Our text again tonight is in
Exodus chapter 34. Our subject tonight is true worship. You know, worship is a word that
we hear very often in religion today. It's a very misunderstood
word. People call a church meeting
a worship service. Well, some are and some aren't.
Folks call the buildings they meet in today worship centers. They call their singing, praising,
worship. They sing worship songs. Out
of curiosity today, I did a word search on the word worship and
I found a website called Worship in Pictures. So I clicked on
it and it was picture after picture of people raising their hands
up in the air. Men and women need to put their
hands down and raise up their hearts, raise their hearts unto
the Lord, but we can't even do that apart from God's grace.
I found a ridiculous advertisement online today that said, how to
play worship piano. Men and women associate many
different things in religion with worship. It's pretty obvious
to me, just as the Lord told that Samaritan woman in John
chapter four, that woman at the well. It's pretty obvious that
men and women today worship they know not what. The Lord went
on to tell that confused woman at the well. He said, but the
hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers, there is such
a thing as true worship. He said, when the true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him. And God is a spirit and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. So then
what is worship? What is true worship? Webster's
definition of worship is to honor or show reverence for a divine
being or supernatural power, and to worship is the act of
expressing such reverence. The Bible dictionaries define
the Hebrew word worship in the Old Testament as doing reverence
or paying homage, bowing in respect and admiration. It means to exalt,
it means to praise, to idolize something or someone, it means
to fall prostrate in reverence. In the New Testament, the Greek
word for worship means to kiss, and then it goes on to add this,
like a dog licking its master's hand. Teresa and I recently did
what I swore we would never do again, and that was get another
dog, another puppy. But I'm finding out all over
again that dogs can teach us a whole lot about ourselves.
That little dog now belongs to us, wants to be with us every
single minute of every day. And when she is, she just worships
us by constantly kissing and licking our hands and our face
and even our feet if we'd let her. This kind of worship and
adoration is the same with all the faithful dogs that belong
to the Lord. It's the same with all the Mephibosheth
and all the Caleb's, all the faithful dogs that the Lord has
saved by his grace. So thankful, so grateful for
what God has done for us in Christ that we just admire our Lord
and Savior who loved us and gave himself for us. The first time
that the word worship is used in the scriptures, and you probably
remember this from our study in Genesis, it's found in Genesis
chapter 22, verse five, and that's the passage in scripture when
and where the Lord asked Abraham to take Isaac, his only son,
the son that he had waited so, so long for, the son that he
loved with all of his heart. God told him to take him and
offer him unto the Lord as a burnt offering upon Mount Moriah. You remember that story. After
three days journey and upon arriving at the place that God had told
them, Abraham told the young man who came with him, he said,
abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder
and worship and come again to you. I don't think it's any coincidence
at all that the first time that the word worship is used in the
scriptures, it has to do with sacrifice and it has to do with
offering and it has to do with substitution. For it was there
that God in substitution provided for himself a lamb and God provided
himself as the lamb of offering for the redeemed sinner. That's
something to worship God for. doing for us what we couldn't
do for ourselves. Now here in Exodus chapter 34,
we have a beautiful picture of what true worship is. And we
see in verse one that God gave Israel his law on tablets of
stone. God made a covenant of works
with Israel. And that covenant of works was
God saying, if you do, if you keep, I'll do for you. It was
a conditional covenant. But God has made with true Israel,
His people, His elect, He's made a covenant of grace. God now
writes His law on the hearts of true spiritual Israel. And
here in Exodus chapter 34, God gave Moses again those two tables
of stone that he had previously broken. And in verse five, we
see that after he did, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood
with Moses there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the
Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth. I am so glad that the God with
whom we have to do is merciful and gracious and long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth. Verse seven, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. I
