wanna ride? I said, yeah, that that's cool. I'm gonna fly there. He's like, no, do you wanna ride on my jet?
Who are you? Question mark. So he was part of the group. There's a bunch of pastors going to meet with Eugene Peterson and we get there we have this amazing event. It was life changing.
Bunch of pastors that are still friends together we meet every year. But I had to take commercial back you know, fly with the rest of us. And that entitlement was already there so I already came back. And I I I remember flying from Montana to Seattle. And I'm a rule follower guy.
I'm a you gotta be there early, you know, to be on time. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? And it's like, you know, I wear that. And, unfortunately, you marry people who don't have the same reality. Or like there, you know, there are some things that are objectively true.
Being on time is for some people, like, it's it's a good advice. It's not necessarily fact. Anyways, so you can imagine as I look on my my watch, it says 11:40, and my flight out of Seattle is 12 o'clock. So I then put on a blanket of anxiety. I began to, you know, wear the frenetic energy that is so easily occupies my soul when I'm late for anything, let alone late for a flight.
I wanna get home. I wanna see my kids. I wanna be with my wife. And I have all this anxiety. So what happens when you have you're living with an anxiety blanket is you begin to imagine life, right?
So I'm imagining now I land and I announce to the plane. I have a connecting flight. Please stay seated as I grab myself and exit. And then run to the next stop to make it. I had premeditated because I I don't have service on the plane.
A text message to my wife to find another flight in case I don't make it. I already got that ready so when I have service, I could just hit send it on. I don't I'm not gonna waste time texting it now. I preemptively prepared the text, right. I'm looking around at the, you know, the flight attendants trying to get their attention because obviously they know I'm gonna miss my flight.
They have that awareness. They I'm giving them the vibe. And then we land, and we're in a different time zone. It's 10:40. All of that premeditative anxiety, worry, all of the conversations I had already had with the flight attendant and the people next to me to get out of my way.
All of that imaginative prayer work of making sure I could run like home alone making the flight. You know down the the jetway or the the the the airport completely disappears. Why? Because I was realigned with reality. Wow.
I could feel a different weight by adjusting to the right time zone. Worship is adjusting to the right time zone. Right. How many of us have come in here with nothing but a blanket of anxiety from the previous week? How many of us have come in here wearing the cultural forms of worship all week long, and then when you come in here thinking we're gonna give him our best, you are worthy of it all?
No. You are worthy of some of it. I surrender all? No. I'll surrender some.
Worship realigns you to reality. And here's the thing that's going on with worship in revelation. Remember, context matters. There's something else going on in revelation. The problem is we've we've made these words lose its weight, lose its meaning because we've never understood it because we weren't living 2000 years ago.
We put on this Christian perspective that this is just religious language being spoken. You're worthy of Lord and God, receive glory and honor. The cry worthy does not come from the religious world. It is not primarily Christian. It comes from the secular world, from the political realm.
Worship was first shouted by citizens to the emperor when they entered into a city. Worthy is what was shouted by Roman senators as the emperor entered entered in the great hall. Scholars have done a great deal of work and research to to find out what was called the imperial hymns. There were songs, chants, and choruses sung at political rallies. And these are some of the words from 2000 years ago that were sung to Caesar.
Holy one, glory, salvation belongs to you, authority, worthy to receive power, righteous lord and god. There's this Latin phrase that means our lord and god, lord of the earth, lord of the world. In other words, we were, these words, the I'm sorry. In other words, the world has a way of worshiping its idols, but there's only one God worthy of our worship. Well, let me go back.
What happens in revelation 4 around the throne that we miss is John sees the cultural forms of worship being redirected to Jesus. All the ways we worship our idols are now being redirected to Jesus. They're borrowing words from culture, ways people have worshiped various things in people, and now saying those things, those forms of worship are being redirected to Jesus. So worship is not a religious thing. It's a human thing.
Worship means to ascribe worth, value to someone or something. And what you see going on in heaven is all of the ways we've learned to worship other things are now redirected to Jesus. So worship is about redirecting your heart. Worship is about taking cultural habits, unchecked cultural habits, and redirecting those energies to Jesus. Redirecting your attention to Jesus.
