Isaiah 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I
saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe
filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six
wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their
feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his
glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the
doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 "Woe to me!" I cried.
"I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of
unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me
with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said,
"See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin
atoned for."
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord
saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said,
"Here am I. Send me!"
In
a television program I watch, there is an episode in which the minister stood
up before the congregation. It was a
vast sanctuary -- but it was almost empty.
The minister looked out upon all of the empty seats and surveyed the 4
lonely people in the congregation -- one young man, and three elderly women.
The
minister begins to speak.
"I
give thanks to God that there are at least a handful of us who have made the
effort to come to worship, who have come to feed on the Word of God, and who
don't believe that God is less important than the football game on
television."
Suddenly,
the young man in the back pew jumps up.
"Oh no, I forgot about the football game." And with that he runs out of the sanctuary.
I
am in a middle of a series of sermons that I am calling The Seven Marks of
Discipleship. We don’t want to bring
people to Christ and leave it at that, we want to bring people to Christ and
help them to become life long followers – disciples of our Lord.
In
thinking about discipleship, I came up with these Seven Marks.
The
seven marks are in no particular order – but they are listed on the front of
the bulletin each week. One of these marks is to worship weekly.
In
this country, 43% attend church worship at least once each week.
A
lot of people rarely go to church, including Christians. And it is not uncommon to hear people say, “I
can worship God on the beach or in my own home.”
Well
– that may be true – but only to a degree.
You can worship God at home, or on the beach. But that is not enough. You need to be with other people for a depth
of worship.
Why come to church to worship?
There
are all sorts of reasons to worship weekly.
I skimmed through some books and articles and did a bit of Googling about
this. It turns out that there are all
sorts of reasons – some of them are not straight out of the Bible or spiritual
in nature. They are just plain, old,
good reasons.
For
example. Regular church attendance is
good for your sex life. I’m not sure how
this works. After all, I don’t often
give you any advice about sex during my sermons. But, study after study indicates that there
is a strong correlation between worship attendance and sexual satisfaction.[i]
This matter of sexual
satisfaction may be related to another result in recent studies. People who attend worship tend to be happier
and more satisfied about everything. Not
just sex, but life in general.[ii]
Another reason to attend worship – stronger
marraiges. The divorce rate in this
country is 40%. Some studies say
50%. That’s for those in first
marriages. For those in second
marriages, it is 67%. For those in third
marriages it is 74%. For those who
attend worship weekly, it is 18%. [iii]
And
have more satisfying life in their old age.[vi]
With
all due respect to the singer, Billy Joel, it is NOT true that only the
good die you. Attend worship weekly and
you will live an average of 8 more years.[vii]
There
are medical studies that show that worship improves your blood pressure.[viii]
Some studies indicate
that if you and your family come to church weekly, then your teeanger will be
better behaved. Man! I read something like that and I just have to
wonder. I think back on what my Mom and
Dad went through and I can only wonder -
“how bad would it have been if we had NOT attended church?” [ix]
Worship
has all sorts of unexpected benefits. It
has a direct and very powerful benefit on our lives. As long as we do it regularly and
frequently.
Have
you ever met people who exercise regularly – every three or four months, like
clock work, they go to the gym or health club.
But what good is that? You have to
go frequently.
You
can save for retirement with every paycheck, or you can put a little away every
couple of years – who gets the best benefit?
The person who saves frequently.
Worship
should be done weekly.
One
of the marks of a true disciple is that we should worship weekly. And it is not just in those secular studies
that show the benefits to improving blood pressure, adding 8 years of life, or
giving a more satisfying sex life.
It
is in obedience to God, who said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
(Exodus 20:8).
I.
One
reason to come to worship in this Sanctuary, is so we can deal with life
outside of the Sanctuary.
Many people think that
worship is an escape from reality. But
worship is not escape. It is a strategy
to deal with the realities of life.
True worship is something
that happens in the midst of life.
In our Old Testament lesson,
Isaiah begins this passage with an interesting statement. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the
Lord.”
It’s like saying, “In the
year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I
worshipped God.
In the year that Kennedy was
assassinated, I worshipped God.
In the year of the school
shooting, I worshipped God.
In the year of 9-11, I
worshipped God.
In the year that I was
married,
in the year that my son was
born,
in the year my friend died,
in the middle of life,
in the midst of experiences
good and bad, I was worshipping the Lord.
Worship in the Sanctuary can
never be oblivious to what is happening out there.
Why do we worship God? It is not to escape life out there, it is to
deal with life out there.
If you want your worship
inside the Sanctuary to be true worship, then you bring in with you all of the
baggage of what is happening out in the world.
In the Old Testament Psalms,
one writer said (Ps 86:6-7), “Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for
mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer
me.”
It is a natural part of
worship to bring with you the concerns of your life. We gather here and we bring in the fears of
life, the worries of our family, the concerns of the world and we lift them up
in prayer, and we seek God’s comfort and guidance.
