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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:1
Well, I'm glad we found the right text because I would have been unprepared for that. So we are in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and we're just looking at verse 1 this morning. However, verses 1 through 7 really do belong together and they all have this theme of approaching God in worship.
And we're gonna see, especially from verses 2 through 7 in the next few weeks, how this relates to our speech, the commitment we make toward God, this language of vow and of sacrifice. And so I'm sort of titling this right now, When You Go to the House of God, because of course that's the very beginning of chapter 5.
And so you again want to hold this together as best as we can. We're entering into a little bit more familiar territory when it comes to wisdom literature. This verse in particular, as well as the next several verses, it sounds more like wisdom literature to our ears.
It sounds like something the book of Proverbs would have to say to us. It's giving an exhortation. It's calling us to walk in wisdom, avoid the way of the fool, or in here in verse 1, the sacrifice of fools.
So again, we're reminded here we are in wisdom literature, but we should also remember since the the call is for us to enter wisely into the house of God, that is to gather appropriately for the worship of God, we should be reminded that there's this Solomonic theme hovering behind Ecclesiastes.
And perhaps now the old king who witnessed God build a house for his name, who saw all the splendor and wealth of an empire that had increased, now flow toward Zion's holy hill, and he watched all the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance surrounding that worship of God, and perhaps he was caught up with the luster and the glory of that worship now in this situated house of God, a substantial fulfillment of the promises of God.
And now as an old king, he looks back and perhaps like the Lord Jesus Himself, when he looks on the house of God, he finds so much of that worship to be hollow, a den of thieves, profaning a house that was made for prayer.
And I wonder if that's something that we're meant to see here. So we should hear an old king who's seen counterfeit worship, hollow worship, formal worship that just runs on empty, it runs horizontally rather than vertically, and he's exhorting us in light of that.
Walk prudently when you go to the house of God. Draw near to hear rather than give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. We're gonna walk through this verse, pun intended I suppose, we're gonna walk through walking to the house of God, and partly I have a number of applications I want to make time for, so that's by way of introduction.
Let's just look at this verse maybe in three points of emphasis. All right, let me read it for us again, Ecclesiastes 5, verse 1. Walk prudently when you go to the house of God, and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.
Well, the first thing that we notice in this verse is when we go to the house of God, we need to watch our step. We need to watch our step. Quite literally, it's foot. There's actually some textual variations here between foot or feet, but I don't think that's a variation that makes much of a difference.
You get the idea. You need to watch your walk. You need to pay attention to the way that you're going. You need to have an eye on your conduct. That's the idea. When you go to the house of God, watch your step.
Walk prudently is how we have it in our translation. Literally, the Hebrew would be watch your foot as you go or when you go. Keep your eye on where your foot is stepping. We can put it this way, tread carefully.
You're coming into the worship of a holy God. Tread carefully. Did Moses rush into the burning bush? Now, this is really neat. Yeah, do you have something for him? No, what did he do? He took off his sandals.
He put his face down to the dirt. He melted into that ground. That's what it was like for him to enter in to the holy presence of God. Walk prudently. Watch your step when you come to the worship of God.
He does not take his name lightly. Neither should we as his people. This is an exhortation that doesn't just belong to the conduct during worship as we approach worship, but all the conduct that consists in our lives beforehand.
Watch your steps on the way to the house of God. That means everything from Sunday afternoon to the following Sunday morning. Watch your steps when you're approaching the house of God. I have to be gathering to the worship of God in the midst of the assembly.
That makes a difference for my life Monday through Saturday. That's what it means to walk prudently. This is something that involves the whole manner of your life. The house of God, of course, is a way of speaking of the gathered worship of God.
The house of God isn't just the temple built of stone, but it's Bethel. It's where Jacob first laid his head on a stone, and there he saw this vision of a ladder with angels ascending and descending into the very presence of God, and he said, surely this is the house of God.
This is where God first revealed himself to me, and we gather to this place because we expect that God will meet his people in worship and reveal himself, communicate himself to us. And so every place the people of God gather is Bethel.
