Introduction:
In a scene out of the book Tom Sawyer, Tom had gone to Sunday school and church at the demand of Aunt Polly. After Sunday school, Tom and his brother Sid went to the auditorium to sit under the watchful eye of Aunt Polly. Next we read Tom’s description of public worship. He says that announcements are made from a "list that would stretch to the crack of doom". The prayer is, to use his words, "generous in its details". Furthermore, Tom is so familiar with the prayer that he knows it by heart, and so he recognizes and resents any new additions to it. The preacher’s sermon "drones on monotonously through an argument that is so prosy that many a head begin to nod". Basically, the worship service bores Tom.
It may be that Tom’s descriptions remind us of similar experiences in our own lives, especially during childhood. We have all experienced public worship when it was less than invigorating. Unfortunately, there are many people who have come to expect worship to be dull, trivial, and boring. The time in worship is used to think about what’s for lunch or an upcoming ball game. People joke about the mental gymnastics they have to go through to survive a Sunday morning service. Some count bricks on a wall; others time how long they can hold their breath, or find the longest song in the songbook. Rather than a positive experience, the worship service becomes a ritual to endure.
And it’s true that, as a performance, worship hardly ranks up there with what we watch on television or at the movies. I mean, how can I begin to compete with Tom Cruise or Sean Connery? For excitement, our worship service doesn’t even begin to come close to a good football game.
So why go to church? And I mean by that phrase, Why go to worship services? It’s a question that probably wasn’t asked in many communities 30 years ago because it was commonly assumed that church attendance was important. But, in our day and time, a lot of people ask that question: Why go to church?
Some people go because they’ve always attended church out of habit. Others attend because it’s expected within their community or social circle. Some people have never been a part of church life and so they question the value of church attendance. Sunday morning is simply a time to recuperate from Saturday night or a time to get some work done around the house. I think it’s safe to say that for most people, attendance at worship has very little relationship to God’s demands for the Christian life. You hear a lot of people say, "I have a strong faith in God, but I just don’t think it’s all that important to go to church." So, "going to church" seems to be a custom of people who insist on maintaining an old tradition.
But I would suggest to you this morning that we need our times of worship together. I understand that worship can take place away from our regular meeting place. But we need special times for worship.
If we don’t have those special times for worship, we tend to lose our perspective on life and our sense of values. We begin to think that the only things that are real in life are the things that we can see and touch. It’s hard to live as a Christian in a society which doesn’t think much about God or know anything beyond this material existence.
Tagore, a great Indian mystic, once wrote a poem comparing our lives to a narrow lane which is lined with high buildings and there is only a single strip of blue sky above. The lane, which sees the blue sky for only a few minutes a day, asks herself -- is it real? The noise of traffic, the carts, the garbage, the smoke -- these things the lane accepts as the real and actual things of life. And before long it ceases to wonder about the strip of blue above.
I think that describes what our own lives are like. We are all surrounded by the things of this world all week long. And after a while we begin to accept them as what is real and we forget the streak of blue above. But worship is our time to be reminded of what is real to us. In our worship -- in the singing of spiritual songs and in the preaching of God’s word -- we come to the heavenly Jerusalem.
I. The Importance of Worship
I find it interesting that only Hebrews, among all the books of the New Testament, provides us with an answer to the question, "Why go to church?" The other books of the New Testament probably don’t deal with this problem because the importance of church attendance was never questioned. Early Christians knew they needed to be present in the frequent -- even daily -- gatherings of the disciples.
In Acts 2:46-47, we read, "So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people."
But by the time the book of Hebrews was written, some of the Christians had developed a disturbing habit of neglecting the assembly. The Hebrew writer admonished them by saying, "And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25).
