Worship: God & Us

Welcome! Today I am excited to begin with you a new series on worship. What exactly is worship? Is there a good definition? I am going to read one I have found and like. Unfortunately, it is quite long. This comes from D. A. Carson:

"Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because He is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the Fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions that God has graciously made. While all true worship is God-centered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered by the Spirit and in line with the stipulations of the new covenant, it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel, which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and therefore also with our fellow image-bearers, our co-worshipers. Such worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent revelation and anticipate the consummation."

If you didn’t quite follow that last part, he is saying that we follow the teachings of the New Testament in how we worship, that we see it as a fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system, and that we eagerly await the wedding of the Lamb, of a future eternity to be spent with Christ.

Here are three highlights of this definition. (1) It is the proper response to God because He is worthy. (2) It includes adoration and action. (3) We are to do it as individuals and together as a body of believers.

Now if you have seen the handout for the series there are a number of really good quotes in there about worship; these are also up on our website. But I want to give you one more. It’s not directly about worship, but it reveals a heart of worship. Here it is:

“Looking at the whole Bible story and God as revealed in it is like lying down looking up at the heavens.” – Fred Custer

I want to start with a wonderful example of worship from the book of Genesis, Chapter 24. The focus of this story, in my opinion, is not Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, or Laban, even though these people are all a part of the story. Instead, I believe we should direct our focus on a servant, someone whose name we are not even told. You all know this story. Abraham commissions this servant to leave Canaan and go back all the way to where Abraham came from, the place where God first revealed Himself to him. The servant is to bring back a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. 

The servant asks what he should do if the woman selected doesn’t want to go to Canaan; should he bring Isaac to her? “No,” says Abraham. He explains to the servant how God had led him all these years and promised this land to his offspring. If the wife won’t come, then the servant can consider the task fulfilled. The passage makes it clear that Abraham has faith in God that the woman will come.

So the servant goes, taking ten camels loaded down with gifts for the future wife and her family. He arrives to where Abraham had directed him and stops at a well outside the village. He prays to Abraham’s God that He would make him successful on this day for Abraham’s sake. He asks for a kind of “fleece,” a sign from God, that when he says to a young woman “Please let down your jar so I may have a drink,” that not only will she let him drink, but that she will also water his camels. Note that this was not only a fleece, but also a test of the woman’s kindness, of her generosity and of her willingness to labor for another.

The passage goes on to explain that even be he had finished praying, a young woman came out with a water jar. The servant hurried to meet her and asked for a little water. She graciously agreed, and then told him, without him even asking, “I’ll get water for your camels too, until they are no longer thirsty.” The servant didn’t say anything, but simply watched her work.

Now this was likely a big job! A camel can drink 30 or more gallons of water in a sitting. We don’t know the camels each drank 30 gallons, but 300 gallons ways more than 2000 pounds! I have a special appreciation for what moving 2000 pounds entails, because about 8 years ago I had Sarah and Jonathan move about 2000 pounds of brinks from one place in our yard to another. They were 10 and 8 years old at the time. It took them multiple sessions over a period of about two weeks to do it.

The passage goes on to say that when the camels were satisfied, the man brought out a gold ring and two gold bracelets and asked who her family was and if there was room for him and the other servants who had come on the journey to spend the night at her father’s home. She answered that there was room for them and food for the animals, and she gave her family information. It turned out that she was related to Abraham, part of family “clan”! Now, the reason I am telling this story is because of the very next thing that happened:

Then the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord, saying, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master.” – Gen. 24:26-27

The servant has just, probably for the first time, seen God move powerfully in his life. How does he feel? How would you feel when God clearly works a miraculous answer to prayer? Has this ever happened to you? I have experienced it. You feel both super happy and more than a little scared. Why? Because you realize that God is not some figment of your imagination, but quite real. It is scary to come face to face with this realization, even as a Christian. God is not “tame” or “safe,” as C.S. Lewis writes in his Narnia books. This God holds power over life and death. He is holy, perfectly holy, and we are not. We come face to face with this realization when we see God work miraculously. Note that the servant worshiped the Lord right then are there. He didn’t care who else was looking, or what they thought. He was overwhelmed. He bowed down. He worshiped the Lord, no doubt, with more than a little fear and trembling.

And this gets into the title of our series, Sing and Tremble. It seems to me that western Christianity gets the “sing” part; contemporary worship music is a big part of our culture. I have even come across multiple non-Christians who listen to it regularly. But where is the trembling? If you read the accounts of earlier generations of believers, the fear of the Lord, as in awe, respect, and yes, even real fear, was a central part of the Christian experience. Where has that gone? I am concerned that our culture has unbalanced us so that we have lost sight of the holiness of God as it stands in stark contrast to our own sinfulness. We have forgotten what it means to fear the Lord. 

