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JONAH’S GRATEFUL PRAYER

JONAH’S GRATEFUL PRAYER

Jonah 1:17-2:10 NET

1:17 The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

2:1 Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the stomach of the fish

2 and said, “I called out to the LORD from my distress, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried out for help, and you heard my prayer.

3 You threw me into the deep waters, into the middle of the sea; the ocean current engulfed me; all the mighty waves you sent swept over me.

4 I thought I had been banished from your sight, that I would never again see your holy temple!

5 Water engulfed me up to my neck; the deep ocean surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to the very bottoms of the mountains; the gates of the netherworld barred me in forever; but you brought me up from the Pit, O LORD, my God.

7 When my life was ebbing away, I called out to the LORD, and my prayer came to your holy temple.

8 Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs.

9 But as for me, I promise to offer a sacrifice to you with a public declaration of praise; I will surely do what I have promised. Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

10 Then the LORD commanded the fish and it disgorged Jonah on dry land.

This month’s theme is God’s heart for the nations – piggybacking on the message Penny shared on October 31st from Matthew 24:14. God’s heart is to redeem the lost from all the nations, so Jesus commissioned us to go to all the nations and preach the gospel to them. We have a job to do, and nothing should distract us from it – not even our expectation that we are at the end of the age. In fact, the closer we come to the end, the more evangelizing we must be doing.

Jonah had a job to do. He was sent to the capital city of the nation of Assyria – Nineveh. He didn’t want to do it, so he boarded a ship going far away from Nineveh. But as we saw last week, God has ways of getting us back on track when we decide to go the wrong way. Jonah wound up being thrown overboard, and God provided alternate transportation to get him to Nineveh: he was swallowed by a big fish.

Jonah prayed from the stomach of the fish (1-2).

I used to think that Jonah’s prayer from the stomach of the fish was a prayer of repentance. I now realize that I was wrong.

I made a mistake in my interpretation of this text. I want to share with you today the fact that I was wrong and had to change my interpretation. But I also want to trace the process that I used to come to the wrong interpretation. We need to be honest with each other about our fallibility. God’s word is infallible, but we are not. His word is inerrant, but we are going to make errors when we interpret it. We need to be honest about that.

So, here is the process I went through when I first read Jonah 2 – and came up with a wrong interpretation. The first thing I noticed was how Jonah said that he had prayed from the belly of Sheol.

Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) is one of the Hebrew words that the writers of the Old Testament used for the state of being dead. It’s not the only word they use for this state. Sometimes they use the word death. Sometimes they use the word destruction. Sometimes they use the word grave. Sometimes they use the word pit. But the biblical authors often use these words to express the idea that they are in danger – that they are close to dying.

When the Hebrew writers actually talk about Sheol, they describe it as a deep, dark, silent place where everyone goes when they die, and rest without any conscious awareness until they are woken by resurrection.

But often the biblical authors talk about being near Sheol as being in great danger – as being almost dead. Here are some examples of that:

“O LORD, you pulled me up from Sheol; you rescued me from among those descending into the grave” (Psalm 30:3 NET).

“The ropes of Sheol tightened around me, the snares of death trapped me” (Psalm 18:5 NET).

“But God will rescue my life from the power of Sheol; certainly he will pull me to safety” (Psalm 49:15 NET).

That is what Jonah meant when he said that he had called out to God “from the belly of Sheol.” That part I got right.

But what confused me was that the text says that Jonah prayed from the stomach of the fish that had swallowed him. I thought the stomach of the fish was the belly of Sheol. This passage actually uses two separate Hebrew words to make it clear that…

Jonah was in the belly of Sheol before he was swallowed by the fish (3-7).

In verse 3, Jonah says that God – not the pagan sailors – threw him into the deep waters, into the middle of the sea. He said the ocean current engulfed him; that all the mighty waves God sent swept over him. In other words, he had been buried at sea while still alive. He did not expect to stay alive long.

In verse 4, he said that he thought he had been banished from God’s sight, that he would never again see God’s holy temple. In other words, he did not expect to be rescued from that watery grave.

In verse 5 he said that water engulfed him up to his neck; the deep ocean surrounded him; seaweed was wrapped around his head.

