 |
Ingleside Presbyterian Church A Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America |
|
|
Ingleside Presbyterian Church A Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America |
|
Some of you look a little tired this morning. If you fall asleep during the sermon, please don’t snore. You might wake up the deacons and elders. We’re in a series on worship entitled "Coming Before God." One of my favorite Old Testament stories when I was a kid was the account of Elijah on Mt. Carmel, where he came face to face with the prophets of a false god named Baal. It was a decisive time in Israel where the people were wavering between following that false god or worship God Jehovah. I want to visit that story this morning in the context of worship. I Kings 18:20-26 "So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel & gathered the prophets together at Mt. Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people & said, ‘How long will go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ And the people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, ‘I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given to us, & let them choose one bull for themselves & cut it in pieces & lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull & lay it on the wood & put no fire to it. And you will call upon the name of your god, & I will call upon the name of the Lord, & the God who answers by fire, he is God.’ And all the people answered, ‘It is well spoken.’ Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, ‘Choose for yourselves one bull & prepare it first, for you are many & call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.’ And they took the bull that was given them, & they prepared it & called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, ‘O Ball, answer us!’ But there was no voice, & no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made." Vs. 36-40 "And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near & said, ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac & Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, & that I am your servant, & that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, & that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell & consumed the burnt offering & the wood & the stones & the dust, & licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces & said, ‘The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.’ And Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.’ And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon & slaughtered them there." This story was over the issue, "Who are we going to worship? Are we going to worship God or Baal?" Elijah’s worship at the altar invited God’s power and God demonstrated Himself to the people through fire. And we saw their response—they immediately turned from false gods and began to worship Him. I want to draw four concepts from this story, which help us worship God better.
For worship to be what it needs to be, the relationship must be right. Elijah didn’t approach Mt. Carmel spiritually cold. He didn’t come unprepared in his walk with God. Elijah had learned how to be close and intimate with God. Here is a man who walked with God. We sit in this room today at different levels regarding our relationship with God. Some of you here today know something "about" God. You come to church every once in a while and you’re listening and you know about Him. There is a group of folks here today who not only know about Him, but they know Him. It is a personal knowledge. There are some of you who walk with Him daily. Sunday, to you, is kind of like the cherry on the top of the dessert. You have worshiped during the week. Scripture calls us a "royal priesthood" and we can have a relationship with God because of what Jesus has done for us. Because He is our high priest, we have become priests ourselves and we don’t have to wait on the pastor on Sunday morning for us to get intimate with God and we don’t have to wait for the next church service in order to "stoke the fire." We can walk with God every moment of every day and we can be as close to Him as we desire to be. It is important to remember that when Elijah came to the mountain, his relationship with God was where it needed to be. He was prepared to worship. Last fall I commented on the construction on Highway 20 near my neighborhood and the fact that the orange barrels would probably be there until Jesus returned. When I saw them gone just after Thanksgiving I got a little nervous, because I was still here. While the highway is four-laned the speed limit has remained at 35 mph. Gwinnett’s "Finest" have been parking their squad cars at the entrance to my neighborhood and filling the county "coffers" from the revenue generated through speeding tickets. If you have ever received a speeding ticket and I won’t ask for a show of hands since I would have to raise mine, were you sorry that you got that ticket? You bet you were! But were you necessarily sorry about speeding? Now, usually we’re simply sorry that we got caught. If you make your squabbling children apologize to one another, you may get a VERY INSINCERE "sorry" out of their mouths, but it was a forced apology. In both instances, the speeding ticket and the forced apology lack the second element of worship that is needed, which is… When worship really happens, people begin to turn their hearts back to God. Mt. Carmel is the story of folks who were undecided and confused. They were people who had placed their priorities in the wrong order. It is a story of people who had become focused on other things than God Jehovah. Elijah brought them to that mountain for them to get their hearts back to God. His whole prayer was his desire that the people would turn their hearts back to God again. Genuine repentance evidences itself in a change of mind…new actions and new motivations. Bottom line, repentance is the renewal of worship. When we begin to repent, our heart becomes warm toward God again. On an average Sunday, I think there are three types of worshipers:
