If you were Abraham's children,
you would worship God. You would do the works of Abraham. You would do the works of Abraham. I do love going back to that
story of the Samaritans, the Samaritan woman in John chapter
four, and the Lord Jesus Christ says some remarkable things about
worship which should cause us great joy. He says, John 4, You know not what? Your worship
is ignorant worship, he says to her. We know what we worship,
for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshippers, our God says there will be true
worshippers. I love to think that there are
true worshippers in this world, and I want to be one of them,
and I want you to join me in being one of them. The true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for, or because,
the Father seeketh such to worship him. Does he find them? Does
our God ever seek and not find? God is a spirit. They that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So the question
that I have for myself and for you, and for any of you who might
happen to listen to it, do I worship God? in spirit and in truth. Do I worship God in such a way
that God would find my worship acceptable to him? And it's not
as if we have to flounder around in the dark to see it. The promise
of the Lord Jesus Christ is that the children of God will do the
works of Abraham, and one of the works of Abraham is this
work of worshipping God. So turn with me back to Genesis
Chapter 22 and I have about six or seven things that I'd like
to speak to us briefly about worship and worship is defined
here. This is the first time our English
translations use the word worship. It literally means to prostrate
yourself on the ground. To fall down flat on your face
is what it means. The New Testament word is to,
as a dog to its master, lick his hand. But it still has the
same implication of bowing down to God. bowing down before God,
before who he is, and before what he says. We've just read
in John chapter eight some verses that are extraordinarily challenging,
isn't it? Imagine the Lord Jesus Christ
coming along to a church service and declaring those things as
we've just read today. I don't want to be on the wrong
side of all of that. So let's read in Genesis 22 and
let's try and get a notion from God and get the truth from God
about what is worship. The reality is that every single
church that you could possibly think of in this world would
declare at the moment that they're worshipping God. They would all
declare they're worshipping God. You go on their websites and
they all say this is our task is to worship God. Let's go to Genesis chapter 22
and see how God defines worship. And let's ask ourselves as we
go through these passages of scripture, do I worship as Abraham
worshipped? Do I worship God in spirit and
truth? So let's go back to Genesis and
we'll look through these verses very briefly. But let's see worship. Worship is not just one particular
act, isn't it? Worship is the whole of this
process. Worship is the whole of our lives. We worship God in the spirit
and God's children have the blessed knowledge that they actually
join to the Lord Jesus Christ. We do worship God in spirit and
truth all the time, but Abraham is our father in faith. Okay,
so back to Genesis 22 verse 1. And it came to pass after these
things that God did test Abraham and said unto Abraham, and said
unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am. And this is
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to Abraham, there's no doubt
about that. And he said, this is the Lord Jesus Christ saying
to Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou
lovest. and get thee into the land of
Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of
the mountains which I will tell thee of. The first thing I want
us to see there is that you know well from the story of Abraham
that he had another son. Will you bow as Abraham did before
God when Abraham is told of God that he has one son? Is one son
the child of promise, the covenant child? Or will you say, will
you be like those Jews that fought and argued with the Lord Jesus
Christ as soon as he revealed who he was? God only recognised
one son. Abraham loved Ishmael. You can read the story earlier
in these chapters. Abraham loved Ishmael and it
grieved him deeply that he had to send, under the instruction
of God, send both Ishmael and his mother away from him. Is
it worship? So this is worship, isn't it?
Abraham heard the words of God. He heard the words of God and
he just believed them. How do we know he believed them?
