How's Your Worship?

Introduction:

Introduction:

How’s your worship? Did you plan on meeting God when you walked into this building this morning? Are you hear because this is where you’ve always been on a Sunday morning? There are times in life that we get stuck in a rut. Maybe we have done the same things over and over so many times, we just act on instinct. Israel faced something similar in our text this morning in Zechariah chapter 7.

Zechariah is fourteen chapters long and is the longest of the minor prophets. The book can be broken down into two major sections. Chapters one through six tell us about eight night visions that Zechariah received from God and they told of where the people were at and what was coming in the future for the people and how God was working in the people’s lives. Remember this all revolves around encouraging the people to finish rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed over seventy years before this when their families were taken to Babylon. Chapters seven and eight present an interlude that transitions into the final chapters, and that leads us into chapters nine through fourteen which are more apocalyptic in nature and deal with the coming of the Messiah and the end of the age.

Zechariah 7:1–14 ESV

1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord, 3 saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” 4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: 5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’ ” 8 And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. 12 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts. 13 “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the Lord of hosts, 14 “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”

Condemnation of False Religion (1.1-7)

The date of this prophecy is very specific which is about late November or early December of 518 BC, and here we see a delegation from Bethel come to see the priests to seek the favor of the Lord. Basically what they are doing here is “calling on God” to ask a question. The word for favor here means to “seek His face,” and they were looking for a personal encounter with God.

Bethel is important earlier in scripture and we see two scenes that is is important. The first is when Abraham is on his way to Beersheba from Haran in and the second is when Jacob met God there when he had his vision of the ladder coming out of heaven with the angels ascending and descending on the ladder where God reaffirmed the covenant He made with Abraham.

Verse three is the pivotal question and what this entire passage hinges on. The delegates as the question, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” God responds in verse five by basically saying, “Did you do it for me?”

The delegation was, in essence, asking about HOW they should be worshipping. The fast they were speaking of was to remember the destruction of the temple, so every day for the last seventy years or so, they were celebrating a fast, and not that the temple was being rebuilt, the situation had changed and they were asking if they should keep worshipping the same way they had been pretty much all their lives.

The question, however, seems to go much deeper than that. It wasn’t so much a question of form of worship as it was more of a question of being open about their fasting for all to see. Basically what they are saying here is, “We have been doing this all this time, and now we want you to know that we are still doing it.” They are in essence drawing others attention to their self-righteousness. Jesus spoke to a very similar situation with the Pharisees in

Matthew 6:16–18 ESV

16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

What is at issue here is motivation for worship. It is matters of the heart. The people were acting out of habit instead of being led by God to worship, and we see this from God’s response when He asks, “Was it for me?” In the Hebrew, this phrase is actually duplicated which is reaffirming its importance here.

One other thing we must look at is the fasting being brought up. Fasting was an important part of the Jewish worship experience, and we see many examples of fasting: In the book of Joel, it is an integral part of worship; Esther speaks of fasting as well; Daniel had a partial fast for a specific reason; and Jesus had a total fast while He was in the desert which was a supernatural fast. For the Jewish culture, fasting was important, and they practiced this discipline regularly. Fasting wasn’t just not eating to not eat (we call that dieting), or just to say you were giving something up, there was a real spiritual meaning behind it. The purpose of the fast was to give back the time and resources that one would have spent on that particular activity back to God for the purpose of drawing near to God. So the question this delegation is bringing to God is “Should we keep doing things the way we have always done it?” and God’s response is that it’s not about what you are doing it, it’s about why you are doing it.

The bottom line here is they were looking for a valid reason to keep doing things the way they had always done done them out of habit.

Exhortation to True Worship (1.8-10)

This next section contains God’s extended response to the question and He responds probably not in a way they were expecting. Here He lists off a few things that are truly important to Him. First He tells them to render true judgments (be just), then He tells them to show kindness and mercy to one another, and to not oppress the widows, orphans or sojourners (show compassion), and then he tells them not to devise evil against one another (quite backstabbing and being busybodies).

These are the qualities of God that He desires from His people. The Jews had gotten so caught up in the fact that they were God’s chosen people and that the rest of the world was literally a bunch of heathens, and this caused them to neglect the point and purpose of the law which was for them to exhibit God-like character traits toward others. Jesus was very explicit in this point in the great commandment in when He said it wasn’t enough just to love God with every fiber of your being, but to lover your neighbor as yourself.

The Consequences of False and Empty Worship (1.11-14)

Verse eleven transitions with that powerful three-letter word “but.” God then lists off an indictment against the pre-exile nation on what they did in response to His calls to return to true worship. They refused to pay attention, they turned a stubborn shoulder, they stopped their ears, and they made their hearts diamond-hard to what God was telling them.

