The Primacy of Worship

One of the strange annual twists to December is the tendency for us to lose focus on the very one that we’re supposed to honor at this time of year. So-called Christmas season is allegedly all about celebrating our Savior, born to redeem sinners, And there are countless ways that we seek to keep the spirit of Christmas alive, lights and decorations, parties and traditions, gift giving and all the rest.

But in the pageantry and the hubbub of the season, lots of Jesus are too frequently drowned out by those things. as if Jesus were still a sweet little baby asleep on the hay. This tendency is really just an extension of a much deeper problem. That worship, the worship of God and Christ our Savior is just not a priority for many people.

It’s always invigorating for the church to see new believers in their stunned enthusiasm and their joy for the fact that God had mercy on them. Perhaps we can all think back to those earliest days following our conversion, the joy, the gratitude, the worship, But then we settle in and settle down. Our joy becomes muted. Our gratitude becomes less often expressed. Our worship becomes anything but.

I’m always alarmed by some of the excuses given for skipping church, the worship of God, I’m not a strict Sabbatarian, but the corporate worship of God on the Lord’s day is the bare minimum that a child of God who has been saved by God’s undeserved mercy ought to render to the one who gives us life and breath and all things. Please hear me. there are always going to be potential contingencies in our efforts to worship God. Sickness, injury, depending on our career, work, we will at times be providentially hindered from coming to church. But some of the excuses that are often provided for absenting oneself from the worship of God go well beyond what is providential, or for that matter, reasonable.

When we first came to Fort Collins, it was a regular thing for me to hear that so-and-so was going camping, or golfing, or fishing, or skiing, or any one of another dozen outdoor activities on the Lord’s day. And it took years to develop a culture, a church culture, that began to prioritize corporate worship. And then there’s the tendency that I’ve noticed over the years that people have to maximize their vacation time by doing their traveling on Sunday. My argument is not against vacations themselves, Nothing wrong with getting away from it all.

But my admonition is that when you’re away, if you’re away from your home church, why not visit another local church? Bless them and honor the Lord. Activities do get in the way of our worship sometimes. And unfortunately, sometimes behind it all is a diminished view of the church. I remember having coffee with an acquaintance one time, a professing Christian, and when I asked him where he went to church, he provided an utterly shocking answer. He said, I don’t go to church so that I can worship. His sentiment expressed this idea that church was somehow in the way of his worship. That is a rock bottom opinion of the church. The church is not a building. The church is the body of Christ. It’s the very institution for which Christ died. And we should long to be joined in fellowship to that body.

COVID expressed, rather exposed, a lot of this thinking, didn’t it? The civil authorities told us that church was not essential, that we shouldn’t be gathering, but if we do, we shouldn’t be singing, we shouldn’t be taking communion, we shouldn’t be shaking hands, certainly not hugging, let alone the sacred kiss. The sad thing is, we took them at their word, that the church is not essential. Tragically, many people learned, or so they thought, that they did not need the church, that corporate worship was optional.

The word worship itself makes for a fascinating study. The word comes from an old English compound, worthship. Worth, speaking of the value of a person or thing, and ship, speaking of the condition or the response to that thing. It speaks of treating or responding to someone or something according to its value. In other words, we are to esteem God and respond accordingly. If someone were to observe only our worship, what would they think of our estimate of God? To make matters worse, churches themselves sometimes undercut corporate worship.

In the last 20 years, Christmas Day fell on a Sunday four times. 2005, 2011, 2016, and again on 2022. And we noticed that each time it happened, more and more churches actually opted to cancel their Sunday worship services. And the reason that they provided? Get this, so everyone could spend time with their families. My response to that, if there was ever a day to gather in worship with the saints of God, wouldn’t the Lord’s Day that falls on December 25th be that day?

I’ve often turned to Hebrews 10, You know the passage. In an effort to correct some of this thinking, you know the passage, just listen. Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. He’s not talking about confession of sin there, he’s talking about our profession of faith in Christ. Christ is faithful, we too should be faithful.

