WORSHIP: The Heart of Authentic Worship
CORE VALUE: Worship is always worship!
While there are a variety of fish, a fish is always a fish. Biologically, a fish is never a tree. A fish is never an insect. It doesn’t matter if it’s caught in a lake in Africa or a bayou in Louisiana! It doesn’t matter if it weighs 1,200 pounds or 1.2 pounds! A fish is always fish. It may be a fish that has been fried and is being served with French fries, but frying it doesn’t make it a potato.
Most people can identify a fish, but what about worship?
It’s 10:30 Sunday morning. In a small white wood frame building a few people gather, drink bad coffee and catch up on the week. They gather in a pew-filled room and lift their out-of-key voices in singing a few old hymns backed by an organ. After listening to a sermon and sharing communion they leave the “worship service” for home.
A few blocks away, in a rehabbed industrial warehouse, a large crowd gathers and drinks “Starbuck lattés,” as the clock on a big screen counts down the seconds to the start of the “worship service.” Before and after the sermon, a worship team – led by a young, energetic, electric guitar-playing worship leader – performs highly produced music from an elevated stage accompanied by full lights and a colorful media presentation. It’s an impressively professional production of the latest worship songs from the most popular worship groups from around the world. They even throw in a new version of an old hymn and a choreographed dance routine. Impressive!
Which group worshiped?
Possibly both!
Possibly neither!
Probably some in both gatherings!
We often mistake the means of worship for worship itself!
So, what is “authentic” worship? What does worship have to do with architecture and electronics and sound? Is worship confined to a musical moment on Sunday morning or Sunday evening?
I want to chat with you about worship this morning and that from an event in the life of Abraham.
NKJ Genesis 22:1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you." 6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." Then he said, "Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" 8 And Abraham said, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So the two of them went together.
9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" So he said, "Here I am." 12 And He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." 13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, "In the Mount of The LORD it shall be provided."
15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: "By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son -- 17 "blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
Please notice verse 5—“And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and WORSHIP, and we will come back to you.’”
Abraham says that what both he and Isaac are going to engage in is “worship.” The Hebrew term is "shaha," which means “to prostrate oneself” or “to bow in worship.” Its Greek equivalent is “proskuneo,” which means “to bow or prostrate one’s self out of respect”.
The way that Abraham uses "shaha" describes an act of willful compliance or surrender to the known will of God. In simple terms, he is bowing to God’s will!
Abraham worshiped by giving Isaac and Isaac by giving himself. So, what is Isaac’s significance to Abraham?
• Isaac was God’s answer to Abraham’s prayer.
• Isaac was the son of promise.
• Isaac was Abraham’s and Sarah’s only son and there was no backup.
• Isaac was the son Abraham loved.
• Isaac was Abraham’s joy and his future.
So how does that translate into contemporary experience? How do we relate that to our worship?
May I suggest the following:
1. Worship is giving God what He asks for!
God commands Abraham to take Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain yet to be identified.
The Command - 1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."
Without musical accompaniment, stained glass, technology and electronics, and without question, Abraham obeys God.
The Compliance - 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.
Abraham took a donkey and two young men with him, but he would not be able to substitute them for Isaac.
• If God asks for your time, then your money won’t do.
• If He asks for your money, then your old bass boat won’t do.
• If He asks you to teach the Junior Boys Class, then buying flowers for the foyer won’t do.
• If He asks you to witness to a coworker, then singing a song on Sunday is no substitute.
ILLUS: When God commanded Saul to attack the Amalekites, He instructed him to “utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. . . . kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1Sam. 15:3). In verse 9 we are told, “But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed” (15:9). When confronted by Samuel and asked why he had disobeyed God, Saul said, “the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God” (15:21). Samuel’s rebuke comes in the form of a question and its answer: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fast of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king” (15:23).
Worship is giving God what He asks for and God asked Abraham for what was most valuable to him!
2. Worship is valuing God above all else!
Abraham’s obedience declared that God and His will were more valuable to him than
• Isaac,
• Sarah’s opinion and
• his own heart’s objections.
Worship is the acknowledgement of God’s worth is above everything and everyone else in your life. I’m not sure why people think they can live for themselves 6.75 days a week and consider themselves to be worshipers because they sing for thirty minutes on Sunday morning.
God speaks a stinging rebuke to Israel through the pen of Malachi concerning this very issue. He says:
NKJ Malachi 1:6 " A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My reverence? Says the LORD of hosts to you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, 'In what way have we despised Your name?' 7 "You offer defiled food on My altar. But say, 'In what way have we defiled You?' By saying, 'The table of the LORD is contemptible.' 8 And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of hosts.
What constitutes “the blind” and “the lame” in our worship experience? What makes our worship “evil”? What makes our worship unpleasing to God?
How we live during the week is what gives value to the words we sing on Sunday morning. Matt Redman says: "I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have required. You search much deeper with, through the way things appear You’re looking into my heart." Sunday morning worship expressions that conflict with Monday life expressions make the musical statement we offer null and void!
Worship is valuing God above all else and often that requires sacrifice.
3. Worship is sacrificial!
It’s expensive. It is giving God what is valuable to us, in Abraham’s case, what was of greatest value to him—his son, his only son, whom he loved.
In Luke 7:36-50, a woman who was a sinner enters the house in which Jesus is a guest. She came carrying “an alabaster flask of fragrant oil” (Lu. 7:37) and after cleansing His feet with her tears, wiping them dry with her hair, she then kissed and anointed them with the fragrant oil from her alabaster box. The oil or perfume was probably her most valuable possession and something she had purchased with the money earned in selling herself.
VIDEO: The Alabaster Box (available on www.youtube.com)
CONCLUSION
The worship scene in Genesis 22:1-19 was void of music, lights, and aesthetics.
Everything was done to please God, not Abraham and Isaac!
• Worship gives God what He asks for.
• Worship values God above everything else.
• Worship is sacrificial.
Worship isn’t about us, but about HIM!
Worship is God centered!
APPLICATION
Abraham and Isaac’s trip up the mountain will change them, their relationship and their view of God!
So will yours!