am so glad. that the Lord God with whom we
have to do is one who keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin. And the same God is so holy that
he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and to the fourth generation. And in verse eight,
it says, and Moses made haste and he bowed his head toward
the earth and worshiped. upon hearing the declaration
of his God. Moses bowed his head, but that's
not all. He bowed his heart and he did
reverence unto this great God. Then God said in verse 10, behold,
I make a covenant. God wrote the old covenant, as
I said, on tables of stone. But when God reveals Christ in
us and to us, he writes the everlasting covenant of grace in and on our
hearts. That's what Paul was saying in
Romans chapter eight, verse two, when he said, for the law of
the spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law
of sin and death. This new law makes me free from
that old law. And that's the law that's now
written on the believer's heart. Last study, we saw in verses
10 through 17, that God is a jealous God and that Christ is a jealous
husband for his bride. He conquers the enemies of our
flesh for us with great marvel, it says in those verses. He marvelously
and miraculously drives our enemies out before us. He did for Israel
when they inherited and took the land of Canaan and he does
for us today, spiritually speaking. He commands us to have no dealings
with the idolaters and their idolatry. And he commands us
to destroy the altars and the idols, which are snared to us
by nature. He did with Israel then, and
he does with true Israel now. Look at verse 14. God says, for
thou shalt worship no other God. For the Lord, whose name is jealous,
is a jealous God. God is a jealous God, and anything
that vies or competes for our love and our affection before
him or more than him, he considers as the worship of an idol, even
things that we might not expect. While the Lord himself said,
he that loveth father or mother more than me, key words there
being more than me. We're to honor our mother and
our father, and we're to love them, no doubt, but not more
than him. Christ said, he that loveth father
and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. I know it
being a parent, we love our children, but we can't love them more than
we love our God. To love anyone or anything above
God more than God is to worship that person or that thing. So
what is it to worship God? What is true worship? Well, beginning
here in verse 18, the spirit of God gives us seven things. And as you know, seven is the
number of completion, but he gives us seven things here that
picture the true spiritual worship of Christ. I want to just consider
those for a few minutes tonight. Remember, Israel's worship was
carnal and physical, and it typified and it shadowed and it pictured
our spiritual worship of Christ by faith. We no longer need shadows
and pictures, but we have the real thing. We have Christ. We
have the completed scriptures. I have pictures of my children,
my grandchildren, all in our home, Teresa and I do. They're
on the refrigerator and in about every single room. But when they
come to visit us, I don't look at those pictures. I look at
them. I've got them there. I don't
need their picture when I have them. So allow me briefly to
give you these seven things, I believe, that so beautifully
picture true spiritual worship. First, true worship is to feast
on Christ. Verse 18, God commands, look
at it, the feast of the unleavened bread shalt thou keep. He said,
seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread as I commanded thee. In
the time of the month Abim, for the month Abim, now thou comest
out from Egypt. Back in Exodus chapter 12, verse
15, I believe, Israel was instructed to put away or get rid of all
of the leaven in their houses and eat unleavened bread for
seven days. And this feast was instituted
and observed when Israel first came out of Egypt. And it was
to be observed the first month of every Jewish year. The feast
began the day after Passover. The Lord had declared that anyone
who ate leavened bread from the first day until the seventh,
that soul would be cut off from Israel. This was a serious, serious
matter. And do you know why this is so
serious? Because leaven in the scripture represents sin. It
represents any influence that works silently and strongly in
our hearts to keep us from Christ. The word leaven is taken from
a word that means swelling. We talked about this months back
when we were in Exodus chapter 12. Leaven is a word that means
rising or even to be puffed up. And we know, we see the picture
there because of that, we see why it was to be purged and why
it was to be put out from the houses of God's people. And the
picture here is you can't be puffed up in the kingdom of God.
Those that walk in pride, God is able to abase and God does. You know, a proud look is the
first thing mentioned on a list of the things that God hates.