We don’t know all of the reasons why they weren’t attending worship. But Hebrews does tell us that a big part of their problem was a deep spiritual weariness. The Christian life was sometimes a difficult one and they were tired. They had "drooping hands and weak knees" (Heb. 12:12). They were in danger of drifting away. They looked back to Judaism with its pomp and pageantry, and there were aspects of it that they missed. I think it’s safe to say that, to some extent, they were bored in the worship service of the church. So they just quit. They no longer attended worship.
I suppose their reasons for neglecting the assembly may have been very much like those of some Christians today. Maybe they found the worship too simple and plain -- hardly a match for the elaborate pagan rituals down the street, or even with Judaism which they had come out of! The worship must have appeared terribly unspectacular. To them, worship service consisted merely of singing hymns and preaching the word, prayer. And so they may have complained that "nothing was happening" there. There was no pageantry, no excitement, so they dropped out of church. They were tired of the routine.
It’s a tragedy when our brothers and sisters drop out, because dropping out of church is not like quitting a club. It is more like throwing away a precious treasure. It’s like choosing a worthless trinket you can have now in place of something of far greater value. We’re told to "look diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God" (Hebrews 12:15). The reason is that we are our brother’s keeper.
In verses 16 and 17, the Hebrew writer reminds us about Esau who threw away his precious inheritance for a bowl of stew. We read about that terrible mistake he made in Genesis 25. Because he was the firstborn, Esau had the birthright. It gave him a double portion of his father’s inheritance. It gave him all the privileges that went with being a patriarch. But, as important as that birthright was, Esau gave it up in exchange for a bowl of stew. It was a foolish thing to do. And the point the Hebrew writer is trying to make is that we need to see to it that nobody makes the same mistake by leaving the church for the insignificant things that this world has to offer.
You might expect the Hebrew writer to encourage his readers to return to church by suggesting that worship be made more exciting. Or you might expect him to encourage the church to match the worship to the tastes of the audience. Find out what they want and give it to them. After all, that’s the approach taken by many today.
Several years, there was Primetime Live show on TV with Peter Jennings. This particular evening, the program was entitled "In the Name of God" and it explored what several different religious groups in this country are doing to make worship exciting and to attract the baby boomer generation. The charismatic element, the use of jokes to produce holy laughter, everything I saw was designed to make the worship experience as exciting as possible for the people who come, and they do come to those churches by the thousands. There’s only one problem. What I saw on television was anything but worship. There was nothing done that glorified God; rather, it was designed with the apparent purpose of making people feel good, so that they can truly say that they enjoyed themselves.
I am reminded of what Jesus said to the woman at the well about the Samaritans in general, "You worship what you do not know." (John 4:22). I think there are a lot of people who don’t know quite what they’re worshipping. They may think they’re worshipping God, at least that’s what they claim, but they have replaced God with themselves.
So we come back to the question, why go to church? In chapter 12, the Hebrew writer gives us a simple, but powerful reason why we should attend worship services. In this passage, the Hebrew writer describes what happens every time we come to worship -- even when we are not moved emotionally. These beautiful words might have been read to a small congregation meeting in someone’s home. Nothing about that assembly would look very impressive. Yet the Hebrew writer wanted that congregation to know that something very important was going on every time they met.
II. Through Worship We Meet With God
"For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: ’And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with an arrow.’ And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ’I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.’)" (Hebrews 12:18-21).
Imagine for just a moment that you are an Israelite living in the fifteenth century B.C. You have spent your entire life in the land of Egypt as a slave. You have existed to do the bidding of your Egyptian taskmaster, and there is a pyramid outside of Rhamses that is a testimony to your labor. But now a man named Moses has appeared on the scene who is a spokesman for the God of your ancestors. The power of this God named Jehovah has humbled the mighty Egyptian empire, and now for the first time in your life you are free.
You have just made a very treacherous journey through the desert of Sinai, and it is obvious that you are being led there by God himself. A pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night is leading you onward. You life has been spared from the Egyptians at the Red Sea and from hunger and thirst in the desert by the direct intervention of God Himself. And now you finally stand before the foot of the mountain upon which Moses had first met God some forty years before.
