EXPERIENCING BOLDNESS IN WORSHIP
Hebrews 10:19-25
INTRODUCTION
I have been in a variety of worship settings over the year – very often the leaders would tell you that is “the” way to worship. I have attended charismatic services where everyone is instructed to stand and raise their hands and speak to the Lord. There is a murmur of chanting in the room, but I had the sense it was a ritual they were going through, and that was more important t than actually coming before the Lord. I have had the same sense in very formal Catholic services as people followed the liturgy, but they seemed to be going through a form with little meaning. How do you come before the Lord when you worship?
Which of these ways of worship is proper? Is one better than the other? Or is our style of worship more proper? My answer: Both and neither.
Our text makes clear that the essence of experiencing worship is boldness. Basil King wrote a book entitled The Conquest of Fear in which he says, “Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.”
That is the Hebrew writer’s main point in our text – “Since (he assumes) we have confidence to enter the Holy Place,” that is to come into the Lord’s presence... Hebrews 4:16 says it this way: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
The word for boldness indicates a freedom to say anything, and came to refer to fearlessness or frankness. Politically it came to refer to the democratic right of a full citizen of the Greek city-state. In the N.T., especially in Acts, it refers to the bold witness of the early church. In Ephesians 6:19 – Paul asks for prayer that he will speak with boldness. We have that kind of boldness to come before God in worship.
This boldness is in contrast to the fear of the Jews in approaching the Holy of Holies, where the high priest entered the Holy of Holies only once a year to make sacrifice for the sins of the people -- Hebrews 9:7,8. The difference between the Old and New Testaments and the basis of our boldness is the blood of Jesus. Through the blood, we have received forgiveness and cleansing for our sins and thus can approach God. The whole basis for worship is the blood of Christ; it counts for everything. He has provided us a way or an entrance to the presence of God. It is a new and living way accomplished through the sacrifice of Christ in contrast to the O.T. sacrifices.
We also have this boldness to come into God’s presence in worship because we have a great priest over the house of God.
How, then, do we enter the presence of God in boldness? The Hebrew writer discusses three ways of doing so.
EXPERIENCE BOLDNESS IN WORSHIP BY...
I. ...DRAWING NEAR IN FAITH – Vs. 22.
The writer desires us to make use of the open way and to come close to the presence of God. How do you come to God? One parent describes this conversation with his/her child: My young son asked what the highest number I had ever counted to was. I didn’t know, but I asked about his highest number. It was 5,372. “Oh,” I said. “Why did you stop there?” “Church was over.” Church is not always coming into the presence of God.
One of my disappointments with the people who work with me comes when someone has a problem they do not discuss with me, and I find out about it later, after the problem has become much greater. I try to ask people to keep me informed and to discuss things with me so I can help. Sometimes someone will not.
God feels the same toward us, so he calls for us to draw near. God has worked through Christ to open the way to him. Now he says, “Use that way.” Consider these passages of Scripture: Hebrews 13:15 calls for us to continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise. 1 Peter 2:4,5 says that as we come to him we are built into a spiritual house. Ephesians 3:12 says that through Christ we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Verse 22 contains four checkpoints to how near we have drawn to God.
Sincerity – "with a sincere heart." This means genuine, without superficiality, hypocrisy, or ulterior motive.
Fidelity – "in full assurance of faith." Literally the term means "glutted with faith." We need to come to God in full assurance that our faith saves us. He describes this in chapter 11. Abraham is the greatest example of faith.
Humility – "having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience." We come to God with the knowledge that we are worthy to be in his presence except through the sprinkling of Christ’s blood.
Purity – having our bodies washed with pure water." The priests were continually washing themselves and the sacred vessels for service in the temple. Psalm 24:3-6 says, only those with clean hands and a pure heart may stand in the holy place. We need to constantly be cleansing ourselves from sin through repentance and confession, as 1 John 1:8,9 reminds us.