There's no room for the personal swelling that are being puffed
up in these houses, in these earthly tabernacles in which
we dwell. There's no room for personal
exaltation in the house of God, in the kingdom of God. The picture
here is this, from the day that God brings us to faith in Christ,
the second that God reveals to us our need of Christ and shows
us that Christ is our only hope of eternal salvation, we begin
to rest in Christ by faith. And in this world, the believer
lives by faith in Christ until they depart from this life, till
this physical life ends and eternity begins. And it's then that we
rest in glory with Christ forever. And I believe that very well
pictures the seven days of feasting here, picturing our completion
in Him, the Lord Jesus. True spiritual life begins the
first day when God reveals to and in our hearts the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is our Passover, who was sacrificed for us, and
we live by faith, feasting upon Christ, the unleavened bread,
our sinless Savior. That's what unleavened pictures
here, a sinless substitute. He bore the sin of His people
so that by Him, we too are unleavened without sin, righteous, holy,
and just, having eternal life in Him. And I know that's so
difficult for us to grasp because we live with ourselves daily.
We're still plagued by sin, that old man, that old nature within
us. But Paul wrote this in Romans 8 verse 10. He said, if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. And that's talking about Christ's
righteousness. And then Paul added in 1 Corinthians
5, verse seven, he said, purge out there for the old leaven
that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. For even
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep
the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth. True worship is to feast on Christ,
the bread of life, and to forever rejoice that we've been made
perfect in Him. Oh, that's the best news a sinner
ever heard. God requires perfection. It has to be perfect to be accepted. And in Christ, the beloved, we
are accepted, because we're made perfect in Him. Secondly, true
worship is to glory in Christ, our great Redeemer and substitute.
Look at verse 19. God said, all that openeth the
matrix, now that word means the womb, is mine, and every firstling
among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep that is male, it all
belongs to God. In Exodus chapter 13, verse two,
I won't turn you there, but the Lord said this to Moses. He said,
sanctify, set apart, dedicate, unto me all the firstborn. Whatsoever
openeth the womb, the matrix, among the children of Israel,
both of man and of beast, it is mine, it belongs to me. Now look at verse 20 here in
our text. But the firstling of an ass thou
shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou redeem him not, then
shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons
thou shalt redeem, and none shall appear before me empty. Now the picture here is this,
the ass was an unclean animal. That's very good picture of you
and I and all gods elect were represented by the ass and the
law and justice of God demanded that we being unclean, that we
being fallen in Adam have our necks broke. The soul that's
in it, it shall surely die. The wages of sin is death. But
Christ, the Lamb of God, He redeemed us by dying in our room instead,
dying in our place. He bought us, He purchased us
with His own blood. And when we're born again of
the Spirit of God, we are born as God's firstlings. And God
says, they're all mine, they belong to me. God says, I bought
you, I redeemed you, thou art mine. Beloved, we've been bought
with a price. Oh, it costs us nothing, but
it costs God the sacrifice and death of his beloved son. And
God says here in verse 30, and none shall appear before me empty. You know, I thought about that.
We sing that hymn, Rock of Ages. We sing in our hands, no price
we bring, and we don't. We don't have anything to offer
God. We have nothing to give God, but we appear before God
full and complete in Christ, our Redeemer. He is made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, everything that God
requires of us, we're made in Him. When we come to God, we
give Christ all the glory. And that's what true worship
is, friends, is giving God and Christ all the glory. Thirdly,
true worship is to rest in Christ. Look at verse 21. Six days thou
shalt work, but on the seventh day, thou shalt rest. In earing
time and in harvest, thou shalt rest. Every child of God rests
from all our vain works. Christ is our Sabbath rest. The Lord Jesus finished all the
works of the law for us. He perfectly kept and fulfilled
each one of God's laws and statutes in our room instead. And our
resting in Christ by faith gives us peace with God. You'll never
be able to rest as long as you look within. But if you look
to Christ, who is our rest, you'll have that peace that we talk
about so often, that peace that passes all understanding, that
peace that keeps our hearts and our minds in Christ. To worship
God in spirit and in truth is to rest in Christ alone. Hebrews
4.3 says, for we which have believed do enter into rest. Romans 4.1,
being justified by faith, by believing we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Moses here wrote in erring time
and in harvest, even as we do the good works which Christ produces
in us, we don't have any good works of our own. Anything that
we do that would be considered good is the good works which
Christ produces in us. And we rest in Christ and we
put no confidence in any work that we do. We put all our confidence
in Him alone. Paul said in Philippians 3 verse
3, for we are the circumcision which worship God in spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in the flesh.
