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Worship: Are We Coming to Give or Get?

Most evenings, during my drive home from work, I listen to a certain preacher on the radio. He’s a well-known, well-respected, and good preacher. This past week the sermons have focused on the subject of worship. As he preached through a few Old Testament texts in order to set forth his theme of worship, one of his regular refrains was something to the effect of ‘We don’t come to get in worship, we come to give.’

This theme was driven home again to me in my reading this week. I was revisiting a book on worship that I had read several years ago. The author made essentially the same point.

Now, back to the preacher. His contention was that, in worship, you come to give your best to God. As King David put it, ‘I will not offer burnt sacrifices that cost me nothing.’ Bring your best in worship, be prepared to give your whole heart to him, be prepared to reach deep into your soul, and deep into your pockets, and leave it all on the altar. You come in worship to give your best to God. That’s the idea, as I conceive it, that I am dealing with. And I intend to brush back against it a bit.

First, let me be clear that I believe that our primary focus in worship should be that God is glorified. No worship is true worship that does not glorify God. But, the question then turns to How is God glorified? Is he glorified by my singing my heart out and emptying my pockets out? Is he glorified by me, like a football player, leaving it all out on the field and pouring myself into acts of worship? Perhaps. But that depends.

The Pharisees, one might contend, laid it all on the altar. They tithed the mint and cumin. They offered long prayers. They always dressed in their Sabbath best. But all the while, according to Jesus’ story (Luke 18:9-14), among those long prayers were those that said, ‘Lord, I thank you that I am not like this publican.’ The publican didn’t do it right. He didn’t tithe the mint and cumin. He didn’t dress the part. He didn’t worship properly.

But he was the one who went home justified.

The intentions of this idea that worship is about giving to God are good. We want to brush back against the modern notion of church as entertainment, of church being catered to meet the pleasures of men. We want to brush back against a ‘buffet’ style of church that says ‘Come and get what you want, what you need.’ And so we say, ‘It’s not about you.’ And that’s right. It’s not about us. It is about God. But how do we make it about God? By putting on our best? By giving him all we have? By singing our hearts out? Again I say perhaps, but it depends.

What did the publican have to give? Nothing. He beat his breast, and begged for mercy. That’s worship. No greater statement of worship was ever given than ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’ That statement acknowledges that God is God, that man is fallen, and that God is a merciful God who shows compassion to the contrite. He is high and lofty, making his abode in the highest heavens, but he is meek and merciful, taking up residence with those who are sorry for how they have defamed him.

Toplady’s great hymn captures the essence of a worshiping heart:

Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
Naked come to thee for dress.
Helpless look to thee for grace.

So, in fact, our view that in worship we come to give to God is quite wrong if taken on its own. We come to get in worship. We come to confess that we have nothing to give. We come with empty hands to a merciful God. We come in the spirit of Psalm 81:10:

  • I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

That verse is written in the context of worship, and it invokes the image of a baby bird. The little bird has nothing to offer its mother. It only opens wide its mouth and looks up. And, as a good mother, she provides food. So, we must come to worship, as Toplady says, with nothing in our hands. We must come, as the psalmist says, with open mouths like a hungry baby looking to be fed.

Do not therefore think that you have anything to give to the Lord of the universe. Do not think that you have anything even to offer. God says,

  • If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it (Ps. 50:12).

He doesn’t need to be sustained by your songs. Neither his belly nor his coffer are empty. Your money does nothing for him. He is no fashion cop. He doesn’t say, ‘My doesn’t old so and so look good today.’ He doesn’t care about your hair, or how much fiber gum or moose you have in it. He doesn’t care about your fancy Bible cover, or about how you lifted your hands at just the right part of the song. He doesn’t care about your techno lights or how great your praise band is. He doesn’t care how eloquent your prayer was.

Instead, he says, ‘Open your mouth, and I will fill it.’ He wants you to come to him empty, seeking food; dead, seeking life; lost, seeking direction; orphaned, seeking a Father; damned, seeking a Savior; godless, seeking God. He wants you to come to get.

Contrary to the prosperity preachers, he doesn’t want you coming to sow your seed and get your bills paid. Contrary to the motivational speakers, he doesn’t want you coming to get worldly encouragement. But he does want you coming to get – coming to get God himself. And the cross of Jesus Christ is the great proof that God is willing to do just that – to give himself for, and to, poor sinners with no means of ever repaying him.

