LIP SERVICE AND VANITY?
or
HEART SERVICE AND GLORY?
By Dustin Shramek
Tonight I want us to focus on worship. What is it? What isn't it?
Many of us probably feel as though we already have a good handle on worship. After all, we go to church every Sunday to worship, we sing praise songs here at Crusade to worship, we read our Bibles, pray, go to BASIC. We "worship" a lot. Didn't we just get done worshiping God through songs?
Yes, we did. Well, some of us did. But I am willing to bet that there were many of us here who didn't worship. And I'm not speaking of any unbelievers who might be here. There were many Christians who were singing these songs, but they were not worshiping. Are you sure you were?
Obviously, I am implying that it is possible to sing worship songs and yet, not worship. It is possible to go to church and not worship. It is possible to read your Bible, pray, evangelize, fellowship, etc., without worshiping.
This truth is made evident in Matthew 15:7-9. Jesus says, "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'" Jesus is quoting a passage from Isaiah 29:13 that says, "This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote."
It is possible for people to draw near to God with their words. We can honor God with our lips. When we were singing those praise songs, we were honoring God with our lips. My preaching right now, honors God with my lips. When we pray or read scripture, we honor God with our lips. But does that mean we are worshiping? No, for we can remove our hearts far away from God.
If I am up here saying great things about God, yes I honor Him, but if my heart is not behind my words I am not worshiping. In fact, I would rightly be called a hypocrite. My "worship" would be in vain. God would take no pleasure in it. If you merely sing the words of these songs, you are worshiping in vain. God does not delight in such worship.
In Isaiah God says that their reverence consists of nothing more than tradition learned by rote. I think that traditions are good, but we must be careful. For they can quickly become lip service to God. For example, take the Lord's Prayer. It is a great prayer and a wonderful way to worship God. But how many of us simply recite the words? Do we really pray? We say, "Hallowed by Your name," but is His name hallowed in our hearts? Is His glory prized by us?
These are important questions because I don't want to worship in vain and I hope you don't either. But how do we know if what we do is true worship? What does the Bible have to say about worship?
Now would be an appropriate time to define what worship is so that we can see what it means not to worship in vain. I like John Piper's definition. He says, " Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth."[1]
So we worship when we gladly reflect back to God the radiance of His worth. The word here that I think is most important is gladly. For we will bring God glory no matter what, it may reflect the glory of His justice in our condemnation, but nevertheless, God will be glorified. So worship isn't merely reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth, no, it is gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth. This is what it means to have our hearts far from God even though our lips are honoring Him. For the words of our songs do glorify God because they reflect the radiance of His worth. But if they aren't gladly sung from the heart, it is not worship.
Worship can only happen when our heart is involved. The affections of our heart is inherent in the very concept of worship.
Genuine worship can give rise to many emotions.[2] It includes standing in awe at the majestic holiness of God. Psalm 33:8 says, "Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him." And Habakkuk 2:20 says, "But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him."
As sinners we find a holy dread of God's righteous power. Isaiah 8:13 says, "It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread."
Then our terror finds release in brokenness, contrition, and grief. Isaiah 57:15 says, "I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."
God then takes our sin and fills us with gladness and gratitude. "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness" (Psalm 30:11).
Our hearts then fill with joy from gratitude for God's past grace and hope for God's future grace. "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence" (Psalm 42:5).
As we are granted a taste of God's goodness, we long to be in His presence. "One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple" (Psalm 27:4).
Feelings are an essential part of worship. One cannot worship God and not have any feelings present.
Therefore it is right to pursue your joy in God. We must be obedient to Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." We say along with David, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever" (Psalm 16:11). It is impossible to worship without seeking pleasure. For getting pleasure in God is at the very heart of Biblical worship.
In fact, when we come to God, we aren't supposed to come trying to give Him anything. Rather, we come to get. When we worship God we don't come as though we are paying God a favor, no, we are the ones in need. So we seek Him as empty people, in desperate need of His filling. Paul says in Acts 17:24-25, "The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything since He Himself gives to all life breath and all things;" God is the giver, not us. We mustn't come to Him thinking that we can give Him anything. We must come as hungry, broken people. We must come with Matthew 5:6 in mind, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied."
