Frank DeJuana

Lightly edited sermon transcript:

I’m glad to be with you, once again, to bring the Word of God to you, and I would ask you to turn to Hebrews chapter 12. I will be preaching the Word of God from this part of the Scriptures. I’m going to start reading from verse 25, and continue through the end of the chapter. Having described for us the kind of worship that we are to bring, the spiritual realities of our worship when we draw near to God, the writer then warns us about the wrong approach to God, and the right approach to God. See how he puts it in verse 25,

“See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking,” that is, the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven, “For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. For His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.’ This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”

Please join me as we ask God for His blessing on this portion of His Word.

Our Father, as our pastor has led us and has expressed our desire that You would be with us, that You would strengthen us, and open our eyes, so send Your Holy Spirit and grant us the grace that we need. Grant Your servant grace to preach Your Word with clarity and boldness and conviction, and grant Your people to receive the Word of God. Give them help, that they may test everything by Your holy Word and receive only those things that You say, and when they receive them, our Father, grant that they may hold them fast. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

When you read the words of this text, perhaps you have thought how remarkably relevant they are for our day. This text speaks of God shaking the nations. God has shaken nations, and God has been shaking nations in our day. One day God will shake all of Heaven and earth, and then only one kingdom will remain.

In our days, God is doing something that He has been doing, as I say, for all of history: God has been shaking nations, He has raised up kingdoms, He has taken them down. Dictators, political chiefs who once held certain nations with an iron fist, have been suddenly removed. God has sent various calamities upon the earth and shown His power in shaking the earth.

There’s been unrest in nations, financial turmoil on a global scale, and most people don’t understand what it means. Most people don’t know what they should do about it, but God has told us here what it means and what we are to do as the people of God. These troubles point us forward to a day when God is going to end everything which is merely created, all merely earthly kingdoms, and in that day only the kingdom of God will remain, and if you are united to the Lord Jesus Christ, this is your kingdom!

You are part of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, which will never end, that’s how we are to understand the kinds of things that God does. This is how we are to think, and what are we supposed to do in the light of it when we see cities, nations, crumbling? Well, one of the things we ought to do is to worship God with gratitude. We are here to worship the God who sends typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes. God does this and He shows His majesty, and He calls us to reflect that whatever God may do to our nation, He will one day bring us to His eternal, everlasting kingdom.

I’m grateful, truly grateful, to be able to worship with you here from time to time and in our sister churches, because I think I know what you think about worship. I believe I understand how worship is planned and conducted. I can even recognize some of the hymns that we sing from our English hymnal, now, in your Spanish hymnals, and I rejoice in the truths that we have sung about the glory of our crowned Savior.

You probably know that there is a crisis in the worship of God among Christians. There is confusion about what worship is, and what it ought to be like. There’s even confusion among people who call themselves “Reformed Christians” about worship, and it is my purpose here not to treat you like you don’t know anything about worship, because I don’t believe that, but my purpose is to reinforce your convictions and strengthen your hand and urge you to hold on to the treasure of Biblical worship that you have, brethren. I want to strengthen you in your understanding of true worship. I want you to see what’s threatening the true worship of God. God is going to uphold His worship, brethren. God is committed to uphold His worship, we need to be committed, as well.

Generally, Christians understand that New Covenant worship, worship in the New Testament, is different from Old Covenant worship, the worship of the Jewish nation. In the Old Covenant worship, animal sacrifices were required by God for the people. In Old Covenant worship, the people were divided into two groups: a very small group, and a very large group. There were the priests, and there were the ordinary worshipers. The priests were the go-betweens for the people who worshiped with the aid of the priests, and there were some things that the priests could do that the people could not do.

These things have been changed in the New Covenant, for all the people of God are now a kingdom of priests. There are differences, vast differences, between Old Covenant and the New. Some have said that we have a different atmosphere to worship in the New Covenant, and there is an element of truth in that. Some have said that we have greater liberty in worship, and there is an element of truth in that, as well. I said there is an element of truth, because if you go back to the Psalms, and you see David with his heart, crying out to God in worship, you sometimes may say to yourself, “Oh, give me David’s experience, give me David’s heart, give me David’s worship!” It’s a good thing to see with what liberty and with what faith and zeal and love David, and many Old Testament believers, worshiped God.

So, I said there’s an element of truth in the idea that we have greater liberty, and it is sometimes said that God regulated worship more closely in the Old Testament. Now, it may be true that there were more regulations and different kinds of meetings. You look in the Old Testament: they had various feasts throughout the year and they had to do various things, and God said, “You come at this time, you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this,” very detailed instructions in the Old Testament. It may be true that the elements were engaged, as I say, in a specific order in the Old Testament, however, I want to challenge the idea that God does not regulate every essential element of actual worship under the New Testament.