It's the house of God, and when we're approaching the house of God, we ought to recognize that this watching is really another Old Testament verb. It's really guarding. Walk prudently. Watch your step.
Guard your life. That's actually the verb here in Hebrew, shamar. It's guarding your walk, guarding your manner. In Deuteronomy, this verb is especially predominant. God's people are again and again told to guard themselves.
Some translations, keep a close watch on yourself. The idea is if you're going to obey me in terms of the covenant, you need to have a close eye on the way that you're living. Do you hear my voice? Are you living in light of what I say?
Proverbs 4 would put it in this way. Wisdom literature. Watch the path of your feet. This is Proverbs 4, 26 and 27. Watch the path of your feet and all of your ways will be established. What are you paying attention to?
Your whole life. How are you living? Watch the path of your feet. Keep an eye on your step. Guard the way that you're going. Don't turn to the right. Don't turn to the left. Keep your foot away from evil.
That's the idea. The way that I'm living my life. Paul wrote to Timothy, I write so that you would know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God. And if you're reading 1 Timothy 3, he's not just talking about a few hours on a Sunday morning.
He says, Timothy, this is the kind of man you need to be if you would conduct yourself rightly when you go to the house of God. So that's the first thing. When you go to the house of God, you watch your step.
The second emphasis we see is that when you go to the house of God, you draw near to God in order to hear God. In other words, when you go to the house of God, you draw near to hear. It's literally what the verse says.
Walk prudently when you go to the house of God and draw near to hear. There's two things being said there, isn't it? The first thing is that we're drawing near to God. Our brother Ryan astutely observed that a lot of people nowadays say, well, I find God when I'm out hiking or picking blueberries on Wachusett's, you know, mountainscape or I connect to God when I'm knitting or whatever.
And the people of God ought to recognize in a unique way, no, I'm closest to God when I'm in the house of God with the people of God. That's certainly what this verse is saying. The nearness we have with each other is approximate to the communion we have with God who has knit us together.
If we are the body of Christ, our communion with Christ involves one another. You can never be nearer to Christ than when you're nearer to the body of Christ. And so the idea that I'm actually near when I'm away and off on my own, that's when I'm really near.
That's a foreign idea to the New Testament. That's a foreign idea to the Old Testament. That's a foreign idea to how we are made as image bearers of God, to live in worship and dwell in community. The idea of going in isolation to find God's presence is a fool's errand.
It doesn't mean you can't have private devotions. It doesn't mean that God won't have these encounters with you. But the idea is that ought to lead you and spur you on. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of God.
That's the heart of a Christian. That's where I'll find God's presence. That's where I will fellowship not only with God's people, but with God himself. That's where the gifts that God has given the body will be exercised and flow in and through my life.
That's where I'll be edified. That's where I'll be blessed. That's where I'll be strengthened, exhorted, encouraged, comforted. That's the idea. That's how God uses public worship. So you draw near to God and you draw near to God in order to hear God.
We're not here, first and foremost, to study. We're not here, first and foremost, to sort of tick off the box. This is what we're supposed to do on a Sunday morning. This is what we've always done on Sundays morning.
You children, this is what we grew up doing on Sunday mornings. Why are you here? Let me ask you a question. Are you gathered here this morning to hear from God? Isn't that what Ecclesiastes 5 verse 1 is saying?
When you go to the house of God to draw near and hear and hear. You draw near to the presence of God that God might speak. When God speaks, things change. Things get formed. Things get altered. Things that weren't become things that are.
That's what happens when God speaks. And we are to position ourselves as God's people into the place of reception, of hearing. And so this means we could never approach the worship of God as something to be taken lightly or treated as a mere formality.
Of course, the verb hear, Shema, throughout the Old Testament is virtually synonymous with obedience. To hear is to obey. You parents know exactly what I'm talking about. When you give your child a command, something to be obeyed, and they're not paying attention, you say, do you hear me?
Or you notice they got distracted. Are you listening to me? Hearing, listening is synonymous with obedience. To hear is to obey. To obey is to hear. When we're walking in the commandments that God has given us, it shows that we have heard his voice, that we are listening to him.
