I hope you're all doing well today. Very, very chilly outside. I think the cold is with us, but we praise the Lord that we can be here in a warm place. And it's good to have all of you who are with us virtually as well. I invite you to turn with me to Jeremiah chapter seven. Jeremiah chapter seven, we're going through the book of Jeremiah, not verse by verse, chapter by chapter, but we are hitting some of the top topics that Jeremiah presented to his people that the Lord placed upon his heart. And I think a timely reminder for all of us is that the Lord is looking at our hearts. He sees us as we have come to worship him. And so this is a challenge to those who would worship God. Jeremiah chapter seven, and we're gonna start reading here in verse one. Now this is called the temple sermon. And this is one of the more famous passages in Jeremiah. And so it has a lot here for us, and we're not gonna be able to cover very much, but we're gonna try to cover tonight verses one through 11. The Bible says in Jeremiah seven and verse one, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, stand in the gate of the Lord's house, that is the temple, and proclaim there this word, and say, hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you oppress not the stranger, that is the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will ye still murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not? And come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations, Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord." Since the 1930s, the people of the island of Tana in Guanatu in the South Pacific have been anticipating the arrival of a legendary figure that they call John Frum. They call him the King of America and the savior of the world. It is said that when John Fromm arrives, the mountains will fall down and fill the rivers. The land will be fertile and the people will prosper. John Fromm will provide new schools and the money to pay for the white man's goods. Everyone will have everything he wishes. Now, of course, John Fromm does not really exist. The John Frum movement reached its zenith during World War II when the US Army arrived in the Pacific Islands. These Pacific Islanders were amazed at the abundance of goods that these men possessed. Believing the soldiers to be set by John Frum, the Islanders immediately began to imitate their behavior. They performed elaborate rituals with flagpoles, homemade, of course. and began holding mock drills with bamboo rifles while wearing homemade uniforms. When the war ended, the soldiers left, taking their belongings with them. But the islanders did not lose faith in John Frum, nor in the fascination with all the goods that he could supposedly provide. Decades later, it was reported that most of the population was still eagerly awaiting his arrival. Anthropologists have recorded other such movements among the Pacific Islands, collectively called cargo cults. Now friends, there are times in our lives when our Christianity is nothing more than empty religion, a sort of cargo cult. As these Pacific Islanders did when they dressed up like soldiers and when they held mock drills, sometimes we just go through the motions of formal outward religious observance without inner reality, without cultivating our relationship with God. Now, of course, this is true of unsaved religious people. They go through the motions. Many of them don't even know what they're saying sometimes when they go through the liturgy. How could they? How could they know God when they're not born again by the spirit of God? But, you know, even we as Christians can fall into this trap where we go through the motions and our heart is not right with God. God sees. God sees the heart. He desires an inward relationship more than formal worship. Did you get that? He desires an inward relationship more than formal worship. And I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying here because formal worship is important. And in fact, it was the Lord himself that instituted the Old Testament sacrifices and the Old Testament tabernacle and the temple. But it was never meant to be simply an outward show. It was never meant to be just a series of forms and rituals. From the very beginning, God wanted the heart. of his people. And we're going to look at that tonight. Some people have an idea that in the Old Testament, all they did was just mechanically go through these forms and that God wasn't really concerned about reality. And nothing could be further from the truth when you read scripture. And by the way, the same is true of us tonight. Now, the application immediately for us is this. And that is most of us are used to having a series of religious duties that we perform each week. Nothing wrong with that. Going to church, reading our Bibles, praying, going to Sunday school and so forth, doing various ministries. Nothing wrong with those things, but even those things can become mechanical if we're not careful. We can start to go through the motions. And we can act as if God doesn't really care about the other areas of our lives. As long as we throw him a bone, so to speak, as long as we carry out formal worship and put on an outward show, then God doesn't really care what we feel inside. He only cares what we do on Sunday. He doesn't really care what we do the rest of the week. Nothing is further from the truth. And in fact, this is one of the reasons why God sent his people Israel into exile. One of the reasons why he withdrew his