I want you to see that worship in the New Testament is regulated, carefully regulated, if I may put it that way. What we will see in the Scriptures is that there are important similarities between New Covenant worship and Old Covenant worship. There are great differences, there are also vital similarities, and I hope that you will see, more clearly than ever, what New Covenant worship is supposed to be like. I would urge you, again, play careful attention to the Word of God, because it’s not what I say about New Covenant worship, or any other man says about New Covenant worship, it’s what God says in His holy Word to which we must give careful heed.

First point, after that introduction, is this: that New Covenant worship is similar to Old Covenant worship in certain ways. New Covenant worship is similar to Old Covenant worship in certain ways, and I have two things from our text.

First of all: New Covenant worship is to be thought of as service and sacrifice. New Covenant worship is described and it is to be thought of as service and sacrifice. In verse 28 the writer says, “Therefore, since we have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, whereby we may offer to God acceptable service,” that is a specific worship term. It is “service with reverence and awe,” and it is spoken of as sacrifice, as we will see in a moment. Now, this is denied in our day by certain men who write concerning the subject of worship. They say that New Testament worship is so different from Old Testament worship that it should not be thought of as service, service is a priestly term from the Old Testament, and it should not be thought of as sacrifice. They say that the Old Testament animal sacrifice has been done away, we no longer need to think of our worship as sacrifice. Old Covenant worshipers brought lambs and bulls and goats and doves in various kinds of sacrifices, and the writer to the Hebrews acknowledges that those sacrifices were fundamentally faulty.

Turn back to chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse one. The writer is very clear that the Old Testament sacrificial system did not accomplish everything that was necessary for proper worship. He says,

“For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He—that is, the Lord Jesus—comes into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for Me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the Book it is written of Me) to do Your will, O God.’’

After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first —animal sacrifices— “in order to establish the second.”

And so, the writer tells us that every believing Old Testament Jew had a problem in his worship. God commanded them to bring lambs and bulls and goats to shed their blood and to have the priest sprinkle them on the altar, and yet, they were unable, really, to deal with the problems of the heart and the conscience. They couldn’t take away sins, and, therefore, they had to be replaced with what could, actually, take away sins, that is: the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the writer is very aware of the insufficiency of Old Testament sacrifices, and yet, the inspired writer was also unafraid to describe our New Covenant worship in these very terms.

Please turn to Hebrews chapter 13. You see, what I’ve tried to do is I’ve tried to take that element that the modern writers to whom I am referring have. They’re correct, the Old Testament sacrifice were done away, they were inadequate, but notice the writer speaks still in the New Testament, understanding that. Notice verse 15 of chapter 13, “Through Him then,” through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our great High Priest and Mediator, “let us continually offer up,” what? “A sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips which give thanks to His name.”

When you came and you opened your hymnal and you sang “crown Him, crown Him,” you’re offering up a sacrifice of praise to your Savior. That’s the word that the writer uses. The writer says that you are singing praise to God, and verse 16, “Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” When you come and bring what we call “your offering,” very interesting, “your offering,” when you come and bring the fruit of your labors and put them in the plate, you are engaged in an act of worship to God, it is a sacrifice. That’s what God calls it, He calls your worship service and sacrifice.

Isn’t it interesting we don’t call our service a mass? A mass is a superstitious sacrifice, supposedly, in the eyes of Rome. We don’t call our service a mass, we call it the “morning service,” the “worship service.” It’s, as it were, a priestly act of a nation of priests, and we call, we ought to think, of the things that we bring to God a sacrifice. Now, you might say, “This is just one passage,” well, what I learned as a little boy in geometry is that two points make a straight line, and so, I don’t like to just rest the doctrine on one text.

Please turn over to 1 Peter chapter 2. Peter, here, is not like the writer to the Hebrews, speaking to Jewish Christians, he’s speaking to churches that had a much greater predominance of Gentiles, and he is urging them how they are to think of themselves as a congregation of God’s people. How are we to conceive of ourselves? What categories are we to think of ourselves as we gather together for worship? Well, the writer says that we are transformed like the Lord Jesus Christ. We come in faith to Him, we disagree with the world, we agree with God concerning Christ, as we come to believe in Him. He says, “Coming to Him,” verse 4, “as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones…” you are made like Him the Living Stone, you are made living stones, and you… “are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood.” To do what? “To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” What you are, is a priesthood, what you are is a temple dwelt by God, and when you engage in public worship, you are offering up sacrifices, not bloody, carnal sacrifices, but spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you look over in Romans chapter 12, Paul uses similar language, as well. It’s interesting that it does not appear to be a passage explicitly about worship. I doubt that when people ask you, “How do you worship?” That you would turn them to Romans chapter 12 in verse 1, but you could. Notice how Paul puts it, having set before us, spread before us the Gospel in all of its richness, he says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” There he uses the two words I’m insisting on, brethren.