So why do we worship? We worship to get God through Jesus Christ. To seek his presence, to seek his providence, to seek his provision, to seek his prescriptions. And when we come in that way he is glorified. Here, like in so many other of the teachings of Scripture, we have a paradox. If you want to live, die. If you want to glorify God, then realize that you have nothing to offer. Come hungry. Come thirsty. Come empty. Come expecting. Open your mouth that he might fill it. Be the baby bird in the nest, and nothing more.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

The Mercy Seat

Exodus 25 records God’s instructions to Moses regarding the ark of the covenant:

  • 16 And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you. 17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. 21 And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. 22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

Francis Schaeffer comments:

This ‘mercy seat’ was the lid, the second part of the ark. A very important thing, this lid.

It was Luther, when translating the Old Testament into German, who first used the term ‘mercy seat.’ It is a beautiful, poetic phrase – but it also accurately communicates what the lid of the ark really was, a place of mercy. Yet if a person does not know the Hebrew word being translated, ‘mercy seat’ may confuse, because this word actually meant ‘the propitiation,’ ‘the propitiatory,’ ‘the covering’ – a covering not like a jar lid, but a covering in the sense of atonement…

The propitiatory covering was exactly the same size as the box. They matched. The atonement exactly covered the law. Here, I feel, is the balance we find in the New Testament – the balance of the character of God. God is holy…and God is love. Both must be affirmed…

Verse 22 contains the most important clause: ‘and there I will meet with thee.’ God did not meet the Jews at the level of the law. He met them at the level of the mercy seat. Undoubtedly, this is why Luther, loving the Lord as he did, called the covering the ‘mercy seat.’ He understood that this is where God meets everybody who is met by him.

–No Little People, pp. 112-113.

  • He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).

Christ is the Mercy Seat of the world.

The Law was in the box. The Law was covered by the propitiation. The world seeks to find God in that box, that ark, the ark of the covenant, when it should seek him in another ark – Noah’s ark, the ark that is covered inside and out with the atoning pitch that keeps the waters of the flood out.

The box of the ark of the covenant suffocates and brings wrath. The Mercy Seat covers the demands and penalties of the Law. That is where God is to be found. You will not find his love in that box. You will not find his love at the level of Law. You must seek atonement, that is the place to find his love. And Jesus Christ is our true Mercy Seat, the place, make that the person, where God meets with sinners and communes with them in love. He covers sins (mercy), he communes with sinners (seat). He forgives and sits down at the table.

  • Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20).

Thank God for the Mercy Seat:

  • Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins (Rom. 3:25).

To Gaze at the Beauty of the Lord

I offer my translation of Psalm 27:4:

One thing I have asked of the LORD:
To make my abiding in the house the LORD,

Each day of my life,

To gaze at the beauty of the LORD
And contemplate in his temple

David was a poet, the sweet psalmist of Israel. He had one desire – to abide in the Lord’s house, to behold his beauty, to reflect in his temple – and these three are one.

But he was no romantic.

David, where do you see the beauty of God? Answer: Amidst the people of God. Amidst the smell of the smoke of the burnt offering, mingled with the smoke of incense. Amidst the blood of the sacrifices, and the water of cleansing. Amidst the priests and their vestments. Here I see beauty, the very beauty of the LORD. In the worship of the LORD, with the people of the LORD, in the way of the LORD.

To abide, to gaze, and to reflect in God’s house is to abide in, gaze upon, and think about Jesus Christ. He is the Tent of God that covers us in the day of trouble (v. 5a), the  rocky Summit that lifts us from adversity (v. 5b). He is the sacrifice that brings shouts of joy (v. 6a). He is our song (v. 6b).

Why do we gather together and sing? Why do we lift our voices? Why do we make melody? The beauty of Christ demands it. Not that his beauty demands it in the sense of law, but in the sense of fittingness. It is fitting to sing praises to One so great, so glorious, so beautiful.

He is our answered prayer (v. 7), the Yes and Amen of God. He reveals to us the glory of God in his own face (v. 8). Why do we gather together? To seek the face of God, the beauty of God, which he has revealed to us in his own person and work.

He is the friend that sticks closer than a father or mother, much less a brother (v. 10). He is our hope that, like Job said of old, we will see God in resurrected flesh (v. 13). Why do we gather together? To behold the face of a friend, a beautiful friend, and find hope in the resurrection.

We come together to wait upon the LORD (v. 14a), to receive our marching orders, to find strength and courage to bear our weakness and the week (v. 14b).

In all of this – as we abide, gaze, reflect; as we celebrate atonement, find refuge, shout for joy, sing, voice our amens, seek his face, find a friend, hope in the resurrection – in the midst of the smoke and blood and shouts – we worship. Our worship should be aimed at abiding in him, gazing at him, thinking about him. And as we abide, gaze, and think, we shall be more like him.

That’s why we gather together for worship. Not out of tradition, not for fun, not for entertainment – but to gaze at his beauty and respond appropriately.

