Word of Salvation – Vol.42 No.21 – June 1997

 

Worship the Living God

Sermon by Rev W Wiersma

on Lord’s Day 35

 

Dear Congregation,

To help us get into our subject for today, I want to start by reading a few passages from the Word of God.  I have more or less chosen these passages at random, but I am sure you will be able to see some connection later.  The first reading is Romans 11:33-36.  They are the verses which precede our first reading for this evening and they show the reason why we as Christians should present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God which is our spiritual worship.  (Read Romans 11:33-36)

Now turn with me to Revelations 4 verses 8 and 11.  (Read)  Then from the book of Psalms, Psalm 150:1-2, and then from Psalm 103:1-5.  And then I turn to Exodus 34, where we are told that the Lord revealed himself to Moses when Moses came up the mountain the second time to receive the 10 commandments on stone.  (Read Exodus 34:6-7)  I next read from Deuteronomy 10:12-17.

Just two more readings.  One from Joel, where he is speaking to the people about the judgment of God.  (Read Joel 2:12-14)  My final passage is Isaiah 66:1-2.  (Read)

What these passages all have in common, my dear brothers and sisters, is that they tell us something about God.  And they also show us what our appropriate response to God ought to be.  And that gets us to the heart of the subject of how we are to worship God – which is what the second commandment is actually all about.  The first commandment is about having only one God.  The Lord God who has made the heavens and the earth, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The second commandment is about how we are commanded to serve this one God.  And that is unfortunately not so clear from the Catechism’s explanation of this commandment In Lord’s Day 35 the Catechism shows its age.  It clearly shows that it was written at the time of the Reformation when the church was very busy discussing the question of what things were to be allowed in the church or not, for whatever reason.  You see, in the western church before the Reformation there were all sorts of goings on, which drew people’s attention away from God and from His Word.  However, I don’t want to go into details about that now.

But the Catechism mentions some of the details, like images and praying to saints.  Then there were also the so called holy relics, which were displayed and venerated in the churches and to which miracles were often attributed.  The Reformers were very busy trying to weed out the making and adoring of images and relics and other forms of superstition.  Their watch-word became, “We must not worship God in any other way than what He himself has commanded in His Word.”  This is a very good rule.

Unfortunately, this good rule came to be understood in a very narrow and negative way.  And there have been endless arguments as to what Christians are allowed and particularly not allowed to do in worship services, while the point of the commandment was often missed.  And the point of the second commandment is this.  That our worship of God is to be determined by God Himself.

When I say that our worship is to be determined by God Himself, I not only mean that God is the one who alone has the right to tell us how we are to worship Him; He doesn’t only give us the rules for worship, you might say.  But I also mean that what God Himself is should determine the manner in which we worship Him.

Our worship is to be totally God-centred.  The danger is always that our worship becomes man-centred and self-centred rather than God-centred.  Let me explain that a little further.  When the catechism says that we should worship God only as God commands in His word, then it is understandable that people who read this will look in the Word of God for those kinds of commandments, which regulate worship.  Commandments which tell us what to do and what not to do when it comes to worshipping God.  The question is then – What has God commanded concerning worship?

Now, in the Old Testament there were lots of detailed commandments with respect to the way the people were to worship God.  But when the New Testament came into effect, the old system of worship was done away with.  So the question became: What are God’s commandments for New Testament believers?

If there is no longer any temple worship, if there are no longer any sacrifices and burnt offerings to bring, what commandments are there for NT believers.  Now there don’t seem to be many clear commandments about worship, per se, at all.  In fact there really seems to be only one clear rule, and that is that we should worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23).

What this teaches us is that God no longer deals with his people as children.  Why, what has changed?  Well, what has changed is God’s own self-revelation of Himself.  God has revealed Himself, He made Himself known, in and through His Son Jesus Christ, in a way that the OT believers never knew Him.  We can have a knowledge of God, and all that God wants us to know about Him, through Jesus Christ.

And now God expects us to act as grown-ups when it comes to the matter of worship.  We should be able to draw some of our own conclusions, as it were.

We do not need all kinds of regulations for worship any more.  We should not look for ready-made rules for our worship practices.  Rather, we should look to God Himself, whom we are called and invited to worship in the Name of Jesus Christ.  We should look to God himself and everything that He tells us about Himself is information and guidance for our worship of Him.  What God tells us about Himself is information for our worship.

That’s the point of the passages I read at the beginning.  Our view, our understanding, of God Himself is to inform and mould our worship.  And our view of God, to be a true and correct view, must be informed and moulded by God’s Word; by the Christ of the Scriptures.  That’s why God says, no images of me please.  Why?  Because, as I said earlier, the danger is always for us to make worship man-centred; that we make God as we want Him to be.  And when we start making images, our images will always be a far cry from the reality of God.  Images made by man can never be a true representation of God.  They will always be distortions of the truth.

An image will always be very limited.  It will always be static, dead; as was the golden young bull which Aaron, the brother of Moses, made for the Israelites

I said an image will always be dead, and God is always the LIVING ONE.  Man’s image will always be a creature – something made by man or shaped by man or chosen by man, but a creature, a thing made.  But God, the One we worship, is the Creator.  The One who has the whole world in His power.

Our worship of God must not be shaped and distorted by our imagination.  Our worship of God must be a response to, and a true reflection of, God Himself.  We ourselves, and in our worship of God, are to be the images of God.  God knows that for us sinful human beings the temptation is always to want to shape God to our desires and to our specifications.

But God cannot be bound.  God will always be free.  God will always be free to surprise us.  God is never static.  God is alive.  He is greater than we can possibly imagine.  His ways are better than our ways and His thoughts are brighter than our thoughts.

That is, of course, precisely what makes God worthy of worship.  To put it bluntly, what use to us is a God who is no bigger or better than we are?  What use to us is a God whom we can, as it were, put in our pocket, and take with us wherever we want Him, whenever we want Him, and put him aside in a cupboard when we don’t?

It is because God is almighty, eternal and gracious that we are able to trust in Him and to depend on Him.  So what God is after in the second commandment is that we will have a true knowledge of Him.  A true thinking about Him.  A knowledge and thinking that is informed by His Word, by God Himself.

And all the good things about God are to shape our worship of Him.

Let me just give you a few seed thoughts with respect to this whole matter, before I close.  Because God is great, greater than we can possibly imagine, our worship is to be humble adoration.  God’s being affects our worship.  Because God is all knowing, our worship is to be sincere, to be fair dinkum.  Because He is all knowing, we can’t pull the wool over his eyes.

So, it is not just a matter of doing things for the sake of doing them.  It is not just a matter of saying prayers because that is the done thing.  Prayer is to be an actual speaking to God as we know Him.  So, true worship cannot be done without some knowledge of God Himself.  Because God is merciful and loving, our worship is to be a response of love and thankfulness.  Because God is Holy, our worship is to include contriteness of heart and repentance from sin.

So, worship is basically our appropriate response to who and what God is, our response to God Himself.  And when it is that – when our worship is a response to God Himself, a true fellowship with God Himself, a true communication with God Himself, when worship is truly God-centred, then it will also be life changing for us.

Amen.