Sermon Cloud

Introduction

Worship.  What’s the first thing you think of when you hear that word?  Many people in our culture associate the word “worship” with a particular place.  You hear this in questions like, “where do you worship?”  Many in our culture associate the word “worship” with a particular style of music.  As in, “It’s been a year, when is Red Sea finally going to start doing worship?”  Most people in our culture associate the word with religion and see worship as something that religious people do.  All of these assumptions are common but they are also incorrect.  Worship is not something limited to a particular place such as church, or to a particular expression such as music.  It is also not something limited to a particular people, such as religious people.  Everyone worships.  And everyone worships everywhere and in everyway.  No matter who you are every single action you perform is an act of worship.   

This is what we’re going to flesh out over the next several weeks together in our series, “Worship: Right Side Up.”  The fact that theist, atheist, agnostic – all of us are worshipers.  And every single action we perform is an act of worship.  So the question all of us have to answer is not “am I worshiping?”  Because that is what we are doing every waking moment of our lives.  The question we must answer is this: “since I am always worshiping, is my worship acceptable or unacceptable?”  Is your worship acceptable worship or unacceptable worship?  That is where we will start today.  This is an important discussion for us to have because as we look to the Scriptures we will see that not all worship is acceptable worship.  Even worship that is offered by religious people to the God of the Bible is not always acceptable. 

Now I understand that if you’re an atheist you don’t care.  You couldn’t care less what the God of the Bible considers to be acceptable worship.  If you are correct that there is no Ultimate Being then, of course, human beings have no responsibility to worship anyone, so they can continue worshiping themselves.  But if you remove the Ultimate Being from the picture in order to lose any responsibility to worship, you not only lose the responsibility to worship, you lose morality, you lose virtue, you lose justice, you lose injustice, you lose objective Truth.  None of these things can exist objectively in a world without God, the Ultimate Being, in whom these things exist. 

Maybe you’re not an atheist, you’re a theist or an agnostic, but you also are not convinced that the God of the Bible is the One True God.  So you’re not sure that it matters whether he considers your worship to be acceptable or unacceptable.  But here’s the thing.  If there is a God the only way you can know what is acceptable to him is if he tells you.  The only way you can know how he desires to receive worship is if he chooses to reveal himself to you.  And so if you have not yet determined who God is and how and where God reveals himself you will end up doing one of two things.  Either you will say you believe in God, but offer him no worship because you don’t know who he is, or you will create your own god in your mind and worship him.  Either way, what you truly end up worshiping is yourself.  You end up worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. And whoever God is it is safe to assume that as the Creator he would find creature worship unacceptable. 

Maybe you’re a Christian and you have been taught to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable worship by observing the ways people worship.  Depending on your church tradition and church culture true worship might be seen as standing or kneeling, it might be seen as jumping or sitting, it might be seen as vocal or silent, it might be seen as dressed-up or dressed down, it might be seen as demonstrative or reserved, it might be seen as something that happens with contemporary music or with traditional hymns.  Or maybe you’re a Christian who has been told that all of life is worship but as much as you want to believe that you just don’t feel like you’re worshiping throughout the week.  You feel like you’re worshiping on Sunday morning.

The problem with every one of these perspectives is that we are looking to ourselves or to other human beings to tell us what worship is acceptable or unacceptable.  But worship, by its very definition, implies obedience and adoration to someone or something greater than.  So to find out what worship is acceptable and what worship is unacceptable we must stop looking horizontally and, instead, look vertically.   As we will see, every one of us worships.  Again, the only question is whether our worship is acceptable or unacceptable, good or evil.  But before we examine our own worship to see how we measure up let’s look to the examples of Scripture to see the difference between the worship God accepts and the worship he rejects.

Unacceptable Worship

And we don’t have to go any further than the first book of the Bible to see this.  In Genesis 4 we read about Cain and Abel, two sons born to Adam and Eve, the first human beings.  In order to understand what happened between Cain and Abel we have to understand what happened with their parents, Adam and Eve, in the previous 3 chapters.  God created Adam and Eve in his image and he placed them in paradise, the Garden of Eden.  As they lived in this paradise they were in perfect relationship with God.  And because they were in perfect relationship with God they were also in perfect relationship with one another and with all of creation. As they lived together in God’s Garden they worshiped him. They worshiped him in everything they did.  They worshiped God as they communicated with him, as they named the animals he created, as they took care of the garden he entrusted to them, as they made love with the spouse he gave them, and as they obeyed his commands.  In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve worshiped God with their every action and God accepted their worship.  He took pleasure in it.  So much so that he chose to dwell with them in the Garden of Eden, even walking with them and talking with them.  In this environment Adam and Eve continued to worship, they never ceased worshiping, but they did cease to worship properly.  Their worship became unacceptable when they chose to worship themselves instead of their creator.  They put themselves in the place of God.  At that moment the intimacy between God and humanity became hostility between God and humanity.  Humanity fell from a right relationship with God and as a consequence fell from a right relationship with one another and with all of creation. 