On Devotions

A commenter asked me to say a word about Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ advice in Preaching and Preachers that Christians should make use of devotional books in order to ‘warm their hearts’ for prayer. So, here goes.

The Doctor’s remarks are from chapter 9, The Preparation of the Preacher. This may very well be the best chapter of the book, at least from my perspective, though chapters 4 (The Form of the Sermon) and 15 (The Pitfalls and the Romance) are right up there with it. What am I saying?, the whole book is very, very good. But I digress.

MLJ was keenly aware of what it felt like to be ‘cold at heart.’ He therefore encouraged folks to do things that would liven their affections with the intent of praying. There is a place for disciplined prayer to be sure, but if prayer is mainly cold and dry in your life, something is amiss. Perhaps your emotions have become dull. And so he pointed to regular, systematic Bible reading, the reading of devotional books, and music as the three primary means of thawing out a cold heart.

The frequent, systematic reading of Scripture is absolutely essential here. If you are cyclically reading the Bible, you will constantly be finding new things that move you. Just tonight this happened to me as I was reading 2 Kings 7 with my family. It tells the story of four lepers who trek into the camp of the Syrians in the midst of a famine only to find that the Syrian forces had fled and left all their goods. The lepers alerted officials to their findings and Israel found a new supply of cheap food, and gold and silver.

The premise, though not made up, is not unlike Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She found the house empty, and she enjoys the porridge. That’s what Israel did, on a much larger scale. As I thought about this passage, my mind was drawn to Christ, and particularly to the words of the Apostle Paul, that ‘he who was rich, for your sake became poor, that you might become rich in him.’ Which led me to the words of Charles Wesley, ‘He left his Father’s throne above, so free so infinite his grace. Emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race.’ Christ is ransacked for our sake. He gives up his goods, his wares, so that they can become ours, and he does so voluntarily.

My point is simply that reading the Bible systematically, as MLJ contended, is a, make that the, major source of the fire that warms the heart toward God.

Next, he encouraged the reading of devotional books. He does not name them in Preaching and Preachers, but I have read enough of him to know what he considered to be gold. He loved the Puritans, as do I. When I find myself down or cold, I inevitably turn to the Puritans for warmth. Thomas Watson, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Brooks, and John Owen are my go to devotional writers. But notice I call them devotional. Today the word devotional usually equals short and fluffy, like Our Daily Bread. But this is not what devotional should mean. The Doctor used the term to denote something ‘with a note of worship in it.’ Devotional then, for him and for me, means something that exalts God and his grace and his glory. Something that draws you up into something of his glory. The Puritans do this.

The Doctor also liked Whitefield and Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. He read Charles Hodge often. He read Charles Spurgeon. These are names that he mentions repeatedly. He read their sermons. If you want your soul warmed, read the good preachers. A couple of months ago when I was reading The Pilgrim’s Progress, I happened to turn one night to a sermon by Spurgeon called Enchanted Ground. I was looking through a table of contents in a collection of his sermons and said to myself, ‘That sounds like it came straight out of Bunyan.’ So it did. But I found in the sermon a call to wake up from slumber, to not let the devil woo you to sleep with his devices and distractions. I needed that, it warmed my heart. Lately I have been reading a collection of sermons by Francis Shaeffer and it has had much the same impact. It has provoked me to praise God in prayer.

Lastly, MLJ mentions music. The devotional power of good music is fairly evident and doesn’t need explanation. Get to know the great old hymns. Learn the psalms. Sing the psalms. On days when I find myself cold, stressed, and melancholy, you will likely find me at some point singing the words of Psalm 43, ‘Send out thy light, send out thy truth, let them lead me…O my soul, why art thou cast down, why so discouraged be? Hope thou in God! I’ll praise him still. My help, my God, is he!’

And in addition, let me encourage here the practice of Christian meditation. Think about what you read and sing. Think deeply about it. Don’t read simply in order to get information. Don’t sing just to work up raw emotions. Read and sing to get fuel. Raw reading and raw singing are cheap fuel that don’t go very far. Reading and singing with an eye toward thinking – deep thinking – however, will provide lasting fuel. I am still living off the fuel I gained from reading Preaching and Preachers years ago – because I have kept thinking about what I read, internalizing it, applying it. The same, of course, is the case with the Bible. Think about what you read. Don’t be content to simply let your eyes pass over words. Embed those words in your soul, apply them to your soul, let them lead you to Jesus every day of your life. The Bible is like a fire, and meditation blows on that fire and makes it come to life and bring heat in your soul.

All of this will lead to more fervent prayer. And it cannot simply be a thing you do in the morning when you wake up. It has to be a part of your lifestyle, it needs to be engrained into who you are every waking moment. Every star in the sky should be fuel for devotion. Every rose in the flowerbed. Every hurricane or tornado. Every book, even the bad ones, even the godless ones. It’s all fuel if you will use it to point your heart back to Jesus Christ and his glory. Ask the Holy Spirit for help.

For more on meditation, see HERE and HERE.

Dead Wood

And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs (Exodus 4:17).

I have been greatly challenged and encouraged as of late by the late Francis Schaeffer’s book No Little People. The very first sermon of the book takes up the theme of Moses’ rod. How did a dead piece of wood become an agent of salvation for Israel? How did a dead piece of wood turn the Nile to blood? How did a stick part the Red Sea? How did a staff whack water out of a rock? It was just wood, dead wood.

The answer is that Moses’ rod became God’s rod. God took ownership of it, and caused his power to flow from it. From this Schaeffer argues that there are no little people, or places, or things. Anything that God takes ownership of is significant – even a dead piece of wood.

If he did such things with a dead piece of wood, what might he do with you if you yield to him? If you could be still and quiet before him like a staff, then what? Now I digress from Schaeffer.

Dead wood performs all sorts of assignments in the history of redemption. In Genesis it is covered with pitch that it might seal out the waters of God’s wrath (Gen. 6:14). In Exodus it performs signs and wonders. In Leviticus it provides for the burnt offering (cf. Lev. 1:1-17). In Deuteronomy it is the material of the ark of the covenant (Deut. 10:1) and the instrument of cursing that will begin to unfold in the conquest of the Promised Land (Deut. 21:23). In Joshua it is the death-instrument of cursed kings (Josh. 8:29). In 1 Kings it is the floor of the house of God (1Ki 6:15). In Job it holds out hope in death (Job 14:7). In Psalms it is the Shepherd’s rod (Ps. 23). In Proverbs it is fuel for the fire (Prov. 26:20-21). In Song of Solomon it carries the king of Israel (Song 3:9). In Haggai it renews the destroyed temple (Hag. 1:8).

Dead wood has no power in itself, but only when the right person wields it (Isaiah 10:15).

In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John dead wood is the agent of our Savior’s death. There, on the cross, He is our Ark in the midst of the flood, our miracle Worker, our burnt Offering, our Mercy Seat, our cursed King, our Temple, our Hope in death, our good Shepherd, our Fuel, the Lifter of our spirits – the One who makes us into the temple of the living God.

Through dead wood, wielded by Jesus Christ, God brings salvation to the world. The cross became God’s rod, and our deliverance. All this with dead wood. Can he use you? On account of dead wood, and a risen Savior, indeed he can.

You are the Man, You will be a Substitute: The Gospel in 1 Kings 20

In 1 Kings 20, Ahab, having just defeated the Syrians, makes a peace-treaty with King Ben-hadad of Syria. God didn’t like this treaty. He had devoted Ben-hadad to destruction – he was placed ‘under the ban.’ He was, in other words, sentenced to death. He was a reprobate, headed for hell, and Ahab’s armies would be God’s agent to bring him there. But Ahab had other plans.

This sets up a moment in some ways similar to David’s encounter with the prophet Nathan. This time, an unnamed prophet bruises himself and covers his face in order to appear as a soldier. He confesses that he was given the charge of guarding a prisoner of war, and that the prisoner of war has escaped. He asks Ahab what punishment he would receive:

  • 1 Kings 20:39 And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’ And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”

Ahab responds in v. 40:

  • The king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.”

The prophet was only retelling the story of Ahab, who had let King Ben-hadad go, despite the fact that he was to be devoted to destruction. He is in effect saying, ‘Ahab, you are the man!’:

  • 1 Kings 20:42 And he said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.'”

This is quite the compelling narrative as it is, but it actually serves to set up Ahab, in a sense, as a type of Christ. Ahab essentially is declared by God to be a substitute for the cursed Ben-hadad. Ahab’s life will be taken in the place of Ben-hadad’s. The King of Israel becomes the substitute for a cursed Gentile. He takes destruction in his place.

Ahab was a wicked king, a sinner to be sure. He deserved death in his own right. His death would in no way atone for the sins of Ben-hadad. But we have a righteous King, the King of Israel, he is without sin and willingly makes himself a substitute for cursed Gentiles.

Ben-hadad is named the ‘Son of Hadad.’ Hadad was a false god. So, in 1 Kings 20, the King of Israel is to die for the ‘son of god’ (Ben-hadad). In the gospel the King, the true Son of God, dies for those who have followed after idols.

Ahab was killed by the very Syrians for whom he was dying as a substitute:

  • 1 Kings 22:35 And the battle continued that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, until at evening he died. And the blood of the wound flowed into the bottom of the chariot.

Yet there was no atonement for them. There is for us, because Jesus has taken the curse due to sin upon himself.