Becoming A Festival, pt. 1
February 8/9, 2003
Intro:
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 1:
Q: What is the chief end of man?
A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
The question and answer get to the heart of why we were created – we were created to worship God – to “glorify” God to use the exact word – and to “enjoy him forever.” Have you ever noticed that the first four of the ten commandments have to do with worship? 1. no other Gods. 2. no idols. 3. don’t take the name of the Lord in vain. 4. the Sabbath is Holy. Here God lays out the 10 Commandments by which He desires His children to live, and 4/10 have to do with worship.
Over the next few weeks, I want to explore together what our vision for worship is at Laurier. We are going to search God’s Word, and we are going to attempt to practice some of what we learn. The prevailing image as we talk about a vision of worship is the picture of a festival, which I think accurately portrays what we should be doing as we worship.
Defining our terms:
To begin a conversation like this, it is probably a good idea to define our terms: what does it mean to “worship”?
A.W. Tozer: What is worship? Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven.
James Packer: sixfold activity: praising God for all that he is and all his achievements; thanking him for his gifts and his goodness to us; asking him to meet our own and others’ needs; offering him our gifts, our service, and ourselves; learning of him from his word, read and preached, and obeying his voice; telling others of his worth, both by public confession and testimony to what he has done for us.
William Temple, the renowned archbishop of Canterbury: quickening the conscience by the holiness of God, feeding the mind with the truth of God, purging the imagination by the beauty of God, opening the heart to the love of God, and devoting the will to the purpose of God
After several hours of research trying to find a simple, articulate way to define “worship,” I gave up trying to find how someone else defines it and decided to try to write my own definition. Synthesizing some of that research, I’ve concluded that a simple definition of worship is, “how we respond to that which has the most worth in our lives.” (repeat).
It begs the first question – what has the most worth in your life? That will be what you worship. It might be money – that is the big one Jesus talked about much of His time on earth. It might be power. It might be the pursuit of your own personal pleasure. It might be a relationship with another person. What has the most worth in your life? The way you respond to that is your act of worship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson hit the nail on the head when he said:
The gods we worship write their names on our faces, be sure of that. And a man will worship something —have no doubt about that, either. He may think that his tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of his heart—but it will come out. That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
And this is where God gets exclusive. He demands our worship – our complete, undivided worship. The Bible teaches that God is jealous for our worship, and that we cannot attempt to “work Him in there somewhere” without risking His wrath. Have you ever stopped to consider why God might make such a huge demand? It is because He knows this is the best thing for us. Everything else – money, power, pleasure, even relationships with other people – are only temporary and will leave us disappointed and rejected and empty. But when we recognize that glorifying God and enjoying Him forever is our “chief end,” the purpose for which we were created, we come to a point of worship which brings the most richness and blessing to our lives. And we discover that richness and blessing not in the pursuit of it, which leads us in a circle of pursuing ourselves, but in the pursuit of God.
Worship as lifestyle and as event:
If my definition of worship as “how we respond to that which has the most worth in our lives.” is even close, it leads us to understand that worship is not merely an activity we participate in on a weekly basis. It encompasses our entire lifestyle, it is reflected and tested and proven in how we live. After laying out his entire theology in the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul urges us with the strongest language he can, to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.” The rest of Romans details how we should do this, how we should live in such a way that our lives are acts of worship. And in contrast to the OT, where the general emphasis on worship was an event, the theme of worship in the NT is one of living an obedient life to God. That is the NT emphasis in worship.
And so that is where we need to begin. Worshiping God as a Christian means living an obedient life. It means walking in step with the Spirit, surrendering to His call on our lives, being the people He has made us to be and living the way He has shown us to live. With that as the standard, are you a worshipper of God? That is the NT vision of worship – of a lifestyle first. Of a state of heart that is consistent every day.
And yet worship is also event. It is what we do when we, as God’s children, come together to concentrate fully on God and to meet with Him together. This is the part of worship that we are participating in at this very moment. As we talk about our church vision for worship, we will focus on the more narrow (and manageable) idea of worship as an event. Worship as a festival.
Let me ask our kids to help simplify this by responding to a question. Who do you love? Pick one person, and tell me about them. Second question: how do you show them you love them? Elaborate and place…
Hebrews 12:
If the catechism is correct, we would expect worship to be a major theme in the Bible. And in fact it is. A great portion of the OT is dedicated to describing the way God wanted His people to worship Him, and there would be great value in studying those passages in detail. There is much there for us to learn. But today I want to look at a passage in Hebrews, chosen because it in part contrasts for us some of the things that are different now because Christ has come, and so it draws from the richness of that Israelite heritage and interprets it for us in the light of the cross and resurrection. Hebrews 12:18-28. (read).
Vs. 18-21
The passage begins with the scene of God giving the 10 Commandments to Moses, in vs. 18-21. The author of Hebrews gives us this picture as an example of OT worship – it was basically a “hands-off” activity. It was scary. It was centered around the awesomeness of God, of His power and His Holiness. It was intended to remind the people of the WHO of worship – that it is about God. The words paint the picture: a mountain that cannot be touched, burning fire, darkness gloom and storm, a mighty trumpet blast and a voice so terrifying that people begged for it to stop. I think there are some things we would do well to learn from this description of worship, that might spur us on in our own desire and experience of worship. But this is not the author’s point. He says, “You have not come to [this mountain].” Things are different now; things have changed, this is no longer the picture of worship that needs to drive Christians.