Seek your joy in worship, for that is how you honor God. So often we hear that an act is only virtuous if is done out of no concern for yourself, if there is nothing in it for you. Reject such teaching. For it does not honor God if I come to Him out of duty and not because I enjoy Him. If I kiss Kellie on my wedding day because it is my duty as her husband she will not be honored. But if I kiss her because it brings me great joy to kiss her, she is honored. As Edward John Carnell says, "Suppose a husband asks his wife if he must kiss her good night. Her answer is, 'You must, but not that kind of a must.' What she means is this: 'Unless a spontaneous affection for my person motivates you, your overtures are stripped of all moral value.'"[3]
So it is with God. If we worship solely because we "must", it is not worship. We must come to God out of a "spontaneous affection for His person." Our pleasure in Him must be the reason for our worship.
This is made explicit in Hebrews 11:6, "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." If we want to please God we must believe that He is and we must also believe He rewards those who come to Him. Or, to put it another way, if we want to please God we must seek our joy in Him. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). Psalm 104:34 says, "Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; as for me, I shall be glad in the LORD."
Savoring God in our worship necessarily precedes all other things that we do. "Delight confers more honor than duty does. When someone finds happiness in being around you, you feel treasured, appreciated, glorified."[4]
Jesus is the bread of life and we must come to Him seeking our satisfaction in Him. We must stuff ourselves with the glory of God. Dig in, be gluttonous. Gorge yourself at His table. Feast on Him. Jeremiah 15:16 says, "Thy words were found and I ate them, and Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts."
Oh what great joy we receive as we feast on the Word of God. We must diligently seek that joy. We must crave it. For by so doing, we greatly honor the Lord. For we acknowledge that He is the one who satisfies!
When you come to Christ, eat as you have never eaten before. Don't stop eating from Christ's table, for it is the banquet table of God that will most satisfy us. Take His word and let it sit on your taste buds as you savor its beauty. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." Yes! Let's taste.
O, but we mustn't stop there. Don't just settle for a taste of the Lord. I don't want to just taste the Lord, I want a full stomach. I want him to so fill me that I can do nothing but praise Him as His goodness overflows my soul.
Yes, Jesus is the bread of life and in Him we find true joy and everlasting satisfaction. This feasting on Christ is essential in worship. And yet, do we always feast this way? What about those times when we come, hungering, but not exulting? There is hope.
John Piper recognizes three stages in worship.[5] The final stage is one in which we are satisfied with God's excellence and we are overcome with joy. This is our feast. "My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips" (Psalm 63:5). This is what we seek when we come to God. We want to be satisfied with Him. We want our hearts to sing forth the glories of God in joy.
The second stage is when instead of experiencing fulness, we feel longing and desire. We have tasted the glories of God and we want to be filled by Him. This longing for God honors Him greatly because He is shown to be the only one who is able to satisfy our deepest longings.
These two stages are in many ways inseparable. For we can never fully experience God in this life and so we long for the fulness of joy that is in Him and the pleasures that are in His right hand. But we are unable to have such longings for Him if we have never experienced the deep joy found in Christ. If we haven't tasted the glories of Christ, we won't long for another helping.
The lowest level of worship, which is still worship, is when we don't even feel a great longing, but we do have sorrow in our hearts for not having such a longing. God is honored in such sorrow because the sorrow would not be present if God wasn't "gloriously desirable." Even in this, God is honored.
So we can be encouraged, even when we aren't overflowing with joy. For in our longing for God, He is honored.
In John 4, Jesus says some very important words on worship. Jesus was speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well and after He had exposed her adultery, she quickly changed the subject to worship by asking, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" (4:20). In her mind she was focusing on the where of worship. Do we worship on the mountain or at Jerusalem?
Jesus replies, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father" (v. 21). In Jesus' reply He is telling her that the issue of where one worships is actually, a non issue. In Old Testament times, Jerusalem was the place of worship, but with the coming of Jesus, things have changed. In Matthew 12:6, Jesus says, "But I say to you, that something greater than the temple is here." And in John 2:19, He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
What is it that Jesus is telling us here? Whereas before Christ, one must go to the temple to worship, it is no longer that way. For one greater than the temple is here. So where must we go to worship? We must go to Christ. Jesus has replaced the temple. He is the place of our worship. This is great news because it means that we can worship God anywhere. We can worship Him in our dorm rooms, in class, in our cars, at our jobs, everywhere.
