We Must Worship God in Purity (SERMON)
Introduction
Last Sunday evening, we watched a documentary called “Spirit & Truth: A Film About Worship”. It was a great time, and we were thrilled to see Dawson Chapel packed to the gills. We’re planning on doing more things like that, because we’re seeing God bless it in so many ways. We already have our eye on the next film to show, so stay tuned for that.
Spirit and Truth was a documentary that was concerned with answering the question: “What is true, Christian worship?”
In the documentary, Stephen Nichols referred to John Calvin, the Reformer, and a question he was asked by the Emperor Charles V. The question was essentially this: “What was the point of the Reformation?”
He answered with basically this, “We must worship God in purity.” This is the title of my sermon, as today we are talking about this very thing—worship.
The Reformation was not the first time God showed his Church how rotten their worship had become — far from it.
In the OT, we think of King Hezekiah and then King Josiah. Both in their own ways discovered widespread corruption in Israel, and responded first with repentance, and then immediately began reforming.
There also is the story of Nadab and Abihu, who gave an unauthorized sacrifice of incense, contrary to God’s express instructions. This grave offense was serious enough to God—this failure to worship appropriately—that their lives were required of them.
We might also think of Uzzah, a cart-man for the Ark of the Covenant. As he and his team were carrying the Ark, an ox stumbled, and the Ark was tipping towards the ground. Uzzah, presuming that in this instance a violation of God’s command not to touch the Ark would be permissible, reached out to stabilize it. Immediately, like Aaron’s sons, he was struck dead. Uzzah’s mistake was to assume the dirt was less holy than he was. Sproul says, “the dirt was obeying perfectly the commands of God.” Was Uzzah?
These are important lessons to us from the OT on both the holiness of God, and his intense, unchanging focus on pure worship.
I suggest to you that the moment of most significance in the history of the world, as it relates to worship, was the finished work of Jesus Christ tearing the veil between God and man. We can now enter the Holy of holies. This makes even the purest form of OT worship seem rotten, in comparison.
So the way to God has been made through Jesus Christ, and he bids us enter in, but we know that God doesn’t change. We know he cares just as much about how he is worshiped now as he did 4,000 years ago. Once we’re saved, and our eternity secured, we still have the rest of our lives ahead of us. We ask,
As Francis Schaeffer put it, “How shall we then live?”
What does God command?
The Problem: As with Josiah, Hezekiah, and in our Lord’s own work, this broken world and the broken people in it have a strong tendency to fall into idolatry. And this, each and every time, results in disaster.
This is because, as we will see, God is deeply, deeply invested in the worship of his creatures. A few things to consider.
The Creator God spoke the universe into existence, breathed life into humanity, and remains intimately involved in both.
The Almighty God who whips ‘round a billion, trillion, galaxies of fire and light, is the same God whose gaze penetrates to the deepest recesses of your soul.
God, the judge of all, commands that all creation—and that includes us—bow before his throne.
As he has said since the beginning, in that garden long ago, “I have made you, and I will care for you, and in my presence is fullness of joy. All that I have made is yours, only obey me in this one matter. If you do not, you will surely die.”
Thousands of years later, when the Israelites were on the border of the promised land, Moses said to them, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, by loving Yahweh and walking in his ways, then you shall live… But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.”
500 years after that, Solomon, at the end of his life, finished Ecclesiastes by saying,
Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 ESV
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
Please open your bibles to Hebrews chapter 12, starting in verse 28. We will begin here, but reference a number of verses before it, as well, so leave your Bible there for today.
Worship is life-or-death. It can be, and has been, lethal.
It has the power to renew and give life, and it has the power to incinerate and destroy, for “our God is a consuming fire.”
The entirety of our lives is spent worshiping something!
It’s not a question of whether or not we will worship; the question is what or whom we will worship.
That worship which is unacceptable is consumed by fire.
So, “What worship survives the fire?”
The Ruling Word
Hebrews 12:28–29 ESV
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Prayer
Sermon
Acceptable worship, as God himself tells us here, is four things.
1. It is Rooted in the Kingdom.
2. It is Regulated by His Word.
3. It is a Reaction to His Glory.
4. It is the Reason for Living.
Part One: Rooted in the Kingdom
Ruling Text: “… receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken…”
The Bible doesn’t speak about worship as something that happens at certain intervals throughout the week, or during certain seasons of the year. It speaks of worship as an ongoing, constant practice.
