Right Worship Matters

When Maria Rubio of Lake Arthur, New Mexico, was making a burrito in 1977, she saw the face of Jesus on one of her tortillas. She was thrilled and showed it to her husband and neighbors, who all confirmed that the tortilla had a face that looked like the classic Roman Catholic images of Jesus.

She took the tortilla to her priest for a blessing. She said that the tortilla had transformed her life, and Mr. Rubio said that she had become a more calm, joyful, and obedient wife since the tortilla came. The priest, who had never blessed a tortilla before, hesitated but agreed.

Mrs. Rubio brought the tortilla home, framed it in a shadow-box with cotton to make it seem like it was in the sky. Mr. Rubio made a special altar for it. They put everything in a wooden shed in the backyard and welcomed visitors. In a few months, more than eight thousand people visited the Shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla, and they all believed that the face in the tortilla was Jesus—except for one reporter who said it looked like Leon Spinks, the world heavyweight boxing champion then. (Spinks was known for being ugly because he had lost most of his front teeth.)

In two years, more than 35,000 people came to the shrine. For twenty-eight years, pilgrims kept coming to see the Sacred Tortilla. As time passed, the tortilla faded and the face was hard to see, but people still wanted to worship there.

Then in 2005, Mrs. Rubio’s granddaughter brought the tortilla to school for show-and-tell. Someone dropped it by mistake and it broke. Mrs. Rubio kept the shadow-box, now with only pieces of the broken tortilla on the cotton clouds, but no one cared any more and the Rubio family finally shut down the crumbling shrine.

I’ve heard many similar stories. People have said they saw images of Jesus on a pizza, on a toast, on a garage floor, on a banana, on a tree, on a Cheeto, on a bathtub, on a grilled-cheese sandwich, on a wall, on many other tortillas, and on too many other weird and random places to list. Such stories appear on the internet at least once a month. People always rush to see and worship the images.

It seems unbelievable that so many people would worship things like burnt tortillas, deformed Cheetos, and rust stains. But the sad truth is that such a twisted idea of worship is actually more common today than real worship based on solid, biblical principles.

Sadly, even though the Bible is clear about how and whom and when we should worship, very little true worship happens in most of the world today.

I have often wondered why worship is one of the most confused and misunderstood doctrines in all the Scriptures.

It is spiritually harmful, because worship is at the heart of everything Scripture tells us to do. In other words, if you are not a real true worshiper, everything else in your life will be spiritually out of sync.

On the other hand, nothing will speed up your spiritual growth and sanctification than learning what true worship is.

We will be beginning a new series of messages today that will focus on the topic of True Genuine Worship diving deeper into passages in the Bible that I believe will help us all understand more clearly what worship is and what worship is not.

In form of an introduction let’s first focus on briefly

WORSHIP IN THE BIBLE

Worship is the central theme of the Bible.

It shows us how Adam’s disobedience to God’s one command led to the fall in Genesis.

It reveals how God’s love for His people will bring them into an everlasting worshiping community in Revelation.

From the first book to the last, the Bible teaches us the importance of worship in every aspect of life.

Jesus echoed this when He cited Deuteronomy 6:4–5 as the greatest commandment:

Mark 12:29–30 NKJV

Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

This is an invitation to worship, and by placing it above all other commandments, He was clearly declaring worship as the ultimate purpose of everyone.

Exodus 20 gives us the Ten Commandments. The very first one tells us how to worship and whom to worship:

Exodus 20:2–5 NKJV

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

In the Old Testament, worship was not just a ritual; it was a way of life for God’s people.

For example, the Tabernacle was built and arranged to highlight the priority of worship. The details of its design take up seven chapters—243 verses—in Leviticus. But only 31 verses in Genesis describe the creation of the world.

The Tabernacle was a place of worship.

It was where God met with His people. To use it for anything else would have been a terrible sin.

There were no seats in the Tabernacle. The Israelites did not go there to relax or be entertained. They went there to serve and worship God.

When it comes to worshipping God it is God who sets the perimeter, not us. He is the one who lays out the way it is to be done.

Some would insist that any kind of sincere worship is acceptable to God, but that is simply not true. The Bible shows us that God does not approve of worship that is based on our own ideas, even if we mean well. It does not matter how good our intentions are or how earnest we are in our effort, if we do not worship God the way He told us to, He will not bless us.

FOUR KINDS OF UNACCEPTABLE WORSHIP

According to the Bible, there are four types of worship that God does not accept.

One is the worship of false gods.

There is no other God but the God of the Bible, and He is a jealous God who will not tolerate the worship of another.

Isaiah 48:11 NKJV

For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.

Another passage echoes these same words

Isaiah 42:8 NKJV

I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.

Exodus 34:14 NKJV

(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

Most people in the world do not worship the true God. Romans 1:21 accuses everyone of this problem.

Paul says that all people in their sinful, lost state knew God, but they did not respect Him as God or thank Him. ‌

Paul then explains how our race went down into deeper and worse kinds of false worship. He shows that the main cause of human evil is false worship—starting with not worshiping God as we should.

Those who reject the true God always make their own false gods to worship—and that makes them do more and more evil things in their false religion.