The Hebrew word for “neck” is nefesh (נֶפֶשׁ). That’s the word that lots of translations render “soul.” But it’s not what people call a soul. When people think of a soul they think of something immaterial that survives the death of the body. But Jonah’s nefesh was his neck. He was nefesh-deep in the water, and the seaweed was wrapped around his head, forcing him under the water. Jonah was about to drown.

Then he went under. In verse 6, Jonah says that he went down to the very bottoms of the mountains. The NET says “the gates of the netherworld barred me in forever.” That’s not a good translation. Jonah is not talking about the netherworld. The ESV states it better: ” I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.” Jonah is using prison language. He says that he sunk to the bottom and was being held there permanently. He was going to that watery grave. He was going to Sheol, with no hope of rescue.

Then the rescue happened. Jonah says that the LORD brought him up from the Pit. Remember that the Pit (the Hebrew word here is shachat (שַׁחַת)) is a synonym for Sheol. Jonah was in the belly of Sheol when he was drowning in the water – before he was in the stomach of the fish.

In verse 7, Jonah says that when his life was ebbing away, he called out to the LORD, and his prayer came to God’s holy temple.

Jonah’s prayer from the fish was not a prayer for help, it was a prayer of gratitude (8-10).

The fish was not Sheol. The fish was God’s gift to Jonah. It was his means of rescue from the grave. Jonah’s prayer from the fish was not a prayer for help, is was a prayer of gratitude because God spared his life.

In his prayer, he thought about those pagan sailors who had thrown him into the ocean to save their lives. He said in verse 8 that those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs. Actually, those sailors had not turned back to their pagan idols. They had offered sacrifices to Jonah’s God because of the power he displayed.

And in verse 9, Jonah promised to do the same thing. He had learned his lesson. In verse 10, we learn that the LORD commanded the fish and it disgorged Jonah on dry land. Jonah went from a grateful prayer for salvation to a grateful life of service.

That is what is supposed to happen to us as well. We are saved to serve. We are rescued to obey the great commission. The God whose heart is for the nations sends someone to our nation to preach the gospel to us. We believe in the gospel and are saved. Then, we are supposed to go to someone else, somewhere else, so that they too have the opportunity to be saved.

Now, Jonah could have prayed this prayer, and then gone back to his own life, and forgotten about the call to Nineveh. But he didn’t do that. His gratitude produced a commitment to follow his commission.

Now, I submit to you that you and I have been rescued from a worse fate than that of Jonah. He was rescued from drowning and going to Sheol – the grave. But we have been rescued from the second death – destruction in Gehenna. We have been rescued from the death from which there is no resurrection. Jonah was rescued from a temporary grave at the bottom of the sea. We have been rescued from permanent destruction.

Jonah had the good sense to high tail it to Nineveh after he got burped up on the beach. He was not perfect – he still had some lessons to learn. But the God who saved him – sent him. He was going to preach to those Ninevites.

Brothers and sisters, the God who saved us has also sent us. Jesus said, “Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.”

” (John 20:21). It is a great thing to praise the Lord for rescuing us from hell. It is an even greater thing to show our gratitude like Jonah did – by seeing to it that other lost people get an opportunity to be saved.

LORD, make us grateful and obedient servants like Jonah.

JONAH AND THE PAGAN SAILORS

JONAH AND THE PAGAN SAILORS

Jonah 1:1-16 NET

1 The LORD said to Jonah son of Amittai,

2 “Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.”

3 Instead, Jonah immediately headed off to Tarshish to escape from the commission of the LORD. He traveled to Joppa and found a merchant ship heading to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard it to go with them to Tarshish far away from the LORD.

4 But the LORD hurled a powerful wind on the sea. Such a violent tempest arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break up!

5 The sailors were so afraid that each cried out to his own god and they flung the ship’s cargo overboard to make the ship lighter. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold below deck, had lain down, and was sound asleep.

6 The ship’s captain approached him and said, “What are you doing asleep? Get up! Cry out to your god! Perhaps your god might take notice of us so that we might not die!”

7 The sailors said to one another, “Come on, let’s cast lots to find out whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us.” So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out.

8 They said to him, “Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? What’s your occupation? Where do you come from? What’s your country? And who are your people?”

