Holistic Worship
August 1, 2021 • Psalm 95
Audio Transcript:
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People in the back, if you fill it out legibly, and then just return it to the welcome table, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week. Also, we have a connection card online, on our website, or in the app that you can get in the App Store, or on Google Play. Just search Mosaic Boston. That said, would you please pray with me over the preacher of God's holy word?
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are God who speaks, that you have given us your word. Indeed, all of creation proclaims the glory and the majesty of God. Every time we go into nature, we meditate upon nature. We hear a sermon from you. We thank you for that natural revelation, but we're even more thankful for the supernatural revelation of your son, Jesus Christ, the eternal word. Jesus, we thank you that you were born, that you lived a perfect life, fully God, fully man's son of God, son of man. You lived a life of total sacrifice, a life of selflessness, a life of love toward God and love toward people. Jesus Christ, despite the fact that you had not sinned, not once, you were crucified by a hard-hearted people, people who they thought were doing the right thing, and yet they were committing the most heinous crime in the history of the universe.
Lord, we thank you that you did not remain dead, but on the third day you rose to life, and we thank you that you ascended to heaven, you ascended to the Holy Spirit, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for the gift of regeneration, that you are a god who takes our hearts of stone, replaces it with a heart of flesh, a heart that's tender to you, and we thank you, great God, that you, along with giving us your eternal word, Jesus Christ, the son of God, give us the living scripture, your word inspired by the Holy Spirit. Your word is given to us to teach us and guide us and illuminate our path, but also to warn us, to rebuke us, to convict us, to show us the deceitfulness of sin in our blind spots.
So, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures today, and for every person that's not a Christian, save them today. For every person that is a Christian, give them a vision of their commitment to the church, that they are members of a body, and they are to commit to a church, because true worship is holistic worship, entails all of life, and we need our brothers and sisters to help us with that. Lord, bless our time in the holy scripture. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
We are finishing a sermon series going through some of the choice Psalms that we've been calling balm Psalms because they're like balm to our souls. Today we are in Psalm 95, and then next week we are beginning a three-week series about the values of Mosaic Boston as a church, and along with the values we'll talk about our vision for the next season in life, and after those three weeks we will begin our fall series. Today's sermon, Psalm 95, the title of the sermon is Holistic Worship, and I think it sets us up perfectly for the series coming up.
You ever hear anything to this effect, something similar where someone says, "Oh, you go to church to worship? That's nice. That's great. Good for you. I don't need to go to church to worship because I can worship God anywhere. I can worship God as I'm hiking Mount Washington. I can worship God as I'm at the beach in Newport, and I can worship God in nature. I can worship God playing golf or swimming. You choose to worship God with Christians at church. I choose to worship God anywhere. That's what I do." Of course, this is true, somewhat. It's true that you can worship God anywhere. We're called to worship God anywhere and everywhere because we're called to live a life of worship.
You can worship God in nature. You can worship God at work. You can worship God at home, sitting on your couch. But of course, that can't be the entirety of your relationship with God, because God calls us into a body of believers, into the church. Jesus Christ didn't just die for individuals. Yes, he did, but individuals whom he brings together into the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. So, St. Peter talks about the fact that every single Christian is a living stone built up into a spiritual house, interlocking with one another, interdependent upon one another.
St. Paul used the metaphor that we are a body. We're the body of Christ. We're members of one body of Christ. So, we need to have more, a deeper ecclesiology, and ecclesiology comes from Ecclesia, Churchology, knowledge of the church, theology of the church. The church is a covenantal relationship, and to understand our covenantal relationship with the church, we can look to another covenantal relationship, which is marriage. God calls marriage a covenantal relationship, that you make a covenant with one another to love one another sacrificially, til death do us part, and you can't have a healthy marriage remotely, not long-term.
I can't go to my wife and say, "I'm moving out, but we can be married on FaceTime." That's not going to work, and a lot of people do that with church. I'm going to have church remote. I'm going to worship God remotely. Well, you don't understand what worship is, not completely. Worship isn't just singing. Worship is all of your life, and if worship is all of your life, we need brothers and sisters in our lives to hold us accountable, to call us out when we're sinning, to point out blind spots in our lives, blind spots that deceitfully pull us away from God. The scripture says, "Take care, less there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God."
He's talking to Christians. "But exhort one another daily, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." So, if you say, "I can worship God on my couch," yes, you can praise God, sing songs to God, but to life a holistic life of worship, oh, no. For those who think that that's what they should do, I actually have been meditating on a great business idea. If anyone has extra capital, you can invest in this business idea, maybe a patent. I want to create a couch that zaps people, like an electric shock whenever it knows that you're sinning. Christians would buy it and be like, "No, one episode of Netflix is enough. You're on season three," zap. It would zap you out of it. It's like, "Oh, you're watching a sermon at home? No, you can't go to a different tab," zap. So, we can talk about that after.