Whenever you come to worship, examine these four checkpoints as you prepare to draw near in faith. They reset our spiritual compass:
A friend from college tells how her sister bought a new car that was loaded with high-tech options. The first time she drove the car in the rain, she turned a knob she thought would start the windshield wipers. Instead a message flashed across the dash: “Drive car in 360 degrees.” She had no idea what that meant, and so when she got home she read the car manual.
She learned that while trying to turn on the windshield wipers she had inadvertently turned off the internal compass, and the car had lost its sense of direction. To correct the problem, the car had to be driven in a full circle, pointed north, and then the compass had to be reset.
Each time we gather to worship, we are resetting our internal compass. We establish “true north” in our soul, remembering who God is and what his truth proclaims.
II. ...HOLDING ON IN HOPE – Vs. 23.
Some who come to Christ fall away quickly. The Parable of the Sower illustrates this idea. Some of the seed lasted for only a short time in the rocky soil, while other seed was soon choked out by the thorns. In 2 Timothy 2:17 Hymeneaus and Philetus left the truth, and in 2 Timothy 4:10 Demas loved the world and deserted the faith. John MacArthur witnessed a man who came to Christ, but who soon opened a pornographic nightclub and bar. He did not hold fast to his confession.
We come boldly to God, however, by holding on to our faith in hope. “Hold unswervingly” has the idea of holding firm, securing, or tightening down our confession in Christ. We are to do this without being thrown off balance. Whatever trials, temptations, or persecution we face we are to hold on to the confession of Christ that we made. That is the theme of Revelation. Consider this story:
There was once a young boy whose dad left him on a downtown corner one morning and told him to wait there until he returned in about half an hour. But the father’s car broke down and he could not get to a phone. Five hours went by before the father managed to get back, and he was worried that his son would be in a state of panic. But when the father got there, the boy was standing in front of the dime store, looking in the window and rocking back and forth on his heels. When the father saw him, he ran up to him and threw his arms around him and hugged and kissed him. The father apologized and said, “Weren’t you worried? Did you think I was never coming back?” The boy looked up and replied, “No, Dad. I knew you were coming. You said you would.”
That is how we are to hold on in hope for Jesus, and we worship boldly by doing so.
III. ...ENCOURAGING IN LOVE – Vss. 24,25.
We are to meet together in order to encourage each other. Some of the new radiation therapies illustrate this:
Some of the radioactive elements used in therapy have a short half-life of radioactivity, so that they must be used within a few minutes of their production. This means that the cyclotron used in making them and the patient must be in close proximity to one another.
We Christians are like short-lived radioactive isotopes; we have a very short half-life. Get us away from the worship of God and others and our radioactivity dissipates quickly, and we lose our effectiveness. We should thus encourage each other, and all the more as the Day of Christ’s return draws nearer and greater obstacles to the faith are mounted.
This group does not need reminded of that fact, but we need to remember why we come together -- to spur one another on and to encourage each other. The writer says to “consider” or observe this well. That is the essence of 1 Corinthians 12-14: Love is essential to correcting the worship errors of the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 14:26 sums it up.
This point was made by a pastor who visited an unfaithful church attender: A pastor once went to visit a man who was not attending church very faithfully. It was a cold, winter day, so they sat by a fire and warmed themselves as they talked. To this irregular attender the pastor said, “My friend, I don’t see you at church on the Lord’s Day. You seem to come only when it’s convenient or only when you feel like you need to come. You miss very often--I wish you would come all the time.” The man did not seem to be getting the message, so the pastor said, “Let me show you something.” He then took the tongs from beside the fireplace, pulled open the screen, and began to separate all the coals so that none of them were touching each other. In a matter of moments, the blazing coals had all died out. “My friend,” he said, “that is what is happening in your life. As soon as you isolate yourself, the fire goes out.”
We are thus not to forsake meeting together, for these two reasons.
On the one hand, our meeting together should spur us on to ministry in our world.
Gary Gulbranson of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, tells of watching The Merv Griffin Show a few years ago when the guest was a body builder. During the interview, Merv asked, “Why do you develop those particular muscles?”