Vs. 22-24
These next 3 verses paint the contrast. They begin, “But you have come…” And then God paints for us an amazing picture. He lists seven things that await us in worship – in one long sentence He piles these things up one after another in contrast to the “untouchable” mountain we see in the OT.
o God’s own city – the very place where God dwells, a spiritual place as made clear by the other descriptors.
o Angels in festival – the place we come to worship unites us with the heavenly creatures, in “joyful assembly” as the NIV translates it. The Greek word there is actually the word for “festival” – which gives us a glimpse into the celebratory exuberance (FF Bruce: “myriads of angels in festal array”).
o Church of the firstborn – this is a bit of a difficult phrase, but it most likely refers to people who have put their faith in Christ and have been “re-born” spiritually.
o God the judge – You see how this ties back in to the OT picture. This isn’t a contradiction, a picture of a different God. There is still a very important place for recognizing exactly whom it is we meet in worship.
o Spirits of righteous men made perfect – this is also a difficult phrase, the best explanation I have is that it refers to God’s people who died prior to Christ’s coming, who are made perfect after the resurrection of Christ.
o Jesus the mediator of a new covenant – the picture of God the judge is softened when we recognize that we also come to Jesus, who is our mediator.
o Forgiveness and acceptance through Jesus’ blood. – the emphasis here is on forgiveness and acceptance.
What do we find when we put all seven of those together? We find an incredible festival, which should at once overwhelm us and yet should also pull us in. We see the scope – all of God’s people, all the angels decked out in festival garb, a whole city. And we see the focal point: God the Father, the judge of all. And then we see Jesus, who grabs our hand at the gate and pulls us into the middle of the festivities, and we enter in because of the blood of Jesus.
Isn’t that a bit of a different picture than what is likely in your mind when you think about coming to worship? If I was writing this from my earthly experience, it would probably sound more like this: “But I have come to LHBC, a building on 142nd street, to a snow ridge piled up front and a sanctuary that could maybe be a bit warmer and sure would be more comfortable if these pews were padded. I come to a place where a bald guy plays a keyboard and sometimes even picks songs I like, where there are some people that love me and some that enjoy a brief nap while I talk.”
But our earthly experience doesn’t compare to the actual experience in the event of worship. The writer of Hebrews is trying to impress upon us that our act of worship is something far more – it is a spiritual experience of encountering God. Craig Ginn talked about this last week – when we come to the “event” of worship, we enter the presence of God. That much, I believe, is a fact. When you walked in those doors, you entered the presence of God. Did you notice? Has that been your experience today? I want to come back to this thought in just a moment, as the rest of Hebrews 12 talks about this a little more.
Vs. 25-29:
The writer continues. Having completed the contrast, he gives us a warning. Do not ignore. Do not “refuse.” The reason he gives us is because of the nature of the Kingdom we are receiving (note the present, active tense: “we are receiving.”) It is unshakable. It will remain. This city of God, this spiritual “new Jerusalem,” is forever. And then he tells us what this means for us. Then he gives us one of few NT instructions about how to worship God:
o Let us be thankful – this is where it begins. If the description of the kingdom we just read sinks in even a little, and if we experience that in our worship, gratitude will be our first and best response.
o Let us worship God acceptably; which means…
o With reverence and with awe
The passage ends with vs. 29; “for our "God is a consuming fire."” Which is a quote from Deut and bridges us back to the OT picture, reminding us that God’s nature hasn’t changed; but what has changed is our ability to stand in His presence because of what Christ has done for us.
Do you see the progression? First we are at a distance, consumed with fear. Then we are invited into God’s presence and we meet Him in a worship experience. The response is one of reverence and awe, almost (but not quite) coming full circle to a similar response that we had in the first situation. The critical part is the middle part – experiencing God. The first part was incomplete, part of the Old Covenant. And the last part, reverence and awe, must flow out of meeting with God and recognizing Who He Is and responding appropriately. Here is the point that is significant to me: sometimes, we jump to the last part and miss the whole idea of meeting God. We place an external criteria of reverence and awe – sometimes we even demand reverence and awe from people who haven’t met God – and that prevents us from ever meeting with God. Do you see? Reverence and awe must be a response to meeting God and not a barrier to meeting God.
So what does it mean to worship with reverence and awe? The principles are trans-cultural, but there expression is very much culturally dependent. What is reverent in one culture is offensive in another. I don’t believe God is so concerned about the outward form that reverence and awe take, but in the attitude of the heart that flows out of encounter with God. We have different ways of expressing reverence and awe right here in our midst: for some it is best expressed in quietness, for others it is best expressed in exuberance where their entire heart is laid bare and nothing is held back. The actual words used lead us back to obedience – an obedience that flows out of our experience of encountering God.
Conclusion:
Hebrews teaches us that when we worship, we meet God. We come and stand before Him, experience Him, encounter His presence. God is here. I invite you to come and worship Him – to join with the crowd, to get caught up in the festival, to meet God. And then to respond with reverence and awe.