Out of this covenantal relationship, we have heard, and now we respond. That's the idea. And so when we're approaching the house of God, this is why we watch our step, because we realize God is speaking.
God is speaking. Have I prepared myself? Am I still enough to hear his voice? Am I expecting to be confronted with his word and then ask him to do the work of his word in my life? Lord, I hear you. I'm convicted.
I see what you're calling me to do. Give me the faith. Give me the strength. Lord, grant me conviction and grant me repentance. Help me to walk now in light of this. I want to change. I want to be transformed, even by one slight micron of glory to the next.
I don't want to go back the same. You have a whole host of Israelites and none of them have shining faces, but there's one Israelite who has a shining face. That's the one who's encountered God, who's heard his voice.
That's the difference. There's a number of older paraphrases from the past century, and I love this one. This is Barton's paraphrase. Do not run to the place of worship thoughtlessly. That's a great little paraphrase.
No running. When you're swimming in a pool, what are all the big 80-point font in bold red letters posters? What do they all say? No running. And you're in the pool and you watch your four-year-old dash around the deep end and you yell, no running.
That is, watch your steps, slow down. You're being thoughtless. This could endanger your life. Worship is a dangerous thing. Worship is a dangerous thing. We've lost something of that reverence in our day.
The generation of the reformers knew it. Paul certainly understood it. He said, listen, if you're not rightly understanding what the Lord's Supper is and your relationship to the Lord, you risk profaning that.
And this is why some of you are sick. And this is why some of you have died in Corinth. Oh, worship is a dangerous thing. Eternal stakes are attached to the worship of God. One of the points we made last week, this great line from Ozaria Butterfield, desperate people make idols.
Desperate people make idols. And those very desperate people with the same idolatrous desires can come in and out of the doors of public worship, unchanged, unconfronted, unmet, unconvicted. They would have never realized that they've actually neglected a hearing from God's word.
They have neglected to draw near to God's word. They are not keeping a close watch on their manner of life. Desperate people make idols. You know what I learned over the past few weeks as we're tearing apart our condo, getting it ready to sell?
It was quite an interesting thing over this week, working on a sermon with sawdust all over my laptop and paint on my hands. And it was a glorious thing. What I learned is it's really hard to watch your step when you're carrying a heavy burden.
We have this little slope going off of our back deck and it has all these little roots and stones and little pits. And if you're not carrying anything, you'll never trip. You'll never fall. You can watch your steps very easily.
But when you're carrying a solid wood bathroom vanity, you can't see where you're walking. What do you have to do if you wouldn't fall and roll your ankle? You have to take very cautious steps, very careful steps.
You might need other people to say, look out for that or watch out for this. It is hard to watch your steps when you're carrying a heavy burden. And since desperate people make idols and they will not come if they have some idol they're serving, some idol they're pursuing, they will not come to draw near to the living God.
They will not come near to hear him. They still have that heavy burden. That means that heavy burden has not been dealt with. They're hoping the idol will do that. And it means they're not able to watch their steps very well.
And so the people of God, we gather and we understand the first thing I have to do when I'm approaching the house of God is recognize what's at the very center of the worship of God, which is a crucified and risen Savior.
And I cleanse my hands and my filthy feet so that I have no burden that would prevent me from entering into pure worship. Because even my worship is sustained by my flesh, I need it to be cleansed by the blood of my Savior.
There I wash in the blood of the Lamb so that I can not only watch my manner of life, but actually come into the nearness of God and hear his voice. So you're bearing heavy burdens when you come to the house of God.
Have you cast off those burdens in light of the cross? There is no other way to properly worship God. You will not watch your steps. You will not worship rightly. If you leave as guilty as you came, what are we doing here?
Have we not come to celebrate? Have we not come to praise and offer thanksgiving for the sacrifice of Christ, which cleanses us from all unrighteousness? That's how I watch my steps. Lord, again I come unworthy, and I draw near.
Your disobedient servant comes again to hear your voice speak, O Lord. That's worship. You cleanse your hands and your feet. This is what it will be to become a living sacrifice. What does Paul say in Romans 12?
If you're going to be a living sacrifice and offer worship that is pleasing to God, now you're going to lay your whole life down because you're watching your steps so carefully. Where does that come from?
