Come to Worship #3

If you're new with us, we're actually going through different themes all year long, and we've been talking about worship. The title of our series has been Come to Worship, based on a text in the Bible when the wise men said, "We have come to worship Jesus, we've come to worship him." In this message series we've looked at 3 different postures of worship.

The first week we looked at where the Bible teaches us to lift up holy hands to God. The second week we talked about bringing our gifts to God as an act or worship.

Today what I want to do is talk to you about bowing your knees, kneeling before God in the act of surrender and worship.

Matthew 2:10–11 NIV

10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

what did they do when they saw Jesus? They bowed down and worshiped him.

Now what's interesting is most of the time when we picture this what we visualize is we visualize the wise men kneeling down to the baby Jesus, little bitty 4 day old baby, 8 day old baby, 2 week old baby or whatever. Why do we do that? Because every Christmas card you get has the wise men bowing down to a little baby. But in reality, and many of you may not know this, but scholars believe that Jesus was not a baby but chances are very good he was a toddler. He was very likely around 2 years of age when the wise men got there.

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

I want to talk today about kneeling in the presence of God. Let's call it what it is. In our culture most of you aren't going to go, "Oh, that's easy, I'm kneeling right now."

It's like lifting your hands. A lot of us did that for the very first time as an act of worship, and it pushes us out of our comfort zone.

Yet when you look at God's word you're going to see over and over and over again opportunities to kneel down in humble submission and awe to the goodness of God.

In fact

Psalm 95:6–7 NIV

6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice,

Now there's an interesting Hebrew word that's actually translated as worship. It's the word sagad. סָגַד

Sagad, this word is used 170 times in the Bible. What this word means is it means to bow down low, to kneel in worship. 170 times in scripture we're told in this word to kneel before God in worship.

סָגַד

One of the reasons why I believe culturally we don't kneel more often is because fundamentally we do not understand and comprehend the holiness of God. You see, if we understood just how holy God is then we would want to be low before him in worship.

So holy is God that mortal man cannot look upon him in his purest essence and even live. Suddenly when you start to comprehend that God, the glory of God, the one who spoke and created everything, suddenly kneeling down before him seems like the right thing to do.

I want to inspiration you to come to worship

to lift up holy hands every now and then to God in worship, to bring your gifts as an act of worship to God, to pour out your heart to him in worship, and every now and then, or perhaps for you even often to get down on your knees, or maybe a little lower and get down on your face and say, "God, I want there to be less of me and more of you" and worship him.

3 different reasons why you might want to bow.

KNEEL IN PURSUIT.

Mark's gospel in the 10th chapter there's a really interesting story about a very rich guy. He had everything that everybody would think that he needed, and yet he was missing something and he knew it.

Mark 10:17 NIV

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

When we look at this story we focos on the question that he asks and not on the posture that he was in… fell on his knees before him…

Because when you draw near to him, God draws near to you,

There are others of you, you are a follower of Jesus and you don't necessarily need to kneel in pursuit, but you may need to kneel in repentance, you may need to kneel in repentance.

sometimes often we do things that really break the heart of God and hurt our lives or hurt other people.

KNEEL IN REPENTANCE.

There's a powerful example of kneeling in repentance in Luke's gospel in the 5th chapter. Peter was a fisherman, he was fishing all day long, and he didn't catch anything. Jesus comes up and he says, "Hey, why don't you throw the net on the other side of the boat?"

When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.”

Luke 5:8 NRSV

8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

NLT

Some of you, you're going to want to kneel in pursuit. Some of you, you're going to want to kneel in repentance. There are others of you, you're going to want to kneel in submission. Maybe for the first time in your life or maybe in a particular area where you won't let go because you want to control it, you're going to kneel in submission.

KNEEL IN SUBMISSION.

In jiu Jitsu we do tap out

There are some of you, you're like that with God, aren't you. There's some area of your life and you won't tap. "I want it this way, I want it my way." Listen, there are some of you, God has been reaching out to you for years and you won't tap. You won't surrender to his plan for you, which is far better than your own plan. Some of you, you need to tap, and kneel and surrender.

Luke 22:41–42 NIV

41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

[Jesus] withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond [his disciples], knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

I'd say this. Kneeling to pray is often what gives you the strength to stand. Kneeling to pray is often what gives you the strength to stand.

YOU CAN KNEEL NOW OR YOU CAN KNEEL LATER

Philippians 2:8–11 NIV

8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

TALK IT OVER

· What does holiness mean to you? How often do you reflect on who God is?

· What do you need to surrender to God?

· Going forward, how will you make kneeling a more regular posture of your worship?

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