blessing from them. I want you to notice number one, God challenges us with his word. This is an act of love. But you know, anytime we sit under God's word, it's a challenge to us. And I think that we always need to be reminded of that. When I, as the senior pastor, sit under someone else's ministry, I am accountable. I am being challenged with God's word. In fact, when I preach a message, I am being challenged by that message. It's not just my challenging others. All of us are accountable to God. And so when the word of God is proclaimed, it's a very serious matter. But how many times does sitting and listening to preaching become mechanical? You see, we have to be very careful of that because this is God's word. It's not man's word. And I realize that maybe the preacher is not as entertaining as he should be, but you know, it's not about entertainment, but it's about proclaiming God's demands upon our lives. And that is an absolutely, right, it's a matter of absolute seriousness because we're talking about eternal matters. So this is what God does. Letter A, he challenges us to take heed to his word. He challenges us to take heed to his word. Don't just let sounds go into your ear. and into your brain, but listen, take heed, meditate, chew on those words and thoughts, so to speak. Philip Graham Ryken tells this story. He said in January of 1519, something shocking happened at the great Protestant church in Zurich in Switzerland. Everybody in the city was talking about it. It was a big event. One man felt or said he was so excited that he felt as if someone had grabbed him by his hair and lifted him up out of his pew. Now, what was the cause of all this excitement and this commotion? And it was this. It was a man named Ulrich Zwingli, the new pastor of the church, one of the leading lights of the Protestant Reformation. But what he was doing was something revolutionary in his day. He was preaching the word of God. Can you imagine going to church in those days and hearing a mind-numbing litany of rituals and liturgies and prayers, many of which you don't even know what they're saying? But then this man gets up, and at the first service in January, he opened his Bible to Matthew 1, and he began just to preach through the scriptures, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Wow, what a revolutionary idea, right? Well, it was for that day. For some people, that's still a revolutionary idea. I don't know why, but it is. At the next service, he picked up where he left off in the gospel of Matthew and just kept on going. He did the same thing in the third service, and thereafter, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, right through the New Testament. Oh, you mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John again? Well, yeah, that's what he was doing, but guess what? People were excited. They were excited to hear God's word because that was the first time many of them were really hearing it. Now they heard what the church taught, what the church said, but they hadn't heard what God said. And that was the difference. But all of a sudden they're hearing it for themselves. Well, what happened when he stopped with the New Testament? He started the old. He just went through the systematic, plain exposition of God's word, which was extremely rare at the time. And people from all over Zurich came to hear the minister explain the Bible in words they could understand. That was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland. It was the word of God that did it. Well, to this day, there's an inscription over the portal of that church that reads, the Reformation of Huldrych Zwingli began here on January the 1st, 1519. And friends, if we're gonna get right with God, that's where it begins, with God's word challenging our hearts. We're not the ones who can do it. It takes the supernatural work of God through his spirit and through his word. Well, letter B, Letter B, we mentioned number one, he challenges us to take heed to his word. Letter B, he challenges those who would come to worship him. So for God, it's not enough that you have come to worship. He demands that you worship him in the way that he has said, in the manner that he has provided. And that reminds us that he's a holy God. We don't just approach him any way that we please. Remember the Old Testament? Two men, Nadab and Abihu, were struck down by God because they offered what was called strange fire. They didn't take fire from the brazen altar, but instead they took fire that they had kindled themselves and they brought it to the golden altar of incense. And what that was saying was, is that God's way isn't necessary. You know, the bronze altar, pointed us to Christ. It pointed us to the judgment of Christ on the cross as the only way that we could approach God. It was only through his death and his shed blood, his being judged on the cross, that's the only way that we could approach God and go into his presence. But you see, by bypassing that altar, they destroyed the type. They destroyed that beautiful picture, and God was not pleased. He struck the two men down. is a sobering picture of how God demands worship done his way. And so he challenges those who come to worship. The Hebrew word for worship literally means to bow down before someone. And by the way, that was something that they did commonly. in their culture, and people still do it today in some cultures. It would be awfully odd if we came here to church and if I bowed down before you, okay? But in