Paul says it in a simple way:

Romans 1:22–23 NKJV

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Verse 24 then tells the bitter consequences of worshiping false gods:

Romans 1:24 NKJV

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,

Verse 26 says,

Romans 1:26 NKJV

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.

When people worship wrongly, God lets them go their own way and suffer the results of their sin.

Can you imagine anything more terrible? Their sin takes over their lives more and more, and in the end, Romans 1:32–2:1 tells us that they will face God’s wrath with no defense. ‌

We all worship something. God made us as spiritual beings, and He put in our hearts the desire to worship Him.

But when people turn away from God, they always worship something else. Even an atheist does this. He worships himself. This is exactly what God said not to do in the first commandment.

A second kind of unacceptable worship is the worship of the true God in a wrong form.

Exodus 32:7–9 records God’s response when the Israelites made a golden calf to worship:

Exodus 32:7–9 NKJV

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ” And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!

Notice that they were paying homage with their lips to YHWH, the One who had delivered them from Egyptian slavery. They clearly believed they were worshiping the true God—they intended to worship Him—but they had reduced Him to an image.

Years later, as recorded in Deuteronomy 4:14–19 Moses said to the assembled Israelites,

Deuteronomy 4:14–19 NKJV

And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. “Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage.

In other words, God did not show Himself to the Israelites as a nation in any specific shape. He only showed them His glory and power—the fire and smoke pillars, the wonders, and the shining face of Moses—but He did not have any physical or visible form.

This is true of our heavenly Father in all the Bible. Why? Because God does not want to be limited by an image. ‌ It is wrong to think of God as an old man with a beard on a throne. Idolatry starts in the mind, not with a carving tool.

How should we picture God? Nothing at all. No visual idea of God can capture His eternal splendor. That may be why God is called light. It is impossible to make a statue of light.

A third kind of unacceptable worship is the worship of the true God in a self-made manner.

The Pharisees tried to worship the true God with a self-made manner, and Jesus told them, “You yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matthew 15:3). Their personal self made traditions hindered they worship and it was an abomination.

A far more subtle kind of false worship than any of the three we have mentioned is the worship of the true God in the right way, with a wrong attitude.

Fourth kind of unacceptable worship is the worship of the true God in the right way, with a wrong attitude.

Even if we get rid of all fake gods, all pictures of the real God, and all our own methods of worship, our worship is still not pleasing to God if our heart is not in the right place.

Maybe you don’t worship any false gods or images of the true God.

And maybe you don’t make up your own way to worship. But do you worship with the right spirit?

If not, your worship does not honor God.

Do you worship with your whole heart? When you give, do you give the best of what you have? Do you feel awe and respect in your soul? Let’s be honest: none of us can say yes to those questions without doubt or exception. ‌

In Malachi 1 God scolds the people of Israel for their poor worship. He said,

Malachi 1:7–8 NKJV

“You offer defiled food on My altar, But say, ‘In what way have we defiled You?’ By saying, ‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’ And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?” Says the Lord of hosts.

In other words “You are bringing rotten food to My altar” (v. 7). They did not care about worship, they were careless. They gave blind, lame, and sick animals (v. 8) instead of the best they had, showing that they did not value worship.

In verse 10, God says, “You do not please Me … and I will not take an offering from you.”

He rejected their worship, because their heart was not right.

Other passages such as Amos 5:21; Hosea 6:4-6; Is. 1:11-15; tell the same story of bad hearted worship.

Read carefully the minor prophets. The prophecies of Israel’s and Judah’s destruction are related to the fact that they did not worship God with the proper attitude.

OUR GREATEST NEED

The most important thing for all Christians is to know what the Bible says about worship.

If the church does not worship right, it does wrong in everything else. ‌

Many people in the world worship falsely, the kind of worship that cares about a tortilla, or worldly things, or ceremonies or rules, or even God’s gifts.

If not those things, we worship in our own way that makes us happy. And even when we try our best, our worship is not sincere or wholehearted.

God will not accept such worship on its own merits. The Bible is clear about that. ‌ We need to learn again what worship means. God has commanded it. Our service to Him relies on it. It is vital for our connection to Him and our witness to the world. We cannot neglect it. There is too much at risk.

Next week sermon message will be “How Shall We Worship?” We will focus on True Worship (John 2:24) Worshiping God in Spirit and Truth and Sola Scriptura (through scripture alone)

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, we come before you with humble hearts, acknowledging that you are the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and the only one worthy of our worship.

We confess that we have often failed to worship you in spirit and in truth, and we have been distracted by the things of this world.

We ask you to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lord, we desire to know you more and to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

We ask you to open our eyes to see your glory, your beauty, your holiness, and your grace.

We ask you to open our ears to hear your voice, your word, your commands, and your promises.

We ask you to open our minds to understand your truth, your will, your ways, and your purposes.

We ask you to open our hearts to receive your love, your joy, your peace, and your presence. Lord, we want to worship you not only with our words, but also with our actions, our thoughts, our attitudes, and our lives.

Lord, we thank you for the gift of worship, and we pray that you would help us to worship you in spirit and in truth, for that is the kind of worshipers you seek.