How does he begin? He says, brethren, I beseech you by what? I beseech you by all the things that you've done wrong, and this ought to goad you into being a sacrifice from now. No, brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God.
So this is how we approach the worship of God, because of the mercy of God. It's this way that's been opened, this altar that's been effective. Now I can actually draw near. And having drawn near through the blood of Christ, having entered in to the Holy of Holies by the blood of the Lamb, now I can hear.
Speak, O Lord, your servant hears. This is what the father is seeking. Is that not what Jesus said? You Samaritans think you got it figured out? You're just as blind as the Jews who have turned the house of prayer into a den of robbers.
The father is seeking such who will worship him in spirit and in truth. That's pure worship. And so we hear that life of obedience, if I could put it this way, it flows out of that worship. You don't muster up obedience by the bootstraps so that you can be worthy enough to hopefully put your big toe through the veil.
Have I been good enough this week to go to church? What? The physician came for the sick. No, you start to recognize the reason I go to church is not because I've been obedient. The reason my worship is pleasing to God is not because I tried really hard and did pretty well this week.
The reason I can draw near to here is because I've been washed in the blood of the Lamb and I go to the house of God to magnify his name and give him thanks. My obedience, my ability to hear and watch the path of my life flows out of that worship.
Obedience is going with the flow of worship. If that's not clear to you, it will be clear in a few passages I'll read in a moment. And we're talking a little bit more about walking. I just want to establish the point.
The obedience flows out of worship. Worship at the very center of it is something that occurs because of what Christ has done for us. If we're not here to magnify what he has done, to thank him for it, it's the kindness of God.
It doesn't just lead us to repentance. It leads us to the fruits of repentance. Hearing, of course, is not just hearing and going our way. We need to be doers and not mere hearers, as James would say.
You think in 1 Samuel 15, verse 22, the prophet tells a disobedient king to obey is better than sacrifice. That certainly seems to be something of the concern here. Draw near to hear and don't give the sacrifice of fools.
They think somehow they're pleasing to God, but their lives are disobedient. So hearing means obeying. It means I've heard and now I'm walking differently out of gratitude for the fact that you've spoken to me.
You've upheld me. You've been near to me. It's the heart attitude. Speak, O Lord. Is that why you're here this morning? I remember a seminary professor who said, you know, he was a homiletics professor.
And he says, it's really hard because a lot of the churches I go to, I can tell the preachers, especially if they were preachers that I taught homiletics to, they get very nervous for me to be present as if I'm going to be grading their sermon.
And they start to stumble and make mistakes and so on. They think that I'm there just to see how well they did. I'm coming to church. I'm coming. I'm coming to hear God's word preached. I'm coming to hear God.
And I thought it was very, very insightful as I'm not looking at students and grading their, I'm looking to hear God speak through the means that he has ordained. When you go to the house of God, you draw near to hear.
Can I put it this way? If you come to the worship of God, if you're approaching the house of God and you have no desire to hear him speak, you'll never draw near to him. You want to draw near to God? You need to desire to hear him speak.
What's the difference in your devotional time? Are you desiring to actually see his word as a living word speaking to you? Or is it just ink on a page and a box to tick? I'm almost done my McChain chart for the year.
Oh, this is going to be good. Is it just ink on a page? There's all the difference in the world between reading God's word and hearing God speak through his word. And if you would draw near to him, you must desire to hear from him.
Do you believe that he will speak to you through his word? Let me just pause and just ask sort of a big question. What would be different in your life if you approached God's word in this way, if you approached God's worship in this way?
Can I ask what would be different in our church body if we approach worship in this way? What would be different? What would be different in my life? What would be different in your life? What would be different in our corporate life together?
And you see this this emphasis here at the last part of verse one. When we go to the house of God, we need to give the right gift. He says, draw near to hear. That's what you want to be giving to God rather than give the sacrifice of fools.
They don't even know they do evil. So again, hearing God's word involves responding to God's word, aligning your life in light of God's word. The sacrifice of fools. It's a hard phrase to fully unpack or understand.