So, couches don't convict you of sin. Mountains don't convict you of sin. Trees don't convict you of sin. The Holy Spirit does, and so do brothers and sisters. So, true worship is holistic, all of life obedient worship, and you don't get all of life obedient worship without conviction, without accountability. Hebrews 10, 24 through 25 says, "Let us consider how to stir up one another, to love in good works, not neglecting to meet together, physically to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day, the judgment day drawing near." This is how I want to encapsulate this Psalm, Psalm 95, because this is how Hebrews Chapter Three and Four interprets the Psalm. It quotes it at length, and it brings it in with a pastoral exhortation.
I'm not going to quote Hebrews Three and Four today at length, but definitely go home and meditate. Maybe with your community group you can bring that in as we study Psalm 95. Would you please look at Psalm 95 with me? Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise, for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depth of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness. When your Fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work, for 40 years I loathed that generation and said they are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore, I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest. This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our heart. Three points to frame up our time together, worship God with your lips, worship God with your love, and worship God with your life.
First, worship God with your lips. The people of God, Israel, were dispersed at the time of the writing of this Psalm, dispersed hundreds of miles away from Jerusalem, from where the Temple of God was built, from where the presence of God was to be understood to be. So, the people of God, where they lived, they had synagogues where they would gather together on the Sabbath day where the word of God was read, and they would hear the word, they would pray, they would sing worship songs to God, but three times a year God says, "I want all of the people of God to gather together in Jerusalem," and many of them as pilgrims had to travel a long distance.
So, for days they would travel. They'd walk 15, 20 miles a day with their families on the way to Jerusalem, and this Psalm seems to be written in order to exhort them on the way because every critical juncture of the Psalm, every breakdown is almost like a stop at a station on the way to worship God. It retraces the major stops, and what they're doing here is in verse one, the first verse says they're encouraging one another. Keep going. Oh, come. Let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Sing and make a noise. So, there's voices that are singing to God, and then the noises are the instruments that they're bringing. They're worshiping God with instruments.
In several sermons already we've talked about the importance of worshiping God with singing and with praise, and expressing emotion as we're worshiping. I think we as a church are growing and that. I've even heard clapping recently. People are bobbing and weaving just a little bit. I see a hand go up every once in a while. Tremendous, tremendous. So, that's not what I want to focus on, but I just want to say I had a gal in my community group, and she's from Nigeria, and she's like, "Oh, thank you so much for talking about expressing emotions in sermons. I'm from Nigeria. Let me tell you, we have a long way to go." I was like, "I know, I know, but you should've seen where we came from. A few years ago, we are the frozen chosen. We're not going to express any emotion at all."
So, continuing growing in that, but that's not what I want to focus on in this Psalm because this Psalm doesn't just focus on the singing or making the noise. It's focusing on God. It focuses on Yahweh. So, the name of God, the covenantal name of God when he reveals himself to Moses, when God meets Moses through the burning bush, and Moses says, "Look, you're calling me to go and lead the people of God out of captivity, out of slavery in Egypt, but if they ask what's your name, what's your name, at least?" and God says, "I am that I am, and this is the covenantal name. I'm the God of relationship. I'm Yahweh." Three times, in verse one, three, and six, Yahweh is used, but together with the synonyms and the pronouns for Yahweh, he's referring to 26 times.
The Psalm is about God, and he calls God the rock of our salvation. For salvation, they meant salvation from captivity, from physical, literally slavery in Egypt, and he's the rock of our salvation because he's a refuge. He's solid, stable. He's a place of safety, but also in the context of the Psalm's reference at the end to Meribah and Massah in the wilderness, the rock most likely refers to the rock at Horeb, through which God provides for Israel water from a rock, and the story is that Israel is traveling from Egypt to Rephidim, and they couldn't find water, and without water, everyone would die, and they say this. They begin to get angry with Moses, and they said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"
The Lord told Moses, "Hey, take your staff, the same staff with which you did miracles, with the same stuff with which you parted Red Sea, with all of that, take it, strike the rock," and water came out, and the people were satiated with the water. The rock denotes God's stability, safety, security that he provides for us. He's the rock of our salvation. In the New Testament, the rock of our salvation is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ tells a parable where he says, "Hey, there's a wise builder, and there's a foolish builder." The foolish builder decides to build a house for himself on sand. The storms come, and obviously, the house is taken down. The wise man takes the words of Jesus Christ and doesn't just listen to them, but understands them and obeys them. That's the foundation for his life.
