Worship in New Testament

Foreword:
This sermon is originally preached by Paul Grimmond (former UNSW Chaplain, director of Campus Bible Study) - I have attempted to rewrite as much as I can remember from this sermon and have added my own words in different areas. All quotations are taken from NIV.

In light of Christians identifying that our life exists for worship, and that worship is a lifestyle and not mere random events in our life (singing, helping the poor, going church - but worship as Paul said: Glorify God even in our eating and drinking) - What we are getting at is indeed important since if we can glorify and honour God in our daily activities in seemingly trivial things such as eating and drinking, this leaves us a lot of room for dishonouring God when we limit our definition of worship to mere songs and church activities.

Before we talk about giving God our heart (within the church context of singing songs of praise), we learn from the Bible that God makes no such distinction - when God demands His people to give Him their hearts, God always expected a turn in actions. For example the passage in Isaiah about true fasting - surely we know that fasting as we understand both in the Old Testament does mean abstaining from food and such, but one thing we see more striking throughout the passages was the fact that God stresses on righteousness in their daily lives, not so much their abstinence.

Many times during the Old Testament when the people of God strayed away from God, the sacrificial system was still "kind of there" and in place - meaning the priests continually bring the offerings, the songs are continually played - but the heart of the people is already far (the priests were corrupt, the people sang to God today and worship Baals and idols tomorrow), whatever God called them to do was only done mechanically.

The sad truth is this, in the midst of "church activities" ... the definition of worship was lost. It was true for the Old Testament, and we would do well to acknowledge that we are vulnerable to such a thing in our modern times.

What does the book of Joel say?

Joel 2:13
Rend your heart and not your garments, return to The Lord your God...

If worship is a lifestyle (and we know that it is not a particular chapter and verse that explicitly states that "worship is a lifestyle", but as we study the Scripture, we learn that worship is indeed a lifestyle) - we would be most familiar with the famous Sermon about a lifestyle of worship - Yes, it is none other than the Sermon on The Mount - by Jesus.

What we tend to do when we want to find out about worship - is to look up the concordance and find out wherever the word "worship" is found in the whole Bible (i.e.John 4:21, Romans 12:1-2, etc) - tie them up together, summarize all the verses into One Gigantic Principle and preach a 5 point sermon. But as we will soon see, if we actually think of worship as merely that, we will lose the most important sermon in the whole Bible out - lets turn to Matthew 5

Links to Bible Passages online:
Matthew 5

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=31

Matthew 6
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206;&version=31

Matthew 7
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207;&version=31

One thing before we start, let us look at the context of this BIG SERMON.

Matt 5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up to a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and he began to teach them, saying...

If we just look a few verses up, we read

Matt 4:23
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

Jesus is getting famous! Miracles are being done - the crowds are following Him - but what does Jesus do?

WHEN JESUS SAW THE CROWDS... (Matt 5:1), Jesus started teaching his disciples.

It is easy for us to desire a BIG BLAST in church, a MEGA CONCERT that would draw BIG NUMBERS! and many a times, we think that Jesus would do the same. If you would like to look at another part of the Bible about what Jesus thinks about mere crowds - John 2:24. Jesus knows what crowds are - are they not also the CROWD that hung Jesus on the cross? In the midst of all the hype, all the rah rah... Jesus sets out the important things (it is as though Matthew does not want the reader (us) to misunderstand what is important - in the midst of fame, Jesus puts the first thing first)

If Jesus gave any instruction to the disciples, the sermon on the mount was definitely the longest.
If Jesus gave a model for lifestyle, the sermon on the mount is the lifestyle.
If Paul or Peter or John wrote anything on a worshipful lifestyle, is it not derived from the sermon on the mount (or a summary of it)?
If we learn anything about the Lord's prayer, isn't it Jesus' own words from his sermon?

SECTION 1 - The Blessed Man, Read Matthew 5:1-16

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;
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Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven...

Firstly, this blessed man is probably not talking about different persons but one same person. We see the same description for the blessed man in verse 3, we see the same thing for verse 10 - theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And is there a righteous man who thirst for righteousness (v6) but one that is proud(v5)? Or can there be a blessed man who is merciful (v7) but one who is a peace-hater(v9)? Jesus might be also quoting the Old Testament, one example is Matt 5:5, where Jesus quotes the psalm

Psalm 37:12
But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.