Tremper Longman, in his commentary, argues it means they're so foolish. They're not even aware that their sacrifices are an offense to God, that the work they're doing that they're so proud of is actually evil.
They're just so foolish. They think this is pleasing to me. It must be pleasing to God. This feels good to me. It must be great for God. That's a fool's thought. That's a fool's sacrifice. But perhaps it's best to just keep it very simple.
And the simplest understanding or translation is they don't know that they're doing evil. That's the sacrifice of a fool. They're just thoughtless. They were running the whole time. They never looked at the path of their life.
They never considered whether they were drawing near to the true and living God in order to hear from him and be changed by hearing him. This is what the Puritans back in their day would have called a formalist.
A formalist. An old word that was used to describe someone whose heart was unprepared for worship and therefore unchanged by worship. I never intended to draw near. I never planned on hearing from God.
And so why would this be any different than any other Sunday? Why would my week to come be any different than any other week? They've offered the sacrifice of fools. So a formalist is someone who's gathering.
Of course, in the Puritan days, it was socially expected that you would gather and you were going to conform. You were going to check the box of church. The only thing that mattered is that you showed up because eyebrows would be raised.
Whispers would be shared if you didn't. And these faithful ministers did their best to separate the wheat from the tares and the goats from the sheep by calling out the hypocrisy of formalism. Just because you're in the house of God does not mean you've drawn near to hear.
That's true throughout all of Scripture. That's the prophetic critique. That's the king's concern. That's Jesus' rebuke. Formalism. Let me tell you what Jesus says about the formalist, the one who thinks he's doing right, but he's never hearing and therefore he's never changing.
Why do you call me, Lord? You can think about it. Why are you gathering, singing hymns to me, praying to me, calling me, Lord? Why do you call me, Lord, but you don't do what I command? What does Lord even mean in that scenario?
What does it even mean? That's formalism. The show, the appearance, but not the substance, not the reality, not a heart, not an ear, not a life lived before the face of God. And by the way, formalism loves to hide behind self-righteous worship.
It's not some empty, cold thing. It can be very warm and buttery and comfy. That hollow worship. It loves to hide in self-righteous worship or what we could call performative religion. It's a performance.
It's not out of a reverence for God. It's not out of a love for God. It's a performance. It's before the eyes of men. That's how Jesus condemned the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Everything that you do so well, so scrupulously, you do it for the eyes of men.
And when you fast, you've had your reward in full because you never did it unto God. You just did it to be seen, to be noticed. Self-righteous worship is a vault for formalism. What does David understand about the true heart of worship?
It's not patting ourselves on the back. God must be pleased with me. I must be approaching the house of God rightly because I never miss a Sunday. And in fact, I don't have fog machines and sing with multicolored lights, and our preacher doesn't have Air Force Ones, so how could I ever be a formalist?
Isn't that the heart of pure worship? I've got a Charles Spurgeon poster by my bed. There's no way I'm a formalist. Is that the benchmark? No. What does David understand? In Psalm 51, this heart of repentance, he says, Lord, you don't desire sacrifice.
If you did, I would give it. I'm a king. I can muster up some bulls and some rams and some sheep and some turtle doves. If you wanted sacrifice, I could give it. I could fill the valley with the blood of sacrifice, but you don't desire it.
You don't delight in burnt offering. I'd burn the farm to you, Lord, if that's what would please you, but that would not please you. The sacrifices you desire, the sacrifices you seek, are a broken spirit and a broken and a contrite heart.
These are the things you will not despise. David is telling us something about the heart of true worship. The things that make an appearance before others. The thing, oh, he's got his life together. He shows up on Sunday.
Look how he's ordering his marriage and his home. He's always got his shoes polished and he's always on time. And look at his bookshelf in the Instagram photo. The things that can be done before the sight of men are not pleasing sacrifices to God.
The heart of worship, as David understands it, was drawing near to here. And he heard the word of the Lord through the prophet Nathan and he understood exactly what God was seeking. And he gave it. He gave the right gift.
And, of course, the span of that time, there was morning and evening sacrifice at the house of God. As David would leave and remove his talith, his prayer shawl, and leave the place of God's worship and he'd go back to plot how he could get Uriah murdered.
