Worthy

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Revelation 4:9-11; John 4:19-24

February 8, 2015 • Portage First UMC

It is a strange feeling to have so many people saying goodbye when I’ve still got five months to serve this congregation. There are a lot of emotions running through our family right now, but the bottom line is this: we are here until the end of June and will continue to serve to the best of our ability and to do what we can to set your new pastoral family up for success. We’re thankful for your love, support and encouragement after the news was shared last week, and we look forward to finishing strong through the next five months.

One of the many things I hope to and plan to convey to your new senior pastor is this church’s commitment to passionate worship. No matter what the style, passionate worship is a hallmark of Portage First. And that’s as it should be. Worship, after all, is the most central Christian activity; you could even make an argument that it’s the most central human activity, because we all worship something or someone. As Bob Dylan poetically put it, you gotta serve somebody. Worship is what we were made for (Wright, Revelation for Everyone, pg. 48). But sometimes we get in a habit of worship, where worship becomes something we do without thinking about it much. That’s why we’re taking a few weeks before we head into Lent to talk and think about worship matters. Because worship does matter. It is, as one author has said, the only thing we know for certain that we do on earth that we will also do in heaven. So worship matters. In a sense, what we do here prepares our hearts and lives for life there. Last week, Pastor Deb reminded us that worship is not just for Sunday morning, that worship is a lifestyle. But worship also needs an object. What or who is it we worship? Who is worthy of our worship? That’s the question we intend to tackle this morning. But first, let’s consider what worship might look like in a fast-paced word.

VIDEO: “An Act of Worship”

So…what is worship? Who is it we worship? Two thousand years ago, Jesus sat by a well in Samaria as a woman tried to ask him similar questions. We looked at this story a few weeks ago as we considered the idea of brokenness in relationships, but this morning I want to just briefly revisit this woman’s story, just a small part of it, because she tries to get Jesus into a religious argument about worship. We don’t have time to go into her full story this morning; you can go online and find the sermon from a few weeks ago if you want to hear more about her. But suffice it to say, Jesus is asking her questions that are getting too personal, too close, so she tries to change the subject and talk about religious matters. Worship, in particular. To be even more specific, she’s concerned about worship space. She’s a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews, and her people worshipped on Mount Gerazim. Gerazim is still considered sacred by the Samaritans, and is, in fact, still their primary place of worship today. It’s the highest peak in the West Bank, and is considered by the Samaritans to be the place God chose for the building of the Temple. In other words, they believe the Jews got it wrong when they built the Temple on Mount Moriah, in Jerusalem. So she asks Jesus, “Which mountain? Which is the right and proper place of worship? If you’re a religious, holy man, you ought to at least be able to answer that question.”

Jesus turns her question on its ear. He’s not so much interested in the place of worship as he is in the heart of worship. It’s not about the place. It’s not about the building, the mountain or the decorations. It’s all about the heart. We’re the ones who get so wrapped up in the tangibles, but Jesus wants this woman, and us, to focus more on who and what we are worshipping than on where. When we do that, the place isn’t as important. When I first was a pastor in the Annual Conference, we spent a lot of time at the Conference meetings arguing about a particular piece of property that was owned by the Conference but wasn’t being used anymore. People would come every year and give impassioned speeches about how much that piece of property meant to them, how they had experienced God there, and every year (for many years) we would vote to “table” the discussion. It wasn’t until that had happened year after year, and we got a new Bishop, that the decision was finally made to sell the property to a group who could continue to use it for ministry. All those years the property languished because we, as an Annual Conference, were more tied to the place than we were to the God whom many had met there.

Contrast that with a story that comes out of Rwanda, where one pastor was visiting several years ago, meeting with a group when he heard lots of commotion coming from a next door warehouse-type building. Then the music started. When his meeting was over, he said he couldn’t resist going to see what it was all about. Entering the building, he found people packed into this large room, singing and dancing and praising God as if this were the last worship service on earth. And it wasn’t Sunday. It was just another ordinary day. When he asked his guide what was going on, the guide simply said, “Oh, they do this every day at lunch” (Bell, Drops Like Stars, pg. 99). These were people who had been through such tremendous suffering as a nation, who had very little, and who didn’t even, it seemed, have what we would consider a “decent place to worship,” and yet it didn’t matter. Jesus says what matters is the heart and the focus of our worship, not the place.

