WORSHIP THE LORD ALWAYS AND IN ALL THINGS ~ HOW DO WE THEN WORSHIP? ~ Habakkuk Lesson 15

Today, we are suffering. Today our nation is reeling from the news we received yesterday out of Uvalde, Texas. What should be the believer's first response to tragedy? Worship. Some might say, "How is that possible?" Did you ever wonder why 'prayer' and God's name being mentioned is one of the first things that comes out of the mouths of most people in times of intense suffering when otherwise they rarely mention Him (unless to take His name in vain)? How does one worship a God he doesn't know? The only way is to worship a false god. Believers, on the other hand, worship and point those who do not know Him to the truths of the gospel. Paul could say, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18)." Paul suffered, but because he knew his God, he was lifted above his trials to fix his gaze on future glory. We must do the same. It makes all the difference in the way we live and worship. The Bible assures us that one day in a new earth, there will be no more evil, only perfect relationships. There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, (these things caused by sin) for the old order of things will have passed away. On that day, Christ will wipe away every tear from our eyes and reveal His bottle filled with those tears we shed on earth (Psalm 56:8). All these promises are part of the future glory of those who are in Christ while on earth.  

In the book I wrote on suffering, I talk about how we want to believe we can have our fairy tale ending here and now. 'They all lived happily ever after' is not a fairy tale for those who trust in Christ embracing the truths of His Gospel. Eternity will see that promise fulfilled. 

We can worship, even in times of extreme heartache; and we must worship--rightly.

While many sit in pews of churches around the world week after week expecting to get something, to somehow get their felt needs met, what is the purpose of the church service?  Where is God's required way of worship found in Scripture? Why can't we worship God any way we choose to worship Him? Why doesn't the modern-day worship service of the New Testament look like that which took place in the Old Testament? Where am I supposed to worship? What is worship? How can I worship in the midst of pain and suffering? All great questions.

We must first understand that worship is not centered on us but on God alone. So, if our purpose of attending church is to 'get' something (whether it be warm, fuzzy feelings or some sort of spiritual high), we have a faulty foundation. To want our needs met in worship is to make 'self' the true object of worship. As some have rightly said in the past, our worship is directed to an audience of One. Because of who God is, we glorify Him in our worship when we listen to Him and agree with Him. When we read His Word or listen to a sermon expositing His Word with a heart devoted to obedience, we give Him glory through our worship. We say we love God, but that is a lie unless we have a heart that wants to obey Him and live to that end.

Some people argue that they don't have to go to church, for they can simply take a walk in nature and His creation leads them to worship Him. But is that God's prescribed way of worship? Nowhere is that concept found in Scripture. We can worship while observing His creation, but He is the object of that worship. If we don't know who He is, there can be no true worship. 

We worship individually and corporately. We worship corporately as the Church, Christ's body. His body functions as a body. Christ's body is a community of like-minded believers (who believe His Word) giving God glory working together to shine the Light of Christ on the world around them with the sole purpose of making His name great. The prayers in the Psalms are great examples to us of individual and corporate worship.

So, why does the worship of the church today look so different than that which took place in the Temple of the Old Testament? The Old Testament and New Testaments are hard for unbelievers to know how to bridge together, and we may encounter these types of questions in our attempts to evangelize the lost. We know the bridge is Christ. Because this is a great question by which to introduce the Gospel, we should think through the answer carefully.

God has revealed Himself in Scripture by progressive revelation. He didn't reveal Himself to human beings all at one time but over many centuries, giving new information periodically that built upon what came before. This new information never contradicted or denied what was revealed previously. Because we have the complete revelation of God's Word today, there is no new revelation, as some would believe. Hebrews 1:1-2 Why is this important to understand? Because the way we are called to worship today might look differently than in the Old Testament. Nobody I know is out searching for an unblemished sacrificial offering to take to the Temple. Why? There is no need because THE Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world has died once for all. Our worship, acceptable to God, however, still comes from the same kind of heart with the same intent.

Paul in Athens tried to correct the false worship he saw there. Acts 17:22-23--So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you." This portion of Scripture is a great way to learn how to evangelize starting with creation. With Gentiles, Paul began with creation, the general revelation of God. With the Jews, he began from the Old Testament. Acts 17:24-31 The Athenians were worshipping, however, they were not worshipping rightly.

We know we can't worship any way we choose if we truly want to honor the Lord. Think of Cain, Ananias and Sapphira, or Nadab and Abihu. Enough said!

Exodus 34:14-...for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God-- Worship, here, is saha which means to bow oneself down, to prostrate oneself, to do reverance. True worship comes from a heart of humility, first of all.  Deuteronomy 4:19 uses the same word: And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. Here, serve them is tied to worship them. It means to labor for, to do work for, or to serve another by labor. Worship and service are used together in Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8 when Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:13 and 10:20. Everything the believer does is to be in service as an offering to God. For the believer, everything in life is worship! Some falsely believe that only those who are in full-time ministry are "serving" God. Every Christian is in ministry.