Go back to fulfill his lust. And this whole time he's walking this Jekyll and Hyde of a formal worship and an offer of sacrifice and that's what God asked for, so that's what God gets. That must be pleasing to God.
And let me go back to my own life out of here. He's carrying a heavy burden. He cannot watch his steps until he finally hears God's word. And for the first time, he saw how empty and lifeless and abominable that sacrifice of fools was.
He was sacrificing like a fool. And when he heard God's word, he said, Now I understand. None of that was pleasing to you. None of it. Because it was never about the ram's blood. It was about my heart full of pride and lust and envy needing to be broken in contrite before you.
That was always the sacrifice that was pleasing to you. I have heard your word, O Lord. Well, let me ask the question. How do we walk to the house of God? How do we walk to the house of God? I mean, this was my passage and I felt like this was the hardest walk to the house of God I've ever had.
My mind was so distracted with all the things going on between family members and home transitions and I was literally like, I've got one running sink, but no lights and no mirror. Okay, I guess I'm just not shaving and I'm in the van riding, clipping my nails.
It's like I am totally unprepared for the passage about being prepared to approach the house of God. That's how it always is, isn't it? It's never easy. It's never easy to actually walk to the house of God as we ought.
This whole book of Ecclesiastes, as we've said, this whole book is a running commentary on Genesis 1 -3. And a lot of that gets reinforced just by the choice of verbs. And here we have walk and guard.
We have halak and shamar in Hebrew. And that's bringing us right back to the very beginning in Genesis. Of course, walk becomes this metaphor of one's life, of the way that one is. And we remember that when God made Adam and Eve in righteousness, they would walk in the garden.
And that has a sort of double entendre. They were walking with Him. In other words, they were hearing His voice and their lives were spontaneously and naturally obedient to God's voice. They were walking in His way.
And they were walking with Him in that way. So they were communing together and the outflow of that communion, the outflow of that enjoyment was obedience. That's how it always is. We're reminded that even then before the fall, man was made to enjoy God and glorify Him.
And so Adam and Eve were there walking with God, hearing, and as Adam was commanded, guarding. And of course, they fell. And as a result of the fall, Adam was no longer guarding. They were no longer walking with God.
And yet, that creates this whole drama of redemption. And then as we move out of Genesis into Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, we find that there's this call to return to walking with God evermore.
In fact, we're not even out of Genesis when we see Noah is commended as a righteous man because Noah had a faith and a walk with God. Enoch is seen, according to the writer of Hebrews, as one whose faith shined because he walked with God.
Leviticus 18, You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances to walk in them. I am the Lord your God. We come to Judges and we see that despite the call, there's the failure of the people. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers were walking and obeying the commandments of the Lord.
They did not do so. Or if we're reading 1 and 2 Kings, we find this language of walking. He did not walk in the ways of His Father. We find the cry of Psalm 81, 13, Oh, that My people would listen, would hear Me and walk in My ways.
So hearing and walking are intimately connected. Hearing and walking involves what? Presence. I can't walk with someone I'm not present with. I can't hear someone I'm not near to. You cannot hear, you cannot walk if God is far from you.
The call to listen, the call to hear, and the call to walk is also a call to draw near to God. It's actually a call to return to that Adamic state when he was walking with God in the cool of the day, communing with God and enjoying Him as He glorified His Creator.
Of course, it's our sin that separates us from God. It's our sin that stops up our ears and renders us deaf. It's our sin that so hardens our heart that we go after these idols we forge out of desperation and we never draw near to the true and living God.
And that's why God has to undertake this great work of redemption through Christ. And as He says in His great promise, I will give you a new heart, I'll put a new spirit in you, I'll take out that heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh, I'll put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk.
That's the great hope we have in Christ. I can't hear, and I can't draw near, and I can't walk with you by my own strength, in my own flesh, as a fallen human being. I need Your Spirit to cause me to walk, to cause me to hear, to cause me to desire to draw near.
It's always me responding to You. It's not just Paul beseeching us by the mercy of God. God is always beseeching us by His own mercy. This is the language we have when we go to the house of God. What agreement has a temple of God with idols?