Do the storms come to the Christian? Yes, they do, just like the non-Christian. Every single one of us goes through storms. The question is, what foundation are you building your life on? Jesus Christ says that the foundation is Jesus Christ. He's the cornerstone, but the foundation isn't just Jesus Christ. It's also Jesus Christ and his words, and our obedience to the words of Christ. That's the foundation. He is our rock, and he is our rock of salvation. He saves us from the penalty of sin, and he saves us from the deep-soul thirst deep inside, that even leads us to sin. In John 4:14, Jesus speaking to the woman at the well says, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
We have a thirst deep inside of us, every single one of us, a soul thirst, not a physical thirst, and only Jesus Christ can meet that thirst with himself. He is that water. He sends the water of Holy Spirit that wells up to eternal life. So, as the pilgrims, they travel, they enter the Court of the Gentiles, and the temple had three main parts, the Holy of Holies only a high priest could enter into, and then there was the chamber or the Court of the Israelites. This is the people of God who were Jewish, and the people of the covenant, and then there was the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles, everyone could enter, but only people who were part of the covenant people could enter the Court of Israel.
So, now they enter the Court of the Gentiles, and this is where they continue to rejoice. In verse two, let us come to his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with the songs of praise. Literally, come into his presence is let us come before his face, and it underlines the reality of the meaning that we are coming before God, and we're going to look in his eyes. We're going to see his smile. We are prepared to meet God. There's an expectation and anticipation that I'm not just here to sing. I'm not just here to hear a person speak. I'm here to meet God. I'm coming into his presence, this preparation here, and as we come into his presence, we must be thankful, can't but be thankful. Thankful for what? For the fact that God made us. We didn't make ourselves. He is our maker. He made us. He sustains us. He provides for us, and the Lord saves us.
We need to deepen our spiritual discipline of thanksgiving. We need to learn to thank God for the smallest things. Do you ever cook a meal for someone, and you worked hard at cooking that meal, and you're watching them enjoy that meal, you're like, "Is that good?" They're like, "Oh, that's so good," and what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? The person just gets up, finishes the meal, and puts the dish in the sink, just walks away. Not only did you not thank me, but you didn't wash the dish? You thankless, thankless... We expect that as human beings. We expect, hey, I did this thing for you. Just say thank you. That's all I want. I don't want you to Venmo me for the meal. I don't want anything. I'll even wash the thing if you just say thank you.
How much more so the God of the universe just gives us gift upon gift, upon gift, a God who provides for all of our needs? This week I was just feeling a little fluffy. I was like, "I got to go on a diet," and I didn't use the word diet because men don't diet. Men lean out, and I was like, "I got to just lean out just a little bit," and then it just hit me, I'm like, "My goodness. How blessed are we?" Because my dad immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1989, and I remember my dad, as a kid, I look at my dad, he was always in shape, and then all of a sudden he grew a little belly, and he comes up, he's like, "Where did this belly come from? I guess I need to go on a... What's that thing called?" He didn't even know the word. He had never used the word diet in his whole life because of rations, and you go to supermarket, and you're like, "Oh, there's nothing there. All right. I'm going to have to go find a chicken somewhere."
That's a completely different life, but God is so good to us in many, many... You got to thank him for his goodness. Then in Psalm 95:3, for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods for... Why are we worshiping him? Not just because we're thankful, because of who he is. He is a great God. He's a great king above all gods. In the ancient Pagan world, they had different gods for different people, different gods for different geographical regions, different gods for cosmic regions, in heaven, earth, the netherworld, different gods over different aspects of life, war, fertility, harvest, but Yahweh is a great God. He's a king above all gods. Obviously, there's no other gods. The other nations worshiped other gods, which actually had demons behind them, but God is God over everything.
I take solace, I take comfort in the fact that God is a king over anyone in authority. That's what he's saying. We live in a day and age where we look at politicians, we look at people in authority. We live in a nation of checks and balances. How is that working out? Not so well. Who's doing the checking? Who's doing the balancing? I want God to do the checking and the balancing, and he is, and he is, and I take comfort in that. Whatever happens, I know God is king over everything. The Proverbs tells that God takes the hearts of kings, and the hearts of kings or politicians or rulers, it's like water in his hands. He guides it wherever he chooses. God is a great God, a great king.