Deuteronomy 6:5–9 ESV
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Psalm 34:1 ESV
1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
In Jesus Christ, the Christian has unlimited and immediate access to God. We can, very literally, worship him all the time. And, like all of humanity, the Christian will be worshiping all the time—it’s simply a question of who or what.
In Ps 51:12, the psalmist asks God to “restore” to him the “joy of his salvation.” This is done by “renewing a right spirit” in him.
Question: What are we worshiping? Are we worshiping God? Do we even want to?
This is a hard question. Part of the difficulty is that we can’t help but distinguish between “church-y” things and “normal” things. Our society programs us to think this way. I’ll explain what I mean this way.
In his book Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith says this about the shopping mall:
The site is pulsing with pilgrims every day of the week as thousands upon thousands make the pilgrimage. In order to provide a hospitable environment and absorb the daily arrival of the faithful, the site provides an ocean of parking.
this particular religious site is part of an international, yea “catholic,” network of religious communities
The large glass atriums at the entrances are framed by banners and flags; familiar texts and symbols on the exterior walls help foreign faithful to quickly and easily identify what’s inside
The design of the interior is inviting to an almost excessive degree, sucking us into the enclosed interior spaces, with windows on the ceiling open to the sky but none on the walls open to the surrounding moat of automobiles.
There is a sense of vertical and transcendent openness that at the same time shuts off the clamor and distractions of the outside, boring world
This temple—like countless others now emerging around the world—offers a rich, embodied visual mode of evangelism that attracts us.
At another temple, we are greeted by a welcoming acolyte who offers to shepherd us through the experience, but also has the wisdom to allow us to explore on our own terms
After time spent focused and searching in what the faithful call “the racks,” with our newfound holy object in hand, we proceed to the altar, which is the consummation of worship. While acolytes and other worship assistants have helped us navigate our experience, behind the altar is the priest who presides over the consummating transaction. And this is a religion of transaction, of exchange and communion.
Does this not creep us out to read? We will never look at the mall the same way again, having seen its secret, religious nature.
I don’t think shopping malls are evil; but worshiping them definitely is. Apply this same concept to a thousand other things: bars, car dealerships, Target, Amazon, Facebook, grocery stores, restaurants, schools, living rooms, your closet full of clothes and the closet in your mind—what is being worshiped there?
Every moment of every day, worship occurs.
One family prays before they eat at the Eagle’s Nest, another scoffs and mocks the practice.
One man buys a car he can afford, and another enslaves himself to one.
One mind has a closet full of gladness, and another full of worry, and yet another—filled with just stuff.
Proverbs 13:25 ESV
25 The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want.
These are issues of right worship vs. wrong worship.
The struggle exists because we have to choose either to worship the things of earth or the God of heaven; the creature or the Creator.
Augustine describes this as working to build the City of Man or the City of God.
John Bunyan said something similar when, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, he wrote about the City of Destruction vs. the Celestial City.
Our verse here refers to a “kingdom that that cannot be shaken.” This is the Celestial City; the City of God! It cannot be shaken, it will never rust, crack, or be conquered, because God himself reigns there.
Regarding these two kingdoms, the verses leading up to our text today are what we need to look at next.
Look first at verses 18-21.
Hebrews 12:18–21 ESV
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”
You know what he’s referring to: the thundering manifestation of the Spirit of God on Mt. Sinai, the giving of the Law, and the supernatural terror that erupts naturally from an encounter with the wholly-other God.
If there was a moment in Jewish history that was the most definitional of their culture, it would be this moment. It was the ultimate moment, in a sense, for Israel.
I want to ask that you zero in on the gravity of what we are about to read. Zipping by and missing what’s about to be said would be missing the forest for the trees—except it’s more like missing the universe for the planets.
The greatest OT manifestation of God on earth is presented: God descending on Mt. Sinai. But that’s all it is, a descension. God does not live on Mt. Sinai; no, with ease, he spoke it into existence from where he does reside, on his throne in the heavenly places; in his kingdom.
Hebrews 12:22–23 ESV
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
This is the unshakeable kingdom of God. This is the kingdom that is already-but-not-yet accessible to those who have been “enrolled” in it, as Hebrew says. And there’s a lot happening there now!
What does the author explain is happening in this kingdom?