But he goes on, And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. We are supposed to be about encouraging one another and gathering with one another. The writer begins that admonition to hold fast the confession Don’t abandon that, the writer says. Christ will keep his promises.

But it’s that second admonition that speaks to our church attendance. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. And the bottom line is that’s not even possible if we are not gathered with the Lord’s people for worship. And so he adds. not forsaking our own assembly as is the habit of some. And that immediately counters that casual approach to worship that is so prevalent.

I’ve had people tell me before that you’re going to make that argument from one verse in the Bible. I could add to it. But it does say it right there. So as we seek to maintain our focus on the Savior, our Lord Jesus, I thought that we might review a very familiar passage of scripture of Christ’s birth accounts from Matthew chapter 2. It’s the story of the Magi, or as it’s more popular known, the story of the three wise men, Would God’s people take their Bibles and turn there, please, to Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2, and I’ll just read verses 1 through 12 this morning. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard it, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, in you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod secretly called the Magi and ascertained from them the time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go, make careful search for the child, and when you have found him, report to me that I too may come and worship him.

And having heard the king, they went their way. And lo, the star which they had seen in the east went on before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. They came into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother. They fell down and worshiped him. And opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.

These three individuals, who we know only from these 12 verses, actually stand to teach us much about the subject of worship. no other than the great reformer John Calvin, asserted that worship is the most important matter with which we have to deal. Did you hear that?

It is the most important thing that we can do here on earth. The worship of God is foundational to all of life, and so it should be the Christians’ great aim to worship with our whole heart. There’s a single question on our church business card. Some of you have seen it. Some of you have heard me articulate it before. It just asks a single question, do you have a place of worship? And I’ve told you before that that question presupposes three things. It presupposes that there is a God. It presupposes that this God is worthy of worship. and it presupposes that you should be there. Think of this.

We only have 52 days out of 365 to worship our Savior, to express our thankfulness that God saved us from sin and death. If we are going to give worship its rightful place, if we are to respond to God according to His infinite worth, then we must examine our worship. Here in Matthew 2, these enigmatic figures, identified only as magi, provide us three timeless examples. that promote the proper worship of our Savior. I want to look this morning at the primacy of worship and three timeless examples for the worship of our Savior. If you would track back to verse one of that chapter, three timeless examples, the first of which is the intention to worship. I know that sounds simplistic, but it captures the idea that the Magi were purposeful in their worship.

Look at verse one. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. They were intentional. There’s a lot of information just here in these first two verses. And so the first thing that we ought to do here is to isolate the simple sentence.

And the simple sentence is, now Magi arrived in Jerusalem. This tells us who and where they are, Magi, in Jerusalem. And it tells us also that they are not residents of Jerusalem. because Matthew says they arrived. We’ll consider more of the detail that Matthew provides here in a moment. For now, we have a full plate just in taking in this simple sentence. Let’s begin with a consideration of the magi.

Who were they? And I’ll tell you right away that these mysterious characters are wide open to gross mischaracterization. There are dozens of fanciful descriptions of these individuals. I’ve narrowed the list down to six or seven. The first is that they were kings.

And this idea has been woven right into our Christmas hymns, hasn’t it? We three kings of Orient are bearing gifts we traverse afar. Well, the conclusion that these were kings goes back to the earliest church fathers. And it was probably based on a statement in Psalm 68, kings will bring gifts to you. But Matthew doesn’t identify them as kings.

Another common thought is that there were three of them. We sang about it this morning. And so that old song also tells us about three kings, but there’s nothing in the text to suggest that at all. We know that there was more than one because he speaks of them as plural, but for all we know, there could have been a dozen of them.

Third, mischaracterization. Another source of conjecture and misinformation is that their home country, their place of origin, But it seems that the whole point of the narrative is to leave that information hidden. Depending on how far they traveled, they could have come from many different places. Matthew just says they arrived from the east. There’s a fourth mischaracterization.

Perhaps the greatest source of strange interpretation comes from the word magi itself. One scholar very definitively declares that they were essentially astrologers from Medes. And the implication of his interpretation is that by reading the stars, astrology, they were prompted to go search for the child king. That’s a problematic interpretation that elevates astrology as a means of determining divine truth.