Psalm 95:4 through 5, in his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are also his. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands, plural, formed the dry land. So, God created everything, formed it with his hands, and he holds it all with his hand. It's just a flex, like, "I created everything with two hands. I can hold everything with one hand." Colossians says about Jesus Christ that in him all things hold together. Here, this a poetic device of Merism, naming a pair of opposites, which obviously includes the whole, the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountain. Obviously, he holds everything, the sea and the dry land. He holds everything. So, vertically, from low to high, horizontally, from sea to dry land, he holds everything in between.
Try and imagine God's almighty hand, that wherever you go, you go to the very top, you go to the lowest low, he is there. Nothing and nowhere is beyond the reach of God, and this is a comfort for the Christian, but whose hands are the most meaningful hands in your life? I was thinking of that, and I think it was a Dove commercial, soap, and it was a Mother's Day commercial where they took a bunch of little kids and they blindfolded them, and then they had a lineup of their moms, the moms of all the little kids, and then each little kid, blindfolded, would go up to each mom and touch their hands, and by touching their hands had to figure out who was his mom. I love that. It's a tearjerker. It's awesome because hands are so meaningful to us.
Today's my dad's birthday, and I was meditating on my dad's hands. We grew up painting together. Coming home from work, as his hands are just callused with paint all over, I'll never forget just his hand veins bulging. Hands are meaningful to us, especially as children, and here he says that God holds everything in his hand, and we are part of that everything, so we too are in his hand. Finally, the pilgrims arrive at the gate, as close to the holy place as possible. They enter the Court of Israel, and this is the second part of the sermon, worship God with your love.
95:6 says, "Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker." So, we are to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, but loving God is categorically different than loving anything or anyone else. Many of us, when we think that God tells us to love him, that Jesus calls us his friends, that we are somewhat equals. We are not. God is in a category different than us, categorically different than us, and loving God, therefore, by definition, is categorically different. You're loving the God of the universe. Therefore, it's not a whimsical love. It's not just a sentimental love, this is how I feel about God. It's a reverent love, a fearful love, a love with trepidation, a love that includes bowing down physically.
Verse six, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. It's a display of submission to the great king, the bodily posture, physically. You bow down. I think we as believers, you got to make that a regular rhythm, a daily rhythm of life where you get on your knees before the king of the universe. Get on your knees. Enter his presence. It reminds you that he is great, and we are not. He is God, and we are not. Jesus did this. This is how he prayed. We too are called to pray like this. Obviously, we can pray without ceasing. You can pray while you're driving. You can pray right before you fall asleep. I think on a daily basis you got to get on your knees before God, say, "God, I humble myself before you." It's a physical act of submission, of humility, of reverence, and ultimately, of love.
There's three words in this Psalm in English that are translated. Verse one, oh, come, verse two, let us come, and in verse six here, oh, come, and they're different words in Hebrew meaning different things. Halak means to come as in walking. Let us come into his presence. Qiddem means let us come closer, approach, and then here the word is bo, let us enter. Let us enter. The closer that we get to his presence, the more humility and fear there must be. Verses seven and eight, for he, why are we bowing? Why are we kneeling? He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
So, he brings in everything. He just said God holds everything in his hand, and we are the sheep of his hand, the same hands that made everything that exists, the same hands that holds us. We are in the creator's hand, the same creator, God, elected Israel, who elected Israel, elected us, brought us into his hand, and he guides us and sustains us as a shepherd does sheep, and this is very... It's covenantal language, relationship language. He is our God. He is our shepherd. He is holding us in his hand. We are the sheep of his pasture. At Mount Sinai, God told Israel the following, "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the nations, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests in the holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel."
Well, how'd that go? God said to Israel, "I'm going to save you, and if you obey my word, if you obey my commandments, I'm going to keep you as my treasured possession." How did that go? Well, not so well because they didn't keep his word. They sinned against him. They were stiff-necked against him. They were hardhearted toward him, so God cast them out of the Promised Land into exile in Babylon, and that's the same pattern that we see all throughout the scripture.
This is what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve sinned against the holy God, and God says, "Go." He banishes them from the Garden of Eden. Then God then recreates a new people, chooses Abraham, creates a covenant of people, makes a covenant with them, and says, "I'm going to give you a Promised Land," and then the people of God are brought out of captivity, free from captivity, and then in the desert they sin against God with hardheartedness, stiff-necked, and then God says, "This generation, you're going to die here in the desert," including Moses, who didn't enter the Promised Land. Then God tells the people a third time, "Hey, you can stay in the Promised Land you if obey me." They did not.