Listen to verse three with me. And Abraham rose up early in
the morning. Abraham didn't hesitate. He didn't hesitate to do as God
had said. He rose up early in the morning,
saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him. And
Isaac his son, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and
rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Abraham didn't look for any excuse,
did he? He heard the word of God and
he obeyed the word of God. And yet he had a promise from
God that Isaac was going to be this son. He could look up at
the stars in the sky, and all of those stars were representative
of all the descendants of Abraham, and they're all going to come
through Isaac. And here I am being asked to
go and sacrifice Isaac on a mountain, and Abraham did, didn't he? Then on the third day, Abraham,
verse four, lifted up his eyes and he saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young
men, abide ye here with the ass, I and the lad will go yonder
and worship. and listen to the faithfulness
of Abraham, we will go, I will sacrifice my son as God promised
on Mount Moriah as a burnt offering, and Isaac and I will come back
to you. That's remarkable faith, brothers
and sisters, isn't it? what it is to worship God, it's
to believe God, it's to act upon Him. And so let's look at the
first point of worship, isn't it? Worship, all true worship,
comes from God, and God must initiate all true worship, and
all true worship is associated with God speaking words of revelation
to people. All true worship comes from Him. He initiates all true worship. All true worship is associated
with the revelation of God in His true character as He is revealed
in His Son. And all this is about the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We think of worship in this world
today and so much of it is about us being taken to some emotional
experience, isn't it? To be raised up high, to lift
our arms in the air, to hear music that touches the very feelings
of our deep being and then we are declared that we are worshipping
God and it's happening all over the place, isn't it? It doesn't
matter whether it's a lively so-called worship service. They
even have worship pastors now, don't they? A pastor in charge
of worship, he's in charge of singing, he's in charge of music,
he's in charge of light. Modern churches now paint the
inside of their buildings black, don't they? And then the pulpit's
glass and then they have the lights shining and now they put
the drummer inside a glass sort of case so that it doesn't interfere
with the rest of it. Norm will tell you why it's done,
but nevertheless. Is that worship? Is that worship? Worship involves God's revelation
of who He is. Worship necessarily involves
a blood sacrifice. And that's what Abel did, didn't
he? Right at the very beginning of man's journey outside of the
garden, Abel and Cain came to a church service and they both
thought that they were worshipping God. Cain thought the vegetables
and things that Cain brought must have been absolutely magnificent,
weren't they, in that unpolluted environment. And him working
so hard and he brought them all. What did Abel bring? Abel brought
the blood of a lamb. Abel brought the sacrifice that
God accepted. He brought the Lord Jesus Christ
to God. And I do love what Genesis 4,
you can go and read it yourselves at your pleasure, but in Genesis
4, Abel and his sacrifice are accepted by God. So true worship
comes from God. True worship involves a sacrifice.
True worship comes with revelation, and there are only two adjectives
that describe worship in all of the Bible, aren't there, and
all of the world, in all of history. There is either true worship,
which God accepts, or there is false worship. which God will
not accept. So as I said, worship is to lay
prostrate on the ground before God. It's to do reverence to
God. It is to respond to God as God. And when you have met him, all
you can do is lie in reverence before him. your life is in his hands. He
is sovereign and we are not. And that's why God demands exclusive
worship, doesn't he? Thou shalt worship no other God,
for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. God is intolerant
of any other worship. And that's why Satan's temptation
of Christ was about worship, isn't it? All of these things,
all of this world has been given into my hands, says Satan. And
if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give it all to you.
One of the most striking pictures of God's seriousness about worship
and seriousness about his sacrifice and seriousness about his holiness
is in the book of Leviticus. The high priest, Aaron, had been
dressed and his sons, Nate, Evan and Bayou, had been dressed and
they'd been through the most remarkable rituals and the most
remarkable evidences of the glory of God. And they had seen, they
had seen at the end of chapter 9, they had seen the altar prepared
before God and the fire coming down from heaven on the sacrifice.
showing that God was accepting the sacrifice, and then Nadab
and Abihu almost immediately. They took their censers and they
put fire in, and they put incense thereon and offered strange fire. What strange fire? Strange fire
is any fire that man lights at all. Strange fire is any fire
that doesn't come from the altar. God lit the fire on the altar.
Listen to what God does. Strange fire before the Lord,
which he commanded them not. Then they went out far from the
Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses
said unto Aaron, is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be
sanctified in them that come near to me. I will be held and
reverenced as holy in all that come near before me. And before
all the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace as so
he ought. And people might say, well, that's
the Old Testament, and God of the Old Testament is a harsh
and vindictive God, and the God of the New Testament is just
nothing but love and kindness. That was the Lord Jesus Christ,
brothers and sisters. That was the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the same Lord Jesus Christ who spoke those words in John
chapter eight. So God will be reverenced. for who he is. He's a jealous God. And God will
be worshipped for who he is, rather than what people can get
from him. Rather than what they can get
from him. He'll be worshipped and he will
be worshipped at the great day when all of humanity stands before
the throne of God. He will be worshipped. He will
be revered for who he is. There's a couple of pictures
in the New Testament of people coming to worship the Lord Jesus
Christ and I just love these pictures. Just turn with me briefly
to Matthew chapter 8. You know the story after the
picture, the story of the Sermon on the Mount where the Lord Jesus
Christ declared how God accepts only that which is perfect and
perfect obedience to Him. And behold, verse 2 of Matthew
chapter 8, behold there came a leper and worshipped him. The Lord Jesus Christ is worshipped
by this leper before he is healed. He is worshipped for who he is
before he is to be worshipped and honoured for what he does. He says these glorious words,
aren't they? What a wonderful prayer this
is. He worshipped him saying, If you will, you can make me
clean. If you will, my life is in your
hands. All of this is about your will.