a lot of cultures, they still do that. In fact, that was once the accepted way of greeting someone in America. Around the time of the American Revolution, if you were one of the more elite, The American era, we didn't really have an aristocracy like Europe, but still, if you were one of the more elite people in society, you would bow instead of shaking hands. Shaking hands was considered vulgar. And so if you were to greet George Washington, he would have never shaken your hand, okay? He would have bowed before you. So that was done, okay? But it all comes from this idea, and that is you are showing honor and respect. But now when you bowed yourself to the ground before someone, you were doing that before someone who was superior, a sovereign. So the physical act of bowing was an acknowledgement of someone's high status and the allegiance which must therefore be shown. And that's really what the worship of God involves because he is the sovereign. He is so far above anyone here on this earth, so far above any earthly ruler or king. He is the creator. the Redeemer, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. And my goodness, if he doesn't, you know, he's the one who deserves worship more than anyone. He alone is worthy to receive glory and honor and wisdom and strength and power and so forth. And so we acknowledge that, and you know, that's what the fear of the Lord means when we talk about fearing God. It's not cowering and quaking in the presence of God. Well, if you don't know him as your savior, yeah, you'd better. And there's a certain healthy fear, being afraid that all of us ought to have of God because of how awesome and majestic he is. But at the same time, folks, I'm not afraid of God as I once was because I'm his child. because Jesus took my judgment that I deserved on the cross. But yet still I reverence God. He is still the same God as he's always been. I'm the creature on earth. I was made out of dirt, okay? And yet I am looking up to a holy God who has no beginning and no ending, who has all power. And so I acknowledge that. That's really what worship means. And it goes beyond something that we do as far as a mere physical gesture. It begins with a heart attitude, okay? Worship must come from the heart when we're talking about the worship of God. It's an attitude of heart submission, which results in obedience to God's covenant demands. Because God is sovereign, that means we should obey him. Okay, if we truly believe that, And he is, but if we're truly acknowledging that, then we'll obey him, just like we would a sovereign. God then has never intended that worship be a mere formality, okay? It is an expression of love, devotion, submission, and obedience to God. It is a wholehearted obedience. And I wanna draw your attention to this passage. And we'll be looking at this again. But Deuteronomy chapter six, if you wanna turn there, Deuteronomy six. And this is the Shema or the Shema, however you wanna pronounce it. And in Deuteronomy six, this is the great Old Testament confession of faith. Deuteronomy chapter six, the Shema. Deuteronomy six and verse four, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. In other words, he's unique. He's the only one who deserves what we're about to grant. Verse five, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. In other words, he gets your unreserved honor. You're not splitting it between him and some other God or some other thing or person. He gets everything. Your entire devotion, heart, soul, mind, strength, as we read in other scriptures, and these words which I command thee this day, and this is significant. If you worship God as your sovereign, then these words which he is commanding you will be in thine what? heart. There it is, the Old Testament talks about heart. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. It has always involved heart transformation. It's always been based on what Christ did for us. Now, they didn't have the Holy Spirit as we do today. They were not baptized into the body of Christ, but there was a heart change. There was They were born again. There was regeneration. I believe that strongly. Jesus told that to Nicodemus, remember, before he died on the cross. Technically, it was still Old Testament times. He says, ye must be born again. And he goes back to the Old Testament of how Moses lifted up the serpent. So we acknowledge God in our hearts as our sovereign. What does that mean? We obey him from the heart. We love him. It's not just mechanical outward duty. Well, that's number one, God challenges us with his word. Number two, God confronts us with his commands. God confronts us with his commands, verses three through eight. Letter A, this is the first command, correct your sinful behavior. And he uses the word amend here. The Hebrew word means to make something good or pleasant, and here it means to make better or to do what is right. The application here is that what you've been doing is not good. You need to change that and start doing what's good. That's the idea. It involves changing one's behavior for the better. It is not simply making a change, but changing in order to conform one's behavior to God's standard. And by the way, that's true repentance. True repentance is not simply making a change. It's not simply turning over a new leaf. It's not giving up a bad habit, although true repentance will include that, but it goes beyond that. directly to one's relationship with God. We turn from sin to whom? To God. So you see, I can