9 He said to them, “I am a Hebrew! And I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

10 Hearing this, the men became even more afraid and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape from the LORD, because he had previously told them.)

11 Because the storm was growing worse and worse, they said to him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

12 He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea to make the sea quiet down, because I know it’s my fault you are in this severe storm.”

13 Instead, they tried to row back to land, but they were not able to do so because the storm kept growing worse and worse.

14 So they cried out to the LORD, “Oh, please, LORD, don’t let us die on account of this man! Don’t hold us guilty of shedding innocent blood. After all, you, LORD, have done just as you pleased.”

15 So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.

16 The men feared the LORD greatly, and earnestly vowed to offer lavish sacrifices to the Lord.

The story of Jonah is amazing. But it is one of those stories that is very easy for us to look at just as a story, and fail to see its relevance for our individual lives. One of the things I want to do in this series on Jonah is to show how Jonah’s story demonstrates what God wants to do in our lives – even if we never get swallowed by a fish.

The beginning of the story is a good place to start in discovering this.

God has a plan to save sinners, and he has commissioned us to be a part of that plan (1-2).

The LORD told Jonah to go immediately to Nineveh because that city was the capital city in an empire known for its wickedness. He had a plan to save the sinners in that great city, and Jonah was part of his plan. He commissioned Jonah to go and preach. He has commissioned us to go and preach to all the nations.

Penny and I have had the privilege to share the gospel in several nations. None of those opportunities happened by accident. There were some specific nations in Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania that God wanted us to preach and teach his word in. He made it happen. I didn’t want to go to Germany with the Army, but God wanted me there. Once I got there, I discovered that I liked it, and that God could use me to share the gospel there just like he did when I was pastoring in Tennessee.

When the LORD made a way for me to go to seminary, he had already shown us the next nation which would be our target: The Philippines. God had a plan to reach a large number of Filipinos through our ministry there – mostly by training pastors and church workers. Even today, there are hundreds of amazing Christian workers in that nation who Penny and I helped to disciple. It wasn’t an accident. God loves that nation, and he had a plan to reach them, and commissioned us to be part of that plan.

I could go on and talk about all the other nations, but my biography is not the point. My point is that God has a plan to save sinners, and he has included us in that plan. He doesn’t need us to share his word. Somebody other than Jonah could have gone to Nineveh. But God commissioned Jonah to do it.

Sometimes, we ridiculously think that we can ignore God’s commission (3).

Jonah thought he could escape from the commission of the LORD. He traveled to Joppa and found a merchant ship heading to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard it to go with them to Tarshish because he thought that distance would be far enough away from the LORD for him to ignore his commission. It wasn’t. No place is.

Our God is omnipresent. We could get in a spaceship and go to the far reaches of the Galaxy, and we will not have traveled one inch away from God. He is everywhere. If he gives us a commission, there is no place we can go to escape from it. Guess what? He has given us a commission. He told us to go to every place on the planet and share his good news.

We cannot escape his commission by going somewhere, neither can we escape it by ignoring it. Jonah thought that if he just focused on going away, that he could ignore God’s command for him to go to the particular place of Nineveh.

God always has a way of bringing the commission to us (4-10).

His way in this situation was to make a storm. The storm got everyone’s attention. In fact, everyone was able to realize how crucial it was to act to save their lives – except Jonah. He was the last one to wake up. When the people learned that the storm was Jonah’s fault, it provided Jonah a perfect opportunity to testify. He told them that he was a Hebrew, and that he was trying to escape the LORD. Jonah wound up doing preaching about God and his coming wrath – only the wrath was now targeting Jonah himself. God had used the storm to get Jonah to do for these sailors what he was reluctant to do for the Ninevites.

He always has a way of bringing the commission to us. If we wont obey him out of a heart of compassion for sinners, He will make circumstances warrant that we obey for some other reason. When Peter was reluctant to reach out to the Gentiles, the Lord sent him a vision. Then Cornelius – who had also seen a vision – sent some servants to Peter. So, even Peter – who would continue to have problems recognizing that Gentiles are equal with Jews in God’s sight – was convinced that God does not show favoritism.

