Last week I introduced the series that we are committing to for the next seven months: “Delighting in the Triune God.” My goal is to show you as much as I can about the calling we have to worship. The best place that I can start in exploring the doctrine of worship is to answer the question: Who is it that we worship? Now, that is going to take some work, but I’d like to spend the next four weeks looking at the doctrine of God. First, though, we need to ask the question: who is the true God?
We need to ask that question because there are so many gods that people worship. I’ve had the opportunity to make two trips to India, and in those two trips I saw statues to untold numbers of gods. I also heard stories of the influence of these gods. I got to hear the testimony of one new believer who had served the god Hanuman his whole life. Hanuman is the god of power. This new believer had a dream one night, and Hanuman came to him demanding his obedience. The man started fussing at Hanuman because, even though he had served him his whole life, he was still suffering from many ailments. Hanuman became angry at the man’s complaints and told him that the next day, he would die. As Hanuman continued to threaten him, the man found himself calling out to Jesus. He began to cry out “Lord Jesus, save me!” After crying out for Jesus to save him several times, Hanuman turned and ran away. When the man woke up, he went immediately and found his niece, who was a believer, and asked to be baptized.
Now, when you hear that story, I’d be willing to bet that it sounds strange because we don’t live in a society where our gods are so immanent. We don’t see idols in every store or hear people praying to other gods or hear stories of these oppressive nightmares. And, I think we have come to believe that we have complete control over who and how and when we worship. I mean, Americans tend to believe that we have our destiny in our own hands, we make our own way in this world, and we can choose what we want to believe and we can choose whom we serve or whether we want to serve anyone or anything at all.
But the truth is, everyone is a worshipper. The truth is, you cannot help but worship something. The truth is, you were made to worship. The question is not whether you will worship or not, the question is who it is that you worship.
To see that from Scripture, look with me at Joshua 24:1-15. Today I want you to notice two points from this text: The Gods of Corrupt Worship and the God of Covenant Worship.
First, notice the Gods of Corrupt Worship. In this passage, we are picking up at the end of a long story of how the Israelites, through the power of God, fought their way through the promised land of Canaan, and they have finally come to rest in that victory. Now, Joshua is at the end of his life and it seems that God has accomplished all that he has promised. So, Joshua gives one final charge to the people, and he does this in the form of a history lesson. He starts by reminding them of God’s special favor that he showed to their forefather Abraham. He notes, particularly, that Abraham was a pagan living in the land of Ur when God called him to go to a land that he would give him. Then, in verses 4-5 he fast-forwards a bit to the Israelites’ captivity in Egypt. He reminds them that God, through Moses and Aaron, brought about 10 plagues to challenge the gods of Egypt and the Pharaoh, who was supposed to be the incarnation of the Sun god, Ra. Finally, Joshua reminds them of all of the Canaanite nations that they defeated on their way to and through the promised land. All of these nations worshiped other gods, and as they fought them, the God of Israel had given strict commands that they were not to take any women from these lands to be wives or any idols.
So, why is Joshua rehearsing this history lesson when I’m sure every Israelite knows all of this by heart? Joshua wants to remind the people of the great contrast between the gods of the land and the God who had saved them and given them victory. Joshua knows that as the people settle into this land, they will be tempted to adopt the gods of the land. To be honest, this seems like a strange warning, because the Israelites had seen God do so much. How could they ever forget his works and turn and serve other gods?! But the Israelites (and the rest of humanity with them) were ultimately sinful people. In fact, if you notice verse 14, Joshua calls the people to put away their false gods that they had picked up along the way. Even in this blessed moment, as the people saw the victory that God had won, they were secretly serving other gods.