So, with that in mind, I want us to turn our attention for the remainder of our time this morning to the last book of the Bible, that book that causes controversy and consternation, a book also, by the way, written by the John who just told us the story of the woman at the well. And I can’t help but wonder if that story, and Jesus’ instruction about worship, might have been in his mind as he has the great privilege of witnessing worship in heaven. In Revelation 4 and 5, which we read just a small part of this morning, John gets a chance to see the smallest sliver of what happens all the time in front of the throne of God. This is worship as it’s meant to be, but we have to remember that much of the book of Revelation is written in imagery and metaphor. John’s not trying to hide its meaning from us so much as he’s trying to describe what is indescribable. He’s trying to use words to tell us about something that defies description. That’s important to remember as we stand with John before the throne of God, that this book was meant to be taken seriously but not always literally.

So John has found himself “in the Spirit” and standing before a throne that is surrounded by all sorts of bizarre creatures. These creatures, John says, have a purpose, only one purpose: they declare God’s holiness. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,” they sing—and those are words that probably ought to sound at least a little familiar, though you may not realize that beloved hymn came from Revelation. And then, John says, as those creatures sing, there are these twenty-four beings, called “elders,” who “bow down” before the throne and “lay their crowns before the throne” (4:10). They sing, too: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (4:11). That’s a whole lot going on in just a few short verses, and the way John tells it, this is happening all the time, over and over and over again. So the question here is this: what really is happening here? And what does it mean?

Falling down before someone is an act of submission, of recognizing that the one you bow before is in authority over you. These elders throwing down their crowns in front of the throne is an image from ancient times. When kings would conquer another land, part of the ritual of surrender was for the one-time king or leader of the conquered land to bow down before the conquering king and lay down their crown or symbol of authority. Sometimes the Romans had a “portable” emperor they carried with them—an image of the current emperor which monarchs could bow before immediately and be spared the long, difficult journey back to Rome (Barclay, The Revelation of John, Volume 1, pgs. 163-164). Either way, it was an act of submission, and the same imagery is evident here. Those who come before the throne do so in submission, recognizing that God is the king and they—or we—are not. But who are these elders? Later on in the book (21:9-14), we are told of two twelves: one group of twelve representing the tribes of Israel and the other group of twelve representing the twelve apostles. In other words, twenty-four is a number that represents the complete people of God: Israel and the Church. This image here is of all those who have chosen to worship God obediently and who are willingly bowing down before him daily, submitting to his authority in their lives. So the question becomes: are we part of that number? Are we represented in the twenty-four? Hold onto that question; we’ll come back to that in a few moments.

But first I want us to look at the song they sing: “You are worthy!” Sometimes I try to imagine the music that goes along with the songs in Revelation, and at this point I hear a triumphant song, a melody that somehow indicates all that God means to them. As Pastor Deb shared last week, worship means “to give worth to,” which is literally what they are singing here. “Worthy.” The original word refers to giving weight to something, or ascribing value to something. We hear that when we go shopping for things. “The price says one thing, but it’s really only worth…” To call something “worthy” means it carries weight in our life, it is valuable to us, it has a claim on our hearts. To these singing elders, the one seated on the throne has worth. He is worthy.

“You are worthy,” they sing, “to receive glory and honor and power” (4:11). Again, those are words we use a lot, or we sing a lot, but what do they really mean? What are we saying and what are these elders saying when they “give” these things to the one on the throne? “Glory” is the word “doxa,” which we might recognize as forming our word “doxology.” It’s a word of praise, a word of recognition for something you have done. It’s when someone tells you that you did a good job, or that what you have done means something to them. They are, in essence, giving you “glory.” But, ultimately, all glory only belongs to God. Whatever we have done we are only able to do because God has given us life and health and breath. Isaiah, centuries before Jesus, put it this way: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (64:6). That’s not to say that what we do is unimportant; the focus, though, should be on who deserves the credit, the glory. As Pastor Scotty Smith once put it, “We will not preen around heaven like proud Boy Scouts with sashes full of merit badges. God will get full glory for everything that He was pleased to accomplish through His people” (Smith & Card, Unveiled Hope, pg. 70). The elders give God credit, glory.