And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him. When had that
man ever been touched before? Years and years and years, no
one was ever allowed to touch him. He had to walk around in
Nation Israel as an outcast with his hand covering his face and
saying, unclean, unclean. And now he's touched. He's touched
by the Lord Jesus Christ. I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was
cleansed. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
object of worship for who He is. For who He is. He is worthy
of worship. He's so glorious. He's so glorious
in His mercy towards sinners. There's another picture that
I just love and I speak of it often because I just love the
picture so much. Behold in chapter 15 verse 22. Behold a woman of
Canaan. A Canaanite woman. A woman from
a cursed came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying,
Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David! My daughter is
grievously vexed with the devil. You think of this Canaanite woman's
testimony of who the Lord Jesus Christ is compared to what we've
just read in John chapter 8 at the Feast of Tabernacles. Thou
Son of David! And he answered her not a word. He didn't speak. And his disciples
came and besought him, saying, Send her away, because she crieth
after us. She's a pest. She's embarrassing. But he answered and said to them,
I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I have come for a particular
group of people. They're the people I've come
for. The lost sheep of the House of Israel. Listen to this lady's
response. She has a demon-possessed daughter.
She's desperate. There is nowhere else to go.
She has travelled to the country of the Jews where they would
look at her and call her a Canaanite dog. She's come there in desperation. She came and worshipped him. Before her daughter had been
healed, for who he is. She worshipped him for the glory
of what he said he was. The glory of why he came. Why
did he come? He came for the lost sheep of
the house of Israel. He didn't come for all humanity.
He didn't come to save them all. He came as a sovereign God. And
that's the other aspect of worship. The second aspect I'd like to
think. Firstly, worship is to do with revelation that God must
come and God must speak. And worship involves him speaking
and a response. It's a response. Worship is a
response to his word. You will only ever truly worship
an absolute sovereign God. You will only ever worship an
absolutely sovereign God. If your God is not absolutely
sovereign, then you are not worshipping. It's as simple as that. God is
absolutely sovereign. And she worshipped him. And I
love what it says. And he answered and said, it's
not right, it's not right to take the children's bread and
cast it to dogs. And she says, what's her response?
Truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. God is to be worshipped for who
he is. God is to be worshipped as an
absolute sovereign God. When you is God. When you say God it And you will know how glorious
it is to have a saviour who is absolutely sovereign, that is
remarkably merciful to those who are in need and come to him
as mercy beggars. There's not one instance in all
of the scriptures where the Lord Jesus Christ turned away someone
who came to him pleading for mercy. when you see him as he is. And you know the stories. Isaiah
saw him and he says, I've seen the Lord, I'm undone, is what
he said. John, the Apostle John, after
a long, long life of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, when
he met him in Revelation chapter one, it says in verse seven,
when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. who faltered his feet as dead,
and he laid his right hand upon me." And he declared who he is. Isaiah Habakkuk throughout the
scriptures, whoever meets God, meets God and knows who they
are and they know who he is. Because you can only meet him
when he comes to you in Revelation. Job said, I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeth thee. Therefore, wherefore, I abhor
myself and repent in dust and ashes. It's worship, isn't it,
to bow before him as he is. True worship is a response to
revelation. True worship is a response to
the character of God. True worship. is not what you
say to God, but what God says to you. Don't you love the meeting
that the Lord Jesus Christ had with Joshua in Joshua chapter
5? It came to pass, when Joshua
was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold,
there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his
hand. And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, Are thou for
us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay, but as the
captain of the hosts of the Lord, I am now come down. And Joshua
fell on his face to the earth. He worshipped him. He worshipped
him. He worshipped him. what he says
to you what he says to you As I said earlier, worship always
involves an acceptable sacrifice. There is just one acceptable
sacrifice to God, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So whether
it's in picture in 2 Chronicles when fire came down on the altar
that Solomon had made, the fire coming down is God signifying
his acceptance of the sacrifice. When you see His person, you
will see the acceptance of the sacrifice. God accepting the
sacrifice. Worship is always a response
to grace. Worship is always the appropriate
and correct and God-given response to His grace. God says again
and again to His children, whether it's at the Red Sea or whether
it's to Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, He says, mine you stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord he says to him doesn't he in 2nd
Chronicles 20 verse 17 you shall not need to fight this battle
set yourselves stand you still and see the salvation of the
Lord with you The Lord will be with you. And Jehoshaphat bowed
his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping
the Lord. It's in response to his grace,
isn't it? It's a response to him coming.