This was one of Jonah’s problems too. He did not like the Ninevites. He was convinced that they were not worth saving. But our God has compassion on us all in spite of the fact that none of us is worth saving. He sent the storm that day because he had a plan to save some pagan Ninevites. He also sent the storm because there were some pagan sailors who also needed to be saved.

God will reach sinners, but we need to learn to stop resisting his call (11-16).

Jonah had to learn to stop resisting his call, and his having to be thrown into the sea did the trick. God wanted to reach the pagan Ninevites, so Jonah had to get off that ship because God had another means of transportation for him.

Meanwhile, notice what is happening among those pagan sailors. They are crying out to the LORD not to let them die on account of Jonah. Now, notice what happens next. They pick Jonah up and throw him into the sea. The sea stops raging. Did those pagan sailors go back to business as usual? No, the text says that the men feared the LORD greatly, and earnestly vowed to offer lavish sacrifices to the Lord. God had a plan to reach sinners, and he did. He reached these pagan sailors in spite of the fact that Jonah was not among them because he wanted them saved. God reached them anyway because that is the kind of God he is.

Now, if God can reach these sailors through the witness of a reluctant prophet, imagine what he could do through the witness of a community of believers who actually want to reach the lost for him. We discover later on in this book that even though Jonah gets the message and goes and preaches to the Ninevites and the whole city repents – Jonah still didn’t want to do it. One of the major messages of the book of Jonah is that God wants his people to have his heart for the lost.

God told Ezekiel “I will seek the lost and bring back the strays” (Ezekiel 34:16).

“Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!”Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”” (Luke 19:1-10 NET).

Now, this week, you and I might encounter a Zacchaeus. Everybody around us thinks that he is unredeemable. Everybody else wants to overlook him. Don’t do it. Don’t be like Jonah. He didn’t want to go to preach to those pagan Ninevites. He never imagined preaching to those pagan sailors. He was God’s prophet, but he didn’t have God’s heart.

God has commissioned us to go to the nations with the gospel. There are some of those nations that we wouldn’t want to go to even on vacation. But God’s heart is to reach the lost there.

WORSHIP CULMINATED

Revelation 7:1-4, 9-17 NET

1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so no wind could blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He shouted out with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given permission to damage the earth and the sea: 3 “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees until we have put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” 4 Now I heard the number of those who were marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand, sealed from all the tribes of the people of Israel: 9 After these things I looked, and here was an enormous crowd that no one could count, made up of persons from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb dressed in long white robes, and with palm branches in their hands.

10 They were shouting out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood there in a circle around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground before the throne and worshiped God,

12 saying, “Amen! Praise and glory, and wisdom and thanksgiving, and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” 13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes — who are they and where have they come from?” 14 So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat,

17 because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

We have been studying what the Bible says about worship this month. We first looked at two Old Testament passages and found that worship is something that we all ought to do, but it also something that can be corrupted. It can be done wrong.

Then we looked at Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well in the Samaritan village of Sychar. In that conversation, Jesus revealed the fact that God is looking for sincere worshipers. We can worship in truth if we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and don’t just rely on our traditions.

For our next look at worship, I want us to look at this vision that John received, as recorded in Revelation 7. Now, I realize that there are a lot of different ways of understanding the Book of Revelation. If we were studying the book as a whole, I would stop and explain these different approaches, and give you my evaluation of them. But my concern today is more specific. I want us to see what this chapter in Revelation tells us about worship.

So, let me just summarize what we would have to agree on to look at this chapter in that context.

First, Revelation is Scripture. The visions John received on Patmos were given to him by Jesus so that he could understand some things about the future. They also served to equip him and believers after him (including us) to endure the things we would have to endure until Jesus comes again.

Second, there is a blessing associated with this passage. Revelation 1:3 says “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and blessed are those who hear and obey the things written in it, because the time is near!” Of course, the blessing will only come to us if we have ears to hear what God is saying, and if we have the courage to commit ourselves to obeying what the text commands.

That is where we get to our subject. When we look at the 144,000 who are described in verses 1-8 of the chapter, and the enormous crowd that no one could count who are described in verses 9-17, each of them has a reason to worship the LORD. That is what I want us to focus on. Our God wants us to consider our options, and to make the right choices in life. Should we worship, or should we not worship? God never gives us a command without giving us good reasons to obey it.

