Us: Bow

“Sing and Tremble.” I am very excited about this series on worship, so I’m sorry to have missed so many of the messages. Worship is such an important concept for us to understand and apply in our lives. Worship is actually fundamental to living as a Christian, because its purpose and practice go to the very heart of our relationship with God. We were created to worship – and that is what we as believers will be doing for eternity in heaven. One of the quotes that Carl put in his introduction to the series is from Don McMinn: “Our entire being is fashioned as an instrument of praise.” So worship is something that is built into us as human beings. Everyone worships something. Some of the most intense worship experiences I have seen since moving to Clemson have been at football games. It might sound a little crass, but many people here worship football.

Worship is usually defined in terms of a ritual or response associated with reverence and adoration – of something. There must be an object of worship. But worship is more than just expressing our love for something. It is more than just cheering at the football game or singing songs in church. Worship is defined by priority. The true worshipers of football are the ones who are out there cheering on the team, regardless of the weather, paying whatever it takes, going wherever they need to. To make something a priority means giving up other things. Therefore, worship implies sacrifice. You have to give up something to be a true worshiper. You choose to make the object of your worship more important than other things in your life.

Worship is not only defined by priority. It is also defined by identity. You know what the solid orange supporters of Clemson football are like. They have a tiger paw on everything – the flags on their car, with a tiger tail hanging out the back, baby in an orange onesie, an official tiger tent for tailgating. No one would need to ask them where their loyalty lies – you can see it in everything about them. They are “all in.” It’s who they are. If only we would be so bold and excited about our identity in Christ.

Another great example of worship is often seen in the way lovers treat each other. When two people fall in love does that tend to rearrange their priorities? The object of adoration can suddenly take on quite significance importance – right? – pushing aside other interests and relationships. What about identity? All of a sudden you are known and want to be known as so-and-so’s boyfriend or girlfriend. Your identity becomes tied up in the other person. And ideally you head toward becoming “one flesh” with each other in marriage.

Do we have that kind of love-relationship with God? Is He our priority, our identity? We cannot be true worshipers otherwise. I’m so glad that the first half of this series was devoted to talking about who God is, as the object of our worship. We need to remember who it is that we are worshiping. God, of course, is the only truly worthy object of worship. We worship Him because He is worthy. The origin of these two words is even related – “worth-ship” deriving from “worth.” God created us, saved us, blessed us – we owe him everything. He is holy and awesome, that is why we sing and tremble, as the title of our series reminds us. When we consider who God is and who we are we realize that we don’t deserve to be in His presence. As we become more aware of His holiness we are faced with an increasing sense of our own sinfulness. We see this in Isaiah’s experience, as God was commissioning him in chapter 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “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.”—Isaiah 6:1-5

The KJV says, “Woe is me! I am undone.” The root word means “to cease,” and in a very real way we come to the end of ourselves when we truly encounter Almighty God. The closer we get to Him the more we realize our own imperfections and inadequacy. But, as with Isaiah, He touches us with his refining fire, a live coal taken from the altar, thereby forgiving our sin and taking away our guilt.

When do you come into the presence of God? Of course God is everywhere, so in that sense we live every moment in His presence. But when do you feel His presence and acknowledge it? Do you here, in church? One of the reasons we gather like this every Sunday is to set aside time to meet with God together, to encourage each other to focus on God, to shut out the many other distractions that may cause us to lose that sense of His abiding presence with us. Why do we sing? Why not just recite scripture or something? Some churches did think that all music was bad – sort of like the Taliban do now. But music touches our emotions in profound way. So if we want to worship God with all that we are, there will probably be singing involved. Songs do more that help us recite the truth about God and our relationship with Him. They can actually make that truth seem more real, opening us up to it, weakening our carnal defenses to the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, music can and should be an important part of our worship. Many of the Psalms in the Bible were designed to be sung. David as an author and musician clearly understood the importance of music in worshiping God.

So church is an important place for us to come into a sense of God’s presence and to focus our worship on Him. Where else do you get a particular sense of God’s presence? In your personal quiet time? Reading the Bible? Those are good, too. Sometimes we can see clear evidence of God working in a situation, answering prayer or even surprising us with something that shows us how good and caring and powerful He is. Those are times to pause and acknowledge His presence and consciously worship Him. We glorify Him by recognizing in our hearts and pointing out to others all the amazing things that He is doing. And of course we can and should praise and bless Him just for who He is, not just for what we get from Him. He is worthy of our praise even if He never did anything for us.

So we need to focus on God as often as possible. But worship is actually bigger than our conscious thought. We need to live lives of worship 24-7, where everything we do is part of our worship of God. A couple of weeks ago John talked about love, what it means to love God and love each other. Love is practically a definition of worship. If we live a life of love we will live a life of worship. Worship can and must flow out of our love for God. One of the most moving experiences I had on my latest trip was in the obstetrics ward of the mission hospital I was visiting. In that culture, girls are generally undervalued and considered inferior to boys. I saw one mother with her newborn placed down at the foot of her bed. She was completely ignoring her baby. The German doctor I was with said that during the C-section, when he told her that her baby was a girl, she screamed in disappointed and anger. So that made it all the more significant for the doctor to pick up this baby, as he does with every baby, every day, and talk to her and cuddle her and bless her in the name of Jesus – to tell her that she was a special child of God. It struck me as I watched that that might be the only time in her entire life that someone loves on that little girl that way. Maybe it seems like a small thing. But small things matter to God. What an act of worship that was!

I really like one of Noah Webster’s early definitions of worship, from 1828:

“Worship is to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission”--(Webster's Dictionary, 1828).

This really sums it up: extravagant love and extreme submission. We have just been talking about the love with which we honor God. What about the submission? This is our main topic for today, actually, because as we bow before God, we do so in submission to Him. That’s what bowing represents. Bowing and worship are actually synonymous in the Bible. The main Greek and Hebrew words translated as worship of God are translated elsewhere as bow down, especially when people are the object. For example, Abigail bowing down to David when she met him on the road uses the same Hebrew word as David worshiping in the house of the Lord after the death of Bathsheba’s first baby. Similarly in Greek, the debtor servant in Jesus’ parable prostrating himself and begging for mercy uses the same word as true worshipers worshiping God in spirit and truth. So bowing and worship are completely intertwined in the Scriptures.

We don’t bow to each other much in America, except perhaps at the end of an entertaining performance to acknowledge the audience’s applause. But bowing is very important in other cultures. For example, in Japan children are taught to bow from a very young age, and companies have classes to teach their employees how to bow properly. There are several different types of bows and many occasions for doing them: saying hello or goodbye, starting a meeting or event, congratulating or thanking someone, apologizing, asking a favor, and yes, in worship. The magnitude of the bow is very important. The longer and deeper the bow, the stronger the emotion and the respect expressed. Bowing is also according to rank, with the inferior person in the relationship bowing longer, more deeply, and more frequently that the superior.

So for a Japanese person, bowing before God would be a completely natural thing to do, thanking Him, asking forgiveness, or just acknowledging His superiority. When Americans gave up bowing to the king of England they apparently gave up bowing to each other, too, so we have lost that expression of respect and submission for the most part. We may decline our head slightly in prayer or bend over when we are sitting down to pray. Often we are very casual in the presence of God. And God still wants to commune with us regardless of how we approach Him. But posture is important, and our posture before God is especially important. What I do with my body affects the attitude of my heart. And it indicates to others how we feel about something. But even more importantly our spiritual posture has a huge impact on our relationship with God. What is going on in my heart? We must approach Him with humility and submission.

Consider the many times in the Bible when people fell on their faces, prostrating themselves on the ground out of fear or respect. At the beginning of Genesis 17 it says

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.—Genesis 17:1-5

Abraham submitted himself to God, and God made him the heir of an incredible promise and blessing. All the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. Moses was a great one for falling on his face. We know that Moses was described as “a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” This didn’t make him weak, however. In Numbers 16 we have the story of Korah’s rebellion. Korah and his friends got together to oppose Moses.

They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”—Numbers 3:3

Basically what they were saying was, “Who do you think you are? Who made you the boss?”

When Moses heard it, he fell on his face, and he said to Korah and all his company, “In the morning the Lord will show who is his, and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses he will bring near to him.”—Numbers 3:4-5

Moses pointed out that they were actually rebelling against God, so God would be the one to settle the dispute. Even so he got angry, it says, when some of them accused him of not following through on what he said he would do. But Moses devised a test whereby they would all offer incense to the Lord to see who would be acceptable. Jumping down then to verse 18,

So every man took his censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron. Then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?” And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the congregation, Get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”—Numbers 16: 18-24

And if you remember the rest of the story, the ground opened up and swallowed Korah and his friends and their households, and fire came out of the presence of the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering incense. Moses was vindicated in his leadership of the people, a marvelous example of strength and humility.

Joshua, David, Daniel, and many others fell on their faces before the Lord, motivated by fear, respect, and reverence. Do you remember when Jesus fell on his face? In the garden of Gethsemane when he was pleading with his Father to “let this cup pass” if possible. He was contemplating a terrible death and separation, but he submitted and said, “Not my will but yours be done.” Hebrews 5 tells us that he “learned obedience from what he suffered.”

What does it mean for us to bow before God, to even fall on our faces before him? We gather here to worship him, but what is in our hearts? Carl reminded me of the verses from Isaiah quoted by Jesus in Matthew 15:

 “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”—Matthew 15:8-9

This is a warning to us as well. Our worship and praise is not acceptable to God if our hearts are not right before Him. It is so easy to sing songs that we don’t really mean. Do we adapt our understanding of God to something that we feel more comfortable with? Our worship needs to go beyond what we say. It doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect – we just have to be honest and come before him in humility, “not trusting in our own righteousness but in [his] manifold and great mercies,” as it says in the Prayer of Humble Access from 1548. We don’t usually think in terms of calling out to God for mercy like our forefathers did. “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table,” as that prayer goes on to say. Bowing in worship represents our submission to God, our sense of humility, even self-abasement in the light of his glorious presence. It's great to sing songs about how happy we are that Jesus in our friend and God is so amazing, and so on, as long as we remember how holy and awesome He is. As it says in Psalm 89:

In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him. Who is like you, Lord God Almighty? You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.—Psalm 89:7-8

Our response when we enter into that presence is to bow down in worship. Not only is God so much greater and more powerful than we are, He also sees and knows things that we cannot understand. The only sensible response is to submit to Him, to give Him control of our lives, and to trust Him completely. I would like for us to take a few moments right now to worship this great God together. Let’s just be quiet before Him for a while, and then I will read the second part of Isaiah 40 as a wonderful expression of how great and awesome and loving God is. And I would invite you to adopt a body posture that you feel is appropriate. Don’t worry about what you “normally do” or what other people might think. The words will not be on the screen, so feel free to bow down if you want to. Most of all, remember to honor God in your heart and open yourself up to him. Think about what it means to submit to him. As Paul put it in Romans 12:1

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Isaiah 40:6-31:

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.  Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”

You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding?

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing.

With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken him? As for an idol, a metalworker casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A person too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot; they look for a skilled worker to set up an idol that will not topple.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.