turn from certain things in my life, okay, but that's not true biblical repentance. True biblical repentance is when I turn from sin and give my allegiance to whom? To God. See, I'm turning to him. And both aspects are included. That's why faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. Because it involves trust and obedience. To turn from my sin, to turn from myself and my own sinful desires to deny myself and to turn to God. So right worship involves right behavior based on God's commands. The worship of God then, and I want you to notice how this is done. This is what God mentions specifically. The worship of God is coupled with our treatment of other people. Did you know that? Loving God means loving others. We've been talking about this a lot, but I want you to see this passage. Go to Mark chapter 12, Mark chapter 12. And this is in verse 28, Mark chapter 12. Mark chapter 12 and verse 28. The Bible says, and one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, okay, the Sadducees and Pharisees were trying to track him, okay? They asked him, which is the first commandment of all? Which is the most important, in other words? And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, hear, O Israel. Does this sound familiar? The Lord our God is one Lord, Deuteronomy 6, 4. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. This is an expansion of the first of the 10 commandments. where we put no other gods beforehand. There it's stated negatively, but here it's stated positively. This is what you're supposed to do. Give God your full devotion, your full trust, your full allegiance. And thou shalt, well, let's go on to the next one though. Okay, that's the first commandment. Verse 31 and the second is like, It's like unto it, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, Leviticus 19. There is none other commandment greater than these. In other words, everything can be encapsulated with these two commandments, within these two commandments. And the scribe said unto him, well, master, thou has said the truth, for there is one God and there is none other but he. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the soul and all the strength and to love his neighbor as himself, and then here he says it, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. To love God sincerely is more important than formal worship. That's what he's saying. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly In other words, this was not a popular thing to say among the people of that day who adored their formal religion, okay? What happens? He said unto him, what? Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. Keep going, okay? Because this man understood salvation is all about a heart relationship with God. And yeah, that's where it begins for anyone under the sound of my voice, either here or virtually. You know, that's where the fear of the Lord begins with accepting Jesus Christ as personal savior. Acknowledging that we are sinners before God. that we need the sacrifice that only Christ provided. And to deny that is to make God a liar. It's to deny the truth. Well, that's what this involves, loving God and loving your neighbor. You know, we've been talking about in the past, the social justice movement, and I wanna make this application here, okay? The social justice movement, which has secular foundations, does identify certain problems in our society. It does point out inequalities, okay? There's some people that are treated unfairly because of their race, because of other things. But here's the problem with it. It lacks the right foundation, and therefore it will never come to the right solution. You see, here's some questions we've got to ask. Why should we seek justice? You know, if there is no God, and remember that's the secular foundation, then what's the whole point in seeking justice anyway? Because what is your reference point? What do we say justice is? Is it what one society deems it to be? Is it what one individual says it to be? Because justice is gonna look very different from one group to another. What is the ultimate standard or reference point? for true justice. You see, that's something that these movements can't answer, like Black Lives Matter, the social justice movement, these movements that are coming from secular foundations. Folks, we have that. And here's the challenge to us, and that is that God does care about these things. Let's not let the world co-opt these issues, because God cares about how we treat others. It's been his concern from the very beginning. But here's the term I like, biblical justice, okay? This is biblical justice. We treat others with kindness and fairness for several reasons. First of all, all people are made in God's image. We don't have any right to look down on others. Here's another reason, since God had mercy on us, we should have mercy on others. especially if you're a Gentile, that ought to really ring home. At one time, we were strangers and aliens from the covenant of promise, but God had mercy upon us. In the New Testament age, he threw open the doors of the gospel to Gentiles. Aren't you glad he did? Here's another one. In the Old Testament, doing justice was necessary to having God's covenant blessing. And that's what we see here in Jeremiah. God says, you want me to bless you? And watch how you treat others. It's important to God. You know, there were other passages where he says, remember that once you were a stranger in Egypt, remember how you were treated? So