Worship Pop Quiz (W.o.W. Rewind)

 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel and I will testify against you: I am God, your God. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me."

Psalm 50:7-15

 

 

Have you ever had that dream where you're back in school and you find out that you have a pop quiz or a test that you didn't study for? That kind of sinking, unprepared feeling is the worst. What’s really bad though is when this happens to you in real life! When it's a dream, you get to wake up and be relieved. In real life you have to deal with the consequences. In Psalm 50 God gives us a kind of pop quiz. It isn’t a math test or a history test or even a religion test. It's a test of our lives. It is a pop quiz to help prepare us for the final judgment, or life’s Final Exam if you want to think about it that way.

 

You will need to read the entire psalm to get the full pop quiz, but in verses seven through fifteen God focuses in on the kind of worship (sacrifices) His people offer Him. He finds fault with them because their worship appears to be just an outward show. Faith is absent. They offer sacrifices upon sacrifices but do so only as a ceremony to garner favor with God. They have an “I scratch your back, you scratch my back” sort of attitude toward worshipping the Lord. They think of their sacrifices as a way to “buy God off” or to make Him owe them in some way. But that is not how worship works! Worship isn’t just going through the motions in a ritualistic way without any faith. This isn’t pleasing to God; it draws His reprimand. God has already done so much for us that we could never pay Him back. You owe God so much that He could never owe you! So thinking that somehow by your worship that you could make God owe you something and earn gifts from Him is crazy.

 

But we do this too! We give money to the church, serve as Sunday School teachers or Deacons and then think that God owes us something. We think we have done God a big favor. We sing in the choir or play an instrument, attend church every Sunday, even read our Bible daily but do so only out of ceremony and ritual. We think that somehow God is pleased with us simply because we do these things. We don't do them from a grateful heart. We just go through the motions, because we think that the ritual is all that matters to God.
 

But this isn't the kind of worship that God wants. In verses fourteen and fifteen God tells us what He wants. He says that He wants us to give thank offerings and to fulfill our vows. Now these are two types of offerings that people offered just because they wanted to. The Israelites were never required to offer these sacrifices. So, God says in essence, “I want you to worship me, and serve me, and give me your tithes not because you have to but because you are grateful for all I’ve already given you and because you want to."

 

If God were to judge you today, what would He say about your worship? Are you only obeying God so He will owe you? Are you simply going through the motions of an empty ritual with no faith behind them and thinking that that is all God wants from you? Worship and serve God out of gratitude for all He has done for you. This is the kind of worship that is pleasing to Him.  

 

For further reading...

• Read all of Psalm 50.
• John 4:19-26- Worship God in spirit and in truth.

Love Jesus Not Sin

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."

John 14:23-24

Sin is an offense against God. Any time we disobey Him, disregard His Word, or violate His righteous requirements we sin. No matter how big or how small the infraction, sin is always an attack on God. It is always an offense and is tantamount to treason. It pulls God down off the throne in our hearts and sets us up in His place. Sin is like spitting in God's face. This is why sin separates us from God and incurs His wrath.

As Christians we understand this, yet there are times we still sin. To show how our sin springs from a lack of love as the verses above suggest, allow me to divide all sin into two broad categories: unintentional and intentional sin. 

Unintentional sin occurs on accident. It happens when we mess up or make a mistake. For example, a person sins unintentionally when they lose their temper or when they accidentally curse or when they forget to keep a promise. These sins don't result from a choice of the will but from a defect in character. Yet, they are sin still. Unintentional sins are still dishonoring to God. They are still an offense to His perfect nature. And they spring from a deficiency of love. The more we love Christ, the more attentive we will be to His teaching and to our character. The more we love Him, the more careful we will be to root unintentional sins out of our lives. The Christian who continues to struggle against these sins loves Christ too little.

Intentional sin is different; it happens on purpose. A Christian sins intentionally when they know what they ought to do, they know what Jesus has commanded they do, they know that disobedience will grieve their Lord and separate them from Him and they simply do not care. They consciously choose to sin against God anyway. It's unthinkable that a Christian could do such a thing, but sadly we do. And the only explanation is that in those moments we are choosing sin over Jesus. When we sin intentionally, we acknowledge that we love our sin more than we love Jesus. Satan will try to make you believe otherwise, but this in an inescapable truth of the Christian life. 

If you are choosing sin over Christ, then you do not love Him enough. If you continue to fall into sin unintentionally then you do not yet love Him enough. None of us love Christ enough. Until the day I die it will be appropriate for me to pray, "Lord, help me to love you more." Join me in praying that prayer today. And more than that join me in living it out. Love God more than you love your sin today

Unity

How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!

It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.

It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.

                                               Psalm 133

David writes this song for God's people to sing as they go up to the temple to worship. It's a simple song of praise, only three verses long, which give thanks to God for working unity among the varied throng that goes up to worship together. 

In verse two David likens this unity to the annointing oil poured on the head of Aaron and his sons which set them apart as priests to serve in the temple. David says unity is like this oil which was itself a picture of God's Spirit anointing someone to set them apart and empower them for a special purpose. David's point is that the unity God's people enjoy is a special work of God. It is the power of His Spirit that binds us together. This is a truth that the church today needs to be reminded of badly. 

As humans we naturally tend toward disunity, conflict and strife. It takes hard work to maintain unity among people so broken and imperfect as ourselves. Sometimes even with hard work, it seems like it would take a miracle for us to stay unified. And that's exactly what unity is for us. Unity among God's people is a work of God. Though David knew this, we can appreciate it even more fully from a New Testament perspective because we know that it is God's Spirit in every believer that unifies us. No matter how different you and I are, no matter how much we disagree, even if we have nothing else in common, we have enough to be unified because of this: God's Spirit dwells inside us both. The Spirit in me recognizes the Spirit in you, and it binds us together. 

