The Challenge of Worship
Genesis 22:1-19
Camp Leach tells the story of some friends who took their 5 year-old grandson to church one Sunday. Bettie took her place with the choir while Christopher, their grandson sat in the congregation with his grandfather. During the service, Bettie motioned to Christopher to nudge his grandfather to keep him awake but Christopher didn’t respond. After the service, Bettie asked Christopher why he didn’t do what she asked, especially since she had given him 50 cents to keep his grandfather awake. And Christopher said, “Grandpa gave me a dollar to let him sleep.” Well today, we’re talking about the challenge of worship. Staying awake is not the challenge of worship. When I served at Rayne Memorial UMC as the associate pastor, we had a man who always arrived 5 minutes late and then pulled out the Times-Picayune and started to read it throughout the entire service until the last hymn, when he got up and left before the service ended. The challenge of worship is not to pay attention. Others of you with young children may be thinking the challenge of worship is just getting here. And for those of you who are exhausted by week’s end, you may think the challenge of worship is just getting to come to worship. While some of those might be challenges for you, that is not the true challenge of worship.
True worship presents a challenge to everyone who comes in the presence of God. Our Scripture today is one of the most difficult to understand in the entire Bible because the insinuations of the story can be unsettling. It presents a view of God which makes us uncomfortable to think of our God as one who asks for the sacrifice of a child, our child, to prove our dedication and commitment to God. Instead, we prefer a God who loves us and cares for us. So how could God demand such a thing of Abraham? I think the one great lesson of this story is how serious God is about worship. More than anything, this passage is about the worship of God. This is the first time the word worship is used in the Bible. Obviously, people worshiped before this. Abraham bowed down to God as two angels visited him in the desert. Noah made offerings to God as did Cain and Abel. There is a rule from Biblical scholars called “the first mention” which simply states the first time a word is used in the Bible, it sets the tone for all other uses of that word in Scripture. We often think of worship as singing or rejoicing before the Lord, but worship is much deeper than that. Worship is challenging. There are five challenges worship presents to us today.
First, worship challenges us to make a change. Worship is an encounter with a Holy God and you cannot encounter God and remain the same. The very revelation and presence of God demands a response which often is a called to change. Like Isaiah in chapter 6:5, “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.” Coming into the presence of God can be a dangerous thing. When Isaiah is confronted with the holiness of God, he sees himself as he really is, a man filled with sin. In that moment, he knows he is not who he is expected to be and that a change must occur. When you come before God and encounter Him, you will either be brought closer to God and be healed and changed or you will reject God by rebelling against him and demanding to go your own way, further separating yourself from God. But here is the good news: God’s grace is always available. As Isaiah grasps his sin, one of the angels cleanses him of it, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” That same grace is offered to you. God always calls us beyond our present self when we encounter him in worship.
Second, worship asks for a commitment to be made. When I was in my first year of ministry, I walked into our District preachers meeting at the same time as Bobbie Potter, who was pastor of Munholland UMC in Old Metairie. He asked if I preach last Sunday which I did. Then he asked, “What did you ask them to commit to?” I said I didn’t ask them to commit to anything. He then said, “Every time you preach, you need to ask the people to commit to something.” I disagreed. And I was wrong. I think that’s the attitude in worship. We show up as we are, do the worship thing, and expect to leave undisturbed, the same person we were when we arrived. God always calls to make a greater and even deeper commitment of our lives to him when we come to worship Him.
Abraham and Sarah were barren. They had tried for decades to conceive and finally had given up. Then God came to them and said, “I make a great nation of you Abraham” and still there was no child. Then 40 years later, an angel came and promised Sarah would get pregnant. But again the years rolled by and still no child was born. They had finally given up, given up on themselves and given up on God, Have you ever been there? Then seekingly out of nowhere, Sarah gets pregnant. You can only imagine how they loved, cherished and protected that child. And then we come to our Scripture today, where this baby Isaac has now grown to a child. And God asks Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice of worship to God. God could have asked for anything of Abraham’s, his flocks, his tent, his food, his money, and he would have gladly given it. But his only child that he had waited more than 70 years for? But God asks for Isaac and here’s the point: worship must be an all or nothing commitment to God. He will be satisfied with nothing less. True worship is a complete dedication to God of everything you are and everything you have, even the most precious thing in your life. This is the commitment that God asks you to make when you come to worship Him. Nothing less will do.
