6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 The pivots[a] on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph[b] touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 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
look around and wonder, don't we have anything better to do right now than to
come to worship service?
There are
chores to be done at home, books to read, movies to see, games to watch, and
web sites to surf. What motivates us to
abandon the television and postpone a visit to the mall in order to
worship?
I suspect
that for some, the answer is "habit."
And to tell the truth, not all habits are bad -- although we tend to
speak in terms of good habits as discipline.
Study habits, proper exercise routines, and good financial management
and budgeting are all good habits -- good self discipline. And attending worship is a good spiritual
habit. Some of us are here because it is
our habit.
But there is
something lacking in that answer, because some time earlier in our lives, we
didn't come to worship out of habit. We
had to make the decision that this was a discipline we wanted to follow. Why did we make that decision?
Others of us
may come to worship because we are struggling with God. We are grieving or we are hurting. We are lost, or we are lonely. And our attendance at worship is part of our
search for answers.
Still others
may be here against our will. You come
here because your parents make you and they are bigger than you are. Or your
wife made you come – maybe she’s bigger than you are. Or maybe your wife made you come here and if
you want your life to go smoothly over the next day or two, giving into her
about coming to worship is the thing to do.
The story is
told of a man who was enjoying a pleasant sleep in bed when his wife suddenly
yanked the covers off the bed and announced, “Time to get up and get ready to
go to church.”
Meekly, the
man told his wife, “I don’t wanna go to church today. Just let me stay here and sleep in this one
day.”
Without any
compassion, his wife looked at him and said, “Look Bozo, you have to go to
church today. You’re the pastor.”
Why come to
worship?
Our Scripture
Lesson from Isaiah is a great place to look for answers to these
questions. For the past 3 thousand
years, worship has found its basis in this chapter. The order of our worship is based in part on
this 6th chapter of Isaiah.
I.
First, true worship is not an
escape from reality. It is something
that happens in the midst of life. 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 the jets flew into the World
Trade Towers
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.
True worship also focuses on
God. This is where many of us make a
mistake. We assume that worship focuses
on us. I’ve heard many times people talk
about how they are struggling in their worship life because they aren’t being
fed. Have you ever heard anyone say
that? “I’m not being fed. I’m not getting anything out of worship. I’m not being nurtured by worship. I don’t get a blessing out of worship.”
Well, that is a legitimate
question with some people, but what concerns me is that I never, ever hear
people say anything about whether or not God is being blessed in the worship
service. I never hear anyone concerned about whether or not GOD is enjoying
worship.
Why do we worship? We worship so that WE can get something out
of the experience, but we also ought to worship PRIMARILY so that GOD can get
something out of it.
And until God gets something
out of our worship, we never will. Until
God is blessed by our worship, we won’t be blessed.
All too often, we treat worship
as something that is supposed to entertain us.
But it isn’t. What is most
important is that God enjoy the worship experience. We are here to worship HIM. We are here to bless HIM.
In Isaiah, the prophet goes to
the Temple
III.
Another reason we come to worship is for the difference it can make in
our lives. And the
difference should be in terms of service.
Worship at its best, always motivates the worshipper to roll up the
sleeves and to get to work.
“Enter to worship,
depart to serve.” That phrase is a common phrase at one time
was frequently found on bulletins and on church signs. The concept was that worship and service go
hand in hand. In the Christian life, one
cannot have worship without service to follow.
You cannot have true service, without having worship. One of the Hebrew words for worship, avodah,
is also a Hebrew word for work or service.
Service and worship, worship and service – all part of the same.
In our Old Testament lesson,
the Prophet Isaiah is in the Temple
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.
So the question for us today
not why do we worship? Or why do we come
to church today when there are other things we could be doing?
The real question is what will
we do when we leave this place of worship.
For the prophet Isaiah, he was
sent out to speak a message to the people.
But what are we sent out to do?
What is God calling you to do
this week?
Who is it in
your life that you need to love a little more?
Who is it in
your community that you need to reach out to a little harder?
We come to worship because it
makes a difference in our lives.
We leave worship and go out to
serve, so that we can make a difference in the lives of others.
Copyright 2015.
Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved
Ministers may feel free to use some or all of this sermon in
their own ministries as long as they do not publish in print or on the Internet
without ascribing credit to the author.