Jesus continues with the woman saying, "You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:22-24).
The Samaritans were worshiping that which they did not know. How often is this also true of us? So Jesus tells her that if she wants to know about worship she must see what the Jewish scriptures say. He says that God wants people to worship Him in spirit and in truth.
I believe this means that emotions and thought must be present in our worship, our heart and our mind are involved. Our worship is not merely external acts, but it is an inward expression of delight in Christ. We worship in spirit. This is what I have been talking about all night. If we are to worship in spirit, our spirit must be exulting in Christ. We must have strong affections for the manifold perfections of God.
But this isn't all. We must also worship in truth. The God we worship must be the true God. Our affections must be based on Biblical truth. As Jonathan Edwards says, "I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with."[6]
Affections for God must be founded in biblical truth, if they are not, they do not honor God. Biblical worship is strong affections for God rooted in and shaped by the truth of Scripture. It is with this understanding that we are able to see the importance of doctrinal study.
Maybe some of you have been wondering why last semester we talked about things like hell, justification, predestination. Or why this semester we have talked about the Trinity, the Incarnation of Christ, and His exaltation. We have done so in order that we will have a right perception of who God is. And when we see God as He is, it will drive us to worship.
God is not honored when someone refuses to look into a deep issue such as predestination because they have a "simple faith." He is dishonored because it is saying that the deeper truths of God are not worthy to be explored. The nature of God is not worthy to be contemplated and meditated on. O, how sad! May we never shrink back from the intellectual side of Christianity because it is hard and only the theologians can understand it. Reject such laziness! I'm not saying that you should go and read every theological book that you can. One doesn't have to be Matt Perman to worship God in truth. But we must, pursue God in all areas, including our minds. We must read the scriptures and meditate on them.
If someone says that one shouldn't be concerned about theology, but should rather focus on Jesus, they are speaking as a fool. For one can't focus on Jesus without be concerned about theology. And what is theology, other than focusing on Jesus? Don't be deceived into thinking that you can know Jesus intimately without knowing about Him.
I have experienced this first hand as I have worked to have a greater understanding of the nature of my God. As I have studied God's sovereignty I have come to a much deeper love for God. Regarding the sovereignty of God, I say along with Jonathan Edwards, "I have often since had not only a conviction but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God."[7]
My joy in God has greatly increased as I have come to understand more deeply the doctrines of God and I pray that you also would discover the great joy that awaits us deep inside the word of God.
If we are excited about God, but our excitement is not based on truth, then we have empty emotionalism. Just as Paul talks about in Romans 10:2, "For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge." But of course, we can't go the other way either. For intellectual knowledge apart from affections is just as meaningless. We must worship God in spirit and truth.
Why do I stand here tonight talking about worship? Because worship is the reason we were created. And only in worship will we find true joy and satisfaction. Isaiah 43:7 tells us that everyone who is called by God's name was created for His glory. Psalm 67:3-5 says, "Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for Thou wilt judge the peoples with uprightness, and guide the nations on the earth. Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee." And Psalm 70:4 says, "Let all who seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee; and let those who love Thy salvation say continually, 'Let God be magnified.'"
God has created us so that we will glorify Him. He commands us to praise Him. Revelations 22:9 closes with, "Worship God." If we don't worship God we sin. We prove to be disobedient to God's word. Disobedience has grave consequences. The holiness of God demands that He punish sinners.
We see these consequences very clearly in the story of Pharaoh. In Exodus 7:16, God tells Pharaoh, "Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert" (NIV). God commanded Pharaoh to let His people go. He wanted them to worship Him, but Pharaoh refused. What did such refusal cost Pharaoh? It cost Him the life of every first born son in the land of Egypt. Exodus 13:15 says, "And it came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the LORD killed every first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast."
Because of Pharaoh's disobedience. God killed the first-born of man and beast. He killed them. Pharaoh's hard heart moved God to act with a decisive show of His power in judgment. God takes worship very seriously, so must we.
Or look at the consequences suffered by Herod in Acts 12. "And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.
We need to know about worship. We must know what it is and what it isn't. In fact, not only are there grave consequences for those who don't worship the true God, but it is also the very foundation for all of life for the person who does worship Him.