You are the temple of the living God. That's corporate language, by the way. That's corporate language. Do you need cross-text references for that, where living stones being built up together? I don't know where this whole fitness thing...
Well, you know, you shouldn't eat Big Macs because you are a temple of the Holy... Yeah, that's great. I like an occasional Big Mac, if you couldn't tell. It's corporate language to be built up as the temple of God.
You all are corporately the dwelling place of God. And you'll notice that simply by following through the verse. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? You all are the temple of the living God, as God has said, I will dwell in them.
That's corporate. I will dwell in them. And what does that dwelling in our midst look like? I will dwell in them and walk among them. We're right back to Genesis 2. He wants to be near to us, to walk with us.
Do we hear, do we desire, are we responding? I hope you see how foundational this is. And again, it underscores the question I asked. How do you walk to the house of God? Well, we'll have to be brief, but let me just give nine very quick...
Why is everyone laughing? It will be quick. We'll see if we can do it in nine steps. Nine steps of walking to the house of God. The first is simply this, we walk humbly before Him. How do we walk to the house of God?
Humbly. Humbly. He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God. You want to walk to the house of God, you walk humbly.
Zach Eswine, who wrote my second favorite book on Ecclesiastes, it's called Recovering Eden. He has this great little section where he's talking about the sacrifice of fools, and he's applying that practically.
And this is what he says. Even foolish churchgoers recognize a need for sacrifice. They've got to bring something, got to do something, but they look to themselves, they look to the external appearance.
That's the sacrifice of the fool. Woefully unaware of their true self, right? They can't even see themselves. They don't even know what they're doing. Their ear is so deaf, they can't hear. They can't draw near.
Woefully unaware of their true selves, they put people off by their way of relating and doing business because persona has become a way of life for them. Boy, if that's not a condemnation in our social media-saturated age.
The avatar that I project, the persona that I manicure, that's who I am, and I always have to be true to that. I can never let that slip. And then you come to worship in the same way. Here's my projection, here's my avatar, Lord.
Is it still holding? And it's never the true self. It's never the broken and contrite heart. It's not someone who said, here I am, here I really am, here I really am, Lord. This is where I'm at. This is what I've done.
This is what I'm like. Forgive me. Cleanse me. Help me. Change me. We're not meant, Eswain says, we're not meant to use church as a cloak to cover our ugly ways, or as a talisman to wish them away. Well, I know I'm bad, but I go to church, I'm not as bad as some other people I know.
It's not a cloak to hide, it's not a talisman to ward away. Church is actually meant that the gathered worship of God is meant to disrupt this pattern of denial. When I come to worship rightly, when I'm walking humbly before my God, I recognize how unworthy I am to worship His holy name.
Who am I? Who am I? That's David, the broken and contrite heart, when God is telling him, I'm going to build a house for you. And his response is, but who am I? Why would you do this for me? Church disrupts our boastful selfishness, our proud defiance, our selfish, twisted inability to see as we really are.
We're meant to come to the house of God humbly, as Eswain says, with an unvarnished life. This is what it's really like. This is what it's really like. Second point, we walk in Him. We walk humbly before Him, but He's not so far away.
He's actually near us and in us. We're walking in Him. Colossians 2 is, therefore, you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up. As we're walking in Him, as we've seen, especially from chapter 3, there's a time and a purpose for everything, and our experience of time plus God's purpose equals a season in life.
So, third, we walk through valleys with Him. We walk before Him, we walk in Him, and we walk through things with Him. We walk through hard valleys. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He's with me.
I'm walking with Him. Psalm 138, 7, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you revive me. We walk through valleys with Him. Fourthly, we walk in truth. Your loving kindness, Psalm 26, 3, Your loving kindness is before my eyes.
I have walked in Your truth. Psalm 86, 11, Teach me Your way, O Lord, I will walk in Your truth. I'm hearing, I'm listening, I'm humble, and as I'm humble, I'm walking in You and what You provide and what You've done for me, cleansed by the blood.
