CtW - wk 3 - Bow Your Knees

Start service with the True Christmas Story video.

Good morning and Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is looking forward to celebrating the birth of our savior. It’s always encouraging to me that no matter how much Christianity is vilified in our world, the truth of the hope found in Christ always glows brightest around the holiday celebrating His arrival. Through Jesus, God reaches down to us and offers His joy, His peace and His love. Jesus came and changed our lives forever and now we celebrate His coming to earth in eager anticipation of His return.

What does it mean to you that Jesus came to tell you the truth? I have a difficult time explaining with words what it means to me. To me it’s like walking outside and seeing a beautiful sunrise and taking in a deep breath in the cool morning air. Experiencing a joy that makes you want to jump up and down in celebration yet at the same time a peace that calls you to kneel down in silence. Jesus came and loves me no matter what and gives me purpose. I pray that all of you experience the love of our Father as we celebrate the wonderful gift He shared with us.

As we approach Christmas, we have been looking at postures of worship. We started by looking at raising our hands. Last week we talked about bringing our gifts to God. Specifically we looked at God’s character of generosity. God gives to us generosity upon generosity. When we mess up He continues to give. God wants us to have His mindset of generosity instead of a scarcity mindset. He doesn’t want us to be afraid of losing what we have of not having enough to begin with. In Christ there IS enough. He wants us to realize that every good thing we have comes from Him and His desire is for us to share all of His gracious gifts.

This week we are going to talk about the third posture of worship in this series, “Bow Your Knees.” The inspiration for this series comes from the wise men who traveled a very long distance to worship Jesus. After traveling for several hundred miles they finally arrived at Bethlehem. The star they had seen in the East guided them to the place where Jesus was. Then Matthew chapter 2 says...

Matthew 2:10–11 (NLT)

10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! 11 They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Before we get too far into our scripture for today let me ask you a question real quick. Raise your hand if you would say that you love children… Keep your hand up if you would say “Even 2 year olds!” I noticed something about my brother’s kids. My mom seemed to bring them out to Rocky to baby sit a lot more when they were about 2 years old. I love my niece and nephews to pieces, but it didn’t take me long to figure out what my brother was doing! He tricked her. We’d see her pulling into the driveway and we’d turn out the lights and lock the doors. Hide behind the couch. They are called “terrible twos” for a reason!

I am joking about this, but think about that for a minute. In our culture today we tend to think of the wise men visiting Jesus when He was a baby, but most scholars believe that Jesus was probably closer to 2 years old at this point. So these wise men traveled so far and were over joyed when they arrived. Then they gave this 2 year old boy expensive gifts and BOWED DOWN to worship Him.

So today we are talking about kneeling to worship God. When was the last time you kneeled to worship God? I love the way Denzel finished his speech in the video we watched last week. He said that he hopes you put your slippers way under your bed tonight so that when you get up in the morning you have to get on your knees to put them on. And while you’re down there be thankful. This Christmas I hope you will make time to bow down to worship God.

Psalm 95:6–7 (NLT)

6 Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, 7 for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today!

We kneel to worship. We kneel because He is our God. As we worship Jesus this Christmas my hope is that you will find a reason in your heart to kneel to worship Him. Today we are going to look at 3 people in scripture who kneeled before God and their motivation for kneeling. We’ll look at why these people kneeled before God for inspiration for us to kneel in worship. So if you are taking notes, why do we kneel? First...

KNEEL IN PURSUIT.

Later in Jesus’ life, as He was traveling, teaching, and performing miracles, a rich man came running up to Him asking about eternal life. This story can be found in the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. For some reason, Mark is the only one who decided to include the seemingly small detail of the man kneeling when he approached Jesus...

Mark 10:17 (NLT)

17 As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The visualization of this man kneeling when he spoke to Jesus completely changes the dynamic of the story. Even though he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he appears to be earnest in his request and have a genuine respect for Jesus as a spiritual teacher. Think about that for a minute. Jewish people would not address a Rabbi as a “Good Teacher”. This indicates that he saw Jesus as something more. He also approached Jesus eagerly and with this respectful kneeling posture. This man was not a follower of Christ, yet he approach with more excitement and respect than I do on most days.

It really hits home for me when I think of it like that. In so many ways I can be just like this guy, hoping God will take care of my problems while being unwilling to make certain necessary changes myself. Yet at the same time, how often do I kneel in excitement before God? I love the story of Daniel. He knelt so often that his enemies used it against him. Even though Daniel knew what they were doing, he knelt as usual anyway. He didn’t even close his windows and try to hide.

Daniel 6:10 (NLT)

10 But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.

Kneeling in pursuit of God. How often do you kneel in pursuit? This might be the year God calls you to pursue Him by worshiping on your knees. The second reason we kneel is in repentance...

KNEEL IN REPENTANCE.