If worship is anything, it is our heart reaching out to God. It is us loving God…it can come through singing or praying…there are all kinds of ways to do it, but if it is true worship, it is going to catch intellectually and emotionally until there is some kind of response in our lives where other people will say, "They are in love with God." (For some of you, progress may be just to be able to smile. I don’t want to stress you out too much.) But when you come into the presence of God, it captures you. Some of you may say, "Well, I just worship God in my heart." That is a great place to start. But if it’s in your heart, you need to let it out somehow and in some way. You can’t be in love with anything without letting your face know about it. When we come to Him and see Him, we pray, "Lord, please clean me up and lift me up over the garbage of this world so that I may be Your man or woman." A.W. Tozer makes this analogy about Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. "It was the first Palm Sunday and here comes Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowds begin to shout ‘Hosanna, hosanna.’ The old donkey perks up his ears. Some in the crowd threw their coats into the road. Others spread out palm branches. ‘Well,’ said the donkey, switching a fly off his mangy back, ‘I had no idea that they really appreciated me like this. Listen to the hosannas, will you? I must really be something.’" When any of us want to take anything that God does in worship and begin to direct it toward ourselves, we become just like that donkey. All glory, praise and honor must always be directed to God. It was an elderly lady’s first airplane flight. During the flight, the pilot walked down the aisle, greeting the passengers, while his co-pilot was at the controls. The lady nervously asks him, "You’ll bring me down safely, won’t you?" "Of course, I’ve never left anyone up here yet." Someone was in control. Someone is in control of us. The third element...
When we worship, there is an authority that comes to us. There is a boldness that is ours. How many of us would have set up that scenario at Mt. Carmel that Elijah did? I left part of the story out in our initial Scripture reading of this morning’s passage. When Elijah was ready to call on the Lord to "fire up" his altar he gave a seemingly crazy order. Vs. 33-35 "He said, ‘Fill four jars with water & pour it on the burnt offering & on the wood.’ And he said, ‘Do it a second time.’ And they did it a second time. And he said, ‘Do it a third time.’ And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar & filled the trench also with water." Was that crazy or a display of incredible boldness? Here is a man who has worshiped God and, as a result, there is rulership…there is Someone else in charge of his life. In marriage, spouses have to adjust their thinking. For one thing, if it weren’t for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all. But our decisions change… they are no longer individual in scope. You consider the other, so decision-making always impacts two. When we experience the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it is a relationship where Jesus makes the decisions for two…where He calls the shots in our lives. And our job is to trust Him to do all things well. Three pastors got together for coffee one day and found all their churches had a bat-infestation problem. One pastor confessed, "I got so mad, I took a shotgun and fired at them. It made holes in the ceiling, but did nothing to the bats." The second one said, "I tried trapping them alive. Then I drove 50 miles before releasing them, but they beat me back to the church." The third pastor said, "I haven’t had anymore problems." "What did you do?" asked the others, amazed. "I simply baptized them and put them on the church roll. I haven’t seen them since." The final result of worship is renewal. We know what happens in our passage. The prayers of Elijah go up and the fire comes down and God does an incredible work. Elijah waterlogged the sacrifice and kept asking, "Could you bring some more water?" Here is a soaked sacrifice with soggy wood and water standing at the base of the altar. And Elijah prayed and what is wonderful to see in this story is that when God comes, you don’t need to help Him. Some of us bring our spiritual "Bic" to church. It’s reminiscent of the elephant and the ant crossing the wooden bridge. As it rumbled and shook, the ant said, "My, I really shook this bridge." I want you to know that our God is a "wet wood fire-lighter." You may say, "Oh, Bill, you don’t know the problem that I’m facing. You don’t know how loaded down my wood is with water. It’s water-logged." I may not know, but God can come down on the wet wood of your life and can consume it with fire and meet every need in your life. Chuck Swindoll relates that life spans are shorter than most of us realize. Unlike the giant redwood trees that can last for a thousand or more years, most other things come and go faster than we would imagine. Here are some examples:
Our life span is 75-80 years. That may sound encouraging to the young and pretty disturbing to those in their eighties. Nobody knows how long he or she may live. James reminds us (4:14) "You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time & then vanishes." If that is true (and it is) then shouldn’t we live life in an attitude of submission and worship to God? The Indians have a wonderful saying, "Where you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." Invite the presence of God into your life and ask for the power of God to consume the wet wood in your life. Let’s pray. Please visit us at our next worship service.
In Christ,
|
|
| Copyright © 2010 Ingleside Presbyterian Church | |