The series title comes from I Chronicles 16:23-31:

Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His dwelling place. Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before Him. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. Tremble before Him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” – I Chron. 16:23-31

There is a both-and in this passage. On the one hand, there is an emphasis on praise through singing, proclaiming His salvation, declaring His glory and His marvelous works. Joy is a part of this – as it says, joy is in His dwelling place. But at the same time there is also a place for trembling. It says to sing to the Lord all the earth but also to tremble before Him all the earth. God is a God of grace but also a God of holiness.

Holiness, out of all the attributes of God, describes God and God alone and summarizes how unlike He is compared to us. The angels described in Revelation don’t say “Faithful, faithful, faithful,” or “mighty, mighty, mighty,” or anything like this. They say, “holy, holy, holy.” Psalm 111:9 says that “Holy and awesome is His name.” That means that “Holy” is one of the names God uses to describe Himself because it is so central to who He is. God is unlike any created being. He is perfect. He is holy, set apart.

In Exodus 14, God parts the sea and the Israelites cross the seabed. The Egyptians follow behind them, but then God made the sea return to normal and the entire army of Pharaoh died. In chapter 15, in response, we again see worship. Moses and the Israelites sing a song of praise, starting with “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted. Both horse and driver He has hurled into the sea. 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 song goes on, but I want to highlight verse 11:

“Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you – majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” – Ex. 15:11

What was it like to experience this miracle? It was awesome, but it was also terrifying. They witnessed God destroy an entire army like it was nothing. They are drawn to sing of His holiness. No one is holy like God. They sing but they also tremble.

Hebrews 12 has a lot to say about worshiping God with awe, with trembling.  Verse 14 says,

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. – Hebrews 12:14

Did you catch that last part? Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. We are unholy, in our flesh. We must be made holy to withstand the presence of the Lord. The gospel is all about how Jesus has paid the price for our unholiness, and His blood cleanses us of our sin. Just as how the Israelites saw the death around them (the Egyptians) required for their deliverance, just as how that gave them a serious understanding of God’s holiness, so too should our looking at the cross, at the blood shed for our deliverance, affect us. Sing and tremble.

Hebrews 12 goes on to talk about the mountain of the Lord in Exodus where God came with fire and the blast of something like trumpets, a place made so holy by God’s presence that no one could approach it and live. It compares this to Mount Zion, to the place of angels in joyful assembly and of people who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. It then gives a warning:

See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” – Hebrews 12:25-29

The Greek word for reverence is aidos, which has a root a word that means to have downcast eyes. The word implies modesty, bashfulness, respect. The Greeks of course had gods and goddesses of almost everything, and there was a Greek goddess Aidos, the goddess of reverence, modesty and humility. Tied into the word is also a sense of shame, not so much in the way we use it today, but in the sense of a feeling that restrains people from doing wrong. If you have a dog, and you have seen how the dog responds when it has done something wrong and knows that you are watching him now, that’s aidos.

The Greek word for awe is eulabeia. It’s a bit hard to define, but it helps to know there is a different word for simply being terrified (phobos, from which we get phobias). Eulabia has an implication of caution, of great respect because of what is involved, in this case, interaction with the holy God. The word has been used to describe a person carrying a priceless Persian vase across a room. It reminds me of back in high school when I was taking violin lessons my teacher would sometimes let me play on his violin. His violin was actually rarer than a Stradivarius. It was worth several hundred thousand dollars. I absolutely hated to play it because I imagined all the ways I would drop it or break it. To worship God with eulabia is to understand the holiness of the God you worship, for as it says in Hebrews, God is a consuming fire.

With regard to the holiness of God, John MacArthur writes,

“When we see God as holy, our instant and only reaction is to see ourselves as unholy. Between God’s holiness and humanity’s unholiness is a gulf. And until a person understands the holiness of God, that person can never know the depth of his or her own sin. We ought to be shaken to our roots when we see ourselves against the backdrop of God’s holiness. If we are not deeply pained about our sin, we do not understand God’s holiness at all.”