Worship, like everything else, was effected by this.  Like everything else that was removed from its proper relationship to its Creator, worship has been perverted and corrupted.  Now all of Adam and Eve’s children have inherited the consequence of their unacceptable worship.  This includes you and me.  It also includes Cain and Abel.  Let’s read their story from Genesis 4:1-7.  In the eyes of God, Abel’s worship was acceptable.  His brother Cain’s worship, though, was unacceptable.  Now though we are told about the difference between their offerings we are not told specifically why God looked upon Abel and his offering with favor and upon Cain and his offering with disfavor.  All we can say with certainty is that Cain did not worship the Lord in the manner God prescribed or by the means God provided.  And for any worship to be acceptable it must be given in the manner God prescribes and by the means God provides, for he alone is the Ultimate Being, the Perfect Being, the only being worthy of worship.

As we continue to read on in the Scriptures we encounter example after example of human beings offering worship that is unacceptable.    In Leviticus 10 we come to the story of Nadab and Abihu.  Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron, the brother of Moses and the high priest of Israel.  As Aaron’s sons they were appointed as priests who were to minister to God on behalf of the people.  The purpose of the priest was to represent God before the people by proclaiming his word and to represent the people before God by offering sacrifices on their behalf.  This was a tremendous responsibility and it was through the work of these priests that God chose to provide peace between himself and his people.  Since this was a position of unparalleled importance it was also a position that required the priest to follow very specific and unparalleled instructions.  In Leviticus 10:1-3 this is what we read, “Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command.  So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.  Moses then said to Aaron, ‘This is what the LORD spoke of when he said: ‘Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’ Aaron remained silent.” 

Nadab and Abihu offered unacceptable worship to God.  And like Cain before them they were punished for their unacceptable worship.  Again, we do not know precisely what made their worship unacceptable.  Did they get the fire from the wrong altar?  Did they offer it at the wrong time or in the wrong place?  We cannot be sure.  All we can be certain of is that they did not worship the Lord in the manner God prescribed or by the means God provided.  And God will not accept corrupt or perverted worship that is offered in a different manner than he prescribes or by a different means than he provides. 

When we read further into Biblical history we find this pattern of unacceptable worship continues in the New Testament as well.  Jesus himself confronts such worship on several occasions.  Let’s read an example of this from Matthew 15:1-9.  Here we see Jesus criticizing the Pharisees for their worship.  Remember, the Pharisees were conservative, religious Jews who devoted themselves to protecting God’s Law and worshiping him.  They were the heroes of the people.  If anyone would have been thought to offer acceptable worship it would be them.  But Jesus says, “no,” and he labels their worship unacceptable.  Their worship is in vain, he says, because while their mouths may say all the right things and their hands may do all the right things their heart is far from him.  Again, we don’t know precisely what was going on in their heart.  All we know for certain is that they were not worshiping God in the manner he prescribes or by the means he provides.  And this made their worship unacceptable.

What about our worship?  Is it unacceptable?  Every one of us should pursue the answer to this question because every one of us is a worshiper  – theist, atheist, and agnostic alike – and every action we perform is an act of worship.  But before we answer that question let’s look at several examples of acceptable worship. 

Acceptable Worship

When human beings rebelled against God they fell from a right relationship with God.  This infected all of creation, including worship, so that it became perverted and corrupt.  But worship, like everything else, can be redeemed.  And we see numerous examples in Scripture of human beings being restored to a right relationship with God and offering worship that is acceptable to him.

The first example is Abel.  We just read about the story of Abel and his brother, Cain, in Genesis 4.  We saw that God looked upon Cain and his offering disapprovingly but he looked upon Abel and his offering with approval.  Earlier we asked the question, “what was the difference?”  What made Abel’s worship acceptable and Cain’s unacceptable?  The account in Genesis did not answer this question for us specifically but it did seem clear that Cain did not offer his worship in the manner God prescribed nor by the means God had provided. But we do learn more about why Abel’s worship was accepted by God when we turn to the New Testament.  Hebrews 11:4 says this, “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.  By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings.  And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.”  Abel’s worship was accepted by God, at least in part, because it was offered in faith.  The implication is that Cain’s was not. 