Five, one of the more absurd pieces of speculation is that the actual names of these individuals, Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar, absolutely nothing stated in scripture about them. Number six, the final, one of the final tidbits, the most fantastic of all, and by fantastic, I’m not talking about truly amazing, but fantastically unbelievable.

It’s a legend passed down to us from no other than the Roman Catholic Church. They maintain that Saint Helena discovered their bones. And this, mind you, far before DNA analysis. But she discovered their bones, somehow identified them, and they were eventually interred in a cathedral.

Needless to say, Matthew doesn’t tell us anything about that either. And one historian, lastly, Herodotus, identifies them as priests and astrologers who had a gift of interpreting dreams. But Herodotus wasn’t even born until the fifth century. Well after many speculations and myths had developed, his conclusions are fanciful and unconvincing.

I think we can do better. I think we can do better just by observing what scripture itself tells us. The word that Matthew uses to describe these individuals is magos. The New American Standard renders it very closely to the Greek as magi. And it was actually William Tyndale who first translated this word as wise men. And that translation, right or wrong, has mostly stuck. The only other time the word is used in the New Testament occurs in Acts 13. Twice there, it is translated as magician. There in Acts 13, we have Paul and Barnabas in the midst of their first missionary journey, as you may recall, and Luke records that they came across the magician, Elimas.

Well, this Elimus, who Luke appropriately characterizes as a Jewish false prophet, strongly opposed Paul, seeking to turn the hearers away from the faith. And Paul rebukes him. You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight way of the Lord?” That’s one of Paul’s strongest sentences in all of Scripture.

So why am I telling you all of this about Elimus? Because as these magi of Matthew 2 are magicians similar to Elimus, then their response to the news of Jesus Christ is stupendously different than Elimus’ response. They forsook their evil magic in order to look to the Messiah. And in that sense, they were truly wise men. Well, that’s the simple sentence. Now, Magi arrived in Jerusalem, and we observe that Matthew tells us that these men, in his first little piece of information, they arrived from the east. and they arrived in Jerusalem.

We’re not told specifically where they’re from, but that hasn’t stopped people from writing entire volumes to inform us where they originated. It could have been Persia, Media, Chaldea, Arabia, Babylonia, or somewhere else for all we know. Sometimes the question of their origin, that they were not from Jerusalem, is treated as if it doesn’t matter. It does matter because Matthew tells us they came from the East. They weren’t from Jerusalem. At the end of the account in verse 12, Matthew tells us that they returned to their own country. They weren’t from Jerusalem. And the implication is that they’re foreigners. They’re Gentiles, not Jews. And yet they of all people, were watchful and responsive to and focused upon this child.

This child who was the king of the Jews. Matthew provides some additional detail for us, some context that this whole episode occurred after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And it was also in the days of Herod the king. The first phrase makes clear that Jesus had already been born. The second tells us that it occurred under Herod’s reign. Herod was not Caesar.

He wasn’t king in an absolute sense, but he was a king over the Jewish population of Judea. He was a Gentile, a non-Jew whom the Romans had appointed to office. And he was a notoriously cruel tyrant. And all of that made him overwhelmingly unpopular to the Jewish people.

Nevertheless, the Magi came first to his city and they asked, look at verse two, where is he who has been born King of the Jews? You can imagine the townspeople trying to hush them as they even dare to ask that question. We’re not told how they came to have this information about the birth of the Christ child, only that they sought him for the purposes of bringing him worship. The word that Matthew uses here for worship is proskuneo, one of the primary words to speak of worship 60 times in the New Testament, referring in its literal sense to lying face down before a king. And again, if any people ought to have been eagerly anticipating the birth of the Messiah, it was the Jewish people of Jerusalem, not three Gentile magi.

And yet the magi knew that the birth of the child afforded him the hereditary privilege of a throne. They inquire not about the one to be born who would eventually be king, but the one who was born king. And that question surely sent shivers down Herod’s spine. This throne was not one that would be bestowed on Jesus in time. The Magi speak of him as already king.