And they give him honor. This word also has roots in economics, but also has the sense of something “respected.” The elders not only credit God with what he has done, but they also show respect. They announce what God’s value is to them, what God means to them. It’s an interesting image, because still today, the primary way we show what we value or what we “honor” is through our economics. They say that if you want to know what is valuable to someone, look at their checkbook—or, today, we might say to look at their Visa or Mastercard statement. Is there any honor for God in the way we allocate our resources? Or would it become obvious that, despite coming here on Sunday morning and saying we are a part of this church and that Jesus is our savior—would it become obvious that something else or maybe several something elses have more honor in our lives? And it’s not just about economics. It’s also about time. How do we spend our time? Is there room for Jesus on our calendar? Several years ago, I had gone with a youth group on a whitewater rafting trip to West Virginia, and after our adventure on the river, we gathered in one of the cabins to have our evening devotions. As we started, I noticed that one of the adult youth leaders wasn’t present, so I went looking for him. Now, I don’t really recall saying this, but he swears I did, and honestly, it sounds like something I would say! According to him, he says he told me he was tired and didn’t want to do devotions that evening, to which I (allegedly) responded, “Well, I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t say that he was too tired to go to the cross.” And then I left. Pretty soon, he showed up at devotions. What is the most important thing in your life? And how do you show honor? The elders give God glory and honor.

And then, finally, they give him power. The word there is “dunamis,” which, as I’ve shared before, is the root of our word “dynamite.” It’s explosive power, and so this phrase has always confused me. How can we give God power, since he is the all-powerful God? What little power do we have to offer to this one who created the world? But I don’t think the elders are saying that here. As I studied it more, I realized that the way it’s worded, they are actually giving God power in their lives. When we “give” God power, we’re recognizing that he has a claim on our lives, and that we are his servants who have, ultimately, no power. God is sovereign over all. God is the king in my life. That’s what these elders are singing, and they are celebrating now something that will be fully true at the end of time, that Christ will be sovereign over all, and that, whether we recognize it or not, he already is. As Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine'!” The elders, therefore, give God glory, honor and power.

And that brings us back to the question I asked you to hold onto a few moments ago. Are we among the twenty-four who cast our crowns in front of the throne? Or, put it in a more up-to-date way: what matters the most to you? If I said you would have to give up everything but one thing, what would that “one thing” be that you would hold onto? A lot of us right then probably thought of material things or perhaps people. But I didn’t limit it to any certain category. If you had to give up everything except for one thing, what would that one thing be? That is your god. That is what is most important to you, and if it’s anything other than the one who is on the throne, then it’s not a god worthy of worship.

In the Bible, we often hear preachers and prophets talking about idolatry, and when we hear that word, we think of the little statues, the idols, that people sometimes bowed down before, worshipped, treasured. And while most of us, probably, don’t bow down before little statues, that doesn’t mean idolatry is dead. We’ve just found other things, even things somewhat more intangible, to worship. We still have lots and lots of gods in our culture. There are the “big three,” or what author Richard Foster calls the challenges to living a disciplined life: money, sex and power. Those are gods today and have been gods to many, many people throughout history (cf. Wright 50). Money almost always tops the list because it’s a great source of anxiety and stress. We never to seem to have enough, and today we can’t seem to hold on to what we have. I know a man who flat out told me money was the most important thing in his life. He wanted more and more so that, he said, he could provide for his family, all the while his family was begging for him to be home more, be around more. He was missing important things while he worshipped his god. When we become so focused on getting and spending and keeping and saving and hoarding, money has become a god. It becomes the focus of why we do what we do. For this man, it wasn’t about providing. It was about getting. We may not bow down before those little green bills, but we do allow them to have greater importance in our lives than they are worth.

The second of the “top three” gods is sex. It sells, we’re told, and so it’s a major factor in advertising today. There was a lot of discussion last Sunday over the superbowl ads and which ones were more popular: the family-friendly ones or the ones that exploited women and used sex to sell? But even more than that, when sex becomes a way of defining ourselves and who we are, as it seems to be increasingly in our culture and in our entertainment, then this gift God gave to husbands and wives becomes the purpose of life, the thing worthy of worship. We begin to worship the creature rather than the creator. And power—don’t we idolize powerful people? Every morning, when I turn on the so-called “news,” I hear about who is dating who and what has happened in the life of this singer or that actor, and I want to shout at the television, “I don’t care.” But, as a culture, we obviously do care, because those with power, those with fame, those with prestige are worthy, we think. Celebrity power is the new god.