Your joy at completing your long journey through the wilderness is short lived, though, because it is replaced by absolute terror. You have witnessed the plagues that brought a proud Pharaoh to his knees; you have seen an entire army drowned in the sea. But you have never seen anything as terrible and frightening and awesome as this. The mountain that rises up before you is covered by a thick cloud, but the darkness is repeatedly pierced by the flashing of lightning. The silence is shattered by the rumbling of thunder. The blasting of a trumpet announces what you already know – that God is on this mountain. You have to struggle to keep your balance because a great earthquake is rumbling, and your knees are just a bit shaky anyway. Moses disappears into the cloud and then he returns to warn you not to approach the mountain or else you will die. He doesn’t really need to tell you that, because you’re not about to take a chance and go near that terrible and holy place.
And then the most terrible and awesome thing yet takes place. Through the cracking of the thunder and the rumbling of the earthquake, a voice is heard by all the people, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me..." God Himself speaks from the mountain giving you the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. The experience is so terrifying that you plead with Moses to go and speak to God for you, before you’re convinced that if you hear God speak again that you will die.
Let me raise a question to you this morning: Do you think that if you really witnessed the scene I’ve just described to you that you might have a different view of worship than you have right now? If you had been there at the foot of Mt. Sinai, would you have wondered why it was important to worship God? The greatness and the glory and the grandeur of God would naturally drive you to worship. It was only natural that the Israelites went to their knees before God.
That’s what the Hebrew writer is describing here in chapter 12. Just think, if we were in a situation like that, we could appreciate worship so much more. If every time we prayed, the lights flickered and the floor trembled, we could know that our worship is meaningful.
But the Hebrew writer says that’s not at all what our worship is like. He says, “you have not come to the mountain that may be touched.” And compared to what those Israelites experienced, our worship is quite boring. But the Hebrew writer wants us to know that there is tremendous significance to what we do. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." (Hebrews 12:22a). Christians, even those who meet in small congregations that may seem plain and unimpressive, have come to Mount Zion. And it is one of the great blessings of the Christian faith that we have been invited to "draw near" to God in worship.
Christians are on "holy ground" in the weekly worship assembly. The bricks and mortar, pulpit and pews are not sacred. But wherever God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are present, we need to respond to that presence by figuratively taking off our shoes in reverent, worshipful praise.
Have you ever thought about what happens in worship, even when you’re not in the mood and when the singing and preaching aren’t as enjoyable as you might like? It may not look like much, but when we worship, we come before God. The Hebrew author may well have asked them, "Do you realize with whom you are meeting?"
I remember hearing about a congregation who had invited Henry Ward Beecher, a famous preacher, to preach for them one Sunday. As it turned out, however, he couldn’t go and he sent his brother to speak in his place. As word got around the congregation, several people started to leave. The fill-in preacher then stood up and made this announcement: "Those of you who came to hear my brother speak may leave at this time; those of you who came to worship God may stay on."
There is another story that is told of a tourist in Washington, D.C., who telephoned the minister of a church where President Franklin Roosevelt often worshipped. The tourist wanted to know if the president was expected to worship there that Sunday. The minister said, "That I don’t know for certain, but I can tell you that we are expecting God to be here, and we hope his presence will attract a sizable crowd."
Can you deny that you too would be impressed, even a bit awed, by the presence of the president of the United States here in this congregation, or Reba McEntire or Michael Jordan? Suppose Michael decided to worship this morning here with us. Don’t you suppose many of us would be just a little bit excited about that? We’d be telling our friends, “Guess who was at church yesterday!” Brethren, sometimes I think we forget that as we gather, we are in the presence of Almighty God. We are privileged to have an audience with the King of all creation. We can enter his palace, kneel at his throne, speak our humble praise and receive his divine blessing.
You see, it’s always tempting for us to judge the quality of worship by the beauty of the setting or the impressiveness of what we see and hear. The Israelites approached God in a scene that was tangible and terrifying to the senses. They could see the glory of God. They could hear the power of God.