Coming and declaring. his salvation and his protection
of his people. To go back to John chapter 4,
there is a necessity of worship that involves the truth. True
worship always involves the truth, the truth of who God is. True worship is always a supernatural
work of God alone. There is no worship of God apart
from the true character of God. There is no worship of God apart
from God revealing the true character of man. That's why man falls
down before him, bows before him, kisses him, is what that
word means in the New Testament, as well as a dog licking its
master's hand. They must worship him in truth. God's is spirit. True worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. There is no worship of God where
there is no declaration of the truth of God. So the question
is to people who say we're having a worship service, has the truth
of And if God's character is adjusted
to suit ourselves, then there is no worship. Paul says to the
Thessalonians, we're bound to give thanks always to God for
you, brethren, beloved Lord, because God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of God. The truth. Belief of the truth. All of Abraham's children believe
the truth of who God is. They believe the truth of who
God's Christ is. They believe the truth of who
man is. They just simply bow to what
is written in the Word of God. Abraham wasn't told to understand
this and figure all this out. Abraham was simply told, you
take your son up to Mount Moriah. Worship is what the Holy Spirit
produces in us. What produced the reverence that
Abraham had for his God? You take your son up to Mount
Moriah. You take him. What is worship? Paul describes
it in Philippians chapter three, we are the circumcision, we are
the true Jews which worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ
Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. So how do you know
you're worshiping? You're rejoicing in Christ Jesus
for who he is. in him for his revelation of
himself. You're rejoicing in him because
he is a God who speaks. You're rejoicing in him because
he's a God who is merciful to all who come to him. And how
do I know that I'm rejoicing in Christ Jesus? It's quite simple
in our text, isn't it? Philippians 3.3. You have no
confidence in your flesh, no confidence in anything that I
do. is what the Spirit of God produces
and worship is what faith produces. Our English word worship comes
from two words, it means the worth ship. God is to be praised
for who he is. Let's go back to Abraham, the
father of the faithful. They both went up together and
Isaac spoke unto Abraham, his father. He said, my father, here
I am my son. And he said, behold the fire,
we've got the fire. I have the wood and you're carrying
the fire. What a great picture of the father
and the son in the transaction of the cross. And the greatest
question that it's involved in worship, isn't it, is where is
the lamb? Isaac's question is a question
that everyone, everyone ought to ask in every church service,
isn't it? Where is the lamb? Where is the lamb for a burnt
offering? And this is faith, isn't it?
These are the words of the father of all the faithful. Listen to
what Abraham says in verse eight. My son, God, will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. God must provide himself an acceptable
offering. The lamb, of course, is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse nine, and they came to
the place where God had told them of. This is worship, isn't
it? You come to where God tells you of. And Abraham built an
altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his
son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. This is worship
according to God. And the angel of the Lord called
unto him out of heaven. The angel of the Lord is the
Lord Jesus Christ, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said,
here I am. And he said, lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I
know that thou fearest me. It's a grace gift for God to
cause us to reverence him. Seeing thou has not withheld
thine son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his
eyes and looked and behold behind him, in the presence of God. a ram caught in a thicket by
his horn. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the stead of his
son. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah-Jireh. As
it is said to this day, in the mouth of the Lord, it shall be
seen. What shall be seen? The sacrifice
shall be seen. The substitute shall be seen. The offering that's acceptable
to God shall be seen. The lamb, the lamb upon the altar
shall be seen. That's what faith is, isn't it?
Faith is trusting God to provide himself a lamb. That ram is a
glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ caught in that thicket.
That thicket represents the curse that fell upon this world when
Adam and Eve sinned. But the ram is caught by his
horns. He's caught by his power, the
symbols of his power. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
caught. He's caught, he's bound by his power, isn't he? He's
bound by his covenant promises. He's bound by what he's promised,
that he must save all of his people from their sins. He must
bring them through this world and he must bring them to a place
of worship. He must bring them to a place for who he is and rejoice in
him for who he is. A substitute, an acceptable sacrifice,
a sacrifice which is pleasing to God. How do we worship God? We worship God in the sacrifice. We worship God in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We worship God by revering the
Lord Jesus Christ. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ
by honouring his word. Even if we can't understand it.
Even if it seems contrary to all of our common sense. We just
worship God. And we walk through this world
worshipping him. The Lamb is on a throne. Where's
the Lamb? The Lamb's in the midst of his
people. What's the Lamb done? The Lamb has borne all the sins
of all of his people in Calvary's tree. The Lamb is the substitutionary
sacrifice, the atonement, the acceptable offering to God. And
John 8 says that Abraham saw my day, he saw my day, and he
rejoiced and he was glad. He went down that mountain with
Isaac, once again knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy
of worship and he's faithful. May the Lord bless those words
to our hearts, but most of all, may he grant us the grace of
true worship. Amen.