Jude 20+21, But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 
	We have spent the last number of weeks looking at the need for diligence in our service of worship unto God. This diligence is necessary both in the corporate and the individual efforts of the Christian in order to bring forth a worthy sacrifice of worship unto God. Now, please bear in mind the fact that it is because we desire to so please the Lord that the Holy Spirit is free to work that preparation into our lives. It is something that becomes true of the entire manner in which we live before God and before man. We cannot just segregate our efforts and time and energy and thoughts as those that belong to God and those that we are free to use in any other manner in which we desire. 
	Deut 6:13, You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name. There is no leeway in this for letting ourselves treat people in different manners than that with which we come before the Lord. As the Holy Spirit makes us that which is pleasing to God in order to come before Him with a heart full of worship and adoration and reverent fear, so must we become aware of the fact that we must deal with everyone in a different mind and heart-set. We will begin to see them through the loving eyes of our Heavenly Father Who so loves them and so loves us that He sent forth His Only Begotten Son to die for our sakes. We will begin to recognize that there is no area that is appropriate for our disdain of another person, our unforgiveness of what others have done to us, any favoritism or neglect. We will begin to view everyone else in terms of what pleases the Father with regard to the manner in which we react and respond to these also so beloved ones of God. Our reverence for God will be reflected in our reverence and dealings with others. We will begin to see them as eternal beings with an eternal future.
	Ps 2:11+12, Worship the Lord with reverence, And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! It is as we take refuge in Him, no matter what we are facing in this world that our worship develops in its intensity to be glorifying unto Him. It is as we are brought to the realization that we really have no other place to turn in order to find life that our hearts will fill with praise and adoration for the One, True God of Heaven and earth. It is in this light that we find ourselves regarding others without malice nor envy nor anything other than humility of heart. We will acknowledge the truth that God so chose to love us that He called us unto Himself. It is all His doing and nothing that we bring to the table. There is no value in me to merit the love of God, so how can I expect any others in my life to be worthy of His love, let alone my love. Phil 3:3, for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh… 
This is an area that many of us find almost impossible with which to deal. We look at others with critical eyes that try to discern whether or not this one or that one deserves our love. We treat them with an attitude of superiority, that our love is so valuable that they must earn their way into our heart. Thank God that He does not treat us in that manner. Admittedly, if anyone were to hold such righteousness over the heads of others, it would be Our Most Holy and Upright God. But He does not do this. He chose to love us unto Himself, and that is how we are to treat others. No matter who they may be and how they may have treated us, we are to love them. Eph 2:4-7, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 
	This brings us to the true matter at hand which is reflected in our attitude toward God and toward others. This is what everything comes down to. With what mind-set do we regard and approach the work that Jesus Christ has accomplished? The answer will be very evident in our dealings with other people, believers and non-believers alike. 1 John 4:9-11, By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. If we truly appreciate and treasure the work that Jesus Christ has accomplished, we will desire to have Him reflected in our every interaction, our every relationship. He will be seen in our marriages, in our families, in our fellowship, in our leisure time, and in our work place. He will be the focal point of our every dealing with God and with humanity. There can be no other way of it!  
	It is in this true attitude of the value of Jesus Christ, that our worship will take that heart of gratitude and awe and incomprehensible joy to the very throne of God’s glory and majesty. This true attitude of worship allows for no other aspect of our selves to get into the way. We will not try to impress God with our ideas of what will please Him. We will not put before Him an offering that is based in any measure on our efforts and our willful ideology. Lev 10:1-3, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the Lord spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.'" We will simply come to Him in the humbleness of heart to honor Him in all the purity and simplicity of His Word in obedient awe of His holiness and grace and mercy. We will come unto Him in the reverence and submission of heart that puts everything in the trust and hope of Jesus Christ.
	Ps 5:3-8, In the morning, O Lord, Thou wilt hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to Thee and eagerly watch. For Thou art not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with Thee. The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity. Thou dost destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. But as for me, by Thine abundant lovingkindness I will enter Thy house, At Thy holy temple I will bow in reverence for Thee. O Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness because of my foes; Make Thy way straight before me.
Notice a key aspect to this attitude of true worship … lead me in Thy righteousness because of my foes; Make Thy way straight before me… God uses our foes to cause us to seek Him with all our heart. He uses those people in our lives who are not the nice ones, who are not the supportive ones, those who are manipulative and angry and unforgiving and hateful as a means of causing us to be lead by His righteousness. It is as we learn to deal with them, through the perfect love of Jesus Christ, that we will discover the path of God’s virtue and right standing in our entry before Him with reverence and awe. Think about this for a moment. When we can come before God and truly, with all our heart, thank Him for the opportunity to love those who hate us, when we can lift up the burden that He will love them unto Himself in all purity and joy, then will we know, with more clarity and certainty, the heart of God. When we can thank Him from a stance of true empathy for the well-being of our enemy, then we can grasp, to some level, the great love with which we have been loved. That should surely cause us to worship God in humility and openness of a deeper intensity of why He deserves all honor and praise.   