Later in the book of Genesis we are introduced to a man named Abraham.  Let’s turn to Genesis 22:1-14 to read about Abraham’s acceptable worship.  Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of God’s people.  Despite their old age God promised Abraham and his wife, Sarah, a son.  And he promised that through this son he would build his cherished people through whom he would bless the entire world.  Miraculously, Abraham and Sarah did birth a son despite their very old age.  They named him Isaac.  Isaac was called the “child of promise” because all of God’s promises to Abraham were to come through him.  This made what God asked of Abraham all the more difficult.  Let’s read.  God gave Abraham very specific instructions about the worship he required.  And Abraham obeyed.  Though it would cost him what was dearest to him, he obeyed.  He took his own son, the child of promise, to the mountain and was prepared to offer him as a sacrifice.  But God intervened.  He was not requiring that Abraham sacrifice Isaac as an act of worship.  He was requiring that Abraham be willing to sacrifice anything as an act of worship.  God commended Abraham for his worship and then he provided Abraham with a means to worship - a ram.  Abraham then offered the ram that God provided and his worship was again accepted.  Abraham’s worship was accepted by God because it was offered in the manner God prescribed and by the means that God provided. 

Throughout the rest of the Old Testament we find examples of acceptable worship.  But when we come to the New Testament we encounter someone very unique.  We encounter the perpetually acceptable worshiper.  We encounter the perfect worshiper.  We encounter Jesus Christ.  For every moment of his 33 years on earth Jesus perfectly worshiped God and God accepted his worship. Jesus lived the life you and I were supposed to live but did not.  He lived every moment of his life in proper relationship with God and humanity.  Because he was in right relationship with God and humanity he was able to offer worship that was unperverted and uncorrupted.  It was pure and holy and acceptable in God’s sight.  Jesus lived his whole life in the manner that God prescribed and offered his worship by the means that God had provided.  He was the perfect worshiper.  And because he was the perfect worshiper he was able to offer the perfect sacrifice.  A better sacrifice than Abel’s, a better sacrifice than Abraham’s, a better sacrifice than Aaron’s, a better sacrifice than any priest or worshiper of God.  He offered the perfect sacrifice of his own sinless life in worship to God.  And because his sacrifice was perfect there is no need for any more sacrifices.  No sacrifice can ever add to the perfect and final  and complete sacrifice of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection.  This is communicated again and again, especially in the book of Hebrews.  Let’s read the following passage together: Hebrews 9:24-10:14.  Jesus is the perfect worshiper who worshiped God as both the perfect priest and as the perfect offering. 

Measuring Our Worship

Now that we have seen some examples of worship we can examine our own worship to see if it is good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, righteous or evil.  As I have said, since God is the only being worthy of worship only he can determine what worship is acceptable and what worship is unacceptable.  For worship to be acceptable, then, it must be offered in the manner God prescribes and by the means that God provides.  Let’s start by looking at the manner God prescribes.  God prescribes that all worship be offered in faith.  Any worship that is not offered in faith is unacceptable worship.  Let me read to you from Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  

Now the language of “faith” is tossed around a lot these days in our churches and in our culture at large.  In both the church and the culture faith has become a virtuous thing in and of itself.  Faith is seen as virtuous and good with no respect to where that faith is placed.  Whatever you believe in, our culture applauds you for being “sincere” and the church applauds you for having “unshakeable faith” (even if your faith is misplaced or misguided).  I was reminded of this again this week as I was reading an interview with a filmmaker named Joss Whedon.  Joss is the writer of the TV show, Firefly, and the movie, Serenity, based on the show.  There’s a scene in Serenity where one of the passengers onboard this spaceship is talking to Mal, the captain of the ship.  The passenger, Shepherd Book, a reverend, says this, “The point is not whether or not you believe what I believe.  The point is that you don’t believe in anything.  And it’s killing you.”  Joss Whedon said this about that scene and the role of belief in his film, “The word ‘belief’ comes into the film a lot for that reason. It’s a simple act of subsuming yourself to the idea of something that is great. Believing that there is something worth structuring your life around that will direct your moral decisions, and sometimes [help] you make harder decisions… that is important.  What that belief is... is not.”  For Joss, faith itself is virtuous but the object of faith is not.