1. There are innumerable angels in festal gathering — if that’s not worship, what is?!
2. There are spirits of the righteous made perfect. These are those dear ones who have left this vale of tears and gone home to their Savior—Ray, Brian, Reyna, Andy, and Wayne come to mind, and I know there are others you’re thinking of right now.
3. There is an assembly (literally ekklesia, the same word for church) of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.
This can only mean two things: it can either mean an assembly of believers currently alive or an assembly of believers who have died.
The verse already mentions those who have died, so who is this? It’s you, if you know Jesus. It’s me. We’re there, seated in the heavenly places, hidden with Christ in God.
4. And finally, in addition to these things, the author says that we have come to God. Our spirit has been raised with Christ to dwell with God, and the Holy Spirit has been sent to dwell in us.
Do you see this heavenly connection? If worship were water, true worship would be that sweet vapor that rises up to the clouds, instead of being poured out in the dirt. True worship is rooted in that kingdom, not this one.
To seek Christ and to worship Christ is to make a repetitive statement. True Christian worship is Rooted in the Kingdom, and seeks its advance.
Final Thought: a few examples of what worship rooted in the kingdom looks like:
It doesn’t have material gain as its primary function.
It will lead with service.
It will be fueled by prayer.
What’s a specific example of this? Communion.
Matthew 26:29 ESV
29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
We are rooted in the kingdom when we take communion.
Transition: service and worship to God that is Rooted in the Kingdom will have his priorities and his agenda at the center, in all it does. I understand this is a less concrete way of discussing things, leaving us still asking, “What does this actually look like?” To answer this question, I want to talk primarily about Sunday morning.
Part Two: Regulated by His Word
Look back to our text for today, and notice where it says: “let us offer acceptable worship, with reverence…”
Acceptable worship of God will revere him as Lord, and therefore always obey his word.
Imagine a man with a wildly successful business. He prospers in all that he does, providing excellent services and in an ethical manner. He invites his brother to partner with him and open a new region. Things go swimmingly at first, as the friend follows the tried and true business model. However, as time goes on, greed grows in the friend’s heart, and some fishy stuff starts happening. On and on, until the whole region falls apart under scandal and lawsuit. Not only is this bad for business, but it tatters the friendship and ruins the company’s reputation.
This is what happens when the church’s worship is rooted in the world, instead of the kingdom. This is what happens when the church follows the regulations of man, rather than God’s.
We don’t need to leave our immediate region to find almost every example of corrupted Christian worship that exists.
Matthew 15:8–9 ESV
8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
No church is perfect, because if there was you oughta stay away—or you’ll ruin it.
Even within the church—good, Bible-believing churches—closer than we might think, I think a departure from Biblical worship is still possible.
There is a process of what Mark has called “slippage,” which begins the very moment a church deviates from the light of the Bible. When we stop extracting our understanding of worship from all of the Word, or if we introduce other streams of influence, we are stepping out onto the thinnest of ice.
We could put this another way: should we ask the creature how God wants to be worshiped, or God himself?
In perhaps the most important OT section on corporate worship, the Ten Commandments, God said:
Exodus 20:3–5 (ESV)
3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or 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. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…”
We can’t leave the first commandment without running straight into the utter failure of American Christianity. Please don’t misunderstand me: God has and will continue to preserve his church, and his Gospel will continue to spread throughout the world, but it will do so by cleaving through the thick layers of prosperity, worldliness, and unbelief that makes up the religious quarter of the City of Man.
2 Timothy 4:3–4 ESV
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Only three verses before this, one of the clearest verses on the doctrine of Scripture is found (and that isn’t coincidence)
2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
When the Word of God is ignored, the church seeks its own passions and wanders off into myths.
So we’ve seen that the only sane path for Christian worship is the path laid out in the Word.
There are two ways this has historically been thought through:
First: the normative principle. This teaches that if Scripture doesn’t prohibit something, then it is fair game. If you have experience with the Lutheran or Anglican churches, you have brushed up with the normative principle. It can be found in a lot of non-denominational churches, and definitely in those that aren’t comfortable with biblical—I mean, Reformed theology.
Second: the regulative principle. This teaches that if Scripture doesn’t talk about or “regulate” it, then it shouldn’t be included in Sunday worship.
If you were with us last Sunday evening, you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is what the documentary spent a good deal of time discussing.
Let’s think about this section of the text again: “acceptable worship.” That phrase, alone, means there is a line, somewhere, between acceptable and unacceptable worship.