We don't put any confidence in anything that we do. True worship
is to rest in Christ alone. Fourthly, true worship is to
know who it is that saves sinners. True worship is to know who makes
us to differ. Look at verse 22. And thou shalt
observe the feast of weeks of the firstfruits of wheat harvest
and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. The Lord Jesus
is our head. Christ is the head of his church.
Now the feast of weeks here was the feast that was held at harvest
time. It was held 50 days after the
Feast of the Firstfruits, therefore it's given the name Pentecost. When Christ finished the work
of redeeming the elect of God, he rose from the dead. and he
ascended unto the right hand of God. And on the very day of
Pentecost, in the book of Acts chapter two, Christ showed us
exactly what's typified here. He poured out his spirit upon
the apostles and those who preached the Lord Jesus crucified, the
Lord Jesus risen, the Lord Jesus ascended, that's what we preach.
as both Lord and Christ, our successful Savior. And it was
through the preaching of the gospel by Peter on that day of
Pentecost that Christ harvested 3,000 of his redeemed people,
bringing them to faith in Christ. Let me just read that to you.
Acts 2, verse 33 confirms the picture here. Peter preached,
therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, speaking
of our Lord and Savior, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and
hear. "'For David is not ascended into
the heavens, "'but he, David, saith unto himself, "'The Lord
said unto my Lord, "'Sit thou on my right hand "'until I make
thy foes thy footstool. "'Therefore let all the house
of Israel know assuredly "'that God hath made that same Jesus
"'whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.'" Believing
that Christ is our head, believing that He's both Lord and Christ,
we preach Him and we wait on Him to add to the church daily
such as should be saved. Oh, I wish I could save somebody,
but I can't. He can and He does in His own
good timing. You see, the harvest is His together. That's what Isaiah meant when
he wrote, or God said through Isaiah, I should say, I will
bring thy seed from the East and gather thee from the West,
and I'll say to the North, give up, and to the South, keep not
back. Bring my sons from afar and my
daughters from the ends of the earth, even everyone that is
called by my name, for I have created him for my glory, and
I have formed him, yea, I have made him. True worship. is to know without a doubt that
salvation is of the Lord, and we worship Him because of it.
If any sinner's ever saved, it's because God, in sovereign mercy
and grace, saved them. He's the Lord of the harvest,
and we're nothing but laborers sent forth. And when we've done
all that He's given us to do, we're yet unprofitable servants. Fifthly, true worship is to publicly
confess and declare Christ for all the world to see. That's
what we're doing here tonight. We're confessing and declaring
Christ publicly. Look at verse 23. It says, thrice
in the year shall all your men, children appear before the Lord
God, the God of Israel, for I will cast out the nations before thee
and enlarge thy borders and neither shall any man desire thy land
when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice
in the year. I was thinking about this. This
is really an amazing passage of scripture, amazing thing.
You know, the child of God arranges their lives around the worship
of Christ. We don't arrange worship around
our lives. We arrange our lives around worship.
Three times in the year, the males of Israel were to drop
everything, everything they were doing in their lives, leave their
farms, leave their families and go to a place, designated place
of worship to appear before the Lord God. Doing this, they proved
that they believed God was their Lord who would keep His promise
to them. Now you think about this. God
cast out all their enemies before them. He increased their borders
so that now they had to go a long distance from home to God's ordained
place of public worship. They'd have to leave their wives,
they'd have to leave their families and go three times a year. But
when they left their farms and family to go and to worship,
God controlled the hearts of their enemies so that none desired
their land or attacked their wives and children while they
were gone. But what an amazing God. Those men left and they
knew that God was taking care of everything for them. Oh, for
that kind of faith. Lord, give us that kind of faith.