And now, because of that, I can walk through valleys with You, surrounding troubles and great floodwaters that are up to my eyelids. And that means I'm hearing You. I'm so near to You, when You speak, I will walk according to the truth of Your Word.
If You say it, it's true. If no one else is walking that way, what is that to me? You speak, Your servant hears, O Lord. You children need especially to pay attention to that, because you're not aware of a world of lies that you're living in.
And you think, my parents, this older generation, what do they know? I know how it really is. Me, the person born yesterday, you're living in a world of lies. How will a young man cleanse his way? How will you have a light shine on your path?
You need to walk according to what God has made known. And let me tell you, most of your friends and companions in life won't be walking in that same direction. Teach me Your way, O Lord. I'm hearing You.
Children, do you pray? Father, help me to hear You. I don't want to just roll my eyes when my parents rattle off another morning devotion. I want to hear You. I want to speak with You. I want You to walk with me.
I want to walk in the truth that You show me, whatever the cost may be. This is how the Lord is always working through His people. Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. And He doesn't floodlight the whole way for us.
He doesn't do that. Have you ever had a lamp? A lamp gives you like three feet max. And that's how the Lord leads. He doesn't floodlight the length to the end. Okay, if I... All right, so in 2032, if I maneuver like that, no, it's three feet in front of you.
Are you going to obey? Are you going to hear? Are you going to walk in the things I'm showing you? And it's progressive. He's giving you something from His Word because you're hearing a living and active Word and He's speaking to you through it.
What does Jesus say to His disciples in John 16? A verse I don't think we take to heart enough. John 16 .12. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them right now. I'm giving you light for the next three feet.
Don't worry about the three feet after that. You can't bear it yet. He doesn't flood the whole field. He leads us in His truth. Step by step. Fifthly, we walk properly. Let us walk properly as in the day.
Sixth, we walk worthily. That you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. Cautions 1 .10. That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him. That is my life, my conduct, my Monday through Saturday matters, because it affects how I approach the worship of God.
And if I don't think the Monday through Saturday matters, then I will not be able to worship God rightly and I will not be changed by the worship of God. That means seventh, I won't walk in a newness of life.
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Even so, we ought to walk in this newness of life. And then eighth, we walk together. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, 1 John 1 .7 we have fellowship with one another.
We are walking according to truth, according to the lamp of a God that is speaking through His Word to change our lives. If we're walking in that light, as He is in that light, we actually have fellowship with one another.
We're actually walking together. Boy, that ought to change things. Why is the constant evangelistic question, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Okay, that's good. How about this? Do you have a corporate relationship with Jesus Christ?
That's as important. Are you part of His body? I love thy kingdom, Lord, when it's out there in the abstract. Not here, I actually don't really like it much. No, I love your kingdom. I love your people.
I love your body. It's not always easy, but I love you. And if I'm walking with you in the light, we will have fellowship one with another. And then ninth and last, we walk in love just as He walked in love amongst us.
Ephesians 5, 1 and 2,. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. What does that imitation look like? Walk in love as Christ also loved us. Gave Himself for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God.
So we walk as God walked in our midst. We walk in love together. These are the ways we walk to the house of God. Walk prudently when you go to the house of God. Draw near to hear rather than give the sacrifice of fools.
They don't even know that they do evil. How do you walk to the house of God? Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word this morning. Let us hear it, Lord. Let us be changed by it. I pray, Lord, that I and my brothers and sisters would walk very differently this time next week.
Give us the grace to hear. Lord, turn our deafness into ears that are willing and eager to obey. Let us be Your servants, Lord. Let us walk humbly according to the truth of Your Word. Shine that light before us, Lord, that we might walk together and grow in the bonds of unity and love forged by the Holy Spirit, Lord.
Help us. We are so weak, so needy, so fickle, so easily distracted. We tread and run thoughtlessly to worship. Help us to feel the magnitude of what we do here. Not waste or mince words. Not miss the opportunity to redeem the time.
Not miss an ounce of the work You would do in Your Spirit in our very midst. Lord, change this church. Change our body. Change us as the outflow of true worship. We know You are seeking it. We know it comes by the Spirit, through the Savior in whose name we pray.
Amen.