Abel rightly brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions to the Lord in worship. Once the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, they were to give an offering before the altar of the Lord of the first fruits of their produce. They were to "set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 26:10). We have already established that the difference between Cain and Abel's offering was that one was offered with a right heart, and one was not. David said in Psalm 51:15-17 of the sacrificial offering God accepts: O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. The bottom line is that we are to honor God in our whole lives, in and from all our labor. 

To see where this began, we must go all the way back to the Garden. Genesis 2:15--Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.  The word 'cultivate' here is abad which is the same word we saw in Deuteronomy 4:19. Some translations use the word 'placed' or: "Then the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden..." This word for 'put' or 'placed' is seen in other verses where the people were commanded to place something before the Lord or in the presence of the Lord as in Deuteronomy 26:10 above or Exodus 16:33. It's also associated with giving rest or settling down which is interesting. Adam and Eve were created to serve God by doing the work He had given them to do. 'Working' and 'keeping' were words used often of the Levitical priesthood to describe the work of the priests. Adam and Eve were obeying God in acts of service constituting worship. Because the Garden was where God dwelt among them, God placing them there before Him to serve Him was for the intended purpose of giving Him glory. Settled there they would find their ultimate rest and greatest joy in serving Him in whole submission to Him. The Garden was the sanctuary or holy place where God's presence dwelt--where He met with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve's whole lives revolved around God. They belonged wholly to Him. Today, Christ indwells every believer. They are in His presence always. Their ultimate rest and greatest joy is in serving Him in whole submission to Him. 

Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Notice this phrase that describes what would happen if God was not worshipped rightly. Verses 17-18--But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.  A heart of obedience is tied to worship that God requires. Also, notice that the phrase 'drawn away' is the same as in Deuteronomy 4:19. It means in both instances to be seduced. In Deuteronomy 13:5, we see this word 'seduce' used in the same way. "But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the LORD your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you." 

2 Kings 17:36 Right worship, God-ordained worship, involves fear of God (holy reverence -- He's not the 'man upstairs'), a humble heart willing to sacrifice everything out of love for Him. This type of worship can only come from hearts that have been made new by Him. 

1 Chronicles 16:29; Joshua 5:14-15; Psalm 29:2; Psalm 96:9; 2 Chronicles 7:19-20; Psalm 5:7; Psalm 95:6

I've spent a lot of time on false worship and idolatry on this blog, so I will only say make a few points here. First, false worship is hypocritical and vain worship. Jesus quoting Isaiah 29:13 to the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 15:7-9 says: "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: 'THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'" Their 'traditions' or teachings of men not from the Word of God actually invalidated (cancelled out) the word of God. See also Mark 7:13.

Jeremiah 13:10--This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like this waistband which is totally worthless. Who were these wicked people? People who only professed God as their God. Their lifestyles proved otherwise. You know, those sitting in dead churches each week having their ears tickled by listening to words of men over the Word of God. In Jeremiah 25, God talks about how He had sent the Word of the Lord to His people again and again, but they had not listened to Him. He had sent His servants and prophets again and again, but they had not listened to them when they called the people to turn from their evil ways, from going after other gods to serve them and to worship them which provoked Him to anger. Because they had not listened, they were headed for judgment. 

Today is the aftermath of the tragic shooting in that small school in Uvalde, Texas. Instead of crying out to the Lord for His help and mercy, one FB friend posted a prayer to Saint Michael. I have to ask: What is wrong with crying out to the LORD? Jeremiah 7 and 44 are severe indictments by God against His own people who were worshipping the 'Queen of Heaven'. When the Catholic church worships Mary, the mother of Jesus, as the Queen of Heaven, it is trying to blend Christianity with paganism. Here, the Jews were worshipping Ishtar, an Assyrian and Babylonian goddess, a.k.a. Ashtoreth and Astarte, the wife of Baal or Molech. What is happening in the Roman Catholic Church and others is spiritual adultery that provokes God to anger as much as what the Jews were doing in the Old Testament. The 'saints' of old (that are really demons hiding behind these iconic statues the religious bow down to and pray to) CANNOT HEAR anything. God hears, but He will not answer prayers to dead saints. The hearts of those who pray to dead saints are not right. Theirs is false worship which God will judge.

Where are we to worship? Psalm 95:6 says: Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. Psalm 99:5 says: Exalt the LORD our God and worship at His footstool; holy is He. Psalm 99:9 says: Exalt the LORD our God and worship at His holy hill, for holy is the LORD our God. Psalm 132:7 says: Let us go into His dwelling place; let us worship at His footstool. Psalm 138:2 says: I will bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.

Speaking to the Samaritan woman, Jesus said: "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." John 4:21-24

True worshipers worship God through His Son from the heart. From beginning to end, all of time has been about the created worshipping his Creator. We were created by God for worship, and believers will worship Him, blessing and praising His name, for all eternity. With no heart for true worship here, can anyone honestly expect he or she would be happy in God's heaven? If this is what we long for here, we can be assured that heaven will only be exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ever imagine. Here, we're being made ready for perfect worship of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who reigns now and forever!