And this is an important point: every Christian believes in a kind of regulative principle.
Are we open to singing secular love songs during worship? Why? Col 3:16.
Are we open to TED Talks from the pulpit instead of preaching? Why? 2 Tim 4:1-2.
Are we willing to include anything, here at Bowman, that God hasn’t told us to, or that would offend him?
We shouldn’t be, and we aren’t. From how we structure our services to the way we decorate the sanctuary, our worship must be regulated by the Word.
A few more comments before we move on. John MacArthur always says, “our worship of God can only go as deep as our knowledge of him.” I love this, and it’s so true. Everything is theological, and this is no exception. Each and every one of us are theologians, because we have knowledge and opinions about God. Our theology of worship has a direct impact on how deeply it can change us. Where do we go to deepen our knowledge of God? To his word. What do we compare all of our worship to? His word.
And finally, I have to say that anything good in life is most rewarding when enjoyed obediently. Our marriages, when under the Lordship of Christ, will thrive. Our work, when offered as a sacrifice—as worship—to God, will ultimately be a blessing. Our worship, when conducted in obedience to God, will be exuberant, encouraging, and full of awe.
Part Three: Reaction to His Glory
And awe is precisely what our verse says our worship should be full of, because we are gazing at the glorious God and the glorious work of Jesus.
Hebrews 12:28 (ESV)
28 … let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
You know that what happens every Sunday in every church on the planet is nothing short of a glorious miracle…
Before God saved you or me, we were dead in sins and trespasses. It’s different for everyone; maybe you were a hell-raiser who waged a personal war with God. Or you were Christian in name, phoning it in on Sundays and lived like a pagan every other day. Or maybe you were like me, and you were just an ignorant, self-absorbed pleasure-seeker with no agenda other than what the day gave you.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.
What is this sanctuary? It is a room filled with empty graves and vacant tombs.
What is Sunday worship, but the assembly the redeemed under a banner that says, “It is finished.”
Isn’t that glorious? Isn’t it the most glorious thing you’ve ever seen or heard?
When we think about the unimaginable cost of the blood of Jesus, shed for us willingly—how can tears not flow?
When we think of him smiling down on us right now, telling the Father that he loves us—what else makes sense, but to lay it all down in worship?
Psalm 66:1–2 ESV
1 Shout for joy to God, all the earth; 2 sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!
Psalm 66:5 ESV
5 Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.
I put the regulative principle on the front end of this sermon because it’s only a means to an end. The regulative principle isn’t itself the worship. It is the proper form of worship, but not the essence or destination of worship.
We humans don’t do well with rules, it’s a broken world. Rules as an end will never work with us, because we’re stiff-necked and allergic to them.
What really works on us is pleasure and joy.
Psalm 16:11 ESV
11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
This is what worship is all about. It needs to be a Response to His Glory.
When we go to the Lord’s table together in a few moments, please realize that what is happening is not an earthly ritual or something going on simply in our own hearts. It is a meal with Jesus.
This is what structured, biblical worship will get you—every time. A direct line, free of obstacles and snags, to God’s presence.
Part Four & Conclusion: Reason for Living
In conclusion, my final part: worship is the reason for even living.
We are incurably religious—we’ll worship anything and everything. We do it all the time, and it drives our lives. Some worship their job, some worship fame, power, sex, money, you name it.
There are so many altars begging for our sacrifice in the Kingdom of Man, it’s hard to keep our eyes on the prize.
It’s been said that for a Christian to be outside of a church body is to be like a buffalo who is trailing far behind the herd—easy prey for the lions.
This is why Sunday worship is so, so crucial. It is the time when the people of God gather to renew their commitment to him, and to be washed from the grime the world caked them in during the week. It is, in a very real sense, entering into the presence of God.
This is why David said,
Psalm 122:1 ESV
1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
This world is passing away. Each day that completes is another grain of sand through the hourglass of time.
Jesus will return and will roll up the heavens and the earth like a garment. The City of Man will be no more, and all its altars, attractions, and citizens will go along with it.
Any worship not rooted in the kingdom of God will be burned away in that great and final day. What better reason or basis is there to prod us along in worshiping God with everything we’ve got?
The happiest life we could hope to live is the life that is poured out in Jesus name, worshiping him.
Psalm 27:4 ESV
4 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
Worship is the very reason for living, and the greatest joy we can experience. What is the chief end of man? To glory God and enjoy him forever.