Oh, that we might trust Him in that sense. All I can think is
what an amazing God. You know, in these unsettling
times, in the days of pandemics and political unrest, God rules
the hearts of our enemies as well as He does the germs that
we come in contact with. God commands that we arrange
our lives around the worship of His Son. If we believe him,
then we should let nothing, absolutely nothing, hinder us from worshiping
him. If these men went up three times
in a year and God didn't let a dog move his tongue against
them or their families, we can be sure that God's gonna take
care of us. God's people don't fear the enemy.
They don't fear the economy. They don't fear the government
or anything else for to forsake assembling together. Mr. Spurgeon once told a story about
a man who worked seven days a week and never attended church services
because he figured, or this is what he said, that it put him
two days ahead of all those who did go to church. He was able
to put more away because he didn't waste his time worshiping. And
Mr. Spurgeon told that man that his
arithmetic would would not hold up and not add up when he went
out to meet God in the day of judgment. I know a man who once
attended here. This man was a faithful worshiper
that just one day quit coming. He told me later that instead
of coming to church, he worked weekends making time and a half
and sometimes double time. And with the company matching
his retirement contributions, he had built up a sizable 401k. I think about the words of our
Lord who said, for what is a man profited if he shall gain the
whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul? You see, the math just doesn't
add up. No matter how you figure it,
it just doesn't add up. Okay, sixly, true worship is
to know that salvation has nothing to do with us. Look at verse
25. Thou shalt not offer the blood,
the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, neither shall the sacrifice
of the feast of the Passover be left into the morning. We
have nothing to offer God in and of ourselves, and we are
to add nothing of us to Christ's gospel. or to his means of worship. Any works of our own that we
attempt to add to Christ's blood is nothing short of just leaven.
Everything we do is leaven in and of ourselves. Nothing short
of sin, which is what leaven pictures. And God will reject
it. We can't add anything to the
work of Christ, nor should we want to, since we know what everything
we do is, just leaven. Therefore, we preach Christ is
all. And that's where we rest, in
Christ being all. The fact that I can't do anything
to save myself, and that I'm totally dependent on Christ and
His work of righteousness that He's done for me, enables me
to rest greatly. If I could do something to obtain
my salvation, I could certainly do something to lose it. But
since Christ did it all, I can rest right there. And that's
what true worship is. It's resting in him. And then
lastly, true worship gives Christ all the preeminence. Verse 26. The first of the first fruits
of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy
God, and thou shall not see the kid in his mother's milk. Friends, this is the sum of it
all. Christ has the preeminence. You see, it pleased God that
His Son should have all preeminence because it pleased God that in
Him all fullness should dwell. To a believer, Christ is life
and righteousness and holiness and redemption. He's the way,
He's the truth. He's our provider. He's our healer. He's our keeper. He's our all
in all, everything. He's our everything. And He can
do anything. Everything that we have physically,
materially, and everything that we have spiritually came from
His abundance. He gave it all to us, all of
it. Everything that we have just
on loan to us, we're not taking anything with us. Everything
we have came from His abundance, He gave it all. Who had first
given to Him and it shall be recompensed unto Him again. for
of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be
glory forever, amen. Christ gets all the glory, he
gets all of it. That's what it means to worship
God and his son. We're nothing, he's everything.
He deserves all our worship, all our adoration. For by grace
are you saved. Whose grace? God's grace. You're saved by grace through
faith, and that's not of yourselves. Who's it of? It's of God. It's
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the gift of God. It's not
by works, lest any man should boast. We don't have any room
to boast because we didn't do anything. We are his workmanship. How so? Created in Christ Jesus
under good works, which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them. Anything good that we do, friends,
it's Christ in us, the hope of glory. Isn't that right? Aren't
you thankful? Aren't you thankful? Oh, may
God be pleased to make these things so for our good and his
glory and for Christ's sake. Amen.