The picture John saw in this vision is a graphical description of those who will overcome the trials and dangers of this temporary life, and will be there to greet Jesus as their Savior, King, and Shepherd in eternity. It is a picture not just of the kinds of people who gather to worship now, but a picture of those who will be worshiping forever in the new heavens and new earth. The worshipers described here have all the marks we have been told about the previous passages we studied. It is obedient worship. It is pure worship. It is sincere worship.

But today’s text also tells us why these people will be worshiping forever. What will God do for these people that will make them want to serve and worship him throughout eternity? That is the question that this passage answers.

First, we will worship the LORD forever because of God’s faithful remnant (1-4).

The first thing the passage describes is a storm that is about to be let loose on the whole earth. Four angels are placed on each of the four corners of the planet, and are holding back the four winds, so that no destruction can happen. Another angel commands them not to let loose the destruction. They have something else they need to do first, before the storm of judgment. First, they have to “put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”

The Bible describes a number of instances where people were marked to seal them for protection. The mark he gave to Cain was an example of that. No, the mark was not a sign of a curse. The Bible says “the LORD put a special mark on Cain so that no one who found him would strike him down” (Genesis 4:15).

We know three things about these 144,000 men. First, it is clear that they are all Jews, not Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, they are numbered by Jewish tribe so that the fact is evident to all (Revelation 7:5-8).

Second, we know that these men are sealed before God unleashes his storm of destruction. They are not protected from the first death. The purpose of their sealing is to protect them from the second death.

Third, I think it is important to realize that John himself would be among them. He was a Jew, and he witnessed a great number of Jews come to faith in Christ, and many of them paid for that faith by being put to death either by their countrymen, or by Rome.

When John saw this large group of Jews, he was reminded that in the Old Testament, God always kept a remnant for himself. These 144,000 are the Jewish remnant.

The second group he sees in the vision are all the people from all the nations who would come to faith in Christ as a result of the ministry of that Jewish remnant. The vision is progressing in time. We know that the original apostles were Jews, but Christ commissioned them to reach the nations. We know that the original worshipers at Pentecost were Jews, but the Holy Spirit empowered them to go back to the various places where they lived and be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Revelation 7 records the result of their obedience.

Those of us who are Gentiles have come to faith in Christ because that Jewish remnant pledged their loyalty and many gave their lives to bring the gospel to us. Because of their obedience to the call, we can know Christ, and will worship him forever.

But that is not the only reason we will worship the LORD forever.

We will also worship the LORD forever because he will give us permanent victory over sin (9b, 13-14).

Look at those white robes we will wear. I know that the color white represents purity in the Bible. The LORD told his rebellious people “Come, let’s consider your options … Though your sins have stained you like the color red, you can become white like snow; though they are as easy to see as the color scarlet, you can become white like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

White is also the color of victory. The book of Revelation associates a white horse with warfare and conquering (6:2; 19:11, 14). So, the white robes don’t represent those who have merely managed to stay pure. The represent those who have won the victory over sin.

This is made clear in today’s passage by a conversation John has with “one of the elders” in the vision.

“Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes – who are they and where have they come from?” So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb!” (13-14).

Our white robes are not our reward for staying good enough for God to save. Our white robes are the result of our forgiveness. We have been forgiven not because we repented and not because we were less sinful that others. We have been forgiven because of the blood of the Lamb.

John the Baptist described Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

We will struggle in this life to stay true to our Savior. We will fight to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). The world will want to give in to the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions. We will have to fight against its influence. But none of that fighting will cleanse our robes. That kind of cleansing is only available by faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

We will also worship the LORD forever because he will give us a kingdom that will never end (9c, 15c-17).

Don’t forget the palm branches. You know that folks waived palm branches when they welcomed Christ into Jerusalem. The religious leaders objected, because they knew that these palm branches represented the welcoming of a new king. They asked Jesus to silence his pep rally. But Jesus told them “if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out!” (Luke 19:40).

The palm branches are a visible symbol of praise. The fact that the vision depicts them shows that our desire for God and his kingdom to come down and be among us will one day be satisfied. You better believe we will worship.

The high priest asked Jesus “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). He was referring to Daniel’s prophecy:

“I was watching in the night visions, “And with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).

