How Can I worship you Rightly?

Charlie Kirk

This week our nation suffered an immense tragedy.

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk is a tragic loss for his son and daughter

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk is a tragic loss for his wife

Its a tragedy because a clear manifestation of evil has been celebrated now by so many

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk was live streamed. My children saw it, many of your children saw it

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk is tragic because the rhetoric around violence is increasing and increasing and increasing

This has divided so many people, I know Christian people who lean toward the left who have posted

there is a lingering sense of what’s going to happen next?

Its a tragedy because people have had to say “Now I didn’t always agree with him…or I loved him or I couldn’t stand him” The political situation in our contry is so explosive that people can’t just say that a public assassination is tragic they have to add their own qualifier….

Do you get that? Discourse in America is broken.

What about Public Morality?

I think that as christians with one voice it would be a very biblical thing to do to say, murder is evil. All of it in all of its forms

I think it is a very christian thing to do to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I think it is a very Biblical thing to do to be peacemakers in the midst of a climate where people are literally celebrating death as a political victory….

I think this is the moment where the church stops sitting on its famously well folded hands and begins to be the standard bearers again for the gospel

I think this is where the church brings back a sense of public morality and public civility.

We have a role to play here

You are meant to be the image of the living God…May you show that off to people

May we be slow to speak

May we not ever put what is politically expedient ahead of of our shared humanity

And may we love our neighbor as ourselves…Whether they be liberal, conservative, libritarian, radical or whatevr.

Lets pray

How we worship

A while ago I read a book on the theology of worship and then one morning I was talking with a pastor friend and for whatever reason we just got on this topic of the centrality of worship and I think what happened is that as we were talking an entire teaching series was born…

I began taking notes and non stop thinking about the centrality of worship to christians

Being a pastor one of my obsessions is thinking though new things I can teach on. The Bible is this never ending

So in this teaching series I hope that I am able to lay out a proper theology of worship but even more than that what I really hope is that we begin to think about worship more and more as a church

But I guess my biggest hope for this series is that you would be doing the most mundane thing at work…like making copies and you would realize that you are giving worship to the Lord.

I wanted to put this on the screen it is a quote from David Peterson, a terrific theologian who has written extensively on worship

Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship Introduction

“Worship is the supreme and only indispensable activity of the Christian Church. It alone will endure, like the love for God which it expresses, into heaven, when all other activities of the Church will have passed away. It must therefore, even more strictly than any of the less essential doings of the Church, come under the criticism and control of the revelation on which the Church is founded”

-David Peterson

Do you see what he is saying…It is the supreme activity of a church…

It alone will endure into heaven

We don’t need helicopter egg drops in heaven. Although they are great ways to reach the community

We don’t need church t-shirts in heaven although they are awesome here…

What we need is to be deeply formed into people who are worshipers…

People who daily and with every breath give God the honor due his name

In our seres we just finished on Romans Paul talks about it as a living sacrifice..

So that is the idea of this series.

How do we form our whole lives as worshipers?

So before I get into even what the Bible says about worship…I thought I would take a second to look at three instances of scripture where worship was wrong

Sometimes it helps to look at the wrong thing before you look at the right thing…

So pretty immediately after Adam and Eve sin, the very next story is of their sons…

You might know the story.

Cain and Able…These brothers who both bring an offering to the lord…

This is an act of worship

Genesis 4:3–7 NIV

In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Good looked with favor on Able’s offering but Cain he did not!

What might seem impressive to us, might not be to God

Now there is an obvious lesson here

Cain was withholding his offering to God, the text says…”In the course of time cain brought some of the fruits of the soil”

Bringing your offering to the Lord is worship…Especially when we are talking about some of the first people who bring food to the Lord…Literally they are taking their survival and putting it in the hands of the Lord…

But for Able the text says that brought fat portions from the first born of his flock…

So the idea is that cain sort of filtered though his offering and decided what he would keep what was enough for him to live on and then give to the Lord

While Able had a newborn in his flock and dedicated it to the Lord

Cain’s offering required minimal faith!

