Gathering to Worship

I went to a place where I was meant to give and all I did was get. Many of us treat our church experience like how I treated the blood bank. Even though the purpose of why we gather is too give to the Lord we spend more time trying to get from others.

Many of us come to worship in order to try and get, and while that is something that happens, that isn’t why we worship. We worship to give a spiritual offering to God.

God is into your worship

Just as what the blood bank wants of us is blood, what God wants of us is our worship.

It’s why we exist!

We were created to worship. Because we were created to love. “ (love) to will the good of another person” - Acquinas

God is into your praise and he’s into your affection. We may not understand exactly why God is into our worship but what we do know is that it is what he delights in.

As beings who are made to worship this means that worship is not something that we can switch on and off when we like.

The language of worship. The way that we see worship these days and how we use the word worship these days. If you think worship is 20 mins of songs that you sing, then worship is going to be something that you switch on and switch off.

1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

The uncomfortable journey

Context (may not need this)

God promised Abraham that the number of his descendants would be more than the number of stars in the sky. However, things were looking bleek as he was getting older and he had no children. Abraham tried to manufacture the promise by having a child with his servant instead of his wife. Nevertheless, after 25 years of waiting the promise was fulfilled. The child came. Yet, with Isaac a young man God asks Abraham to do the unthinkable.

The Caananite Region surrounding Mt. Moriah, and this carries connotations of pagan, caananite child sacrifice.

The Sacrifice in Worship

The first time we ever see worship mentioned in the Bible is when Abraham is called by God to take His son Isaac as a sacrifice.

In the first mention of worship there is no reference to music there is just a bleek desert and great discomfort.

Many of us define worship as God meeting us in our comfort, but when we read this text it’s not the case at all.

Genesis 22:1–5 NIV

1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Culture has shaped the way that we worship big time. The Post-Modern world we live teaches that everything is about us, it is extremely individualistic and consumeristic.

However, when we contrast the worship we experience today with the worship we see of Abraham we see stark difference.

Pure worship is costly. 2 Samuel 24:24 “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

Worship throughout history is directly connected to sacrifice. Without sacrifice their is nothing for fire to fall on.

To find what you worship, look at what you sacrifice. What do you sacrifice the most for?

Abraham was willing to sacrifice everything...

Worship is an act of obedience

God calls him and Abraham says “Here I am”

Worship is saying “Here I am, whatever you want me to do God?”

Worship is saying I don’t understand everything, but I trust that you are God and I’m not. Even when it doesn’t make sense what’s going on in my life I’m going to put my trust in you. I’m sick of trying to manufacture things myself and I’m going to trust you.

Abraham’s worship is a journey to a place of submission.

He had faith and obeyed God’s word. He knew that God would either stop Abraham or raise his son from the dead. Abraham says that THEY WILL RETURN

Worship Together

Genesis 22:5–10 NIV

5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

Gather

Worship has both a personal element but also a together element.

Notice that Abraham says to his servants “WE will worship”

Both Abraham and Isaac are involved in worship.

There is worship apart, but there is power when there is worship together.

God commanded that altars were built with unhewn stones, that is stones that are not made with human hands.

Exodus 20:25 NIV

25 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it.

If you have built an altar for me I don’t want them to be built with stones that you have cut.

I don’t want something you manufacture, I want something with rough edges and broken places. I want something imperfect.

Church is a bunch of broken people who come together in their brokenness gathering for a sacrifice. Somehow with all the broken edges they come together in a way that fits.

It’s like how Sheri gathered together all the scraps of fabric together to make a quilt.

There is something special when we worship together because it is a time to put aside ourselves and to remember that we are collectively lifting up the Lord.

It’s not about you

That’s why when we come together in worship it doesn’t matter whether they sing the songs you like because you’re worshipping together.

Regardless of what gets sung you should be pouring your heart out to God regardless.