The consequences of their stubbornness was they faced a complete and total devastation. The kingdom of Israel was divide into two kingdoms and the northern kingdom was completely obliterated, and eventually the southern kingdom was taken into exile in Babylon and their homes and the temple were destroyed.

One important thing to note here is verse 13. God called them to return to true worship through the prophets, and they became stubborn, and look what verse 13 says, “So they called, and I would not hear.”

God called the people to return to a form of true, heartfelt worship, and they became stubborn and would not listen. In return, God did not hear them when they cried out. Empty worship falls on deaf ears. They came to God out of habit and God literally rejected their worship because it wasn’t heartfelt. They were just going through the system of rituals (if they were even worshipping Him at all and not false idols), and those actions had consequences. The bottom line here is false and empty worship is rejected by God and there are consequences to that. If God’s people just go through the spiritual motions of worship they become disconnected from God.

True worship honors God, desires Him above all things, and is born out of His word above all things.

Matthew 6:33 ESV

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

If we truly desire God, and we come to Him on a worshipful state, everything else falls into place. Perhaps, the reason we find ourselves in the situation that we are in is because we have gotten complacent in worshipping God, and have failed to live out His purpose for our lives openly.

Evaluate your personal state of worship.

On a scale of 1-10, what do you think your worship life is? Now step away from yourself for a moment and what do you think God would rate it? Worship goes far beyond just singing songs in a building once a week.

Graham Kendrick said, “Worship has been misunderstood as something that arises from a feeling which ‘comes upon you.’ But it is vital that we understand that it is rooted in a conscious act of will, to serve and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.” Just as God put it out to His people in our text this morning, we show true worship when we relate to others. When we adopt the heart of God, we can then know what it is like to experience true worship. Worship, by definition, is exhibiting the worth of something. How have we shown God’s worth to others?

Worship goes beyond just hearing a sermon or participating in a Bible study. Just hearing is not enough, we must act out our faith and actively apply the teaching of scripture to our lives, and then our faith will be manifest in actions.

James 1:22–25 ESV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

In the way you relate to others, reflect the attributes of God.

How we relate to others is a direct reflection of how we relate to God, and the questions we must all face is, “How do I really feel about other people (especially non-Christians).

Zechariah 7:9–10 ESV

9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

Matthew 25:35–40 ESV

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

This should really make us think about what Jesus thinks when He sees us pass up the marginalized and downtrodden for whatever reasons and we snub our noses at them because we don’t like the color of their skin, or how much money they don’t make, or the way they dress (and the list goes on and on.)

Be concerned more about sin itself than the consequences of it.

We all know that the wages of sin is death, but we always stop there. We all know that if you don’t believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will be condemned to eternal separation from God. Why is it we always focus on the negative? Jesus was sinless so that we could sin-less. The call is to stop focusing on the consequences of sin and be more concerned with the actual sin itself. The natural thing for us to do id to focus on the sins of others to minimize our personal sin, and that has far-reaching consequences in our lives.

When we start focusing on the faults of others, we become stubborn and hard-headed (I believe the Biblical term is stiff-necked) in thinking that what the preacher or teacher is saying doesn’t really apply to us as much as it does other people. We have to remember that our personal sin will interfere with our worship in many ways, and if we don’t address our individual sins, we run the risk of our worship being impure and rejected by God, and this includes the sin of just going through the motions.

Real worship is more than just going through the motions; it means mourning over our sins.

We tend to get caught up in personal preferences. What we like and what we don’t like when it comes to worship, and what we should really be focusing on is what would please God in our worship. So we may like a particular style of music or genre of songs, and if we don’t sing those at church, then we check out of the worship service and start thinking of other things.

The truth is, many of the hymns we so often like to sing have only been around for about 500 years or so, and that begs the question, “What did the church do before Martin Luther wrote ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ or even when Bill Gaither wrote, ‘Because He Lives” (that was written in 1970). Organs weren’t even a staple in the church until about the 1300’s or so. What did the early church do for music and hymns? They had the Psalms, and more than likely they probably used whatever instruments their culture had available.

When you check out of corporate worship, what are you telling God? When we take the mentality that we want things the “old way” we are discounting what God is doing here and now. If we show up to church simply because that’s what we have always done, we are just going through the motions, and the text is very clear that God doesn’t hear us and those consequences can be far-reaching.

It is imperative that we come to the point of realization that we have been stubborn and neglected to listen to and for God to speak to us, and repent of that immediately. And it is only when we become brokenhearted about that and seek His forgiveness that we can find true healing.

Conclusion:

How’s your worship? Is it a once a week thing, or does it manifest itself throughout the week when you relate to other people? How would you rate your worship now? We can find healing in Jesus through His forgiveness today.