Able’s offering required ton’s of faith…

Think about this for a second, Able’s offering implicitly acknowledges that God is the author of life….

You have to wait a long time for another of your flock to be born while Cain had a curated selection of plants to offer

The difference here is the heart in which they gave…

Able’s offering was sacrificial, Cain’s was self serving!

And we have to understand that in Genesis that God didn’t get upset at Cain’s offering but he literally just looked with favor on another offering…And Cain flipped out…

Let’s look at another instance…

Many Years later in the history of Israel….

Israel had already gone into the promised land but they turned their backs on the Lord

God is upset at Israel….Israel had the law but wouldn’t follow any of it

They are claiming they are God’s but their actions show that they belong to the serpent:

And guys, I think God hates this when we try and pretend like we are God’s favorites and then we treat others like dirt…..

God hates the incongruity of supposed belief and then our behavior….

God hates it when we worship him…But yet our lives look nothing like him…

That is what was happening in the book of Amos…

Amos 5:21–24 NIV

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Here is what God is saying…

I despise your religious festivals!??? Those are festivals to the Lord!

You are just pretending to worship me…’

You are saying we belong to the Lord but then you oppress the poor and the fatherless…

and because of that…

Your worship to me stinks!

I will not accept it!

Why? Their worship and their lifestyle did not line up!

If we are going to stand here and sing Jesus is my king…Then that should show up tomorrow morning in the office…

If we are going to stand here and sing about the Glory of God then we better reveal to the world what the Glory of God is like…

God is saying to a whole people group…I do not accept your worship!

WHY? You are not good ambassadors of me!

Ok New Testament

This one is alway tricky, someone always says WHAT! Why on earth would this happen…

So what is happening is that people are selling property and bringing the money to the Apostles for use for the church

Acts 5:1–10 NIV

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

I know this seems harsh…

Peter’s point was not that the church wants your money and you didn’t give it all so now you’re going to die!

Peter’s point was that you are now new temple people. and you have brought deception into the new community of God

You could have done whatever you wanted with this money but you publicized hey look we are going to give it all away…We want to appear generous and religious but in reality we are withholding…

In other words…Your offering was literally to buy a good reputation in the church

Ananias and Sapphirh worship was really about them and their own reputation…It had nothing to do with honoring the lord

They wanted to look like a major Patrons in the church that bankrolls the operation!

So they lied about the amount of money they received so they could have held some back for themselves…All while looking like these really impressive people!

Peter’s whole point was, you didn’t have to give any of this money, you were free to do what you wanted instead you used this to make yourselves look big

Right worship is on God’s terms not ours

What might seem impressive to us, might not be to God

I mean the pharisees has this really impressive religious display and what did Jesus say to them?

Matthew 9:13 NIV

But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sacrifice was the proper act of worship in the life of Israel

but what God really wants is mercy.

What he wants is you to show evidence that his own mercy lives in you!

What God really wants out of your life is what David calls from Psalm 51, A broken and a contrite heart

So what does this mean for us? How do we worship the Lord rightly?

What does this mean for the idea of worship?

I want to start where the Bible starts

There are a few words for worship used in the Old Testament

Genesis 2:15 NIV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

The word for “work” that is used here is the word A’vad

It might seem odd that the word for work is also one of the words for worship

But the this word is used interchangeably for work, serve or worship

When the priests offer sacrifices in the Old testeament they are A’vad-ing the Lord

They are serving

It is interesting when God invites humanity to work or to Avad the garden, its an easy work…it is a work of freedom

But we have to remember that humanity sinned and work outside of the garden became hard and toilsome…

So one of the best places to see this is in the book of Exodus

Exodus 5:18 NIV

Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.”

When they “A’vad” Pharaoh, it is literally slavery!

But then God rescues the Israelites so that they can Avad him in the wilderness!

18 times in the book of Exodus the Israelites are called to Avad the Lord

Exodus 3:12 NIV

And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

So all the way through the early parts of Exodus there is this tension.

Who will Israel A’vad?

Will they serve Pharoah and be slaves or will they serve the Lord and be free?