One day, when I was 15 years old, I came home from school and my mom was listening to a preacher on the TV and I remember overhearing some of it and being fascinated. He was talking about Jesus. Today I couldn’t tell you what he said, but I remember having a ton of questions. I ended up talking to mom about many of my questions and she eventually went to bed but I stayed up watching these preachers talk about Jesus. Eventually the Power Team came on and they were bending metal bars, lifting heavy things, jumping through ice, and all sorts of other “strong man” things. And I remember one of them saying that Jesus was the one who gave them the strength to do everything in life.

Right then I knew that they had 2 things that I didn’t. 1: HUGE muscles and 2: Jesus. I didn’t have any blocks of ice that I needed to jump through, but I knew Jesus was the only way I could jump through my own problems. After that another preacher came back on the stage and continued the conversation about Jesus that they had started. And when he told people to come down to the front if they wanted to ask Jesus into their lives I joined them right there in my living room.

How did you respond when you realized who Jesus is and how much He loves you? Peter was fishing when he met Jesus. In fact, he had been fishing all day long and didn’t catch a thing. After Jesus finished teaching the crowds he told Peter to cast out his nets one more time. You can imagine all of the different things Peter might have been thinking. I would have been thinking, “Who do you think you are? I am the fisherman and there is nothing out here. You’re just a carpenter and because you’ve been standing in my boat you are an expert in fishing all the sudden!?”

Through his doubt Peter went ahead and let down his nets. When he pulled them up again they were so full of fish he had to shout for help as the nets began to tear! It took 2 boats to haul in the catch and even then they were both about to sink! Peter was watching the “Power Team” bound through blocks of ice! It became clear as day to him that this man had something more. Something Peter himself did not have. This is how he responded to Jesus...

Luke 5:8 (NLT)

8 When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.”

Peter knelt in repentance. Before he met Jesus, Peter’s life was as empty as his nets. But when Jesus came into his life, Peter had a purpose. The Good News changed his life and now he would share this Good News and be a part of God’s work of changing countless other people’s lives. Just like the massive amount of fish Jesus helped him catch. In fact, Jesus even tells him that from that moment on he will fish for people.

We kneel in Pursuit. We kneel in Repentance. And we...

KNEEL IN SUBMISSION.

When I was a kid TV wrestling was pretty popular. It seems like someone was always wearing a WWF shirt or one with a popular wrestler, like Hulk Hogan. I always thought wrestling looked super silly. This big macho guys strutting around, climbing on top of the ropes in the ring, swinging chairs or tables at each other, bouncing off the ropes and trying to clothesline each other. One would end up sitting on the other and they would squirm around for a minute and then tap out in a panic. When we would wrestle or pin each other down, instead of tapping out we had to say something. Does anyone remember what you would say? UNCLE!

It’s important to know when to submit. In the movie, The Princess Bride, Vizzini and his henchmen capture the Princess and her long lost love, Westley, chases them down to set her free. Around ever turn Westley outsmarts Vizzini (INCONCEIVABLE!), but he continually refuses to submit and it eventually costs him his life. *Spoilers* Finally, in a “battle of wits”, Westley tricks Vizzini into drinking poison and even to his final moment he is completely convinced that he is in control and has outsmarted Westley.

What a great example of submission we have in Jesus. When I was younger one of my favorite hymns was “He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels”. The words of the chorus are, “He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free, but He died alone, for you and me.” How amazing is it that Jesus chose to kneel in submission to God and we get to benefit from His worshipful obedience…

Luke 22:41–42 (NLT)

41 He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

In less than a week we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Our holiday of celebration is meant to be a reflection of Him. His love for us. His gifts for us. His joy that He brings to us. His peace. As you celebrate Jesus I hope you remember to kneel in worship. Don’t wait for everyone else to kneel. Someday every knee will bow. You can be the person who kneels now or you can be the person who kneels later.

Philippians 2:8–11 NLT

8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Make a point to kneel to worship God this Christmas. If you need some inspiration be like Daniel and KNEEL IN PURSUIT OF GOD. Be like Peter and KNEEL IN REPENTANCE TO GOD. Be like Jesus and KNEEL IN SUBMISSION TO GOD. As I was preparing for this message I noticed something profound, in a way. Even though these people were kneeling in a 1 on 1 moment with God, each one of them made a big impact on people around them. Daniel’s worship shook a kingdom. Peter’s worship led to him impacting many lives. Jesus’ submission to God is still changing countless lives today. Over 2000 years later!

What would happen if you bowed your knees today? Who’s life could possibly be impacted? As we close I want to share one person’s story about how their life was impacted by someone who risked their life to simply tell her that Jesus loves her. And that simple act would transform her life forever. We’ll do the same thing we did last week and I will close us in prayer, but stick around for a few more minutes as we watch her tell her story.

Father thank you for loving us. Thank you for your sacrifice. As we celebrate your coming help us to earnestly seek you, turn from our ways of thinking, and submit to your call on our lives.

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