Your resources to Jesus. You see, you become what you worship, and you all worship things. You all have forms of worship that you don't call worship. You call it scrolling, binge watching, you know, redecorating, saving up for a rainy day, preparing for retirement, stewarding, physical health. We all have forms of worship that are actually misdirected.
You see, what is it that has your attention? What do you dwell on? What does your screen time screen time report say about where your time goes? Where your mind goes? What do you dwell upon?
Some of you just dwell upon ridiculously dumb videos. Some of you dwell upon. Some of you behold your text feed from friends, and you are becoming a byproduct of your your your text exchange. Some of you behold the worries of this life, and you can't help but concern yourself for all the things that could go wrong. And you're occupied with securing safety and comfort in case those things happen.
Some of you behold your physical self. You dwell all of your energy, effort, and attention goes to your physical body. You really care about how you look. I'm not talking about being healthy. I'm not talking about body.
You really care about how you look. I'm not talking about being healthy. I'm talking about a self obsession of your body where this temple that exists for the glory of God is at the center of the heavenly realms with you sitting on the throne. And so now your workout routine, your diet, your exercise, your community is all obsessed over yourself. Some of you are obsessing over finances because you don't have enough.
And the worries of paying the bills, the anxiety, and the fear occupy every thought, and that's what you've become. Endless machine working for more. Some of you are obsessed with finances because you have more than enough. Well, it got quiet. You want me to stop hitting all the idols up?
Keep going. I'm a keep going. Yeah. I'm just speaking to my idols. You got you've gotten to a place where now you're obsessing on the future, on winning, on goals that have nothing to do with an invitation to steward god's resources on his behalf.
You have subscriptions to everything. Netflix, HBO Max, ESPN. You might have a coffee subscription, a, you know, a gym membership, and you don't even think about those things, but you're not subscribing to recurring giving at the local church. Netflix has more commitment than the body of Christ. Put that crown at the feet of Jesus.
I don't know what crown you brought in here, but I know where it goes. Do you know where it goes, or will it be burned away? Because there's a refiner's fire. And all those things does something to your soul. Yeah.
If you are are trying to get everyone's appreciation and validate what you look like, if you're trying to validate your worth by what people think, by what the opposite sex sex thinks of you, about the people you date, what they do for you. That will do something to your soul, and you will become less of yourself because of it. The only way you become fully alive is aligning to reality and learning to live from the source of the universe where there's a throne with Jesus on it. How do you know you've aligned yourself with reality? Look at your life.
Do you have peace? Do you have joy? Are you content? Are you serving others more than yourself? Have you learned the way of grace, which is not about performance, but surrender and gratitude?
Have you been so produced or or indoctrinated by culture where you see everything from a negative lens? Were you just criticizing everyone? You walk into a room and you're just judging everyone's outfit. You're just judging what people are where you compete on the the scale, that is made up in your head that you're winning because you have this and they don't have that. Again, I'm just speaking to my idols.
If they happen to resonate, maybe like me, you need to learn to worship. You need to take the resources of your life. Whatever you have, The occupation, the mind that's occupied with what you don't have. You take that, put it at the feet of Jesus. If you're obsessed with your body, maybe it's time to get physical in worship.
Maybe it's trying to do what is 24 elders do. They're modeling worship. They're laying down. That's surrender. This is not surrender.
This is what we do when we're bored waiting in line. Right? Maybe to today is the sacrificial act of giving a sacrificial gift to the Lord. Maybe it's a sacrificial commitment to recurring giving because you know you have all the subscriptions and you don't think twice about that. But then when it comes to giving to the church, well, you wanna make it a set of worship only that speaks to your worship.
Maybe it's deleting the app. Whatever it is, it's redirection towards Jesus. So do you live from the reality of heaven? Or are you caught up in the chaos of the world? I read somewhere and I couldn't find it in time, but there there's 2 thrones.
1 is in heaven and 1 on your heart in your heart. And there can be only 1 on both who's sitting on the throne. Lord Jesus, we want you. We want you, Lord. Holy Spirit, would you just minister to us?
May we respond accordingly to the word of God, bringing our very best to you. In Jesus' name, amen. Can we all stand?
Intro/Outro: Thank you so much for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden. Church.