Worship number one is all about who you serve

This is the first lesson that the Bible gives on worship

Who does my life serve? Does my life serve the Lord or me?

Worship is a life orientation around a person and that person is God

everything in our culture and in our world is telling you to serve yourself…

America is a materialist culture. We are relentlessly marketed to, to have a better body, to look younger and sexier! to make more money, to make life easier and more convenient…Essentially the message that we relentlessly receive is to worship yourself!

Facebook, Instagram, X, and Tic Toc are all telling you to make yourself great! You get a platform, you get a voice…You are important… And we are so steeped in American culture that we don’t even see this all the time…

But what this word Avad reveals is that

Worship is a life orientation

Who you organize your life around will either lead to slavery or to freedom

What you praise forms you

What you worship sets the trajectory for your life

One of my favorite lines in the Bible comes from John the baptist…

All of his disciples came to him and they said this:

John 3:26 NIV

They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

I think they are concerned…hey John we were making progress…at one time everyone was coming to you

At one time you had the big crowd

Now our crows are dwindling

Now we don’t seem as impotrant!

And John’s response was this

John 3:30 NIV

He must become greater; I must become less.”

John had his life arranged around Jesus.

His disciples were concerned about their own reputation about dwindling crowds….But John was concerned not about himself but about Jesus

John always had his priorities right…he Avad’d for Jesus!

See my point is that there are a lot of things to organize our lives around

If we worship the Pharaoh’s of this world then our lives will inevitably end up in slavery

and you know this! that our hope can not be tied to the promises of a Pharaoh…

The Pharaoh’s of this world will eventually enslave you!

Only freedom is found in the lord…

Now there are more words for worship in the Bible. This is not the only word…The first word reminds us that who we worship matters

There are other words that talk about reverence, bowing down before a superior

Words that talk about giving praise

But one of the things that I wanted to show you this morning is that in Exodus worship is a response to the freedom that they had been given

Worship is almost always a response to the revelation God

Now it is true that we should worship God because he is God, alpha and Omega creator of the universe

But at the end of the day he has done something

and that something he has done is to give us freedom and to rescue us from the Pharoah’s in this world

Now there are a lot of acts of worship in the Bible before this point

but I want to show you portions from Moses & Miriam’s song

Because the first thing that Moses did after being saved from the tyrany of Pharaoh is to write a worship song…

He didn’t throw a party and say we did it!

See Moses’ life was A’vad-ing for the Lord

At the point of exodus that we are going to get to right now what has happened is that after all the plagues God led Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt,..They crossed the red sea on dry ground and the sea swallowed up all of Pharaoh’s army

Which by the way, fun fact, in Egypt’s creation myth the god of Egypt comes up as an egg from the sea and self evolves into a god….The Pharaoh is a living embodiment of the Egyptian god…so the story of Pharoah dying in the red sea is also telling a bigger story that Yahweh is bigger than Ra

Exodus 15:1 NIV

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.

Notice who Moses is A’vading here!

he doesn’t turn around and say “we did it guys”

See proper worship is always directed to the Lord!

Exodus 15:2–6 NIV

“The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy.

See Moses worships because God saved his life!

And then the rest of these verses is comparing the power of Pharaoh with the Power of Yahewh….which by the way doesn’t even compare

I am going to jump down to Exodus 15:11 where Moses askes the most impotrant question

Exodus 15:11 NIV

Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

This verse recognizes the uniqueness of the power of God

That God is so much higher than any of the powers of this world that he is Majestic in holiness

Awesome in Glory

and this is the heart of worship!

Seeing that you are just a sinner

you are just a person who has fallen short of the Glory of God but we serve a God who rescued his people out of egypt

We serve a God who loves you so much that he sent his son to take away your sin and to make you new

We serve a God who took our own punishment on himself on the cross.

We serve a God who wants relationship with us!

WHo do you AVAD?

Colossians 3:23–24 NIV

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

When Paul wrote

Response

Who are you Avading? Who are you sering in your life?

Your whole life is worship whether you realize it or not

You will either Avad Jesus or you will Avad for yourself

In the words this of he wasBob Dylan, You gotta serve somebody…It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody