A Call for proper worship.
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This is our final week in our study of the King Josiah. I hope you have seen why I love this king, and you have been geared during our study to worship the Lord more faithfully.
Today we are in a section of scripture were the King is restoring the passover. Doing something that has not been done for several hundred years. We have seen during our study that King Josiah is a man of God and a man of God’s word and in the text today we are going to see not only a restoration of the passover, but a call for proper worship.
Let us get into the text this morning 2 Chronicles 35:1-19.
Main Point: A call for proper worship requires the right purpose, right preparation, the right people, and right practice.
Proper worship requires the right purpose.
Proper worship requires the right purpose.
In this context Josiah was doing something the people of God were called to do but had not done in over 400 years. Josiah was going to keep the passover.
Now the first passover was originally in Egypt. Leading up to the passover there were 9 plagues the Lord had done against Egypt because the Pharoah would not let the people run free. And what was about to happen was the Lord was going to take the firstborn of every single household who did not put the lambs blood on the door post. And the purpose of remembering the passover was so they could remember he passed over them, and saved them.
Listen to the words of scripture in Exodus 12:21-28 “21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24 You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. 25 And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service? 27 you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’ ” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped. 28 Then the people of Israel went and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.”
The purpose of this event was to celebrate the Lord passing over the houses of the people of Isreal. The passover lamb signified a difference between the people of Isreal and the Egyptians. And this event signified a trust the people of Israel had for God.
And Josiah being the man of God he was wanted to properly worship the Lord in this very way. And he had the right purpose in doing this. And his purpose was to worship the Lord.
And the purpose of the passover, gives purpose for our own worship today. Today we have a specific purpose for why we are here, and that is to worship the resurrected king. Josiah worshiped the Lord for what he did, and we are to do the same.
How the passover ties into the Christian life is quite fascinating. Because it represents for believers in Christ a passing over our our own sins. So when you are a believer in Christ God passes over your own sins like he did for the people of Israel. And because he does that we have purpose in meeting here this morning, meeting here every week, because of what Jesus had done.
Going back to Josiah he wanted to keep the passover because what God had done, remembering the passover gave them a purpose for meeting and a place to worship him properly.
A second thing I want you to note is this…
Proper worship requires right preparation.
Proper worship requires right preparation.
Josiah could not have re-instituted the passover without having the right preparation. If you noticed when i read the text there were a-lot of things that had to be done in order for passover to be celebrated. This event didn’t just magically appear overnight much work had to be done. What was some of that work?
They had to slaughter the passover lamb. They were asked to put the Holy ark in the house that Soloman had built. Josiah himself gave lambs, and young goats that numbered 30000, and 3000 bulls. Other people contributed willingly.Other important individuals gave to the priests 2600 passover lambs and 300 bulls. Others would give the levities for the passover offerings 5000 lambs and young goats and 500 bulls.
Imagine the kind of preparation it would take to have in order to make this celebration possible.
I want you to think about a few things. One each and every week you may show up to church and fail to realize that many people are involved each and every week doing a multitude of different things so that the church can meet on Sundays and Wednesdays.
We have people who cook, clean, take care of maintenance things, mow, pay bills, give, pray, prepare for Sunday school, prepare to teach on Wednesday nights, On Sunday morning we have people who have to practice to play worship music, I spend hours every week to preach on Sundays, and teach on Wednesday's. And I say all this because if the preparing was not done we could not have properly worshiped God. All the things we do each and every week could not be done if we did not have some sort of preparation.
If you know me you know that I love tacos, especially the ones my wife and I make. And these tacos dont appear out of thin air you have to cook the meat, season it, put the right things on it to make the tacos taste the way you want them to.
Right preparation is needed in order to have the right result. And right preparation is needed to have proper worship.
Josiah knew this and thats why the preparation part was so important to him. He made sure the proper preparation was made so proper worship could happen.
Proper worship requires the right purpose, and proper worship requires right preparation.
next thing to note is this.