He goes on to say,

“Without such a vision of God’s holiness, true worship is not possible. Real worship is not giddy. It does not rush into God’s presence unprepared and insensitive to His majesty. It is not shallow, superficial, or flippant. Worship is life lived in the presence of an infinitely righteous and omnipresent God by one utterly aware of His holiness and consequently overwhelmed with his own unholiness.”—John MacArthur

I think we sometimes tend to view God in the Old Testament and God in the New Testament as somehow different Personalities. I don’t think this is correct. Even Jesus inspired a holy fear, even among His disciples. For example, consider the account of calling the first disciples in Luke 5. Recall the account: Jesus taught a crowd from Simon Peter’s boat, put out a little from the shore. Then, after He finished, He told Simon Peter to put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” – Luke 5:5-8

That miracle made God seem near to Simon Peter, and in response, sensing the presence of a holy God, he felt quite the opposite, quite aware of his own sinful nature. Do you recall Jesus’ response to him? “Don’t be afraid.” Remember that they pulled their boats up, and left everything to follow Him. Do you think they still were at least somewhat afraid, in the “awe” sense? I think so, absolutely!

For another example, consider this passage from Mark chapter 4:

That day when evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat. There were also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to His disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!” – Mark 4:35-41 

If you read this carefully, you will notice that in the end of this passage, when it says they were terrified, this was after He calmed the storm. At this point I think it is safe to say that they were more terrified of Who was in the boat with them than they had ever been of the storm!

In Mark 5, Jesus casts out the demons named Legion from the man who lived in the tombs possessed. He had great strength, the passage says, and could break chains and irons. He would cry out day and night and cut himself with stones. Jesus cast out the demons, sending them into a herd of pigs, which then stampeded and died.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. – Mark 5:14-17

Again, these people were likely more afraid of Jesus than they ever were of the crazed demon-possessed man. I don’t believe they asked Jesus to leave because they were mad about the loss of the pigs. They could have asked for compensation, and although it would have made for a very interesting legal proceeding, I think they would have had a very good case. No, the people were afraid of Jesus. They did not want to have Jesus around. They pleaded with Him to go. This is not the wording one would use for angry people, but for fearful ones.

Now I cannot give this message in good conscience without also talking about grace. It is essential to understand that if you have put your faith in Christ, you are a recipient of grace. Christ has done all. He has paid for your sin. He has ransomed you. He has called you. Scripture even says you, we all, are betrothed to Him, to be His bride. We will be in close, intimate relationship as brothers and sisters in Him with Him and through Him. And this is infinite grace; it will never run out.

It is because of this grace that we have not received the punishment that we deserve. It is easy to make the mistake reading of accounts like Ananias and Sapphira, or Lot’s wife, or some of the punishments against the Israelites, or the actions against the Canaanites and other peoples, or the flood, and question whether God is really kind or loving. What we are really doing is forgetting that God’s mercy and grace is not a right, taking these things for granted. What is supposed to happen is that this mercy and grace leads us to repent of our own sin:

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? – Romans 2:4

We like to sing with the Psalmist,

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. – Psalm 36:5

But we ignore the verses before this:

I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before their eyes. In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin. The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful; they fail to act wisely or do good. Even on their beds they plot evil; they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong. – Psalm 36:1-4

Romans 3:18 quotes from this Psalm: There is no fear of God before their eyes. There is a healthy kind of fear of the Lord, and sometimes God’s withholding of grace reinstates that healthy fear. For example, let’s look at the account of Ananias and Sapphira:

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. – Acts 5:1-5

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. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. – Acts 5:6-11 

Why did they fear? Because these transgressions, in human terms, were relatively minor. How many of us have never exaggerated a claim so as to look better than we really are? How many of us have never committed greater sins than these?

The reason God took the lives of various people in the Bible was discussed in our I Corinthians series just in the last few weeks:

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. – I Cor. 10:11

Instead of questioning why God would punish sin as he has in these “examples,” we should ask why God does not punish everyone, including us, giving us what we deserve. We are recipients of God’s amazing grace. We do not deserve this!

God’s holiness is absolute. "Holy, holy, holy," say the angels, again and again and again. If it were not for God’s grace, for the terrible cost of Jesus on the cross, we should repeat the words of Isaiah, “Woe to me, I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!” His kindness, His grace, should lead us to repentance, and with a holy fear, a holy reverence, we should worship Him. We should sing… and tremble. Let us heed the words of Psalm 111:10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding. To Him belongs eternal praise. – Psalm 111:10

Let us finish this morning by reading Psalm 103 out loud, together:

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits—
Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and
    compassion,
Who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is
    renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding
    in love.
He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever;
He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to
    our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love
    for those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our
    transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has
    compassion on those who fear Him;
For He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field;
The wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it
    no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who
    fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children—
With those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His
    precepts.

The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom
    rules over all.
Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding,
    who obey His word.
Praise the Lord, all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do
    His will.
Praise the Lord, all His works everywhere in His dominion.
Praise the Lord, my soul. – Psalm 103