At the end of verse 2, these magi explain the means of their journey as well as their intentions. We saw his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. There’s a terrible amount of error promoted about this star as well. You probably heard some of the stories. that it was just one of the many stars in the sky, or the planet Jupiter, extra bright that evening, or a conjunction of stars, or an erratic comet, or a supernova. Worst of all is the notion that the Magi discerned the news of the Messiah by the practice of astrology. The truth is, They had to have received some kind of divine revelation about this child king. This star then was a miraculous phenomenon.

And they know that it is his star. And because of that, their intent is clear. We have come to worship him. Worship is a saved sinner’s response of gratitude. the most natural response in the world. This child king they know is worthy of their sincere worship. And so I would say that if we are going to worship God and Christ as we ought, we have to purpose to do it.

We have to intend to do it. It has to be intentional. Otherwise, it’s not just going to happen. We have to prioritize the Lord’s day and build everything else around it. And to do that, we have to establish and cultivate and maintain a high practical view of Christ’s church and a high, not a casual view of God himself.

But even if our intentions are noble, the devil knows this. And there will be countless challenges to thwart our intention to worship. So that brings us to a second timeless example provided by the Magi. Not only their intention to worship, they were purposeful in it, but their determination to worship. They were perseverant in this intention. Would you look again at verse three?

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. The magi innocently declared their intentions. They’ve come to worship the child king, but for this ungodly and jealous King Herod, this is the most dreadful of all news. Competition for his throne? His would-be replacement has been born? Were his Jewish subjects plotting a coup?

Matthew simply records the very understated sentiment in verse three when he heard this news he was troubled. Troubled? The word terrazzo is often translated terrified or disturbed. The disciples traveling on the sea were terrified when they saw Jesus walking on the sea. Jesus himself was troubled when he saw the depth of Mary’s grief at the loss of her brother Lazarus. The Galatians were disturbed when they heard the false gospel of salvation by works. So this news really troubled Herod. But rather than pondering the news of a redeemer for sinners, Herod immediately sought to defend his throne.

Matthew expands upon the sense of Herod’s fear here when he says that not only was Herod troubled, but that so was all Jerusalem. You see, the people of this region knew how vicious and unpredictable Herod could be. As one writer said it, when Herod trembled, the whole city shook. And yet, perhaps even unaware of the danger they were in, Here stand the Magi. Herod immediately set about to learn more about this Jewish would-be king.

Glance at verse 4. He summoned all the chief priests and scribes and he pressed them. What does your Bible say about this? He deviously avoids any explanation to them about the reason for his sudden curiosity about this child king, but his ultimate intentions are veiled behind his evil heart.

Even at the outset, Herod knows that this is no earthly suitor to his throne, because he inquired of these Jewish leaders where that Christ was to be born. And that term Christ, anointed one, pointed not to an earthly king, but to the Savior Messiah who would come to assume David’s royal throne. As such, Jewish scholars, they knew immediately where this ultimate sovereign was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. They all could have chanted it in unison.

They cited as proof Micah 5.2, which essentially declares that the only thing that made this insignificant little town noteworthy was the fact that the Messiah would be born there. They knew where the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, and now Herod knows.

Cunning Herod is secretly gathering facts so as to not alert his subjects to his evil plan. And in verse 7, Matthew tells us that he learned from the Magi the exact time that the star appeared. That one piece of information would have enabled this bloodthirsty despot to narrow down the exact age of the child king so that he might destroy him. Now he has the information needed for his vicious attack, his backup plan, in case he cannot locate this specific child. And we know this from the latter verses of this chapter, verse 13, the angel alerts Joseph of Herod’s evil intentions, intentions that were carried out ultimately in verse 16, that horrific attack against all the male children. This is how Herod ultimately planned to use the Magi’s timeline.