But according to the Bible, not to mention common sense, faith in and of itself is not virtuous.  To place your faith in someone like David Koresh is not virtuous, it is destructive, because he is untrustworthy.  To place your faith in the Democrats or the Republicans is not virtuous it is hopeless, because they are human like you.  To place your faith in science is not virtuous, it is dangerous, because it is ever-changing.   To place your faith in the god of most Christian television is not virtuous, it is foolish, because he does not exist.  Faith in and of itself is not pleasing to God.  Everyone has faith but not everyone pleases God.  The faith that pleases God is the faith that is placed in a very particular location, or rather, in a very particular person. The validity of your faith is not found in you.  It is not found in how strongly you believe. The validity of your faith is found outside of you.  It is found in the object of your faith.    As we see from that passage in Hebrews 11:6, to please God you cannot simply believe, you must believe that he exists and you must trust in his character as it is revealed in the Scriptures.  For your faith to be virtuous your faith must be firmly placed in the one person who is worthy of that faith.  The perfect, eternal, unchanging, good, righteous, holy, just, trustworthy, loving God of all the universe who reveals himself in Scripture.  No matter how sincere your faith, no matter how unwavering your belief, if it is not firmly placed in the Triune God of Scripture it is sin and your worship is unacceptable.  

True faith in the true God will always express itself in adoration and obedience to the true God.  And this is worship.  As we have seen, for our worship to be acceptable it must be obedient worship.  It must be offered in the manner God prescribes and by the means he provides.  The manner God prescribes for acceptable worship is faith.  There is no acceptable worship apart from faith in the Triune God.  The means God prescribes for acceptable worship is Jesus Christ.  There is no acceptable worship other than worship that is offered through Jesus Christ.  Because Jesus alone is the perfect and obedient and faithful worshiper, Jesus alone is able to approach God on his own merits.    Because Jesus alone offered the perfect and final sacrifice for sins, Jesus alone is able to give us access to God.  Because Jesus alone is both perfect God and perfect man, Jesus alone is able to mediate between righteous God and sinful man.  That is what the Scripture says in 1Timothy 2:5-6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

Jesus is the only mediator between God and man.  He is our only means of accessing God, our only means of knowing God, our only means of worshiping God.  Any worship that relies on anything other than Christ as its means is unacceptable worship.  So much of our culture and our church thinks that the means to worship God is through good works.  Whether it’s being loving, or generous, or compassionate, or reading our Bible, or praying -- or whatever -- we think that the means to draw closer to God is through our quote/unquote “right living.”  But our good works and our right living do not get us any closer to God and they are unacceptable as acts of worship.  God himself says in Scripture that even our righteousness – our most righteous righteousness – is as a used MaxiPad in his sight.  It is useless.  It is ugly.  It is disgusting.  Jesus Christ, and not our goodness, is the only mediator between God and man.  Only through Jesus do we have access to God, only through Jesus is our worship (of any sort) acceptable to God.  Because only Jesus is the perfect worshiper, who lived and lives in perfect relationship with God on our behalf.  Whatever good we do must come from Jesus and be offered to God through Jesus if it is to be acceptable to God.

Jesus is the only mediator between God and man.  And the Church needs to be reminded of this just as much as the culture.  Not only do we tend to rely on our righteousness to mediate between us and God we tend to rely on church itself and on different aspects of the church “program,” such as music.  We cannot wait until Sunday morning so we can draw closer to God and worship him.  We cannot wait until the “worship music” begins so that we can draw closer to God and worship him.  We even go so far as to call the musical portion of church “the time of worship.”  We go so far as to say that this music “ushers us into God’s presence.”  This is nonsense.  Music cannot mediate between God and man.  Only Jesus Christ mediates between God and man.  So no matter what emotions you feel when the music comes on, no matter how many goose bumps you get when we sing together, no matter how much you weep when your song is sung, no matter how much the music motivates you to cry out in worship, music does not bring you any closer to God and it does not make your worship acceptable to God.  And if you rely on music to bring you nearer to God or be your primary means of worship your worship is unacceptable!  It is deplorable.  Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man.  This is so important we should put it on a t-shirt: your emotions are not an indicator of your proximity to God.  Your emotions are not an indicator of whether or not your worship is acceptable.  The Word and Work of Jesus Christ is your indicator that all of your worship is acceptable when it is offered through him and that none of it is acceptable if it is offered through any other means.