So, what hope is there for us? If God says, "Obey my commandments. If you do, I'm going to protect you. Then you will be mine. Be good. Then I will bless you," if that's the pattern for us, what hope is there? Because not one of us is perfect. Not one of us has never sinned. Therefore, we're so thankful that God said the following. He said, "Look. I'm going to make a new covenant." Jeremiah 31:31 through 33, through the prophet Jeremiah, "Behold the days that are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their Fathers. On the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband," declares the Lord, "for this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord. "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
God says, "A day is coming where I'm going to make a covenant such that I'm going to write, inscribe, emblazon the word of God on the hearts of my people." How does that happen? Through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ comes as a human being, lives a perfect life, a life of perfect submission to God, holistic worship to God, the Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit, never sinned, was tenderhearted toward God and toward people the whole time, even when people rejected him, even when people were hardhearted to him, and then Jesus Christ, right before going to the cross, he knows exactly what's about to happen. He's about to bear the wrath of God upon himself.
At that moment, he has a decision to make. He knows what God's will is. God the Father's will was for him to go to the cross as a substitution or sacrifice for each one of us, and Jesus is wrestling with God as Jacob wrestled with an angle, and Jesus says, "Father, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done," and Jesus remained tenderhearted and says, "Not my will, but yours be done," goes to the cross, bears the wrath of God on behalf of us, experiences God's heart hardening. God turned from his son, banished his son. That's why Jesus Christ cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He lost the presence of God, therefore, the rest of God.
Jesus died, and on the third day, by God's grace, he was raised by the power of God and ascended to heaven to send us the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gives us access to the presence of God through spiritual regeneration, that when we repent of sin, turn to him, our heart of stone is taken out, a heart that's hard toward God, and replaced with a heart of flesh, a heart that beats toward God, a tender heart, a heart that follows Jesus willingly, a heart that responds. So, in the Garden of Eden God says, "Go. You're out. You're out. Get out," and then through the gospel Jesus Christ says, "I was banished on your behalf, so now you can come." The gospel is what turns the get out to come let us worship, come enter the presence of God.
In John 10:27 through 30, Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." First two stanzas of the Psalm, they encourage people to worship God with their lips and with their love, and our worship isn't centered on what we get out of church, the edification that we get, the inspiration that we get. No, our worship is centered on who God is, what he deserves, and what we give him. Our worship is turning our lives over to him completely, the service of worship, the service of surrender.
So, how do you know that you are truly worshiping God with your lips and with your love? Because Jesus Christ goes to Pharisees in Matthew 19, quoting Isaiah 29, and he says, "These people, they worship me with their lips. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." How does he know that their lips are just giving God lip service, and that their hearts are far from God? How did he know that? Because he just sees their lives. It's your life that proves whether your worship of your lips and of your love is really, really, really true. It's your love. Do you obey God? This is point three. Worship God with your life. The third stanza here assumes the pilgrims are now kneeling in the temple. They're bowing, they're kneeling, and they're listening.
They were singing. They were making noise. Now they're bowing and kneeling, and then they suddenly hear the high priest say in verse seven, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. As at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness when your Fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work." The Psalm begins by urging people, "Make noise in worshiping him." Now they're like, "Be quiet. It's time for you to hear the word of God, and by listening to the word of God, if you hear the word of God, it assumes obedience. You listen in order to obey. That's true listening." The historical context here is Israel is on the journey through the wilderness, and they complain to Moses about a lack of water, as we mentioned.
The text is Exodus 17:1 through 7. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink," and Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" So, Moses cried to the Lord, "What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me," and the Lord said to Moses, "Pass on before the people taking with you some of the others of Israel, and taking in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink."
Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the name of that place Massah and Meribah. Because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" Massah means testing. Meribah means contention. They tested the Lord by saying, "Aren't you the same God who saved us? Can you really do what you did before?" They're testing him for a self-centered demand, and they questioned God, "Is the Lord really among us?" From where does this question, this contention, this questioning of the spirit, where does it come from? It comes from a place of suffering. They're experiencing physical suffering, and they think, "God, if you were great, and if you were good, if you can do all things and if you are loving toward us, then why are you allowing us to go through the pain of this suffering?"
They didn't understand that God was preparing them to become a people strong enough to go into battle against the people in the Promised Land. They didn't understand the suffering had a purpose. They were experiencing suffering, and from that suffering they got really self-centered, and they said, "God, you no longer love us, and God, you are no longer great." So, yeah, God gives them that water, but then he also punished them. Yeah, you want water? But you're going to miss out on the Promise Land, and this generation who lived in the desert died in the desert.