But our worship is different. As the Hebrew writer here says, "You have not come to the mountain that may be touched." Our worship may not look impressive, but we need to be careful that we never forget that we are still in presence of God. And that’s what happens every time we meet for worship.
III. Through Worship We Meet With Others
But worship is more than just a time to meet with God. And the Hebrew writer wants his readers to understand the full significance of their worship together. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:22-24).
We think of worship as a time of fellowship with our brothers and sisters in this area, but it’s much more than just that. The Hebrew writer says, "You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly." Have you ever stopped to realize that thousands of angels are present in our worship right here?
We come to "the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven." Our worship is a world-wide fellowship. Communities just like ours meet around the world to sing, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today". In Brazil, in Russia, in Scotland, in South Africa, in New Zealand, in countless languages, Christians are meeting to remember the death of Jesus Christ by sharing in the Lord’s Supper. It helps to remember that in worship we share a bond with Christians around the world.
We come to "God, the judge of all men." Even when worship is routine, he is present. In ancient Israel he was present in the fire, darkness and gloom. But for us he is present in the reading of his word and the offering of our praise. Our God is a "consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29) and we come before him in awe.
We come to "the spirits of righteous men made perfect." We are united in a heritage and sharing in a fellowship with those who have lived before us. The great heroes of faith, such as those who are listed in Hebrews 11 are the spectators who sit in the stadium and cheer us on as we finish the race, as well as early Christians such as Peter, Paul, Timothy, and Barnabas. We are in danger of living for the moment and losing our contact with the past. But in worship we share with those who have preceded us.
But, above all else, we come to "Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." In our worship, the blood of Jesus Christ "speaks" to us. We come as sinners, having failed to live up to God’s standard. We come having failed as parents, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. We come with spiritual pride which makes us feel secure and separates us from others. In worship we come to the one who speaks to us words of consolation and forgiveness.
Realizing that worship is an assembly with God and the angels, it seems incredible that anybody would be careless or flippant about going to church. To neglect worship so as to enjoy the things we can see and touch is absurd. But, like Esau, we are all tempted to throw away the lasting gift for the one we can have now. Or, like the children of Israel, we give up on God’s promise for the future for the sake of ease and comfort now. But when we neglect worship, we throw away the lasting possession.
Conclusion:
There was a radio personality (Ted Malone) in the western part of this country who once got a letter from a shepherd in Idaho with an unusual request. He wrote, "Will you, on your broadcast, strike the note ’A’? I’m a sheepherder way out here on a ranch, far away from a piano. The only comfort I have is my old violin. It’s all out of tune. Would you strike ’A’ so that I might get in tune?" This radio personality honored his request. Later he received a thank you note from the shepherd who said, "Now I’m in tune."
One of the purpose of our worship together is to enable us to keep tuned to the Great Shepherd. We live in a changing world. We experience rapid changes in our technology. The state of the art computer today will probably be obsolete in five years. Our society is so mobile that we can’t seem to keep our friends and acquaintances for long periods of time. Beliefs and moral standards are constantly changing. There are so many changes around us which we can’t prevent. We need one area of our life that is stable to give us a sense of security.
The author of the book of Hebrews tells his tired community that Christians have the anchor for their lives. He pictures, at the end of chapter 12, the end of everything. He talks about the world’s destruction and the end of all material things. But he also refers to the abiding of those heavenly realities which "cannot be shaken".
And then he draws this conclusion: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:28-29, NIV). In a world filled with change, we find in worship "a kingdom that cannot be shaken".
We come together every Lord’s Day to be in the presence of God. Even though it may not look like much, and even when we don’t leave with a feeling of excitement, what takes place here is of great significance because this is where we approach Mount Zion and we offer our praise to the one who is worthy of all praise. And may we never as Christians take this opportunity in a light manner.
