Good day and happy Wednesday. We have before us another glorious day in the Lord, a day to serve Him and serve others. We find ourselves in chapter 9 of Hebrews today, a chapter that is rich in its comparisons of Christ as our eternal High Priest. Throughout the chapter we see numerous examples and imagery of the Earthly tabernacle and its presence and purpose before the arrival of Jesus. It’s a chapter laced with much history, and parallels that history with the effects of Jesus’ arrival. The book of Hebrews to me, reads much like an Old Testament book, full of sound doctrine with many examples of worship and its form before the Son of God arrived. Speaking of worshipping the Lord, that brings us to our focal point of the day…worshipping the Lord through service to others.
When we think of worship to the Lord and serving God, I think most of us consider the two completely different acts and results. Somehow today the word worship is primarily used to describe singing or music meant to glorify the Lord. This is a part of the worship experience but not mutually exclusive or limited to what worship is. I think also, rarely do we see that the two can collide into one glorified experience. I want to look a little closer today at the alignment of worship and service to God.
The word worship comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root word as “worth”. To worship is to give someone or something honor to which we think they or it, is afforded great worth or value. Anything can really be worshipped (be shown great worth). Just look around our world today and you can see that. You can worship yourself, considering yourself of great worth, spending great amounts of time and money on your appearance. You can worship your spouse or your family, giving them great worth over other things. You can worship your job, or the power, position and authority it affords you. You can worship material things and see great worth in the things of this world. Money, cars, houses, gadgets, technology, toys etc. You can worship recreational experiences, vacations, travel, thrill-seeking. As we worship various things of this world we make them idols. Men and women were made to worship. Unfortunately, since we all possess a sin nature, much of our worship is ill-focused. You see this alot in the Old Testament as well as general human history. People would worship and idolize just about anything. Just take a quick spin through Greek Mythology to witness the truth of this. In fact, God saw this was such a problem, when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments what was at the very top of the list? 1) You shall have no other God’s before me and 2) You shall not create idols and worship them and SERVE them. What a beautiful segway. You see out of worship comes service. What we love and worship we WILL serve. What we love and worship will get our time, our attention, our effort and our abilities. I've heard it called the three T's. What you worship will get your time, your talent and your treausure. What we worship, will in essence, get our all.
So lets look at our first study verse from chapter 9 of Hebrews and see what God has to say about worship and service.
“Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.” Heb 9:6
The priests of the Old Testament had a specific order of worship within the tabernacle. They did things that would accomplish what? “accomplish the service of God.” Here in this King James translation, the word service can also be seen as “worship”, to accomplish the worship of God. After all this was the ultimate goal, that God’s people might worship Him. (By the way, that’s still the goal today, that God’s people worship Him.) This verse perfectly marries the acts of worship and service to God. The Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of our worship and our adoration. That is worship and from that follows service. Real worship will always lead to service. In the midst of His temptation in the wilderness, Jesus answered Satan, “For it is written, thou shalt WORSHIP the Lord thy God, and Him only shall you SERVE.” (Matt 4:10) Real worship creates real service.
Let’s look at our 2nd verse from chapter 9:
“how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Heb 9:14
The blood of animals could not take away sin permanently, it had to be shed over and over to atone or pay for the sins of the people. Our verse says, how much more will the precious, spotless, sin free blood of Jesus purify us. And what will it purify us from? Our conscience and dead works. You see, our flesh itself is not the problem, it’s our conscience. Our conscience needs to be cleansed. It goes on to say it specifically needs to be cleansed from dead works. What are dead works? Dead works are works that you do thinking they will save you fom the death of sin. You see, since the beginning of time, man has been trying to save himself. Trying to be good enough, trying to earn His way, striving to reason his way into Heaven. You can’t do it. The only way is through Jesus. “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) But notice how our second study verse wraps up. How much more will the blood of Jesus purify our conscience from dead works to what? To serve the living God. Once again that root word can be seen as worship. What you worship you will serve, there’s no way around it. I want to share a story of what God’s people did yesterday and I was blessed enough to be a part of it.
Yesterday our church, Southcliff, here in Fort Worth did something special. Note that one word, did. You see, our worship is followed closely by service and service is active. Service is a verb. It does things. The church aligned with the Tarrant County food bank to have 9 pallets of food delivered to the church. The goal? To give out food to all in need, especially the employees that have been financially affected by the government shutdown. Margie and I got there at 3pm to help unload the truck. What I saw when we got there blessed my heart. People. God’s people. People that have put God first in their lives and as a result the love flows from their hearts to their hands…and they do. They're active. They serve. They serve God and that results in serving others.
There was about 40 people there to unload and prep the food before the distribution started at 4. We had 5lb bags of potatoes, grapes, apples, frozen chicken, milk, cottage cheese, grated cheese, yogurt and frozen guacamole. We unloaded it off the pallets and set it all up on individual tables in an orderly buffet style setup that would allow the people to walk through and collect their needs. We had church volunteers stationed at every table so we could greet, help and bless these people in need. And it was all free. People show up and they get all the free food they can carry.
My friends, it has been many moons since I have received a blessing of this magnitude. There is a beauty in seeing people with great needs having those needs met right before your eyes. I could only think about the beauty of seeing someone come to Christ. Our need for a Savior is constant and it’s there at birth. Our yearning to be united with our maker. A need that can only be met through Jesus shedding His precious blood on that rugged Cross. A need being met. Even though it was just food, seeing the grateful eyes of those people touched me deeply.
But also, what touched me was the people serving around me. I have one big question for you. Why were they there? I sit in our church every Sunday and see over 1,000 people there to “worship” God, but standing around me was 40 people. Why were they there? It's simple ...their Worship had turned into service. You see, when Jesus is the Lord of your life and you truly worship Him in all you do, service to Him will follow closely. You cannot help but move your hands as God moves your heart. Let me say that again, you cannot help but move your hands as God moves your heart.
We passed out food to people from all over Fort Worth. Those people were from all over the world. The hand of those that serve a living God fed the people of His world. The hands of those that serve the living God did what He has instructed them to do, serve Him through serving others. True Worship. True Service. They go together so beautifully.
I pray today that God is so close and so near to you, that you feel the need to worship Him and serve Him. That there is a burning in your chest that is causing your hands to move for Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ is so worthy. He is worthy of our worship. But it doesn’t stop there. He is worthy of our service as well. Worship and serve the Lord today. You will not only bless others, but you will see what I saw last night, a pair of eyes looking deeply into mine, that without words, simply said…Thank you.
God Bless you in your efforts to serve Him today.
Dan, thank you for writing the 5MC, you bless so many with your dedication to Jesus, including me.