Psalms 78, commenting on this text, in spite of all this, they still sinned. Despite his wonders... They saw all the wonders, all the 10 plagues that God sent against Egypt, everything that God did to save them, miracle upon miracle, despite its wonders, they did not believe. So, he made their days vanish like a breath in the years in terror. When he killed them, they saw him. They repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock, the most high God, the redeemer, but they flattered him with their mouths. They lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him. They were not faithful to his covenant. They saw God's miracles, didn't believe, questioned God. God sends consequences and they're like, "God, sorry. We're never going to do this again," and then they do the same thing.
They flatter him with their mouths, and that's really a question. Softness of heart toward God is obedience toward God. If you love God, you obey God. My youngest daughter Milana, she's four, and I noticed this recently. She's a master emotional manipulator. She is. She knows the buttons to press to get whatever she wants, so she throws around the L word all the time. "Daddy, I love you. I love you so much. You're my favorite. I love you." I'm like, "Great. Go clean your room." "Oh, Daddy, I love you." "Go clean your room." "I just want to bask in your love." "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. That's love. Go clean your room."
They were saying the same, and this is what a lot of Christians do. It's like, "I'm going to sing worship songs to God," and God's like, "Well, that's nice. I also gave you a lot of commandments, and you're breaking a lot of them. If you truly love me, then you love me with this reverential love that's all life-encompassing," and that's what hardness of sin is. What's hardness of heart? What's hardness of heart? I'm not going to obey. I'm going to obey. I'm going to pick and choose, but it's a decision of the will. Volitionally, I am not going to obey. Either it's too hard to not sin, or I love the sin too much. The hardness of heart is picking and choosing what God said, cutting out parts of scripture, "Nope, that's not for me. Nope, that's not for me," standing over scripture.
Jesus Christ gives us a parable of the sower in Matthew 13, and the sower is sowing the seed that is the word of God, so the sower is like an evangelist or a preacher, someone who's proclaiming the word of God, and there's four different levels of soil, so to speak, and he's sowing the seed, and the first one falls on a path, and the path, this is where people walk. It was hard, hard soil, and the seed falls on top. It can't penetrate, and then a bird comes and snatches it, and Jesus said that that's Satan stealing the word of God from a heart. The second one is soil, but it's not deep. There's rocks in it. There's stones in it, and the seed falls and plants, spreads some roots, and then we see that the sun comes up and scorches the plant.
The third one falls among thorns, and it begins to grow, and it's doing great, and Jesus said they accepted the word of God with joy, but when difficulty comes, when persecution comes, when battling sin becomes more difficult, the thorn grows, and after a while it chokes out the life of this plant, and Jesus said that those thorns are cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches, but then there's good soil that's produced, that allows the seed to go deep. The root system goes deep, and it produces fruit and grain a hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold, and Jesus said that this soil, that this heart is the heart that hears God's word, has ears to hear, understands God's word, and obeys God's word, and that final step, that's really true listening.
I wonder, how do you prepare yourself to hear God's word? How do you prepare yourself to hear God's word? There's practical things you can do. Saturday, get a great night's sleep. Sunday, have a great cup of coffee. In a couple weeks, we are moving the time of our services up 15 minutes. I know. I'm sorry, but coinciding with that, we're offering coffee, Starbucks Coffee. It's coming back. Praise God. Hallelujah. No carb, no bagels from Bruegger's because we care about you and your health. But you got to prepare yourself, that you walk in, and I'm not just talking about physically. I'm talking about your heart. I'm coming into the presence of God. I'm coming to hear the word of God.
There's different ways of listening to God's word and the proclamation of God's word, or even when you read. The prideful of, "I've already heard this," and the longer you're in the faith, the easier it is to give into the temptation of, "I've already heard this," and then there's the humble listening of, "God, what do I need to be reminded of?" There is a thing where the Holy Spirit, when the word of God is proclaimed, and sometimes I'm listening to a sermon and it's not even what the pastor is talking about, the Holy Spirit just brings something to mind and speaks a word into my mind, into my heart, and I know it's from God, and because of the preparation, that God, I'm here to accept your word.
So, how do we prepare our hearts? We say, "God, whatever you say, I want to hear it. I want to understand it. I want to think through, meditate upon it, and I want to obey it, whatever it is, no matter how hard it is. I know if you command it, that your will is good, and I know if you command it, you will give me strength to do it no matter how hard or seemingly impossible it is." This is what the great Augustine said. "Lord, command what you will, and grant what you command. God, command whatever you want, as long as you give me the strength to do the thing that you call me to," and by writing this thing, Augustine of Hippo, he provoked one of the greatest controversies in church history in the fifth century.