Worship must precede all things. And it must also be the fuel that motivates us in all things. Piper brings this out beautifully in his book, Let the Nations Be Glad!. He opens the first page with,
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions. It's the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. "The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coast lands be glad!" (Psalm 97:1). "Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!" (Psalm 67:3-4).
But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can't commend what you don't cherish. Missionaries will never call out, "Let the nations be glad!", who cannot say from the heart, "I rejoice in the Lord....I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High" (Psalm 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.[8]
Worship is our reason for existence. It is what we will be doing for eternity. Revelation 4:8-11 says, "And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.' And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 'Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.'"
This is glorious! God is worthy of such praise. Worship Him! "At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).
Jesus will receive all glory and honor. God is God and there is no other. He will not share His glory. And all of us will glorify God. The only question is whether we will do it gladly. Will we glorify Him through worship or will we glorify Him through our condemnation?
Paul says in Romans 8:8, "And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Those who are unbelievers are unable to come to Him in faith believing that He is and that He rewards those who seek Him. Our spiritual taste buds are dead to the taste of Christ. We are unable to savor Him.
We are desperately in need of a great and mighty savior who can overcome our hard hearts and give us new taste buds. We must cry out to Jesus for mercy that He would make our hearts hungry for the bread of life. We need to be awakened to the beauty of Christ.
If thoughts of God don't cause your heart to well up with praise, repent and throw yourself at the cross. Pray that God would be pleased to grant you repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.
Every morning we must cry out to God, "Have mercy on me a sinner. Give me a heart to praise you. Cause me to seek my joy in you. Satisfy me today."
Finally, I want to close tonight with a helpful analogy of worship.[9] Imagine worship as a burning furnace. The fuel is the word of God, truth. The furnace is our renewed spirit. The fire is the Holy Spirit burning within us. And the heat generated is our affections for God. When we burn a fire our purpose is to create as great amount of heat as possible.
To do this, we want the very best fuel, nothing watered down. Therefore we must study the scriptures. We must dig into the Word, praying with the Psalmist, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Thy law" (Psalm 119:18). For when we see wonderful things in God's word, the fuel is more powerful, thereby causing the fire to burn brighter, creating greater heat, greater affections for God. If we want to love God more, if we want to delight in Him more, we must be feeding our fire the powerful fuel that only comes from truth, deeply rooted in scripture.
Secondly, we also need to have a clean furnace. If our furnace is full of black soot, the fire will never be able to burn as bright. So we get the scouring pad and we scrub the furnace clean. So it is with our spirits. If we have sin in our lives the fire will not burn as bright. We must do some serious spring cleaning in our lives, confessing our sin, repenting and living obedient lives. For when our furnace is clean, the fire will burn brighter and will create greater heat, greater affections for God. If we want to love God more, if we want to delight in Him more, we must be free from the sin that so easily entangles.
Next we must fan the flame of the Holy Spirit. Let us do everything that we can to encourage His holy fire within us. We fan the flame by reading scripture, meditating, praying, evangelizing, fellowshipping, etc. When we do these things the fire burns brighter, creating greater heat, greater affections for God. If we want to love God more, if we want to delight in Him more, we must fan the flame.
So I urge you, "Worship God!" Yes! That is where we find our everlasting joy. "For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good" (Psalm 107:9). Let me assure you that David is right when he says, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forever" (Psalm 16:11).
Seek that joy. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).
Matthew 13:44 says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field." Go and do likewise. Worship God!
Notes
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, c 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971,1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation.
1. John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1996), p. 78.
2. The following is a list of affections taken from Piper, p. 80.
3. E.J. Carnell, Christian Commitment (New York: Macmillan, 1067), pp. 160-61. Quoted from Piper, p. 83.
4. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), p. 27.
5. Piper, Desiring God, p. 85-86.
6. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival in The Great Awakening, ed. C. C. Goen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 117. Quoted in Piper, 91.
7. "Personal Narrative," Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, eds. C. H. Faust, T. H. Johnson (New York: Hill and Wang, 1962), pp. 59.
8. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!, p. 11.
9. This analogy is an expanded form of one that Piper uses in Desiring God (p. 77).
Go back to Contend for the Faith.
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