The Sacrifice of Worship

Sermon by Pastor David Layman

July 8, 2007

Isaiah 1:11-20

Luke 4:16-21

Today, in our Message of the Bible in 10 Weeks series, we turn to the sacrifice of worship.

Much of the Old Testament deals with worship. We read about how worship was to take place in ancient Israel, how the priests were to be garbed, how sacrifices were to be offered. The book of Psalms, the longest book in the Bible, is a worship book or hymnal of the people of faith. Psalms were used for both personal and corporate prayer and worship. Jesus quoted again and again from the Psalms.

Israel was not the only people in the ancient world that sought to worship a power greater than themselves. Worship was universal in the ancient world! The ancient gods, and there were a multitude of them, were sacrificed to in order to ensure a good harvest, a safe journey, the blessings of children, good weather, and so forth. Today, our world doesn't have all the shrines to ancient deities that once dotted the landscape. But some of the attention vested in celebrities is curiously similar to the devotion given to ancient gods. I was a teenager when the Beetles craze came to America. I can still see those teenage girls were jumping up and down going wild when George, Paul, John and Ringo began to sing on the Ed Sullivan show. I might have been a little jealous. Girls never did that when I entered a room. Maybe it was their haircuts, I don t know!

As ancient peoples tried to gain influence with the gods by making offerings to deities, today we have people making campaign contributions to political candidates, and interest groups granting free trips and luxury box seats to politicians. Those we focus our offerings and tributes on tend to be human beings nowadays, not altars alongside the road. I understand that well-heeled donors are making it a practice to make hefty contributions to more than one political candidate. It s an expensive thing to try to buy influence, when so many are running!

At the heart of worship is the idea of sacrifice. In Israel, people were not allowed to bring an animal with a broken leg as an offering . Neither were blemished animals considered acceptable. It would only be natural for a farmer to think Well, this animal is too scrawny to make it, or this sheep has just broken a leg, so this is the animal I ll take to the sacrifice. This would be similar to us thinking today the only offerings we need to bring to the church would be jumble sale items--things we no longer have need of. That would no longer make it a sacrifice, but rather, a transaction which costs us little. II Samuel 24 tells of King David going to Araunah and asking to buy his threshing floor, in order to build an altar to the Lord. Araunah offers to give the threshing floor and oxen for a burnt offering. But David refuses, saying No, but I will buy them from you for a price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing. (vs. 24).

One of the challenges of worship in a time of prosperity is that we are tempted to give God that which we can easily afford. It doesn t cost us nothing, but relatively speaking, it doesn t cost us much! That s been the trend in modern worship. Booming mega churches say to visitors You are our guests, and we don t want you to contribute anything. But if there is no sacrifice to our worship, is it really worship? More churches are offering a choice of worship hours, because in the world we now live in, one time certainly doesn t fit all. I really don t believe in the theory that says the more miserable we feel, the more we re worshipping God! I ve seen penitents moving across a public square in Mexico on their knees to express their penitence before God. But does God find pleasure in bleeding knees? And does God find more pleasure in someone who worships, sitting on an unpadded pew, than someone who sits in a padded pew? On the other extreme, should a church invest in recliners? Or would that produce more people who slept thru worship?

Luke 4 tells us that, at the beginning of Jesus ministry, he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. Jesus did not exempt himself from public worship because the message might be boring, or he wouldn t hear anything he didn t already know. Jesus worshiped regularly. With the rest of the world downplaying the importance of regular worship, with athletic leagues scheduling events on Sundays, and more and more stores being open 7 days a week, Sunday is becoming just another day for many. On vacation, it s easy to miss Sunday worship. I remember a family trip out west, where our plane left at something like midnight, and with the time zone changes, we got into Indianapolis around 7:30 and back into town mid morning, with little sleep. Our girls thought it would be good to just go home and skip church. But we said No. Even though it s a vacation Sunday, and we won t go to First Presbyterian, we can worship at Reid Presbyterian. Then we ll come home and sleep. Rachel was pretty young, and she was leaning against Pam in the pew, fell asleep, and drooled on Pam s arm! Sometimes, there s a little sacrifice involved in worship! But if there s no sacrifice involved, is it really worship?

Worship involves not only sacrifice, but joy! In Psalm 118:24 we are reminded, This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. (Psalm 122:1) True worship not only includes sacrifice. There is joy and gladness at gathering with God s people and worshiping Him!

While worship among the children of Israel was in some ways similar to other ancient religions, as one was to make sacrifices to the God of Israel, the Old Testament sought to emphasize than in a world of many gods, there was only one true God: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And worship involved more than a matter of making sacrifices to this One God. It also involved ethical living, following God s laws.

The prophets, such as Isaiah, Micah and Amos, protested that the people of Israel had become terribly inconsistent. Amos (5:21-24) put it bluntly, quoting the Lord saying I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

The real sacrifice God is looking for from us is the worship of a life well lived, for His glory! Sacrificial offerings as outlined in the Old Testament became outdated with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We know how slow humankind is to change long established traditions. But worship became significantly different in the light of Christ s resurrection. It became far less mechanical, focussed on rituals. The early Christian church dropped grain and animal sacrifices all together. Because they saw Jesus as the lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. And worship became focussed on a person, not on a building, such as a synagogue or the temple in Jerusalem. The earliest Christians continued to worship in the temple and synagogues, but then that worship carried over into homes where they broke bread together, and focussed on not just the writings of the Old Testament, but the words and person of Jesus, the messiah.

Another way worship changed with the coming of Christ is that we are no longer called upon to worship a God that seems distant, but one that is close and personal. God closed the gap by coming to the world in person, through Jesus. No longer do we have a distant deity to seek to placate. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends. In Jesus, God came close to us, and Jesus shares with us that he doesn t consider us to be servants, but friends. I was blessed to come to know Jesus from my earliest days. God was not a distant deity to be feared, though we should reverence and respect the power of God. But as a child I learned that Jesus loves the little children , and Jesus is all the world to me....He s my friend . And He walks with me, and talks with me, and tells me I am His own. Why would I NOT want to come to church and worship Jesus, every chance I get? If someone is a true friend, don t you love to come visit him or her? Don t you want to come to worship and learn everything you can about your friend, and what your friend desires from you? If your friend asks you to help, aren t you willing to give, sacrificially, to help Him?

If someone looks at worship as something boring, or something they try to find an excuse to avoid, they must not think of Jesus as the best friend a person could have. Because do we look for excuses to get out of seeing a good friend? Do we feel bored in their presence? Do we forget about them for weeks at a time? Do we hesitate to help out with whatever our friend is involved with?

While Jesus said to his disciples, I have called you friends , Jesus also said You are my friends if you do what I command you. If we live as we please, we aren t Jesus friends. And Jesus can t be bought off like we can buy a politician. God isn t satisfied with us going through the motions, today, any more than in Micah s day (6:6-8):

With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,..

With the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams...

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

Or, as Paul put it in Romans 12:1, I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

That is worship!

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