And then there are other things we worship today. A couple of weeks ago I talked about addictions, and the ways alcohol, drugs and so on can take over our lives. There are other addictions that call for our attention as well, that can become gods. Food, for one—and not just over-eating, but even dieting can become a god as we pursue that perfect body image. Neither eating nor dieting is bad in itself, but when either consumes our lives, we are dangerously close to worshipping those things. And even religion can become a god. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day weren’t wrong in their theology. Jesus doesn’t argue with them when it comes to their doctrine or their beliefs. But he had a huge problem with them in the way they carried those beliefs out. He even says, at one point, “You must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Matthew 23:3). For the Pharisees in Jesus’ time, holiness and obeying all the rules had become their god. They were more concerned that people follow their rules than they were that people come to know the heavenly Father. Righteousness—or their definition of it—was their god. And there are Pharisees still around today, who want everyone to obey their rules whether those rules and understandings are rooted in Scripture or not. Some of the Pharisees stand in pulpits, and some do not. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to point people to the true God, not to their human-made rulebook.

The question is this: what is your god? Or, more to the point, what will you allow to be god in your life? You see, the scene with the elders before the throne is a scene of submission. It’s about them allowing God to be God in their lives. According to most polls, the majority of people in America believe in God, but far fewer actually allow that belief to make a difference in their lives. Far fewer actually cast their crowns down on the ground in front of the throne. Far fewer know God to be worthy. It’s not enough to say we believe; the Bible says even the demons believe, but they don’t give up their crowns (James 2:19). Instead, they shudder. The elders, however, are those who yield control of their lives to God. They allow God to be God on his terms, not theirs (cf. Mulholland, “Revelation,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 18, pg. 462). So let me ask again: are we among the twenty-four? Who (or what) is your God?

I came across an article last weekend about British actor and comedian Stephen Fry. Fry has been an outspoken atheist and critic of the church in general, having said he would rather believe in the ancient Greek gods than in the God of the Bible. He’s also said he does see some positive aspect to faith and at times wishes he could believe as deeply as he knows others do. With that in mind, he appeared last week on a British television program called The Meaning of Life. As the title suggests, it’s a talk show that is dedicated to questions around life, religion and what happens after death. Fry was asked what he would say to God if it turns out that it’s all true. How would he respond? And Fry said he would tell God, in part, this: “How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/stephen-fry-explains-what-he-would-say-if-he-was-confronted-by-god-10015360.html). Now, I’ll put the whole clip on our Facebook page so you can hear it if you want, but Stephen Fry has decided one thing, primarily. His intellectual understandings are higher than God’s. He is his own god, much more important than the God who created the universe. We’ve dealt with some of the issues Fry raises just recently in our “Broken” sermon series, but the question that comes down to us, from Fry and many others today, is this: in the face of a world that is broken and doesn’t work like it, who caused that? Is that God’s fault or ours? God loves us enough to give us freedom to choose, and yes, God could stop all the evil in the world, but that wouldn’t be freedom. So the question we each have to decide is this: is God worthy of our worship? Stephen Fry says no. What do you say?

There’s one more piece to this vision in Revelation 4-5 that I want us to see, one that Stephen Fry and those like him seem to miss or choose to ignore. In chapter five, John sees beyond the initial worship to something that is happening near the throne. The one seated there has a scroll, and it’s sealed up with seven seals. This scroll represents God’s purpose throughout all time, all history, but it seems as if there is no one who can open it, no one who can reveal what God has planned. An angel cries out, “Who is worthy [there’s that word again] to break the seals and open the scroll?” (5:2). And John begins to weep because it seems like there is no one on earth or in heaven who can do it. God’s purposes will remain unknown! And then one of the twenty-four elders turns to John and says, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah…has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals” (5:5). And John turns to see this great Lion and but he sees a Lamb that has been slain. The Lamb, we are told, is worthy to open the scroll. The Lamb can reveal God’s plan to humanity because he has been slain and by his death purchased humanity for God (5:9-10). The Lamb is Jesus. He is the Lamb slain for our salvation. He is the one who loved us so much that he gave his life so that we could live. And, more than that, he is God incarnate, God in the flesh, God become human. God gave himself over to death so that we could have life. That’s why he is worthy, because he has already shown us the definition of the deepest love: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). And that, Revelation says, is why he is worthy.

And so, in baptism we cast our crowns before him and promise to follow him. In communion, we remember his love for us as demonstrated on the cross. And in life every day, we live in such a way that he is in control and not us. We cast our crowns before him. We live a life of God-centered worship because he is worthy. Let’s pray.