Proper worship requires the right people.
Proper worship requires the right people.
there is a-lot of people listed in this text. First and foremost is Josiah the one who the scriptures say kept the passover. You have the priest, the levites, Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel.
You see Coniah, Nethanel his brothers, Hashabiah, Jeiel, Jozabad, the singers, the sons of Aspah, Heman, Jeduthun and all of Judah and Jerusalem. Alot of people indeed. It wasn’t just a one man show it took specific people to do specific tasks, but you see also all the people of Israel partaking in this event. It was truly incredible event. Celebrating the passover. And it took the right people to have this proper worship.
Think about this the church it takes the right people to properly worship the Lord. In a church service there needs to be someone who can deliver the word, there needs to be people who can sing the word, to lead out in praise and worship, we need people serving in a multitude of different ways so we can properly worship God. But most importantly as far as people goes we need the whole church to come together and worship the Lord. We all have a role in the local church even if its not noticeable.
We can’t all preach, we can’t all led out in worship, we can’t all teach adults, youth, children, but if you are a believer in Christ your presence in needed and valued.
Proper worship requires the right purpose, proper worship requires right preparation, Proper worship requires the right people,
but theres more
Finally
Proper worship requires the right practice.
Proper worship requires the right practice.
Going back through this text we see the many details of the passover. It wasn’t just kill a lamb put it on the fire, and be done it was much more than just that.
There is much order in the passover the service. When God said to remember the passover he wanted it done in a certain way at a certain time. It had been 400 years since someone did a proper passover service. Josiah was going to do it the right way. Someone previous tried to do this, we have learned about the last two kings about how evil they were but the King before them wasn’t so bad.
See years before King Hizekiah tried to institute the passover again, but he himself didn’t exactly do it the way the lord asked it to be done, he celebrated it in the 2nd month when scripture says to celebrate it in the 1st month. Not all the people were purified, and not all the people came.
But in the case of Josiah he made sure that the people of Israel were practicing the passover in the right way, and thats what they did. The text says that the passover lamb was slaughtered on the 14th day of the first month. according to scripture that is the right time to do so.
Also the priests were to slaughter the the lamb according to the law, according to the words of Moses, and also prepare for others. That would be right practice for them.
Now the passover could not have had right practice without actually having something to sacrifice. And man did they have alot to sacrifice. We discussed this a few min ago, but the haul they had was incredible.
Then we see the actual service. During the actual service the priests went to their place, and the levites to there places. and together they slaughtered the lambs. and the priest and levites had different jobs. The priests threw the blood that they recieved from them, and the levites flayed the sacrifices , and set aside the burnt offerings, and distributed them accordingly.
And they did this all according to the word of God. They roasted the passover lamb according to the word of God. They boiled the holy offerings, and they gave them to lay people. They also made sure they had some for priests and levites.
They also had singers and others who served the Lord and the people. All these people were needed to make this happen, and for the first time in 400 years they celebrated the passover together In the right way. Not just a few people were there but all of them.
Makes you think about how the church should be practicing the right things doing the right things so we can properly worship God. Doing things by the book just like Josiah. Each and every time I am here I want to make sure the God we worship is being worshiped in the right way. Just like Josiah did.
You may not think much of what Josiah had did for the Lord but it was a truly incredible thing. See the church should take example when it comes to Josiahs life, and I believe we have learned from his examples and his life. But what continues to amaze me about Josiah is that his life left a legacy of so many things, but his model of worship is one of those things I really think we can take to heart.
Some of these things we discussed as we went along but lets fit the main idea which was A call for proper worship requires the right purpose, right preparation, the right people, and right practice.
Let’s try to apply this method of thinking to our own context. Think about the Lords supper, we took it about a month ago, but Lord willing we will take it again soon. The last time we took the Lord’s supper I talked about the seriousness of actually taking it.
oOur Baptist faith and message sums us the Lord supper as this… The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
Our purpose of partaking in the Lords supper is that remember his work, and that we await his second coming.