Daniel saw a king coming in the clouds. Some day you and I will see that king coming in the clouds. So will that unbelieving high priest. So will all our neighbors. When he comes there will be only two responses. Those of us who know him now will worship him forever. Those who reject him now will call for the mountains to fall on them to hide themselves from his wrath.

He is our coming king – we will worship him forever.

He is our victory over sin – we will worship him forever.

He had saved a remnant who faithfully proclaimed his gospel, so we could hear it and be saved – we will worship him forever.

This is worship culminated. This picture of those involved in perpetual worship for eternity is a picture of us. May we stay true to that beautiful picture as we await his return.

WORSHIP CLARIFIED

WORSHIP CLARIFIED

John 4:20-26 NET

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

During the month of October, we have been looking at the subject of worship. It was important for us to go back to the Old Testament because that is where the Holy Spirit began teaching God’s people about worship.

In our study of 1 Chronicles 16, we found out that worship was God’s idea, and that we can honor and appreciate people, but only God deserves our worship.

In our study of 2 Kings 21, we found that worship can be corrupted by inviting other gods into our worship, and by picking up practices of other religions and world-views and trying to worship our God the way they worship their gods.

There is a lot more that we can learn from the Old Testament about worship, so some day we are going to come back to it. But for now, we are going to focus on some New Testament passages.

You might remember that a few months ago, I asked the LORD to tell me what he wanted me to focus on in my preaching here in Piney Grove. I believe he answered that prayer. He told me to focus on the commands of Christ.

It makes sense to focus on the commands of Christ because when our Lord gave us his Great Commission, he told us to teach the nations to obey everything he has commanded (Matthew 28:20).

I wanted to do that systematically. The Bible says that “every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). I believe that every means every. So I don’t want to just stay in the familiar territory of the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, because there is some useful teaching on Christ’s commands in the Old Testament.

So, what I decided to do was reread the Gospels, and every time I encountered something that Jesus commanded, I would write that down on the list. Each of those commands would become a topic, and my plan is to preach a series of sermons on each topic. I would start each series in the Old Testament, and conclude in the New Testament. Doing it that way might take a long time, but that’s alright. I’m not going anywhere.

So, that’s why we have rested today at John chapter 4. It is here that Jesus has his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Here we learn that…

Worship is not the same thing as worship traditions (20).

This woman at the well understood something about worship, and it was something significant. She knew that worship was something that people fight over. She recognized that when you get a Jewish person and a Samaritan person in the same room, you don’t bring up the subject of worship.

She told Jesus that her ancestors have the tradition of viewing Mount Gerazim as a place of deep spiritual significance. She knew from the Old Testament that Mount Gerazim was where the blessings of the covenant were pronounced by the Israelites in Moses’ time. I don’t know how she – herself showed reverence for that mountain, but she probably had some traditional way of doing that.

I remember when I was living in the Philippines, the people there had lots of religious traditions. One of my favorites that I noticed is that some Jeepney drivers had a set of rosary beads hanging from their rear-view mirror. Whenever they passed a cathedral, they would reach out and touch those beads. Now, those drivers may have been alcoholics. They may have cursed like sailors. They almost always drove recklessly like crazy people. But if you wanted to get in a fight, say something about those beads.

In the church today, we have not outgrown the passion for defending our traditions when it comes to worship. Everybody has their own favorite kind of worship music and their favorite style of worship. Some are comfortable with the worship style they grew up with, while others want to do something new.

I’m not here to convince you that your favorite way of worshiping is wrong. I don’t have a style of worship that I recommend for everyone. I would recommend for all of us that we don’t get hung up on a particular style of worship.

My reason for this is how Jesus responded to this woman’s statement about tradition and worship. He told her that the Jews had a very good reason for focusing their worship at Jerusalem. But then he told her something important about the relationship between traditions and worship.

Traditions change, but worship should not (21).

Jesus told her that a time would soon come when it did not matter which mountain you were near. It would not matter which region you were from, or living in. Both the Samaritans and the Jews would be worshiping God based on something else besides tradition.

Both cultures had learned that three keys to proper worship were “location, location, location.” But both cultures would be transformed by something that would put an end to that kind of thinking. That something that both cultures would be exposed to was the gospel.