	This then should cause us to consider Our Heavenly Father, Our Redeemer Lord Jesus Christ, and Our Comforter and Guide, the Holy Spirit, with a profound measure of reverence and respect and tribute. Ps 89:5-9, And the heavens will praise Thy wonders, O Lord; Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies is comparable to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the Lord, A God greatly feared in the council of the holy ones, And awesome above all those who are around Him? O Lord God of hosts, who is like Thee, O mighty Lord? Thy faithfulness also surrounds Thee. Thou dost rule the swelling of the sea; When its waves rise, Thou dost still them. We should be finding ourselves joining in the chorus of all creation to the glory of God.
Ps 93, The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. Thy throne is established from of old; Thou art from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O Lord, The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their pounding waves. More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The Lord on high is mighty. Thy testimonies are fully confirmed; Holiness befits Thy house, O Lord, forevermore. Where in this symphony of praise is there any place for our self-adulation, our self-absorbed consideration in any manner? This is a complete position and outlook that considers God, Alone, in all His majestic splendor and grandeur and magnificence! 
	The preacher has a great warning for our entrance before the Lord God Almighty, with regard to the mind-set of why and how we come into worship. Eccl 5:1+2, Guard your steps as you go to the house of God, and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. 
The church, the fellowship of the Body of Jesus Christ, needs to learn the value of silence before God. That silence is the silence of our pushing our thoughts and our motives and our spirituality into the forefront. When we do so, we are simply a clanging gong of noise, polluting the air of God’s reverent holiness. No, we must learn to silence our endeavors and our thoughts and our conceptual dogma, and listen to Him. Hab 2:20, "But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him." So often we are caught up in the noise of ourselves, and cannot hear the voice of God’s innermost sanctuary of intimacy. We are too busy thinking and plotting and trying to present ourselves in our worthiness. We need to just come before Him in the quietness and the reverence of the Holy Spirit and enjoy His presence in our gathering together in His name.
This attitude of quiet reverence is what will present to us those aspects of our lives that need to be fully under His direction for a more perfect worship. It is as we are quiet before Him in our hearts and minds that we can hear the prompting and the urging of the Holy Spirit as to those manners of bringing an honoring sacrifice of praise and worship unto Him. 
The Apostle Paul combines all of these aspects of the church in true fellowship and worship before us in Rom 12:1-5. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 
	We are brought into this worship together. We are united together in Jesus Christ. We are enabled to worship because we are made alive unto God, unto worship in the life of Our Lord and Savior. It is as we are so integrated in Him, that our singleness of purpose and praise and adoration will be evidenced through the manifested heart of the Son’s love for the Father. We worship in spirit and truth because we worship in Him. John 4:23+24, "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." 
	Lord willing, these studies have challenged every one of us to seek after worshipping the Lord with diligence in our preparation of heart and mind. I was questioned at the beginning of these considerations as to whether this diligence is something that can be instilled into us, or is it just a characteristic of certain people. Is it something that can be learned, or is it just the way some people are made? Lord willing it has become apparent over these sessions, that spiritual diligence stems from our heart’s desire to honor God to the utmost in our lives. That is put into place as we listen to and obey the Holy Spirit. None of us can stand before God and state that we are unable to practice this diligent service unto Him. We cannot seriously defend our laziness and lack of effort by blaming God for making us in that fashion. We cannot lay at His feet the lack of interest and concern that we harbor in our hearts! Every true Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit and it is in His work and in our obedience to Him that we will find every resource in our lives to diligently serve God to the utmost. The key questions that we each must face are: “Do we want to so diligently serve God?” “Does He really mean so much to us that we will do everything that He requires in order to honor Him?” I pray that as we continue forth in our service of worship, every one of us will take to heart the fact that we must stand before God and answer to the manner in which we have come before Him in our service of worship. 
This is a continual process of purification that the Holy Spirit has undertaken in our personal and corporate lives. This dare not be just a series of messages that has now come to an end. We need to have our most serious dealings with the Lord in an on-going, deep within our heart, moment-by-moment and day-to-day working of His grace to make us a people who are utterly pleasing unto Him. This affects our daily walk with Him as He works to get us to worship on time, and prepared to place before Him a sacrifice of praise that is worthy of His majestic splendor. If is our earnest desire, He will be our diligence of service unto a most pleasing and fragrant aroma of worship unto Our Lord Jesus Christ. So be it!
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is Ps 34:1-3. I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. Amen.