How do we prepare for something like the Lords supper. Well there should be a time that we go to the Lord asking him if we need to confess or repent of anything, because part of preparation is making sure that we wont partake of the Lord’s supper in an improper way, a way that would not honor the Lord.
We also as a church, and its usually it’s the deacons who get this ready but we prepare something that represents the body and the blood of Jesus. Here we use a cracker and juice to symbolic those very thing. So in order to properly prepare we must have the elements, and we must have a clean heart.
We must have the right people. Who can partake in the Lord’s supper? Only professing believers. There is clear warning in scripture about this very thing. If your not a believer in Christ then dont take of the Lord’s supper. Its for the people of God alone.
I like what the London Baptist confession says, All ignorant and ungodly people are unfit to enjoy communion with Christ and are thus unworthy of the Lord’s table. As long as they remain in this condition, they cannot partake of these holy mysteries or be admitted to the Lord’s table without committing a great sin against Christ. All those who receive the supper unworthily are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment on themselves.
At this church we do have open communion meaning you dont have to be a member of this church to take the Lord’s supper with us we only ask that you are a believer and in good standing with your past church, or with the Lord. Closed communion is only for professing believers from a specific body.
We must have right practice. This one is also key. I love what the London Baptist Confession of faith says, “In this ordinance the Lord Jesus has appointed his ministers to pray and to bless the elements of bread and wine and in this way to set them apart from a common to a holy use. They are to take and break the bread, take the cup, and give both to the communicants while also participating themselves”
this is what we do when we partake of the Lord supper we pray over it, and give to the believers in the room.
And we believe what is also said in that confession which is, The outward elements in this ordinance, properly set apart for the use ordained by Christ, have such a relationship to Christ crucified that they are sometimes called—truly though figuratively—by the names of the things they represent, that is, the body and blood of Christ. However, in substance and nature they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.
right purpose, right preparation, right people, right practice.
So now is the time to respond to the scripture we have learned today. Are you properly worshiping the Lord? A proper worship starts with a right purpose. Are you worshiping Jesus with purpose? do you come to the house of the Lord knowing why you are here in the first place, do you take the Lord’s supper with purpose?
Are you properly preparing yourself each and every week when you are coming to church, or just living the christian life. Preparing your heart to worship him with a pure heart, preparing yourself for the Lord’s supper, preparing yourself for proper worship.
Are you properly worshiping with the right people. This means are you worshiping in a church of bible believing, regenerate ( saved ) people each and every week.
Are you having proper practice in your worship? Do you go to a church that believes the word, sings the word, and preaches the word, and are you responding in the right way?
Before we end today since this is the last week in our study of Josiah you might wonder what happened to Josiah after he did these things? Lets read 2 Chronicles 35 20-27
20 After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him. 21 But he sent envoys to him, saying, “What have we to do with each other, king of Judah? I am not coming against you this day, but against the house with which I am at war. And God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, lest he destroy you.” 22 Nevertheless, Josiah did not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to fight in the plain of Megiddo. 23 And the archers shot King Josiah. And the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” 24 So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. 25 Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah; and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a rule in Israel; behold, they are written in the Laments. 26 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his good deeds according to what is written in the Law of the Lord, 27 and his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.
Josiah died, we dont know if he died because he went against the mouth of God or not, but what we do know is the penalty of sin is death. And death is what each one of us in this room or listening online will face, and as Hebrews 9:27-28
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
You will face the judgement of God, and if you are not in Christ that judgement is eternally separated from him and sent to hell, a place where the presence of God is not, and wrath of him lasts forever. But as bad as that news is it also says that Christ did bear the sins of many, and who would those many be? They are those who are his children, those who will by the power of the Holy Spirit be convicted of there sin, and repent and believe, and if you repent of your sin, and put your faith in Christ today you can be saved and become a child of God today.
A-lot to respond to today, A call for proper worship requires the right purpose, right preparation, the right people, and right practice. Respond however the Lord leads.