What made Abraham and Isaac’s worship so powerful was that they were totally locked into God. Isaac laid himself down as the sacrifice selflessly and Abraham laid his son down on the altar whom he loved. It was their collective worship that made this moment of worship so powerful. They weren’t focused on themselves at all!

Abraham and Isaac in offering this sacrifice are acting as priests who are ministering and submitting to the Lord together.

1 Peter 2:5 NIV

5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Foundational principle in the Protestant reformation. Because nowdays you don’t need a priest, you have equal access to God; as does anyone.

We have direct access. We don’t need priests. We have Jesus as our great high priest and he has called us into his priesthood. As a priest we’re not here for us we’re here for him and each other!

You’re called to be a priest but everywhere else you’re a consumer. Sometimes we act as a consumer/reviewer in church “they didn’t sing the song I like,” or “that person might here my off notes,” or “I just don’t feel like singing today.”

Or maybe you think, “I love worship because I’m good at singing and love singing” big deal, if you were given 5000 dollars does that say anything about you. No it says everything about the one who gave it to you.

If God gave you a voice then use it to worship him. If God gave you hands then lift them up to him in worship and lend a hand down to people in service. Whatever God gave you: USE IT!

We’re supposed to say: “It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or singing I’m here to minister to you.” I’m here to give you my finances, a song, my attention. I’m here to give it all!

Often when we come to worship we think that the band and singers up the front are like our priests. What their role is, is to facilitate your role as a priest.

Paradoxically as we pour out then we are refreshed ourselves.

Jesus and Worship

Genesis 22:10–14 NIV

10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Mount Moriah

Why did God tell Abraham to go all the way to Mt. Moriah?

David made a sacrifice for the nation of Israel at Mount Moriah, Solomon built the temple at Mount Moriah, and Jesus makes a sacrifice around the same place.

God is this great story teller: three significant heroes in Israel offering three different sacrifices. But all this points to a final greater sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus who didn’t just give any sacrifice but gave himself.

The Mountain where God provided. Because God seems to care more about providing a sacrifice than requiring one.

He knew that we could never provide a sacrifice that would ever be enough so he says “let me do it.”

Jesus said “Here I am”

The Ram was a provided sacrifice. Scholars suggest that there can’t be rams at this elevation. But how many of you know that God will do whatever it takes to make a sacrifice available so that you can worship him.

The son/s of promise (both Isaac and Jesus) willingly went to be sacrificed in obedience to his father, carrying the wood of sacrifice up the hill, all with full confidence in the promise of the resurrection.

For Isaac the knife stopped and he was kept alive, for Jesus the knife kept going giving up his life as the perfect sacrifice.

When God asked Abraham for the ultimate demonstration of love and commitment, He asked for Abraham’s son. And when Abraham was willing, God said “Now I know that You love me, seeing You have not withheld Your Son, Your only Son from me.”

When God the Father wanted to show us the ultimate demonstration of His love and commitment to us, He gave us His Son. We can say to the LORD, “Now I know that You love me, seeing You have not withheld Your Son, Your only Son from me.”

Returning the Sacrifice

New Testament Christians don’t sacrifice for God’s approval but from God’s approval.

Now how can we return what Jesus gave to us?

David wrote a beautiful Psalm of repentance after the prophet Nathan came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba.

Psalms 51:15-17

Psalm 51:15–17 NIV

15 Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

Imagine a picture of heaven for just a moment, thousands of angels surrounding the throne of God singing perfect praises. They’re singing “Worthy is the lamb who was slain”

Why would God want our praise? What would God want these dysfunctional people? Why would he want our imperfect song?

Our altar is not perfect but his sacrifice is.

He delights in our sacrifice because we can make a sound that the angels cannot make, the sound of the redeemed. The sound of broken people who would be no where if it wasn’t for God’s mercy.

God wants the song but he wants what is behind the song more. He wants your heart as broken as it is, just poured out before him.

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