This prayer provoked or stimulated the British monk Pelagius to write his false or heretical theology. Pelagius heard this teaching, and then he goes to Rome, and he sees the Christians in Rome, and he sees the priests and the pastors in Rome who are living in moral laxity, who weren't living in the commandments of God, and he attributed the spiritual malaise to Augustine, to the fact that Augustine said that people can't be righteous unless God gives them strength to be righteous. What Pelagius should've understood is that these people did not understand Augustine, that they used Augustine's quote as justification to live a life of licentiousness. Well, I'm going to any way I want because God is a God of grace. He's going to forgive me, no matter what. That's licentiousness.
So, here Pelagius comes in with legalism, and with legalism he says, "No, no, no, no. If God commands that we do something, it implies the fact that we can do it in and of ourselves, that we shouldn't have to ask for grace in order to be obedient if God tells us to do something," and in order to make this theology work, he had to reject the idea or theology of original sin, that we're born as sinners. So, what he said was, "Adam and Eve, because of their fall into sin, they themselves were the only ones who had the sin nature, but everyone who was born afterwards has a clean, righteous, pure, holy nature, and every single one of us, we can be perfect because Jesus said, 'Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.'"
Two problems with this theology. Problem number one is Romans 5, which clearly says... St. Paul says, "No. Every single one of us inherited the sin nature of Adam and Eve. We're all born sinners." That's the first problem with Pelagian theology. The second one is babies. The second one is children. If you know children, and I think Pelagius was probably a single guy who wasn't married, had no kids, because if he had kids, he would not write this false theology. Babies are born as wicked, degenerate, corrupt, evil little beings. They're all Pagan. They're growing up Pagan. They're not born worshiping God. They're not born serving Mom and Dad. No. They're self-centered. They think they're the center of the universe, and the only reason why God makes them as cute as possible is so that we don't leave them at the edge of the forest. That's why.
We're all sinners by nature and by choice. So, now we're left with the conviction of if God calls us to do something, can we do it in and of ourselves? This is where Augustine is helpful, and he says, "Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect free will and perfect moral liberty." After the fall, we still have a will. You can do whatever you want after church. You can go have lunch. You can go to the park. You can go take a nap. You got a will, but the moral liberty isn't there, that in and of ourselves we cannot choose the things of God. We cannot choose God himself and the way that God calls us to be obedient. To him, only God's grace can restore our moral liberty, and thanks be to God through the gospel by the Holy Spirit, he does through the regeneration of our hearts.
Christianity declares that you can change, that when God calls you to do something, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, God's right there with you. He's the one working in us. He's working the salvation in us to work into will for his good pleasure. So, we can change, no matter how hardhearted, how callous, how insensitive, how desensitized you are. You can be tenderhearted, loving toward God and people through the gospel. Ephesians 4:31 through 31, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let old bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander but put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
He says, "Be tenderhearted, not because your parents were tenderhearted to you, not because if no one has ever hurt you, then be tenderhearted." No. We've all been hurt, but his commandments come with power if you believe in the word of God, that he says, "Be tenderhearted." With that word comes the power of God to do what he said to do, so we need to believe, and then we need to do. What is the power? Where do we get the power to be tenderhearted? Where do we get the power to obey God? He says, "Because God in Christ forgave you." Have you been wronged? Yes. Have we wronged God? Yes. Did God remain hardhearted toward us? No. God remained tenderhearted. He loved us even when we were still sinners, and if God can forgive us, then he gives us the power to forgive others.
The command is love. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Love God, love people. That's the command. Where's the power? Where do we get the power of love? The power comes from you are loved. The power comes from being loved. When you understand that you are loved by God, so much so that he gave his son to die on the cross for us, that's how much you are loved, and that's the power to then do the commandment of loving. Worship isn't just singing songs to God. Worship is doing what God told us to do, even make the greatest sacrifice. So, what did God expect from the people at Meribah and Massah? What did he expect at Mount Horeb when they're seemingly dying of thirst? What's he expecting from them? He's expecting them to say, "God, you brought us this far, and we don't know how you're going to come through, but we trust that you're going to come through, and even if we die, we're going to be in your presence, and we choose that rather than disobeying you, rather than being hardhearted, rather than questioning or contending with you."
That's true worship. God, I'm willing to sacrifice whatever you're calling me to sacrifice. That's true worship. We did the study of Abraham in the Jesus and Genesis series. Abraham, God finally sends him the promised son, Isaac. He waited decades for Isaac, and then Isaac is grown up, God tells Abraham, "Hey, I want you to take your son, your beloved son, your only son, and I want you to sacrifice him," and Abraham obeys. They get to the mountain after a three-day trek. They get to the mountain, and what does Abraham say to his servants? What does he say? He said, "Isaac and I are going up to the mountain," to do what? What's he say? Going up to worship. Going up to worship? He's going up to sacrifice his son. Well, that's worship.