Psalm 37:29
the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

The meek will inherit the land, the righteous will inherit the land. Such a blessed man's character and attitude is definitely one that is distinct from the world. Therefore Jesus moves on the salt and light. Is not salt distinct from anything that has no flavour? Is not light distinct from darkness? When salt loses its flavour, it is no longer distinct. The world is a dark and wicked place, one righteous man will shine distinctly and will be killed simply because he is righteous (v11-12) But what does Jesus exhort? Be righteous (and distinct) ANYWAY! We are called to be Christians, and we are called to holiness, shall we shrink back? Shall we be like the lamp hidden under the basket?

Jesus takes one more step to say that we not only should be unhidden, but we are meant to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven". Did not Jesus (God) die as a righteous Man who did God's will? But we are reminded - They persecute the righteous, like the prophets of God who were persecuted - and Jesus the one who was most persecuted unjustly! but great is their reward in heaven!

BRIDGE TO SECTION 2
As Jesus talks more about the righteous man and righteousness - Jesus points us back to the Old Testament. Jesus introduces no new morality except the one that was God given back in the Old Testament. In section 2, we will see how the Pharisees (and many of us) treat God's standard of righteousness.

SECTION 2 - Minimizing Our Sins, Maximizing Our Righteousness - NOT THE RIGHTEOUS MAN

Minimizing Our Sins - God is not Fooled (Part 1) Read Matthew 5:17-48

From Matt 5:17 - 20, Jesus reinforces the law. Not the tiniest bit of the law is meant to be broken. A great thing to do is to obey and teach others God's Law, and bad thing to do is break the commands and teach others the same. Then Jesus moves to the Pharisees. There are some important things we should know about Pharisees:

We read the Bible so much (hopefully we do) that we are very accustomed to the idea that Pharisees are the worst guys around - That is true to a very large extent. But in those times, we also have to know that the Pharisees are considered the most righteous people around - if anyone obeyed God's Law, the Pharisees obeyed it. They made SURE they obeyed it. Jesus says in

Matthew 23:23

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Imagine going home today, and give God 10% of your groceries. Cut a tenth of your carrot, bring to church on sunday and put in the offering box. That is what Pharisees do - not to mention that sometimes we don't even tithe! The truth is that, if anybody was righteous, the Pharisees were considered the most righteous around by the society! If we are not MORE RIGHTEOUS than Pharisees, we are doomed - we have no Kingdom of Heaven waiting for us (which is what verse 20 plainly says) - let us see what is this righteousness that Jesus describes.

From verse 21-48 ( it would be good if you can read it first)...

Here, Jesus talks about one thing we do most commonly in life... is that we try to make a check list of "righteous things to do", and when we successfully accomplish one, we tick the box saying "Yes, I have done a deed of righteousness!". We make the checkbox (requirement) for righteousness small enough so we can easily tick it - and this thing we do for almost everything in our life. Lets try some familiar ones -

Even if I don't go to CG, AT LEAST I TRY to go church on sundays.
If I don't meet up with other Christians (which the Bible commands), at least I try to read my Bible at home.
If I don't go to church on sundays, at least I pop in Hillsongs and worship God at home.
Although as a student/worker/whatever I am not faithful to God, but at least I don't steal and kill.
I'm not lusting for another woman, I'm just appreciating God's creation.
I'm not lying, I just don't want to hurt my reputation as a leader.

And much of such things we say in our heart - to make us more righteous in our sight. There is some very flawed theology about that habit - flawed is an understatement. Let us look at the Jesus definition of adultery.

Jesus says... "But I tell you anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart"!

Instead of making the check box smaller, Jesus makes the checkbox the size it really is. Is Jesus making the checkbox too big? No, Jesus is just making the checkbox the size it should be - any smaller than that and we are like the Pharisees (and we usually are), makign the checkbox small enough to fit our whims and fancies, deceiving ourselves that we are righteous when we are acting wickedly.

What does Jesus say?
If your right eye causes you to sin, PLUCK IT OFF! It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

When I first heard this sermon preached (this is a summary of his sermon), the pastor speaking to a group of University students said this was addressing the issue that we face with Internet Pornography - the convenience of it and how we can easily delete our browsing history after that. Many of us struggle with the sin yet we are not willing to let it go.