It took time for that to happen. The disciples were just learning the gospel from Jesus himself. Yet, they could not understand why Jesus had chosen to go through Samaria, instead of avoiding it.

Notice also what happened when the disciples came back from their trip into town to buy supplies. John records that they “were shocked because he was speaking with a woman” (4:27). The Jewish Rabbis had taught that it is better to burn the Law than teach it to a woman. That was tradition. They had taught that even a husband should not talk with his wife about the Bible and that such a practice could wind up sending them both to hell. That was tradition. This was particularly true in public. The Rabbis taught that a man should not greet a woman in a public place, not even his own wife. That was tradition.

Jesus comes along and blows that tradition out of the water. He is God’s Messiah, and our example. The God of the Bible created both Adam and Eve in his own image and blessed them both with minds capable of learning from him and following his commands. His word to children was “Listen, my child, to the instruction from your father, and do not forsake the teaching from your mother” (Proverbs 1:8).

But then Jesus went on to explain another thing about worship that both the Jews and the Samaritans were going to have to learn.

Worship has to be sincere, and traditions can hinder that (23-24).

He said “a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus said that the Father is looking for a certain kind of worshiper. This kind of worshiper is not going to be so easily identified. You will not just be able to go to Mount Gerazim and find him. You might not even find any in Jerusalem.

No, Jesus says the evidence of a true worshiper is that the worship is “in spirit and truth.” But what does that mean?

The only explanation Jesus gives is that he says that God is spirit. What does that mean in this context? In the previous chapter, John had recorded Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.

Jesus told Nicodemus that “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). If I were to show you a family photo with myself, Penny, and our three daughters, you would see a physical resemblance. Flesh gives birth to similar flesh.

But Jesus told Nicodemus that a person cannot enter the kingdom unless he is born of the Spirit. He said “The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). One thing you might not know is that in the original of that verse, the word for wind and the word spirit is the same Greek word.

Spirit is like the wind. It is real, but you cannot see it. It is not tangible. You can only see its effect on tangible things. So, someone who is worshiping in Spirit takes on the characteristics of God’s Holy Spirit. Those characteristics cannot be explained by that person’s fleshly heritage. They will have nothing to do with where that person is from in the flesh – Gerazim, Jerusalem – it does not matter. What matters is the Holy Spirit is the source of the worship.

Those worshipers worship in truth. This is the easiest statement in the whole text to explain. It speaks of authenticity. A hypocrite might go to Gerazim, and act like a worshiper. He might go to Jerusalem and act like a worshiper. The traditions can actually hinder true worship.

But here is something else John mentioned in chapter 3:

“Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God” (John 3:19-21).

So, to worship in truth is to allow the light of Jesus’ presence to expose your falsehood, and replace it with his truth. That is authentic worship. It does not pretend to approach God on one’s own merit. It allows the light/truth to change you on the inside. It is giving up my control and allowing God to be sovereign – even over how I worship him.

LORD, we want to worship you – your way. Expose the darkness of our own traditions and fleshly choices. Teach us how to let go and let your Holy Spirit move us where you want us to go.

WORSHIP CORRUPTED

WORSHIP CORRUPTED

2 Kings 21:1-16 NET

1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother was Hephzibah. 2 He did evil in the sight of the LORD and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations whom the LORD drove out from before the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them. 4 He built altars in the LORD’s temple, about which the LORD had said, “Jerusalem will be my home.” 5 In the two courtyards of the LORD’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 6 He passed his son through the fire and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. 7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the LORD had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. 8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.” 9 But they did not obey, and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed from before the Israelites. 10 So the LORD announced through his servants the prophets: 11 “King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins. He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols. 12 So this is what the LORD God of Israel says, ‘I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it. 13 I will destroy Jerusalem the same way I did Samaria and the dynasty of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem clean, just as one wipes a plate on both sides. 14 I will abandon this last remaining tribe among my people and hand them over to their enemies; they will be plundered and robbed by all their enemies, 15 because they have done evil in my sight and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!'” 16 Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the LORD.

We have been studying what the Bible says about worship. We understand that worship is very important to Jesus. It is not something we can do without. We saw last week that worship is something we should do regularly, but we should reserve our worship for God alone.