And we too run after other gods. Now, you might recoil at that idea and say, “Preacher, I’m not like that Indian brother who worshipped Hanuman or the Israelites who worshipped carved pieces of rock.” But remember, if you are made to worship, you can’t help but worship. So, if you aren’t worshipping the one true God, you are worshipping something or someone else. In Scripture, we find four different types of corrupt worship that I want to briefly point out. First, we find the corrupt worship of lesser spiritual beings. Now, in the western church, we’ve been taught to believe that all of the false gods that we find in the Bible, they are really just made up, and people make idols to represent these made-up gods. But, actually, the very first act of false worship we find in the Bible is the act of worshipping a spiritual being other than God. Adam and Eve chose to listen to Satan and accept his wisdom rather than to trust in the wisdom of God. This was an act of worship directed not towards God, but towards Satan himself. In the New Testament, Paul says, in 1 Cor. 10:20, that the beings behind the idols that pagans worship are actually demons.
The second type of corrupt worship is worship that is directed towards our desires. We find this just one chapter over from the story of Adam and Eve’s sin against God. Cain gave into his jealousy and pride and slaughtered his righteous brother. Remember the warning that God had given him as he stewed over his rejection: “sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you.” God warned Cain not to become a slave to his desire, but he chose to worship his that desire rather than to wait on the Lord. Phillippians 3:19 says that for those who are outside of Christ, “their god is their belly.”
The third type of corrupt worship is worship that is directed towards ourselves. In Genesis 11, the people of Babel begin to erect a great tower into the heavens. The primary reason they give for building this tower is that they might make a name for themselves. Their goal was to dethrone God by elevating themselves.
The fourth type of corrupt worship is worship that is directed towards a false idea of the one true God. In Exodus 32, while Moses is up on Mount Sinai receiving the 10 commandments, we read that Aaron and the people are down in the valley making a golden calf. When we read this, we might mistakenly think that they are making a false god that they can worship in the place of the Lord. But that’s not what Aaron intends. In verse 4, Aaron calls out, “behold your gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt”, and “tomorrow will be a feast to the Lord.” They weren’t worshipping other gods. They were worshipping a false idea of the one true God.
So now that we’ve seen the gods of corrupt worship, let’s consider the God of Covenant Worship. What is it that sets the Lord apart from all of these false gods? There is a theme that Joshua continually highlights in this brief retelling of Israel’s history: the covenant faithfulness of God. God chose Abraham and called him out of his pagan lifestyle. God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. God gave them countless victories against the people of Canaan. In fact, he even went before them and won victories that they didn’t even have to fight. God did all of this because of his good grace that he lavished on the Israelites. And, he was gracious to them even as they served other gods along the way. What God says of himself in Exodus 34:6, that he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, he would prove time and time again with this faithless people.
Friend, don’t fool yourself. If you are not worshipping the one true God, you are still worshipping something, and that worship is corrupt and sinful. You may worship some lesser spiritual being, whether it be through your fascination with angels or your dependence on your horoscope or your belief in Karma. You may worship your desires, whether it be a desire for power, fame, sex, or the pleasure of some substance. You may worship yourself, thinking that your status and position in this life can earn you immortality. Or, you may pay lip-service to the true God, all while you prefer a version of God that you can stomach. Whatever it is that you worship, these gods are ultimately terrible substitutes for the gracious, steadfast, true God. This steadfast and gracious God has proven his covenantal love ultimately and finally through his Son. While false gods will demand but never give, the one true God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. This gracious God calls you to repent of your sins, repent of your false worship, and turn to Jesus in faith.
Brothers and sisters, like the Israelites to whom Joshua gave his charge, we can find ourselves picking up the idols of the land around us. Though we are recipients of God’s good grace in Jesus Christ, we find ourselves running to other gods because they give us immediate satisfaction. Because we are worried about the soul of our nation, we might find ourselves running to the god of political power rather than trusting in the God that saw Daniel and his friends through the trials of an evil nation. Because of the great abundance and fruitfulness of our culture, we may find ourselves giving in to the god of leisure, choosing to lay around and watch Netflix and scroll through Facebook, rather than committing ourselves to the worship of the one true God. Because of the emphasis we put on success in our society, we may find ourselves giving up our responsibilities to our Lord for the sake of the gods named Dollar and Career. Brothers and sisters, may we cast aside these and other false gods of the land and may we instead choose this day to serve the Lord. May we say with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
No comments:
Post a Comment