God, I'm willing to sacrifice whatever you're calling me to sacrifice. That's worship. That's how much I love you, and it's not just lip service. I'm willing to do it, and I am doing it. The contrast of that is Jonah. God calls Jonah to go preach the gospel in Nineveh. He runs the opposite way to Tarshish, and then God sends a storm, and then all the sailors know it's because of Jonah. It's his fault. They go down, and he's at the bottom of the ship, and they said, "Hey, man, it's because of you. We know it's because of you. What'd you do?" and he says, "Oh, yeah. It's because of me. It's because I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, and I fear God." No, you don't. You're not fearing God because you're not obeying God. You're not worshiping God. The true worship is holistic worship, to sacrifice everything.
Psalm 95:10 through 11, "For 40 years, I loathed that generation and said they are a people who will go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore, I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter my rest." Strong words. "I loath that generation." So great was Israel's unbelief that rebellion aroused the feeling of revulsion in the heart and mind of God. It's not that they didn't know his ways. They didn't want to follow his ways, and they went astray in their heart. What kept them from trusting in God, it was fear, fear for loss of life or fear for loss of things that they had.
In Matthew 11:28 through 29, Jesus says the following. "Come to me, all who labor in our heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." True rest is found in the presence of God. In the presence of God, Jesus offers us, in the mission of God. He's not just calling us to get our sins forgiven. He's not just calling us to come and have everything we've done in our background wiped out. He's calling us to a mission. He's calling us to take a yoke upon ourselves with him, a yoke that actually is work for him that leads to spiritual rest, and this is true holistic worship.
Romans 12:1 through 2, "I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Hebrews Chapter Three quotes the third stanza of Psalm 95. That's seven through 11 of Hebrews 3. I'm not going to quote that, but I will close with this before we transition to Holy Communion. Hebrews 3:12 through 13, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you," Christians, he's talking to Christians, "Take care brothers and sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God, but exhort one another every day as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
We need to be aware. We need to have brothers and sisters in our lives who also are aware of the sin in our lives because of the deceitfulness of sin. We are to examine ourselves, where we are in terms of worshiping God with our lips, worshiping God with our love, and worshiping God with our lives. This is why God gave us Communion. Jesus Christ gave us Communion as a time for self-examination and a time for renewing our commitment to the Lord. For whom is Holy Communion? Holy Communion is giving for repentant Christians. So, if you're a non-Christian, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. If you do choose to repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ today, you're welcome to partake. Also, if you are a Christian who is living in unrepentant sin, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service, or repent of that sin today, turn from it, and partake.
First Corinthians 11:23 through 32, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me in the same way also.'" He took the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance for me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread of drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself."
That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. If you would like to partake in Communion and have not received a cup and bread, please raise your hand, and one of our ushers will give you one. In the meantime, I'm going to pray as we prepare to partake in Holy Communion. Heavenly Father, we thank you for lavish grace, your love that's not just a sentimental love, but is true, volitional, sacrificial love that you gave your beloved son, and Jesus, we thank you that you love us and it's not just a sentimental or sappy love. It is a sacrificial love, that you gave yourself for us.
We pray, Lord Jesus, as we remember your suffering on the cross on our behalf. Indeed, the physical pain was excruciating. The spiritual pain was exponentially so, as you felt, you experienced, you bore the wrath of God that we deserve. God the Father turned from you, banished you. You went through that to give us access, so that you now tell us, "Come. All who are burdened and heavy-laden, come. Find rest for your souls." Lord, we repent of sin and we pray that you remove any hardheartedness. I pray you make us a people willing to obey, willing to hear your word, understand your word, because people are willing to obey, and give us the power to do it. Bless our time in Holy Communion now. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
If this is your first time with us, take the top off to take the little piece of bread. On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took the bread, and after breaking it he said, "This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." Then proceeded to take the cup, and he said, "This cup is the cup of a new covenant in my blood, which poured out for the sins of many. Take drink, and do this is in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for speaking to us today through your word. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for impressing God's word upon our hearts.
Make us a people who are ready to hear your word and obey your word, and Lord, when we fall short, I pray that you give us a grace, a grace that empowers us to get up and to keep going. Make us a people who love you, and people who love you not just with words and not just with sentiment, but people who love you with our whole lives, with our wills, with our time, with our treasure, with our talents. Continue to bless each one of us, continue to build your church here, and continue to bless us so that we can continue to do your work. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
