We were
looking at the subject of Worship the
other week. Worship is of course glorifying God by giving Him praise and
adoration; in modern days worship is mainly through music. In the Old Testament
era, sacrifice of praise was the main form of worship alongside instrumental
worship. Peace offerings, burn offerings were the main form of worshiping God
and through sacrifices sins are forgiven. Of course we don’t do any animal
sacrifice anymore as Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice for us once and for all[1],
we can have a gist of what it is like in 2
Chronicles 5-7 which recorded the dedication of the Temple that Solomon
built.
Here is
the account of the temple dedication:
Solomon
assembled the Levites to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from
Zion. Then Solomon and all the congregation of Israel were before the ark, sacrificing
so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered (2 Chronicles 5:6), hence worshiping God.
The priests then brought the Ark of the Covenant to the Most Holy Place,
followed by singing praises to God through songs with trumpets and cymbals and
other musical instruments. Then the house of the LORD was filled with a
cloud, so that the priests could not stand to ministry because of the cloud,
for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God (2 Chronicles 5:14).
Solomon
then blessed the LORD and people, and stood before the altar of the LORD in the
presence of all the assembly of Israel praying to God
“And now arise, O Lord God, and
go to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
Let your priests, O Lord God, be
clothed with salvation,
and let your saints rejoice in your
goodness.
O Lord God, do not turn away the
face of your anointed one!
Remember your steadfast love for David your
servant.”
2 Chronicles
6:41-42
As soon
as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the
burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
And the
priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord
filled the Lord's house. When all the people of Israel saw the fire
come down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed down with their
faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord,
saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (2 Chronicles 7:1-3)
Then the
king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. King Solomon offered as a
sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (that’s a lot of meat!). So the king and all the people dedicated the house
of God. The priests stood at their posts; the Levites also, with the
instruments for music to the Lord that King David had made for giving thanks to
the Lord—for his steadfast love endures forever—whenever David offered praises
by their ministry; opposite them the priests sounded trumpets, and all Israel
stood. (2 Chronicles 7:4-6)
Can you
imagine (apart from the amount of meat being burnt!) the whole scenery of
worship and dedication (it lasted for 7 days!)? It is glorious (and pretty glory too I can imagine)! But what strike
me the most lies in here - the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
And the
priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord
filled the Lord's house. Wow! The glory of God was so full that the
priest cannot even enter the Lord’s house! Have you seen anything like it
before? Can you imagine what it is
like to be filled with God’s glory? However the
question that I asked when I read it was: What is the glory of God? We have said it hundreds and thousands of time
about the glory of God, the glory of God; but what is it exactly? Moses asked
similar question and let us see how the Lord God answered him.
And the Lord said to Moses, “This
very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my
sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he
said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you
my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face,
for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a
place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I
will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I
have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but
my face shall not be seen.”
Exodus 33:17-23
“I
will make all my goodness pass
before you… I will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious… show mercy
to whom I will show mercy”
The
glory of God is all about God, it has
absolutely nothing to do with us! It’s not about how great the music is when we
worship God; it’s not about how good you can deliver a sermon; it’s all about Him! It reminds me of the
chorus lyrics of Heart to Worship,
and it does sum up plainly what worship is all about:
I’m coming back to the heart of
worship,
And
it’s all about you, all about you Jesus.
I’m sorry Lord for the things
I’ve made it
When
it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus
Matt Redman – Heart of Worship
I went to
Student Night one Thursday. At the end of the night we had time to wait
upon the Holy Spirit to speak to us as the talk of that night was about
desiring to seek God. I could feel the overwhelming presence of the Holy Spirit
at church; I saw people knelt down on their knees seeking God, people praying for one another,
arms in the air worship God at the top of their voices. We had people sharing
what God has spoken to them, scripture and pictures, for encouragement. The
meeting was overrun
by an hour and a half as we kept on praying and worshipping!
I was
thinking is it
something we want to say after we went to a Christian meeting, that we could
say “I could feel the presence of the Spirit”, “I know God has spoken
powerfully to me”, and most importantly, proud to say “I surely have met God in
this place!”? Sometimes I think we often are too easily pleased with our
normally ‘church activities’, but not grabbing hold on God and say, “I am not letting You go unless I have seen
Your presence and Your blessing flooded
in this place!” I believe once you have seen His glory shining through the sky,
you would hook on it and hungry for more of Him! This is what we are made to
desire for!
You may ask, “If God’s glory is all about Him, then
how is it to do with us?” I believe we can find the answer in Act 27. Paul was in Athens and he saw
the city was full of idols. The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers heard that
Paul was preaching about Christ and His resurrections, so they came to him and
ask what the new ‘strange’ thing that Paul was presenting as the Athenians who
lived there would spend their time doing nothing but telling and hearing
something new. And this is what Paul addressed to the Athenians:
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I
perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and
observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this
inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this
I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord
of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by
human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all
mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation
of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted
periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God,
and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
Acts 17:22-27
“Yet he is not far
from each one of us”. Indeed God is close to us. How close? Very close! It is written in Ephesians 1:
In him (Christ) you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we
acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:13-14
We are sealed with Holy Spirit as it is promised by
Christ, and now Holy Spirit is in us, so how close are we from God?
If you
have ever been to churches that have beautiful glass windows with paintings
painted on them, the images look so much alive and real if there is light shine
through those windows from outside. I believe this is the perfect image that describes
who we really are – glass windows with beautiful paintings. God is often
describes as light, “God is light, in Him there is no darkness” (1 John 1:5). As His light shine through
us (the glass windows), the image that are painted on us can be shown. It is
God’s glory that is shown on Earth, but through our images. God doesn’t need us in order His glory to be shown, but
beautifully He chose to! I believe
there are three reasons why God chose this way: He is not ashamed of His
created being which are made in His own image, despite our own sinfulness and
imperfectness because Christ has already dealt with it on the cross. Secondly I
believe God wants to let us know the beauty that He has stored in us, through
our images! God wants us to know that we are truly loved and treasured by Him, because
this is His nature and character.
Remember
the answer that God gave to Moses about His glory?
“Behold, there is a place by me
where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you
in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover
you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face
shall not be seen.”
Exodus 33:21-23
The
following is final reason but also the most important one:
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord
2 Corinthians 3:18
Because
of the His Spirit that God has put inside us, we are now transformed into His likeness
and hence able to shine in God’s glory. This is what God intended us to be: to transform us into Christ-like and shine
in God’s glory through worship.
I end
with the same ending and prayer that is written by A. W. Tozer in his book The
Purpose of Man:
May God grant us a desire for God that supersedes all other desires.
Dear heavenly Father, the world is very evil, times are waxing late and
we are running out of time. Oh, God, lay hold of us. We pray that we may have
eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand. We pray that we may be
saved from the routine and rut. We pray that we may have eyes inside and
outside, anointed understanding. Help us, Lord, for Christ’s sake. Amen.
A.
W. Tozer – The Purpose of Man
05.01.2013
Oxford
[1] Although
Paul talked about offer ourselves as living sacrifices in Romans 12, we won’t go into details here
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