The body builder stepped forward and flexed a series of well-defined muscles from chest to calf. The audience applauded.
“What do you use all those muscles for?” Merv asked. Again, the muscular specimen flexed, and biceps and triceps sprouted to impressive proportions.
“But what do you use those muscles for?” Merv persisted. The body builder was bewildered. He didn’t have an answer other than to display his well-developed frame.
I was reminded that our spiritual exercises -- Bible study, prayer, reading Christian books, listening to Christian radio and tapes -- are also for a purpose. They’re meant to build God’s kingdom, not simply to improve our pose before an admiring audience.
At the same time, our meeting together should encourage us to faithfulness.
Fred Craddock brings this point home when he tells about leaving church one Sunday. He was worshipping with his family at a church in Oklahoma, and had to leave quickly for an afternoon speaking engagement. He said good by to his family after the benediction and in order to get to the parking lot quickly, he cut through the choir room. He said to one of the women of the choir as she was putting away her robe that he appreciated very much their number that morning. She said, "I hope so, because that’s it." He said, "What do you mean?" She said, "That’s it, I’m hanging it up." She was putting away her robe. He said, "Are you retiring?" She had been in the choir a long time, and he thought maybe she was retiring. She said, "No, I’m quitting." He said, "Oh, you’re not quitting." She said, "I’m quitting." He said, "Well, why are you quitting?" She said, "I sat up there in the choir this morning with the other choir members this morning, and I looked at the minister and at the other choir members and at the ushers and just looked out over the congregation. I said to myself something that has haunted me for years." Craddock said, "Well what is that?" She said, "Who cares?" He was in a hurry, so he just responded, "Oh, you’ll be alright after while," and he left for the parking lot.
But all the way to his speaking engagement and all the way back, he thought about that indictment. He was a member of that church at that time, and she was indicting him and all the members. What she said, if it were true, was that this is not a church, if she believed, after all her years in the church, that no one cares.
When he got home that afternoon, Craddock called that lady and said, "I want to talk to you." She said, "If you want to." He said, "I want to." He went over there and they talked. They disagreed. He asked her what they would have to do to show they cared. This was her definition: She said, "Take me seriously." Craddock said that was strange coming from her because she was a kind of comic. She was always playing practical jokes. She would pin tails of choir robes together. She would go to church early and put some big cartoon on the pulpit, so when the minister would come out, he would be blown out of the water. He said, "You can’t be serious. What do you mean take you serious? You are always joking and laughing. She said, "You bought all that? I thought it was all rather transparent myself. I like to be taken seriously." What she meant was that every person has a point about his or her life, a point of seriousness.
I am not really surprised about that criticism. I have grown up hearing it; people have always made that criticism about the church. When he left that lady’s house, he said, "You’re wrong." She said, "I am not." Craddock said, "I get to travel to churches all over the country and everywhere I go people care for each other; they take care of each other." She said, "Where?" He said, "Everywhere I go there are people who care." She said, "Really? Name some."
She wants names. Could he give her your name? Does your worship reflect that you care? Do you encourage others by your worship?
CONCLUSION
How should we come to worship? Come in boldness because we have a great high priest who has opened the way for us.
We thus need to underline two important principles about worship: (1) Worship requires balance: Worship brings us in contact with God so that there might be edification and evangelism. (2) Worship requires inclusion in worship practices, not exclusion.
James Garfield demonstrated the bold commitment to worship we should have: During the first week of Garfield’s presidency, a member of his cabinet insisted that he should attend the cabinet meeting that had been called for 10:00 a.m. on Sunday. It was a matter dealing with a national crisis, but President Garfield refused on the grounds that he had another appointment. The cabinet member insisted that he break his appointment since the meeting on Sunday was of national importance. Still, Garfield refused. Then the cabinet member remarked, "I should be interested to know with whom you could have an appointment so important that it cannot be broken?" But President Garfield replied: "I will be as frank as you are. My engagement is with the Lord, to meet him at his house, at his table, at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, and I shall be there." President Garfield met with the Lord’s people; the crisis passed and our nation survived.