Jesus affirmed this when he was being tempted by Satan. He said to the devil “You are to worship the LORD your God and serve only him” (Matthew 4:10). We can appreciate others and even respect them. But worship is exclusive to God.

One of the reasons for this is that God’s character and power are flawless. His glory is above all others. For that reason, Moses commanded Israel to worship God exclusively. But he knew that they would fail to do that.

God told Moses that “after I have brought them to the land I promised to their ancestors – one flowing with milk and honey – and they eat their fill and become fat, then they will turn to other gods and worship them; they will reject me and break my covenant” (Deuteronomy 31:20).

Worship would become corrupted.

This happened many times in the history of God’s people. Today’s text highlights how worship was corrupted during the reign of King Manasseh of Judah.

Manasseh corrupted the worship in Judah by copying the religions of the nations (1-5)

Notice that Manasseh’s father – King Hezekiah – had torn down the high places that the pagans had used for worship. So Manasseh cannot claim that he was just doing what his father did before him. He chose to undo Hezekiah’s reforms. His father had taken steps to purge Judah of its idolatry, but Manasseh reversed his policies.

Manasseh invited other gods and goddesses to take their place in Jerusalem, which God had specifically designated as his home. How would you feel if someone came into your home uninvited by you? Manasseh had no business inviting these other gods into the Lord’s home.

God had warned his people that if they tried to be like all the nations around them, they would suffer the same fate as those nations. Some of those nations had been destroyed when the Israelites came into the promised land. The Lord had warned Israel that if they became idol worshipers like those nations…

“I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste” (Leviticus 26:30-33 NET).

When it comes to worship, God does not want us to be like everyone else. He wants us to worship him exclusively and he wants us to worship him differently than all the other religions worship their gods.

In this modern age, there are two major ways we can follow in the footsteps of Manasseh and corrupt biblical worship. One is that we can borrow worship practices from other religions. We can sometimes be tempted to borrow practices from non-Christian religions and Christianize them. We need to be careful that we examine the origins of certain practices.

But there is another way we can corrupt our worship as Manasseh did. The most prominent religion of today is atheistic secular humanism. We can build our high places to the god of human progress. If it replaces our devotion and loyalty to the God of the Bible, it corrupts his worship.

But Manasseh went even further than this.

Manasseh corrupted the worship in Judah by encouraging demonic practices (6-11).

The king passed his son through the fire (in other words, he sacrificed one of his sons to the pagan god Molech) and he also practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it.

He opened the door to every kind of demonic activity that the Lord had labeled detestable. If he had published newspapers, he would have put the daily horoscope in them. He hired palm readers, and people to hold seances. He had his own royal magicians. These were not illusionists and sleight-of-hand magicians. It was practitioners of the magic arts. When it came to corrupting worship, Manasseh boldly went where no man had gone before. He plunged his nation into the darkness.

Because Manasseh corrupted the worship of Judah, the LORD pledged to wipe Jerusalem clean (12-16).

God could not let this sacrilege continue. But notice that God was not only going to judge Manasseh. Since the king led the nation into corrupted worship, the whole nation would have to suffer.

Since Manasseh has invited false gods and Satanic magic into God’s house – God was going to have to do some house cleaning. He likened it to cleaning a plate on both sides. It doesn’t make sense to just clean a plate on one side, because if you stack the plate afterward, and it is still dirty on the bottom, it will dirty the next plate on the top.

God said he will destroy Jerusalem the same way he did Samaria and the dynasty of Ahab. He will wipe Jerusalem clean, just as one wipes a plate on both sides.

He used foreign empires to take away the kingdoms from those kings. He did that because he could not and cannot tolerate hypocrisy. He cannot allow those who worship other gods to pretend to worship him too.

James tells us to draw near to God and he will draw near to us. He tells us sinners to cleanse our hands. He tells us double-minded people to make our hearts pure (James 4:8). God hates all sin, but he particularly detests corrupted worship.

LORD, we come to you confessing that we have failed to worship you exclusively. Forgive us, LORD, and show us how to clean our hands of this sin-stain. Show us how to make our hearts pure, and our minds singular. We want to worship you the right way.