And it’s interesting to note that bossy Herod didn’t go to Bethlehem. In his arrogance, he didn’t have the time to personally investigate this matter. Even more sad, neither did the chief priests. Neither the chief priests or the scribes or any of the population of Jerusalem go to Bethlehem. Everyone was too busy, too disinterested, too caught up in their own daily affairs to be bothered even with the possible news of the Messiah’s arrival. The Apostle John said it well, he came to his own. And those who were his own did not receive him.

But the Magi were going. Even if everyone else refused to go, it couldn’t have been lost on the Magi that they were dealing with a jealous and unpredictable ruler. The frightened demeanor of the entire population of the city would have declared that to them. But not even that. would steer them away from their goal of worshiping the child king. It’s not that they didn’t know about Herod’s potential for cruelty. It’s that their desire for worship, the worship of their savior, outweighed that concern.

They were going even if it would cost them their lives. Would you glance at verse nine? After hearing the king, they went their way. And lo, the star which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was. Without a hitch or a pause, the Magi resumed the pursuit which they had set out to do to worship the child king. And the narrative suggests a pause in Jerusalem together with some earthly directions to Bethlehem. It seems that the star had ceased shining, but God again resumes leading the way for these magi by means of this providential star. It’s nothing short of absurd and offensive to me to read of scholars who are bewildered by this star.

How could it be? As if the God who made the sun and the moon and the entire galaxy of stars, who made the sun on one occasion to stand still in the sky, that he couldn’t make one little star move slowly across the sky in order to lead these men to his son, the Savior. This star, Matthew says, continued to shine and continued to lead the way until it came and stood over where the child was. This was no ordinary star.

Seems to appear, then disappear, then reappear, and even to move so as to direct these men. It was a miraculous provision by God to direct these men to the Savior. No wonder the affirmation of the star heartens the magi and encourages them toward their destination. The joy is not so much in a star, but in the one to whom that star was leading.

They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy, a beautiful description of intense gratitude. They’re not even yet before the child king, and their hearts are already warming to the praise of God, an indication that God will bless their exuberance and their perseverance.

I’ve already said it, there are always going to be contingencies that prevent us from worshiping. Legitimate things that stand in the way, prevent us from attending corporate worship. Most of us won’t face anything like a Herod, threatening our desire to worship, but we are going to be at times providentially hindered from worship. You may have already be thinking of things that have come up in the past that kept you from joining God’s people for worship. But as far as we’re able, by God’s grace, we are to persevere through those things for the purpose of meeting with God and his people in corporate worship.

Corporate worship is a privilege and it’s a priority. It is to be a priority and That is observable in the third example gleaned from the Magi. Not only do we see their intention to worship and their determination to worship, but the consummation of worship.

Would you look at verse 11? After coming into the house, they saw the child to marry with his mother. They fell to the ground and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They were thorough in their desire to worship. They didn’t quit until it was accomplished. They finally made it to their long-sought destination, Bethlehem.

And some amount of time obviously had elapsed since Jesus’ actual birth in a manger. Matthew’s account tells us that they were in a house, not a manger, in which the Magi found Jesus and Mary. I love Alfred Edersheim’s epic work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, and he makes a gripping observation here.

He says, with exquisite tact and reverence, the narrative attempts not the faintest description of the scene, the house. It is the great fact of the manifestation of Christ, not its outward surroundings, however precious or touching they may have been, to which our gaze must be directed. Edersheim says, don’t focus on the house. Don’t focus on the surroundings. The Magi didn’t. They focused on Christ. In short, the only focus is the Christ child.

And the important thing to note here is that the Magi now stand humbly before the child king and his mother. After all the arduous travel, after the spectacular and miraculous star, which they knew was God-given after very careful interaction with a dangerous and unpredictable king, after the reinforcement about the Messiah from Jewish scholars. Now, at long last, they’re standing before their Savior.

But they cannot stand for long. And it’s not because of fatigue from their journey. Rather, it’s out of respectful deference to the child king. They fall to the ground to worship him. It’s a dreadful concern that even if people intend to worship and they persevere in worship, that when all is said and done, they come in and they end up not worshiping.

