ENTERING INTO HEAVENLY WORSHIP-3
Summer Series “Growing in Worship”
Rev. Kevin L. Baker
INTRO
· Today is week four in our summer series on worship. This is an important series of teaching for me because I grew up going to church never having worship taught or explained to me as far as I can remember.
· I think if I understood why we did what we did back then, my spiritual life my have gone in a different direction. So this sermon series is built on teaching you the history of worship among the people of God, what the Bible has to say about worship, and the dynamics of personal worship.
· We began by talking about the language of worship, then the purpose of worship, and last week we began a series of messages I call “Entering Into Heavenly Worship” that walk us step by step through our worship service looking at what we do and why we do it from the teachings of Scripture.
· Throughout the history of God’s dealings with His people on earth, he has never left it up to them to innovate how they will worship him. He has always revealed to His people how he is to be approached in worship according to a pattern based on the Temple and worship of God in heaven.
· Exodus 25:8-9 8 "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. 9 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.
· The pattern for worship is a complete work of an architect—the materials, sizes, dimensions, placement, and so forth. In addition, in the same way, the plan for worship is spelled out in detail as well—how the priests will serve, and how the priests and people will approach a holy God in a holy place of worship.
· In the New Testament, we are not suddenly on our own to figure out how to worship. In the New Covenant, all the old ceremonial forms that preached Christ in symbols and types become fulfilled realities.
· The worship of the Church led by the Apostles was a liturgical worship based on the synagogue service of Word and Prayer, and the Temple service of the sacraments and holy days—but now all brought to their ultimate and better reality in Christ.
· So, last week, we began talking about the entrance— As we enter church to worship, so far we have said we are ascending God’s Holy Mountain; we are entering the gates of His City with thanksgiving in our hearts and entering his courts with praise. That is why we enter singing praises!
· As we approach God, we come in with the prayers of incense burning which ascend up before God’s throne where angels burn incense that are the prayers of the saints
· And we enter carrying a cross which says we can only enter the presence of God in heaven through the finished work of Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross. There is only one way of salvation—all roads do not lead to heaven—Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.”
I. AS WE ENTER, YOU SEE PRIESTS AND SERVANTS IN WHITE ROBES
· As I have mentioned before, as the image of God, human beings speak in symbols. Look around in the world and see how we use clothing to speak of who we are: medical people wear white coats, policeman wear uniforms, Judges wear black robes, many jobs have a special uniform, brides wear white dresses, business men and lawyers wear suits, and clergy wear clothes that represent things also.
· The alb or white robe is white to symbolize the holiness and self-denial of those who serve in the sanctuary of God.
· It hangs down to the ankles, reminding us that we are bound to practice good works to life's end.
· The early church based their wearing of white vestments on passages like this from Rev. 7:9--
Revelation 7:9 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
II. AS WE ENTER, WE STAND IN FRONT OF THE ALTAR
· Altars are special places we see throughout the Bible where God meets with his people—where heaven and earth meet. 380 X references are made in Scripture to true or false altars of worship.
· Altars were built by Noah after the flood (Genesis 8:20); by Abraham in Shechem (Genesis 12:7), Bethel (Genesis 12:8; 13:4), Mambre (Genesis 13:18), and at the place where he had been about to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22:9); by Isaac and Jacob at Bersheba (Genesis 26:25; 46:1), and by Jacob in Gilead (Genesis 31:54).
· An altar of memorial was erected in the middle of the dried up Jordan by the priests as the people crossed into the promised land, and then in the Tabernacle and Temple there was the Altar of the Holocaust Offering where the blood was shed for sin, and in the Holy Place the altar of Incense where prayer was made.
· The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is the ultimate place where heaven and earth touched; where God and man meet. In the NT we see the altar called the Table of the Lord by Paul in 1 Corinthians.
If you have seen the new Narnia movie, when Aslan is slain by the Ice Queen on a stone table—this was CS Lewis’ depiction of the Lord’s Table, the NT altar.
· When John is caught up into heaven in The Book of Revelation, he writes about the altars he sees in heaven 7 times. For the sake of time, let me share one example of these seven:
Revelation 11:1
(Whole Chapter)
I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, "Go and measure the temple
of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there.
· The altar in church is the place where God meets with us each; where heaven and earth meet.
· It is the Lord’s Table where God comes and we sup with him eating the Covenant meal and receive afresh and anew the spiritual blessings of the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus. I will teach more on this in depth when I teach on the Eucharist next month.
III. THE OPENING ACCLAMATION
· When you go to the visit someone at their house, when you meet them at the door, what do you do? You greet them informally, right? Hi! How are you! Thanks for inviting us…
· When you get invited to a King’s palace, when you enter his courts, there was a formal greeting made as you bowed before him in worship.
· As we enter the courts of the King of kings in his palace house:
Celebrant: Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
People: And blessed be his Kingdom now and forever. Amen.
· This type of greeting God as we come to worship has been said by the ancient churches and Protestant churches to say to God we have come at your invitation to worship you.
· We have come because we are your people and we are here to bless you because your Kingdom has come in our lives! You have saved me from sin and death, delivered me from demons, healed my broken heart, released me from the prisons of bondage I lived in!
· Some wonder what it means to bless God. David said in Ps. 33:1, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be always in my mouth.”
· To bless God is synonymous with praising him. So we are saying Praise be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
IV. A PRAYER FOR PURITY
· This morning, when we began our worship, I prayed a prayer that said, “Almighty God to you all hearts are open, all desires, known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your name through Christ our Lord. Amen.
· If we are going to come to God in worship, we might as well get down to the nitty gritty right away. We cannot enter God’s presence with dirty lives and dirty minds.
· As the people of God entered the Temple in the OT, King David wrote a Psalm 24 they would sing, and two of the lines say:
3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. [a]
· So, as we come to worship, we pray to God to cleanse us from our dirty minds and sinful actions so we can enter into his presence. One person said sin is like this:
Several years ago our family visited Niagara Falls. It was spring, and ice was rushing down the river. As I viewed the large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls, I could see that there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. Gulls by the score were riding down the river feeding on the fish. As they came to the brink of the falls, their wings would go out, and they would escape from the falls. I watched one gull which seemed to delay and wondered when it would leave. It was engrossed in the carcass of a fish, and when it finally came to the brink of the falls, out went its powerful wings. The bird flapped and flapped and even lifted the ice out of the water, and I thought it would escape. But it had delayed too long so that its claws had frozen into the ice. The weight of the ice was too great, and the gull plunged into the abyss.
· We need God to show us our sins because we can so easily become like the seagull and get so attached to our sins that we end up in the abyss. God wants to prevent that, he does not want you to walk in guilt, shame, and condemnation.
· So his holy law, the Ten Commandments, shows us what sin is so we can then confess them, be forgiven, have no guilt, shame, depression, condemnation—but joy as enter deeper into worship.
· And that is where we will pick back up next week!