that's why you should treat foreigners in the right way. Here's another. God has commanded that we treat others as we would want to be treated. It's a command of God. Sentimentally connected with our relationship with him. It comes right down to this. Don't claim to be right with God if you mistreat other people. Did you get that? Don't claim to be right with God if you're unkind, if you're rude. Treating God with reverence is good and proper. However, you misunderstand what God demands if at the same time you treat others in a way that is wrong. If you treat them with unkindness, okay? And yes, we speak the truth in love. We speak the truth with conviction and firmness. You don't have to be mean about it, okay? You don't have to tear people's heads off. Let the gospel do its work. The gospel is offensive enough, okay? We don't have to add to it. By our personalities, we ought to be as winsome as possible, okay? As much as we can, Paul says, you live in peace with all men. So that's what God demands here. He's saying, look, you mistreat others throughout the week and then you come when it's time to sacrifice and go through the motions. God says, I'm not impressed by that at all. Not at all. Look at letter B. Stop taking refuge in your deceptions when it comes to sin. Stop taking refuge in your lies and deceptions, verses four through eight. Notice Jeremiah seven in verse four. He says, trust ye not in what? Lying words. These are words we use to lie to ourselves as well as others. And here it is. And it's a statement, so we have to explain this a little bit. The temple of the Lord, and they keep repeating that. So what they're saying is, hey, God's not gonna judge us. We're God's chosen people. This is the place where the temple is. The temple of the Lord. Hey, as long as we keep carrying out this formal worship, we're okay. Well, that's the attitude of a lot of people. That's how they see religion. J.A. Thompson says this, the temple in which the people trusted was a mere cover for every kind of ethical and legal misdemeanor. And later God says it's gonna be destroyed for that reason. They had turned to idolatry and false religion while maintaining the outward facade of devotion to Jehovah. And in that case, in such circumstances, the whole sacrificial system had become meaningless to God because their hearts were not right with Him. It was never His intention that either the temple or the sacrifice should become an empty form. The essential ingredient of any and every sacrifice, namely an attitude of obedience to Jehovah's covenant on the part of the worshipers, was lacking in these people. was speaking to a dear Christian friend years ago, but he was describing his life when he was a Roman Catholic. And he said, you know, when I was in the service, in the military, he said I would get drunk and, you know, engage in all kinds of debauchery. You know, he was in the wee hours of the night. And then he said, in the morning, I would stumble into confession and go to mass. And you know, that was supposed to take care of everything. And a lot of Catholics can identify with that. But listen, a lot of Baptists live that way. A lot of Methodists, a lot of Presbyterians, a lot of religious, so-called religious people live that way. And even if you're a true child of God, if you're not careful, that kind of thinking can infect you, where you say, yeah, I know this area in my life is not right, but as long as I'm doing this over here, that kind of balances everything out, you know? There are some people who say, well, I know I'm not a very religious person, but as long as I come on Christmas and Easter, maybe everything will be okay. And as long as I talk about God every once in a while, God, country, mom, and apple pie, be a good person, then somehow God's going to overlook me. But you know, a lot of people say that when they come and go through the motions at church, and then they're totally different the rest of the week. Their hearts don't belong to God. And you see, God is not fooled by this. So Jeremiah is saying this, stop rationalizing your sin. Stop lying to yourself about what sin is. Stop ignoring the consequences. So some people think as long as I come to church and act the part of a fine, upstanding Christian, it doesn't matter how I treat my wife or family. Now they would never say this out loud, but that's their behavior. As long as I carry out acts of service to the church, it doesn't matter how I talk to my parents. Is that you, young person? See, God cares about that. These acts of religion, yeah, they're important. I'm not saying that they're not needed, okay? Yeah, we go to church, we give to God, we do these other things. But folks, if your heart's not in it, God's not going to accept it. And he's not fooled by that. You can't make bribes or bargains with God. God is not concerned about mere outward religion or formality. He wants the heart. That leads us to number three. We see number one, God challenges us with his word. Number two, he confronts us with his commands. And then number three, he convicts us of religious hypocrisy. And so in chapter seven, verses nine through 11, Jeremiah goes through a litany of broken commandments. And by the way, when you put all this together, you know, in the previous verses, verses three through eight, he addresses a lot of issues dealing with the first four commandments, dealing with our relationship with God. Here, verses five through 10, he's dealing with sins against one's neighbor. Okay, the