Maybe they’re at odds with a fellow believer and they can’t focus on what they’re there to do. Or maybe the events of the previous week or big plans for the upcoming week are too distracting. They can’t focus their thoughts on God. Or maybe they don’t like a song being sung or the passage being preached isn’t to their liking. or the one preaching doesn’t do it for them. There are many, many things that we allowed to crowd out our thoughts of God and our subsequent worship of Him. So the Magi provide us an example even here, too.

They let nothing stand in the way. They let nothing stand in the way of what they intended to do from the outset, and that is to worship the child king, Jesus. And they do bring gifts. Treasures, as Matthew calls them, gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And each of those have a significance. Their custom seems to have been to visit, that in order to visit an important person, one was to come bearing some gift.

And so to this child king, they present three kinds of gifts. Frankincense and myrrh were costly Oriental spices. Frankincense was a spice due to a priest for Oriental sacrificial duties. Myrrh was the spice that was used for embalming the dead, and gold would certainly be an appropriate gift for a king. Each of the gifts were valuable. Each of the gifts has significance. And we could spend days discussing all the suggestions of the symbolic aspects of these gifts, but there’s a simpler and more important thing to note here. Imagine I simply fell down and worshiped the child king.

Isaiah the prophet declares that every knee will bow before him. Paul affirms that one day at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. Falling on one’s knees in worship is frequently captured in the Psalms. Psalm 22, nine, all those who go down to the dust will bow before him. Psalm 72, nine and 11, let the nomads of the desert bow down before him and let all kings bow down before him. All believers are called to render this kind of reverence. Come, Psalm 95, 6, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our God, our maker. Paul himself modeled this attitude of worship and prayer before the Ephesians when he said, I bow my knees before the Father.

These heathen magicians, Touched now by the grace of Almighty God, knew instinctively that they owed this child king the deepest and most sincere kind of worship. And they fell down. These men. who were up to now heathen magicians, dabbling in all kinds of nonsensical things, not only developed an intention to worship and persevered in their determination to worship, in time they succeeded in consummating their worship.

They saw the Savior that God has provided and that alone stirred their hearts to bring him worship. For them, There were no other so-called gods who were to be their objects of worship, nor was anything in all creation itself to be their object of worship. Certainly not themselves were they to worship. Now, God alone was to be worshipped. And that is, God himself had prescribed. They fell down, and they worshipped him.

Verse 12 closes the narrative of the Magi by telling us that they disregarded Herod’s demand that they return with a report about the child. Warned by God’s angel, they departed for their own country. See, for the Magi, worship was no longer an optional thing. a casual thing, a forgotten thing. For them, worship began in their heart, in their innermost being, and burst forth to the surface in shouts of praise and acclamation.

Our God is altogether holy and merciful. He is good and just, all-knowing and all-powerful. Every moment of every day, we have both the opportunity and the cause to humble ourselves before him in worship. If the angels themselves silently revere his glorious presence, shouldn’t we? When we glimpse or we are reminded of his awesome majesty, our only response is worship.

Could you do that with me now? Our merciful God, we come humbly before you, thankfully reminded of the example of these heathen magicians who, in ways not described to us, had to have been touched by the very grace of God. drawing them to a Savior who they intended to go and to worship.

Lord, we come before you with intents many times. Many times we intend to meet you for worship, but things in life just seem to get in the way. And so we thank you for their example of determination and intentionality in their worship. Lord, we thank you for granting us such. We know that many times the devil does everything he can to thwart our attendance in corporate worship. We thank you for the grace that enables us to be here as often as we can.

Father, we thank you for the reminder to set aside all thoughts other than thoughts of God. I remember one brother said, We’re sitting in worship if we’re doing or thinking about anything other than God and Christ. We’re not worshiping. Father, help us to persevere in that by your grace, to focus on the Savior that you provided.

Lord God, we pray for any who are here who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. No amount of attendance in a church building will ever save anyone. It is only by bowing as these heathen magicians did before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Lord Jesus Christ, bowing before him in repentance and faith, that’s the only way anyone will ever be saved. We plead on behalf of such people, that you would draw them to yourself. It’s in Jesus’ name that we ask.