But that unity is under threat right now, perhaps more so than at any other time in my life. Between politics and the COVID-19 pandemic, our country seems to be more divided now than it has been at any other time in my life. And some believers have allowed the division they feel over these matters to overpower the unity they feel in the Spirit with their brothers and sisters in Christ. You have every right to discuss your political views, but Christians on both sides of the aisle have left civil converstaion and civil disagreements behind and have resorted instead to insults, slander, name-calling, hatred, and treating all those who disagree with you like they don't deserve even the most basic human dignity.

Some of you who claim Christ have posted unChristian and terrible things about Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Obama, Barak Obama, and others. And some of you who claim Christ have posted unChristian and terrible things about Donald Trump, Melania Trump, the Trump children, Amy Coney Barrett, Mitch McConnel, and others. And not just these but you also publicly slander and insult all those who vote for or support them. You publicly accuse and slander your brothers and sisters in Christ on Facebook and then sit beside them on Sunday morning and smile at them as though nothing happened, and somehow you think it won't affect your ability to worship together?! It can't be so! It is shameful. It's embarrassing. And it threatens to tear our churches apart. 

Quite frankly some of you need to publicly repent. You need to get on your Facebook page and apologize for trying to fight the evil you see in your opponents by committing the very same sins you claim they're guilty of. You who rail against abortion (which I do believe is murder), are you guilty of murdering your opponents in your heart by your anger, hatred and insults (Matthew 5:21-22)? You who rail against hateful rhetoric, are you guilty of calling your opponents names and insulting their appearance or intelligence? You claim the moral high ground and point out their sins, all the while you double their wickedness by how you treat them and those who support them. 

Feel free to disagree with the other side. Feel free to do so strongly. Make arguments and point out inconsistencies. But do it without hatred, without name-calling or slander, or attacking anyone's appearance or intelligence. Do it without assuming that those on your side are without vice and those who oppose you are without virtue. Or have you forgotten that the tongue is a fire (James 3:5-6)? Some of you have engulfed your life, your church and your country in a wildfire forgetting that even if you win all you will have gained will be charred and ruined. 

Repent! Keep the unity of the faith. May God renew unity in our churches and in so doing may He renew unity to our nation.

This Changes Everything

This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 

Exodus 12:2-3

For the Hebrew slaves, this first Passover changed everything! It changed their future, it changed their identity, and it even changed their calendar!

Let’s start with their future. Imagine that you are one of these Hebrew slaves. All your life, all you have known is forced labor. You have scars from the whip on your back and callouses on your hands from making bricks. Your clothes are torn. Your house and belongings are meagre. On the night of Passover as you lay your head down on your pillow, you’re a slave, but by morning you will walk out of Egypt a free man or woman headed for the Promised Land. Talk about an overnight sensation! Can you imagine? Everything about their situation and their future prospects changed in a single night.

So the Passover changed their future, but it also changed their identity. This is the night the nation of Israel was born. Don’t forget that when Israel went down to Egypt they were a family of only about 70 people. While they were in Egypt they were just slaves identified by their common ethnicity. But on the night of Passover they went from being a bunch of slaves to being a nation… a people… God’s people, purchased and redeemed by Him. The family that entered Egypt with seventy people, walked out of Egypt armed for battle like a nation of probably about 2 million people.

So Passover changed their future and it changed their identity, but it also changed their calendar. God tells them that this moment is so significant that even the way they reckon time should be reoriented around it. From now on this will be the first month of the year for Israel, and He commands them to begin making preparations to celebrate Passover on the 10th day of the month. Why? I suppose because this was the tenth plague. The Passover itself would be celebrated on the 14th day of the month and it would begin a seven day feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This was their new year. Every year began with a reminder of who they were and what God had done for them. 

This is instructive for us because as Christians we have also experienced a life-altering event. You see the Exodus is a picture of Christian salvation. Just as Israel was enslaved in wicked Egypt, every single one of us was enslaved in this wicked world. They were enslaved to Egyptians, we were enslaved to sin and our own fleshly desires. But a Deliverer came for Israel and a Deliverer has come for us as well. 

And what was the means of their ultimate redemption? It was the blood of a lamb. A lamb died in their place and its blood was applied on the doorpost as a covering over their families. It is the same with us. We deserve death and judgment, every single one of us, and the only way that we can be spared this fate is by the blood of the lamb being applied to our lives. Jesus became the Passover lamb, without spot or blemish (without sin), slain in the midst of Passover week. But His blood must be applied to your life personally. The Israelites had to take the blood and apply it to their doorposts, you have to apply it to your heart. They did it with a bunch of hyssop and a basin. You must do it through belief and prayer. When a person does this, when they place their faith in Jesus and His blood is applied to their lives… it changes everything. 

Our future is changed. Israel was headed for a promised land and so are we. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. Not only our future but our identity has been changed as well. When you got saved you went from being an enemy of God to being a son or daughter of God. Your salvation was your entrance into a new nation, a new kingdom, a new people, God’s people. And all of this, whether you realize it or not, reoriented your calendar as well. The Israelites shifted their annual calendar in response to Passover. Christians shift our weekly calendar to reflect what Jesus has done. Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday. That’s the day they would have gone to the synagogue. Why do we meet on Sunday mornings? Because it was early on the first day of the week, that Jesus was raised from the dead. It was on a Sunday morning that Jesus won the victory over the Enemy, and beat the power of death and opened up a way of salvation for us. So we reorient our weekly calendar around that monumental event, and our whole lives ought to be reoriented around it as well.