The Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of November 10, 2019
Sermon:
“Worshipping Faithfully”
Text:
Exodus
3:1-15
Last week we talked about the
“we” in worship.
- Worship is a “we” event as we are all gathered together in His name both with the saints on earth and those above.
- Worship is a “wee” moment, a small slice of your daily lives, and
- Worship is a “weeeee” experience, that thrilling rush when we realize that God himself and His gifts come to us here.
Today we will see that worship is
a “to be” reality. We are all called to be living sacrifices
and live a life of worship with our whole being and that is what worshiping
faithfully is all about.
To begin I want to start by
looking at our Old Testament lesson from Sunday. From Exodus chapter 3, “Moses
was taking care of the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of
Midian.” (Exodus 3:1a)
Let’s stop right there.
I’m guessing that many of you
know the story of Moses, but let me sum it up for you. Since the time of Joseph, Jacob’s family had
lived in Egypt. They grew in numbers and
the promise given to Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation was
coming to pass. The new Pharaoh soon became leery of the Israelites and ordered
all the male children born to God’s people to be killed in hopes of destroying
them. But when Moses was born his mother hid him in a basket, set him in the
Nile and was spared; the Pharaoh’s daughter eventually discovered him and Moses
grew up in the court of the king and became a powerful person in Egypt. One day Moses sees an Egyptian mistreating
an Israelite so he intervenes. In doing so he commits murder and runs away to
the land of Midian. Back to the text…
“As [Moses] led
the sheep to the far side of the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of
God. The Messenger of the LORD appeared
to him there as flames of fire coming out of a bush. Moses looked, and although the bush was on
fire, it was not burning up. So he
thought, ‘Why isn’t this bush burning up?
I must go over there and see this strange sight. When the LORD saw that Moses had come over to
see it, God called him form the bush Moses, Moses! Moses answered, ‘Here I am!’” (Exodus 3:1b-4)
You heard the rest of the text;
Moses encounters God visibly and tangibly.
Moses takes off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. In
this text we see that God calls, God redeems, God loves and God sends his
people to be.
The great “I AM” calls Moses “to be” with the people, to stop
running away, and go with confidence to be a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God.
Moses was a runaway.
- He ran from his trouble thinking they would disappear.
- He fled from those who sought to bring him to justice
- He attempted to justify his behavior in order to gain his freedom and ultimately…
- He was a prisoner of his disobedience, separated from God, but God had other plans.
His story is not unlike your
story. Your inclination and mine is to
run from trouble, flee from the things that seek retribution or justice and
justify behavior in order to be free.
But it doesn't work.
What have you done or left undone
that has put you on the run? So
often our feet do not stand on holy ground and attempt to make an end
around. The calling “to be” is replaced
by the desire to just be me. What
have you put your trust in that makes the worship of the great “I Am” something
that is done only out of compulsion or habit? What is calling after you and
enticing you to follow the things of the world?
Like Moses, you have been called, you have been redeemed, you have been loved and
you have been sent to be. This
begins in this place, here in worship and with those around you as the
church. The word we translate as church
in the New Testament has the idea of both being called out and called together.
It is Christ who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, did
so through his nail scarred hands.
Without Jesus, the problem of sin
and its vile handmaiden, death would run rampant in the world. God himself had to enter the world of real
sin and unrelenting death in order to bear its responsibility and pay its price.
It’s through Christ’s body, beaten and broken and then raised to new life for
us, that the enemies of this life and the next are defeated so that we might
obtain the gifts of resurrection and everlasting life.
While our sin continues to
distract us with salvation attempts that avoid all suffering because of the
things we have done, it is the cross that counters all earthly attempts at
justification. It seeks all who have run
away and run after. It is at the cross
that Christ saves through suffering and weakness rather than victory and
strength. At the cross, Christ conquers what we cannot and redeems what we
would rather worship. The scars of his hands become the sign of his victory,
for by his wounds you have been healed. In Christ you are forgiven!! His cry of
“It is finished!” is the call to be gathered together to worship
faithfully.
The church is that community that
God has called out of the world, out of death and sin and hell, and into
Christ, his mission, his ministry, his message and is sent to the ends of the
earth. And in worship is where we are
called out, called together and called to be.
From this “we” moment we are “to be” in the world. Like Moses at the burning bush, in worship we
too come face to face with God’s mercy and grace, which fundamentally changes
who we are and what we do.
Word, Spirit and Sacrament come
to us in real, tangible, objective ways when we are gathered in this
place. Here week after week, we hear the
call again and are gathered into Christ. In worship we are most at rest and
most alive. As we worship we receive and
we offer back what we have first received.
We sing in celebration because God has given us a song. We recite and speak the Word because we have
received all the promises of the Word made flesh, in Christ. We proclaim the forgiveness of sin because we
have received forgiveness at the cross and we proclaim the passion, the death
and the resurrection of our Lord because through him we have been raised to
newness of life. As we worship Christ himself arrives and is genuinely and
truly present with us. He is not present
is some strange spiritual or metaphorical sense.
When Christ says he is present,
he doesn't mean he is symbolically present.
When we tell our kids, “Don’t worry, I’ll pick you up at five” we mean
what we say. This is not a symbolic
promise. My kids would not stand for this and in worship we shouldn’t either.
Christ really comes to you here in this place.
In word and sacrament, the Lord
who calls and gathers, arrives. Here God himself is present and beyond our
comprehension the sacraments unveil themselves, unmasking their appearance with
profound comfort, not bread and wine alone, not water alone, not just words on
a page of ancient writing. No! He is
here!!
In worship we are not alone,
Christ is here and to be with Christ means we receive the forgiveness of sins,
the Spirit of truth, the holiness of righteousness, the life that never dies,
the Father who never leaves, the Spirit who enlivens us to understanding, the
faith that rests on God’s words, and the brother and sister next to you who
need you, because you bring Christ to them.
Worshipping faithfully is much
more than just the “wee” hour you are here in this place. Scripture describes our spiritual act of
worship is “to be” living sacrifices to those next to you.
In his letter to the Romans Paul
lays out what worship looks like every day when he writes, “Therefore,
I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies
as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of
worship.” (Romans 12:1)
Worship is a “to be” reality not
just in the wee moment you are here but “to be” in every moment.
We live in a world where oh so
many are alone, running from their sin and hiding in the lifeless desert of
life.
God calls us to be with them,
partnered with one another and enjoined to an intimate fellowship of Christ’s
own making that preserves, admonishes, forgives, encourages, proclaims, and
strengthens to be Jesus to them.
Today we stand on holy ground for
here in this place we encounter the very presence of God and are given all the
gifts of Christ himself and everything we need to be living sacrifices; you for
me and me for you; us for the world; us with Christ out in the world as living
sacrifices holy and pleasing…this is our spiritual act of worship.
In Christ, the span of separation
is overcome; the chasm of sin is crossed.
As we become living sacrifices for others we bring the gifts of Christ
to the world. We are Christ’s and he is
ours and the world waits for the gifts of Christ that are given to you here
because the world longs for the news that death is no more and that evil is
condemned.
The world waits even if it is not
aware its waiting, to make the confession that is already on your lips, that in
Christ sin has been destroyed and through you he is calling the world,
redeeming the world, loving the world as you are sent to be, this is living a
life of worshiping faithfully.
-Pr. Seth Moorman
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