" C'mon guys, you know this. If you need to, you can just throw your computer out of the window - you can always use the university computer labs to do your assignment. How much is your computer? 2000 dollars? 3000 thousand? What is a more important? 3000 dollars or righteousness before God?"

If we think that pastor was going overboard, Jesus has got to be crazy since we should not only be throwing our computers out of the window but plucking our eyes out! - and we know Jesus is talking in perfect sense. The question rings true - What is more important, our eye or righteousness before God? That is a question we would do well answering it.

There are quite a few areas that Jesus did talk about in verse 21-48, and for the lack of time, we will only look at verse 33-37 and briefly run through the others.

Speaking about oaths, these few verses are something we can identify with. In our world today, mobile phones are so convenient aren't they? We can tell our friends that we will meet them at 10 a.m., but if we come late, we can just call them by 9:45a.m. and tell them we will be 30 minutes late.

This is our culture. In court, witnesses have to swear by their Scriptures and tell the truth. The question is this -

Why can't we just tell the truth always? If we always tell the truth ( our 'Yes' being 'Yes' and 'No' being 'No" ), we won't have to say things like - I swear to God this time I am telling the truth! What do we mean? If we don't swear by God then we are entitled to tell a lie?

We are deep in a culture of unfaithfulness - where truth telling is not the best thing to do! Enough about the world - what about us as Christians? Are we like that? Some of us may not openly lie, but are our answers misleading to others? Do we practice unfaithfulness in our speech to others? Are we the people who tells God " God, I will do this and that", but when the time for action comes... we tell God "Maybe the next time". Jesus idea of righteousness definitely isn't the one that we are familiar with.

Reading through verse 21-48, we see the same pattern - different ways we humans try to minimize God's righteousness so we can pass the test. We say we don't commit murder, but do we secretly harbor hatred against our brother? An eye for an eye? Do we try to get equal with others in the name of justice - what about Jesus who turns the other cheek?

What does Jesus say about these things we do?

BRIDGE TO Section 2 (Part 2) Read Matthew 6:1-18

Now that Jesus exposes the wicked things we do and corrects our views, there is also another part of hypocrisy in trying to maximize our righteousness in the sight of others. Previously it was minimizing our sins so that we will appear NOT SINFUL, now we will see with what sort of righteousness is God pleased with.

SECTION 2 (Part 2) - Maximizing Our Righteousness - God is not pleased

As we read, Jesus says - don't do your good deeds FOR others to see. Don't blow your own trumpet...Don't let your left hand know what your right hand does.

The question to us is this:
When was the last time you did a good deed, and you start wondering...

"I wonder if anybody saw me doing this good deed - it would be such a waste if this good deed goes unnoticed! Nobody would have known I am such and such a good guy!"

It wasn't too long ago was it? Or when was it the last conversation when everybody is chatting happily... and you JUST HAD TO SOMEHOW mention that you donated a few hundred dollars for the.... earthquake fund in China.... or you SOMEHOW mentioned that you were visiting the orphanage last week...

The list goes on. And it is wickedly amazing the many ways we try to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others. How we choose to pray lengthy and eloquent prayers when we are called to pray in front of many people - when we neglect prayer behind closed doors.

Read through 6:5 - 13 again.

Sure, when we pray well in front of all, all men think highly of us. But who is the truly righteous man who is righteous in God's eyes? It is the one who knows that "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man" and goes behind closed doors and directs his prayer to God and not to man. Likewise with fasting as we see the same pattern from Matthew 6:16-18.

A True Perspective on Righteousness - Read Matthew 6:19 - 7:27

The wicked man is consumed with the here and now and he stores up treasures on earth - he lives in his delusions, not knowing that treasures on earth will be destroyed. Just a few paragraphs ago, we see how the wicked man makes himself feel righteous, then we see how he tries to make other people think that he is righteous - altogether forsaking the true righteousness that comes from God!

Even as Christians, we know that do such wicked things and continue in them at times.

We think we can serve our fleshly desires and we can serve God.
We think we can serve materialism and we can serve God.
We think we can worship the mirror and we can worship God.

What does Jesus say?
No one can serve to masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money.

If we think we came up with a genius idea that we can somehow serve God and Money - the truth is that you are not serving God and you are serving money. The Bible cancels the possibility of serving 2 masters. Some of us might say -

After I finish my studies, I will serve God.
After I finish my work, I will serve God.
After I get married, I will serve God.