second part of the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, stealing. murder, committing adultery, lying, swearing falsely, false religion. And then he says in verse 10, you come and stand before me in this house and you expect everything to be okay. Letter A, we profane our worship with religious hypocrisy. So this is what the people are saying in verses 10 through 11. This is what God is telling them. They say, we can live however we want. And then we, as long as we come to the temple and go through the motions, everything's okay. Everything's all right, as long as we do that. It doesn't matter really how we live. God is not only concerned though with what we do on Sunday, but with what we do every moment of our lives. True religion is not a casual affair. And that's why David said in Psalm 51 and verse 16, for thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. Now God instituted these things, that is true. And they were to obey in way of performing these acts of worship, that wasn't the most important thing. Without the reality, it meant nothing. The sacrifices of God, David says, are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, oh God, thou will not despise. That's what God wants more than anything, is the heart. He'll have your sacrifices, by the way, if he has your heart. He'll have your tithes and offerings. He'll have your faithful attendance. He'll have your prayers and Bible reading. All of those things will come if you're right with God. But see, first and foremost, he wants the heart. He wants all of you, your full devotion. And then here's another passage. I want you to turn to this one. Look at Amos chapter five. Amos chapter five. one of the minor prophets. And Amos is talking about this same kind of hypocrisy. Amos chapter five and verse 21. Notice God's attitude towards their formal religion. Amos 5, 21. God says, I hate, I despise your feast days. and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. In other words, the incense that goes up, the fragrance, what God is saying is I'm not pleased, okay? I'm not pleased with what's going on. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me. the noise of thy songs. It's all just noise, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But what does it say in verse 24? But let judgment or justice run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. In other words, start treating people like you should, okay? And if you look in the context there in Amos, they were robbing others, They were extorting their brother. And God says, then you come in and you put on a pretense of worship before me. God is not fooled by that. You know, a Christian businessman can give a fortune to the church, but if he cheats his customers, God's not pleased. I mean, that doesn't make it right. So in the same way, these people were oppressing the people who worked for them, and God says, I'm not pleased with this. And trying to come before me and paper things over with formal worship is not gonna do it. So letter B, we come to this conclusion, God sees our hearts. And in Matthew 21, 13, Jesus identified this problem. The same as Jeremiah, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. God wants the heart. During the mid 1990s, the communist Chinese government forcibly commandeered a church building in the Chinese city of Wenzhou and appointed one of their own officials to take leadership of the church. Now this quote-unquote pastor was nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing. Philip Graham Ryken says this, the church had a large congregation, more than a thousand members in all. They had also built their church building with their own hands. Yet the communist government told them either to accept the new pastor or to leave the premises. In other words, they would have to do what the communists told them to do, worship exactly as they told them. Well, the people of that church decided to leave the church building with as many members as were willing to go. Within two days, they divided the congregation into dozens of house churches. They needed dozens because nearly a thousand members left that building behind. Now friends, these dear Chinese believers understood an important truth, and that is God sees beyond the outward trappings of religion. He sees the heart. That's what he wants most of all. And God helped us to be the same way. There's nothing wrong with these outward forms of religion that are instituted by scripture, but we have to realize first and foremost, God wants our hearts. Nothing wrong with going to church or with serving God, but God wants our hearts in the middle of it all. And God help us to give him that total devotion. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Lord, we thank you for the challenge that it gives us. And we thank you, Lord, that you love us enough to encourage us to examine ourselves, to demand that we Look into our hearts and allow your Holy Spirit to shine his light there. Lord, we know that these things are not possible except by your grace and by your power. We pray that we would be people who are real, people who are genuine in our faith. We pray that we would live in such a way that is pleasing to you, for you know all things, you know our thoughts, you know the heart. We thank you for this time of prayer. And as we bring these requests before you, we pray that you would hear on high, and we pray that you would give us a good time of prayer and fellowship together. In Jesus name, amen.