Whether you are a Christian or not I want you to ask yourself these questions.  When do you feel closest to God?  When do you feel most worshipful?  Your answer to these questions might reveal what, at your core, you are trusting in as your means to worship.  As you look at your day-to-day life, practically speaking, what are you relying on to bring you into God’s presence? Are you relying on your hard work?  Are you relying on your attempts at being a spiritual person?  Are you relying on your church?  Are you relying on music?  Are you relying on emotion?  Are you relying on experience?  Are you relying on your pastor?  Are you relying on your own worship?  God’s message to us is this:  whether we call ourselves Christians, or agnostics, or atheists, or by any other name, if we are not worshiping the God of the Bible in the manner he prescribed – which is faith – and by the means he has provided – which is Jesus Christ alone – our worship is unacceptable.  Worse than that, we are committing idolatry because we are worshiping someone or something other than the Ultimate Being, God himself. 

Some of you have heard people say that we are made for worship or made to worship.  Whole songs have been written about that.  But it is not true.  We were made worshiping.  And human beings have never ceased worshiping.  We have just turned worship upside down.  We began this morning by saying that every single one of us – theist, atheist, and agnostic – is always worshiping.  Every single act that we perform is an act of worship.  Because at every moment in our lives we are living for someone or something.  We are giving ourselves to someone or something.  We are prizing someone or something as ultimately valuable.  We are looking to someone or something to provide us with happiness, with fulfillment, with purpose, with hope, with salvation.  That might be Jesus or it might be our careers, our relationships, our prosperity, human approval, or a sense of accomplishment.  You see, the question is never, “am I worshiping?”  The question is always, “what am I worshiping?”  God tells us that we are either worshiping Jesus or we are worshiping an idol, a false god.  There is no third option.  Either we worship Jesus and please God or we worship an idol and deny God.

Every one of us is equally vulnerable to this horrible sin.  Yes, even you.  Remember, this was the sin of the very first human beings.  They chose to worship themselves instead of their Creator and everything changed.  Let me read to you from Romans 1:21-25. It is ironic that so many people choose not to worship Jesus because they don’t want to be ruled by anyone or anything.  But the truth is that we will all be ruled by something.  We are all slaves to whatever we worship.  We will either be ruled by the Creator or by his creation.  We will either be ruled by the compassionate Creator or by the indifferent creation.  We will either be ruled by the God who saves or by what destroys. God created men and women to rule over creation but when we worship creation it ends up ruling over us.  It is worship upside down.  That is precisely what happened with Adam and Eve and that is precisely what happens with us when we trust in anything other than Jesus Christ to give us life, meaning, and salvation.

There is no sin greater than idolatry.  In fact, idolatry is the sin of all sins.  There is not a sin that we commit that does not have idolatry at its root.  Whenever you sin against God it is because at that moment you are choosing to worship something other than him.  You tell a lie to cover up something you don’t want everyone to know – it is because at that moment you are worshiping human approval instead of worshiping Jesus Christ.  You don’t give your money to your local church or to people in need – it is because at that moment you are worshiping your possessions instead of worshiping Jesus Christ.  If you over-work yourself, if you look down on others in pride, if you engage in some form of sexual immorality it is because you, for at least that moment, are trusting in something other than Jesus Christ to save you.  That is unacceptable worship.  That is idolatry.  That is evil.  And it is unnecessary.  Because Christ alone is the perfect and obedient worshiper.  Christ alone is able to save you.  Christ alone is able to grant you access to God, to bring you to God, to reconcile you to God, to bring you unity with God.  And his work is complete.  There is nothing that needs to be added to it and nothing that can be added to it.  Listen to the Word of the Lord from Hebrews 10:19-22, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”  Jesus has done all that is necessary for us to find fulfillment, pleasure, happiness, hope, acceptance, and salvation.  He has reconciled us to God.  Because of him we can draw near to God boldly and in full assurance.  With confidence.  Knowing that our lives and our worship will be accepted by God himself – not because we are good – but because Jesus is good on our behalf.  He is the perfect worshiper. 

Conclusion

Every one of us is a worshiper.  Every one of us is worshiping right now.  Every one of us will be worshiping every remaining moment of our lives.  But will our worship be acceptable or unacceptable?  Will our worship be right-side up or will it be upside down?  Will we worship the one God who can save us or will we worship things that will only enslave us?  I pray that for the remainder of our days we will worship according to the manner God has prescribed and by the means he has provided.  Let us worship God in faith and let us do so through Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man.  Let us not rely on anything else to help us worship or bring us into God’s presence.  This is worship right-side up, as it was intended to be. Listen to the Word of the Lord from Hebrews 13:15, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”