That is a truckload of self-deception. What makes you think that you will serve God after you serve your studies when you don't even serve God now? Honestly speaking, how many of us are using the statement "being a faithful Christian student" but are inwardly having selfish ambitions desiring to prestigious careers more than we want to serve God? Is it possible to sincerely say I am not serving God now, but I will serve God later - with integrity?

In fact, by using the phrase "more than we want to serve God" implies as though God comes first, then something else is second. But what does Jesus say? Seek first the Kingdom of God - seek second your career? No! Seek first the Kingdom of God. Full stop. Seek second? The Kingdom of God. Seek third? The Kingdom of God!

Let us take a look at 6:31-33. Many of us seem to find comfort in here when Jesus says God will provide. "Why worry about what you will eat or drink or wear?" Perhaps it was comforting to the people back then, but I doubt that it would be equally comforting for us.

The fact is this. Because of our wickedness - and the wickedness of this generation - what we ought to find comfort in is really a BIG INSULT to us today. Why? Let us read again 6:25-32. These early disciples that desire to follow Jesus are worried about their very own lives, their food, - the things we call BASIC NECESSITIES. Yes, the people were afraid following Jesus meant that they would lose such security - the security of basic necessities, but Jesus comforts them and says " Don't worry, God will take care of that"

What are we in our world today? What are we worried about? Some of us fear, if we truly become a Christian and therefore OBLIGED to be generous:

We will drive a smaller car!
We will live in a smaller house!
We will not be as dignified as we want to be!

WHAT?!

These early followers fear for lack of food on the table - so much so that Jesus uses the illustration of the worth of sparrows and comfort them. What are we in this generation? We fear that we live in a smaller house? The people back then feared that they had no FOOD. We fear we will be wearing non-branded clothes? The people back then feared they would have no clothes!

Honestly, so what if we don't wear Levis? So what if we don't wear some Nike or Adidas shirt? So what if we don't drive a big car? Look at Jesus! He doesn't even have a donkey! He had to borrow a donkey to enter Jerusalem as King! It is a worrisome thing about the prosperity gospel that we hear in the world these days - that if we love God enough He will give us worldly riches! Heresy! We wildly claim promises. In our greed, we want to claim Abraham's promise of having many lands. In our greed, we claim promises that God gave David, or Solomon. In our greed, we claim promises like "I will be the head and not the tail" - Truly, In Jesus Christ where God's promises are yes and Amen, we are already the head and not the tail in Jesus! But we interpret being the head and not the tail to mean getting Number 1 in class, being the upper class of society, being more beautiful looking than others. It is high time we repent of using Scripture for our greed!

If you want God's promises, these are some of the promises that Jesus gave: In James, God will give wisdom to those who are not double minded over the issue. In the Gospels, Jesus promises to be with us by His Spirit, and Jesus promises His friends (hopefully we fit in this category) trials persecutions in this world, and that Jesus has made room for us in heaven. Of course, Jesus promises that He will come again!

Not to be dragged to far fromt the central topic: After Jesus corrects our view that God is generous 7:7-12, Jesus continues in 7:13 that the way that leads to life is a narrow one. It is hard, it is narrow, it isn't the highway (the popular way that majority people go through), it isn't the easyway - and few find it.

A tree is recognized by its fruit. A Christian is known by the fruits he produce. Are the fruits of the Spirit evident in our lives? Or do we deceive ourselves into believing that a Christian is known by church attendance and church activities? or similarly worse - a Christian is known by the fact that they are people who are not as wicked as the person next to them...

The warning is grave. Jesus gave the warning.

Matthew 7:21-23

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

In the last day, who do we fool when we don't worship God in all that we do? Who is the man that is frantically recounting his "good deeds" before Jesus to only hear Jesus' rejection? If performing miracles cannot pass the test, what more empty Christian songs that does not reflect our lives?

Does Jesus owe us salvation because we publicized Him? So what if we yell out to Gods that we love Him and we desire to give Him our hearts in concerts and on Sundays? God owes us nothing, God doesn't need our publicity - Jesus knows what publicity does, and what publicity doesn't do. Jesus has an idea of righteousness that is true according to God.

Our ideas of minimizing our own sin and maximizing our righteousness, our folly of serving things of this world is not a new idea - Jesus has critisized it 2000 years ago.

CONCLUSION

So, what to make out of the Sermon on the Mount?

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one
For yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen