Sermon for Sunday August 15th, 2021: “Step Right…” (Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7). Please read Colossians 3: 1-15.
What we do in worship is a lot less important than how we do it…than how we approach a holy God. The New Testament is virtually silent about forms of worship. But scripture as a whole is absolutely clear that worship, at its best and most acceptable, is (and should) always be about the response of my heart to an awesome God. He is why we are here. This is the heart of worship. The heart in worship is the heart of worship.
God doesn’t care about how great a performer you are or about how holy you look to others. It is what he thinks that really matters! I’ve heard people say, “I’ve really missed the worship!” I have a question, “I wonder whether God has missed our worship?!” Often (the truth is) we make our meetings all about us; about whether we were entertained, or whether we felt all warm and fuzzy when we heard the sermon, or whether or not we liked the song choices. People leave with a sense of having been robbed of a satisfying experience.
Matt Redmond’s song, “When the music fades” is essentially just such an admission…a confession that he and his band had turned worship into a man-made show that had little, if anything, to do with what God might really want from them. Redmond decided to unplug the instruments and simply come and bring something of worth to bless God. We should come to bless God first. We should come first just as we are to worship, and often the best place to begin, (the where-we-are) is to say sorry to our Lord for the thing we’ve made of it.
Solomon (the writer of Ecclesiastes) often said, “There is nothing new under the sun…” He addressed exactly the same problem with the worshippers of his own day. Solomon had built and dedicated an impressive Temple to the glory of God, a place to represent the Presence of God with His people, a building dedicated (solely) to the worship of God, to the hearing and the doing of God’s Word and, in growing gratitude, the giving to God of the people’s absolute best.
During his investigations into the worship-life of the people, the king noticed certain worrying developments: he could see that men and women were not sincere in their worship; how they seemed to be going through the motions, saying all the right things (their prayers), spreading out their hands. To the ordinary eye, the people (probably) looked to be in good shape.
But to Solomon (who himself knew what it was to neglect God), they always seemed to leave their times of worship – going back to their lives, their business as usual – as totally unchanged people or, worse still, as even more careless than ever. People may not have had a clue about it, but they no longer took the Lord seriously. They came with second-rate offerings and, then, only when they felt like it! But God was not and never would be fooled by our masks. There was, in short, no fear of God!
They drew near to the Lord with their mouths…they honoured Him with their lips but their hearts were far from Him; their worship was “made up” only of men’s rules (Isaiah 29:13).
21 “I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 23 “Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. (Amos 5)
The prophets gave God’s devastating assessment of His people and of what they were offering to the Lord…as worship; and this is why Koheleth begins his sermon:5 1Guard your steps… as you go…to the house of the Lord and draw near, rather to listen than to offer the sacrifice of fools…
Guard your steps? Here is a warning. Be careful and cautious, look where you’re going because you just might fall as you go to the house of the Lord…
If you do revere God, then you will know exactly who you are. You will know what you have done during the past week, what you have said and thought and the things you chose to do. You will know that He is holy and that you are not; that, for all your best efforts and best offerings. If you are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, you will know they are essentially only rags to clothe yourself with. That’s the truth.
Worship is not something you come to. Worship begins before you ever arrive. And how is it that you do come; when you walk here; do you prepare your heart to meet with the living God; to listen to his word? Or have you come to demand a blessing? Have you come here with hobnail boots on, to trample His courts? Or have you come to bow down and confess, “You are Lord in this place!” So…
Tiptoe into the presence of God…draw near…deliberately…proceed with caution…
We sing so many songs which contain fantastic truths about God and us. “Just as I am, without one plea, but that your blood was shed for me, and that you will me to be free, O Lamb of God I come…”
Come, just as you are, yes. That sometimes means that you have come here full of sin and sorrow and self. That needs dealing with first. Confession is good for the soul and essential for worship to be more than a song. You cannot be blessed until you allow God to help you. If you come with and continue with unconfessed sin…you simply cannot worship God or participate in the worshipping community. It will simply be pretence.
If our worship is to honour God, then we (all) need to step right. Jesus spoke about walking in the light, not the darkness. If you are living wrong, God will hide his eyes from you; He will not listen to your prayers, he will not accept your offering (Isaiah 1:15). Why should he, if we constantly refuse to listen to God, to quench the Spirit? If you don’t come to allow God to work on your heart, what can He do? What parent would reward bad behaviour in their children? (Oh, they would still love their children, of course!)
What’s the problem in the church? I am! God wants your heart. HEART stands for Humility, Eagerness, Adoration, Repentance, Thankfulness…
Until we get in the habit of surrendering our hearts to the Lord, there can be no joyful song. That is difficult and painful; but then all surgery is, especially heart-surgery! Unless we keep short accounts with the Lord, confess our sins in the manner of David, we will be burdened by the weight of guilt. Oh, yes, we may well be saved; we may well end up with God in eternity, but in the meantime we miss out on all that God has won for us. What a shame…and all because we didn’t take it to the Lord in prayer. Don’t tell him what he should do, and stand back and admire your work; if you are to speak, tell him what you can’t do and what you need his help for. So, before we can even begin to sing a song, or tell a joke…
Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong…
Last week (speaking of the vast horde that faced King Jehosophat) we learned that we cannot see (OR HEAR) the victorious God WHO IS THERE if we are filled with fear or panic. Don’t get so calloused or hardened or self-obsessed that it becomes impossible to hear God. Sometimes it’s as simple as we just don’t want to listen to God for fear that we will discover things about ourselves we don’t like, or don’t want to admit to. Well tough, because that’s the journey we are all taking. Do we expect to hear from the Lord? Do we even want to?
God just wants to meet us in the quiet. We are not quiet enough, long enough…still enough. We are always talking. We never learned to take turns and listen. We might feel robbed in worship. But I wonder how the Lord feels about our assemblies, our worship? Paul wrote to a worshipping community in Colossae, to a church that (in many ways) was failing. He told them…
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe your selves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.
BUT, before any of that was remotely possible – before any of that was “just words” – he also warned them about the attitudes of their hearts:
8But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk. 9-11 Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. (The Message)
6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming…
And if you have to speak weigh your words carefully as your approach. When you sing that hymn, sing it listening to the words. Be careful. Sweep clean the house. Get rid of the things that mar and kill!
4 When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake.
Words may not mean much to us, but they mean a lot to God. In God's eyes, a promise is a promise. Don’t withhold what you owe. Do not rob God! You vowed it, you keep it. Empty words…ridiculous prayers…make enough of those and you’ll find God’s hand will be against you…
When the music fades and all is stripped away, and I simply come, longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart…
Fear God! We’d be foolish not to…STEP RIGHT!
A time of reflection…
MFR 13/08/21