Why
do we worship God? Because our lives are
so full of concerns and issues that we have to have someplace to take
them.
II.
Another
reason we worship God is because God is worthy of worship.
In Isaiah, the prophet goes
to the Temple,
and he says “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train
of his robe filled the temple.” It is
the presence of God that fills the worship.
True
worship always focuses on God and on his holiness.
We’ve lost something of that
in our worship services. There was a
time when people were so aware of this aspect of worship that the very churches
themselves were being constructed in ways that emphasized the awesomeness of
God. It is difficult to walk into one of
the cathedrals of Europe built centuries ago
without feeling awe and wonder. The
quiet, the slight aroma of incense or candles, the artistry of stained glass
windows and classical music moves one to acknowledge awe and wonder.
In recent years, theology
and worship have emphasized the personal nature of God, the love God, and joy
of God to such a degree that for some reason we’ve forgotten that our God is
also an awesome God. We have almost
reformed God into a “little buddy” or someone to pal around with. We have forgotten that God is such an awesome
and holy God that to be in His presence is to be filled with wonder.
It is not that one concept
of God is true and the other isn’t. God
is awesome, and holy, and wonderful – and He is also love, and joy and a
personal relationship.
And since God is indeed all
of these things, we worship God because he is worthy of worship. He deserves our worship.
III
Another reason we come to worship is so that
our lives will be different. Worship makes a difference in our lives. As the studies show, it improves our blood
pressure, marriages, stress levels, and yes, apparently even improves our
sexuality.
But more than that, it makes us better people.
Worship at its best, always motivates the worshipper to roll up the
sleeves and to get to work for the good of the community and for our
neighbors.
In our Old Testament lesson,
the Prophet Isaiah is in the Temple
worshipping God. He hears the call to
worship, with angels singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
He is moved to confess his
sins, which is followed by the assurance of his pardon.
He hears the word of God
proclaimed, hearing the voice of God saying, "Whom shall I send? And who
will go for us?"
And what follows then is the
service. The work. The rolling up of sleeves and the reaching
out to others. In the Scripture lesson,
the Prophet said, "Here am I. Send me!"
True worship will always
result in service. We cannot enter the
sanctuary to worship, without departing into the world to serve.
So, why are we here? Why did we come to worship today? We
came in here, in part, to be challenged to do something out there.
Copyright
2012, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
[i] Michael, R.Y., J.H. Gagnon, E.O. Laumann, and G. Kolata.
Chapter 6 in Sex in America:
A DefinitiveSurvey. Boston:
Little Brown. 1995.Travis, C., and S. Sadd. The Redbook Report on
Female Sexuality. New York:
Delacorte Press. 1977
[ii] (Cutler, S.J., "Member in
Different Types of Voluntary Associations and Psychological
Well-Being," TheGerontologist 16 (1976): 355-339.
[iii]
Jennifer
Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri..Shrum, W., "Religion and Marital Instability: Change in the
1970's?" Review of Religious Research 21(1980): 135-147.
[iv] Williams, R.W., D.B. Larson, R.E. Bucker, R.C. Hackman, and C.M.
Pale, "Religion and Psychological Distress in a Community Sample," Social
Science Medicine 32 (1991): 1257-1262.
[v] Seeman, T.E., and B.S. McEwen,
"Impact of Social Environment Characteristics on NeuroendocrineRegulation,"
Psychosomatic Medicine 58 (1996): 459-471.
[vi] Steinitz, L.Y., "Religiosity, Well-Being, and
Weltanschauung Among the Elderly," Journal for the ScientificStudy of Religion 19
(1980): 60-67.
[vii] Seeman, T.E.,G.A. Kaplan, L. Knudsen,
R. Cohen, and J. Guralnik, "Social Network Ties and MortalityAmong the Elderly in the
Alameda County Study," American Journal of Epidemiology 126 (1987):
714-723.Schoenbach, V.J., B.H. Kaplan, L. Fredman, and D.G.
Kleinbaum, "Social Ties and Mortality in EvansCounty, Georgia," American
Journal of Epidemiology 123 (1986): 577-591.
[viii] Larson D.W., H.G. Koenig, B.H.
Kaplan, R.S. Greenberg, E. Loge, and H.A. Tyroler, "The Impact of
Religionon Men's Blood Pressure," Journal of Religion and
Health 28 (4), (1989): 265-278.) Others
that indicate worship improves your chances of surviving cardiac surgery. T.E., D.H. Freeman, and E.D. Manheimer, "Lack of Social
Participation or Religious Strength andComfort as Risk Factors for Death After
Cardiac Surgery in the Elderly," Psychosomatic Medicine 57(1995):
5-15.
[ix] Wallace, J.M., and T.A. Forman,
"Religion's Role in Promoting Health and Reducing the Risk AmongAmerican Youth,"
Health Education and Behavior 25 (1998): 721-741.