Here’s the Good News: God never ask more than He has already given himself for He gave himself. He gave the most precious thing in His life, His only Son as a sacrifice on the cross for the sake of our sins. When D.L. Moody was visiting England, he heard Pastor Henry Varney preach, “the world has yet to see what God will do with a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to the Holy Spirit.” Moody would later write, “He said a man. He did not say a great man or a learned man not a rich man, simply a man. I am a man and it lies within the man himself whether he will or will not make that entire and full consecration. I will try my utmost to be that man.” And as a result, God was able to use D.L. Moody to touch his entire generation and even today there are people transformed by his ministry.
Third, worship challenges us because there is a cost to be paid. Any commitment will always have a cost. If not, it’s not really a commitment. Mahatma Ghandi said in a conference with the British government that human beings must take great care not to be molded by external forces that can destroy their lives, their families, their community and their relationship. He called these “the Seven Social Sins”. They are: politicians without moral character, riches without working for it, business without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without moral principles, science without a commitment to humanity and last but not least, worship without sacrifice. Worship challenges us to pay the cost of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the Lord of our Life rather than just a part of our life. It is impossible to have a commitment without some cost coming with it. And there is a cost to worship. Worship is more than showing up, singing a few songs, praying a few prayers, putting a few dollars into the plate and taking a few notes on the sermon. Worship isn’t just about adding God into your life. Worship is about making God all of your life. That means there are things that you’re going to have to give up in your life to follow God, relationships you’re going to have to back away from, things you’re going to have to sell. And habits you’ll have to end.
There’s the story of a young man who was on an intense spiritual journey. He came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him to follow the Law which he said he had done. “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ At this, the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Why? Because true worship of God will cost you everything you have and hold most dear. It might be your job, your house, your money, your friends or your status. But whatever it is, you must be willing to sacrifice it all to worship God with your whole being and willingly pay the price.
Fourth, worship challenges us because there is a concession to be made. The one thing that stands out about Abraham here is that whenever he is called, his answer stays the same. When God first called him, his answer was, “Here I am.” When Isaac spoke to him going up the mountain, he replied, “Here I am.” When he has his hand raised high ready to wield the knife, the angel calls to him and he replies, “Here I am.” Abraham completely conceded his rights, his life, his family, his belongings and himself to God. The only way Abraham could do that was by faith. In his request to sacrifice Isaac, God appeared to be illogical and inconsistent but Abraham believed in God and worshipped him. Only then was he able to concede all of himself and everything he had to God.
Fifth, worship challenges us because there is a covenant to be lived out. That is to say, God has made his covenant promise to us and there are times when we must trust him and allow Him to be faithful in his promises. God appeared to be totally inconsistent with all that Abraham knew, but he knew it was God and his act of worship was given in faith. He came to worship and left all the details up to God in how God would be faithful to His covenant that he would make of Abraham a great nation. He would let nothing stand in the way of his worship of God, not his wants, not his desires, not his attachments, absolutely nothing. Hebrews 11:17 says, “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son.”
There’s the story of an Easter service is an East Texas church. The Call to Worship had been given. The choir started its processional singing, “Up from the Grave He Arose” as they marched in perfect step down the center isle toward the from of the church. The first woman in the processional was wearing shoes with very slender heals. Without thinking, she marched toward the grating that covered the hot air register grate in the floor. In a flash, she recognized her predicament. Not wishing to hold up the processional, without missing a step, she slipped her foot out of the shoe and continued marching down the isle. There wasn’t a hitch. The processional moved with clock-like precision. The first man after her saw what happened and without losing a step, reached down and pulled up her shoe, but the entire grate came with it! Surprised but still singing, the man kept on going down the isle, holding in his hand the grate with the show attached to it. Everthing still moved like clockwork. Still in tune and in step, the next man in the prcoiessional stepped into the open register and disappeared from sight. The next person after him stepped to the side and did all of the others as the procession continued down to the front. The service took on a special meaning that Easter, when just as the choir ended with, “Allelujah! Christ arose!, a voice under the church was heard shouting, “I hope you all are out of the way ‘cause I’m coming out now!” The little girl closest to the isle shouted, “Come on Jesus! We’ll stay out of the way!”
There are times in our lives when we need to concede our lives, our problems, our troubles, our needs and our desires totally to God. In other words, we just need to step out of the way and Let God be God so He can once again be faith to His covenant made with us. It is only then that we can receive the promises of God fulfilled in our lives. Amen.