What we’re doing here is service, what we are doing here is we are offering sacrifice, and we are the sacrifice! Our praises are the sacrifice, our financial gifts are the sacrifice, our hearing of God’s Word are spiritual sacrifices. We are sacrifices, we are offering ourselves! I like to think, sometimes, when the plate is being passed, “Lord, I get in, I want to get in, because I need to give You everything I am, as well as the things that I possess.” That’s spiritual worship. It is priestly service and sacrifice, that’s what we are doing when we worship God together. That’s one similarity between New Covenant and Old Covenant worship, but there is another way in which New Covenant worship is similar to Old Covenant worship, and that’s this: that both Old Covenant worship and New Covenant worship, are thoroughly regulated by God.

It is thoroughly regulated by God. What we do in New Covenant worship is not left up to us, it is determined by God Himself. Did you notice the word that occurred in the three major texts I quoted to you in Hebrews chapter 13, in 1 Peter chapter 2, in Romans chapter 12? There’s a word that occurs in all three places, it’s the word “acceptable.” That word “acceptable” tells us that God determines what is pleasing to Him when we bring Him worship. It’s a word that refers to that which meets a standard which someone sets, and this is a word which originates in the Old Testament. Old Testament worship had to be acceptable, New Testament worship had to be acceptable.

Please turn back to Leviticus chapter 19. I’m going to read you two passages in the book of Leviticus. We could read many, many more, because this comes up frequently Leviticus, but we’ll restrict ourselves for time’s sake to just two passages. In Leviticus chapter 19, verse 5, God tells these people how they are to worship and what will be acceptable and what it means. He says in Leviticus 19:5, “Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted.” He says there is a tolerance, there are certain things which need to be done. If they’re not done the way God says, they’re not acceptable. See how He puts it, “It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and the next day; but what remains until the third day shall be burned with fire. If it is eaten at all on the third day, it is an offense; it will not be accepted. Everyone who eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned the holy thing of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from his people.”

What is God saying? He’s saying, “I want My worship done in a certain way. You are supposed to bring sacrifices for your sins, and in My grace, I allow you to share a sacred meal with Me. The sacrifice is for Me, but I allow you to eat it, and I’m going to tell you how. First day you may eat, second day you may eat, third day you may not eat.” Why not? Because God says so! I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. God says so, and He says if you eat on the third day it’s not accepted! You have stepped outside of the boundaries and the regulations that God has set. If you do it the way God has said not to do it, it’s not acceptable, that’s what “acceptable” means.

Look over at Leviticus chapter 22, starting in verse 17. Just a few examples of what this word “acceptable” means. The writer says, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘Any man of the house of Israel or of the aliens in Israel who presents his offering, whether it is any of their votive or any of their freewill offerings, which they present to the Lord for a burnt offering—for you to be accepted—it must be a male without defect from the cattle, the sheep, or the goats. Whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, it will not be accepted for you. When a man offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a special vow or for a freewill offering, of the herd or of the flock, it must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it,” and you could read on and on. God regulates His worship, He says, “This is the way it has to be done.” You want acceptable worship? You have to know that this is what God wants! If it does not meet the criteria, the specifications of God, it is not acceptable.

That’s the background of His Word, and now, when it comes to New Covenant worship, in one of the most important passages about New Covenant worship, Hebrews chapter 12, this is the element that is specifically mentioned! We are to offer acceptable service! How do we know what acceptable service is? It must be that which God determines, which God regulates. If then, under the New Covenant, worship must be brought which is acceptable service, then it is worship which is specified by the Word of God.

Let me give you an illustration, I admit it’s not a very good illustration, but perhaps it will help. When my wife makes a new recipe, she likes to make soups, she makes me a special soup, she tells me, “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.” So, often she brings me a spoon from the pot, and she says, “Taste it, Frank. How’s it taste? Does it have enough salt? Is it too spicy? Do I need to add something else to it?” Well, I have to tell her. If I taste it and I don’t say anything, if I don’t let her know, she doesn’t know whether it’s acceptable! For it to be acceptable, I have to say, “It’s excellent, honey; no, it needs a little more salt.” I have to tell her, and if you are going to worship God, it’s very simple. If you are going to worship God acceptably, He has to tell you! You can’t even see His face. You can’t hope that somehow you’re going to guess what God wants, He has to tell you, “This is what I wish; it’s acceptable.” Just as my wife cannot know what is acceptable without specific guidance, so we cannot determine activities that are acceptable unless God has told us, and we know some things. We know what God wants of us in worship, He’s told us, it’s not a secret, brethren.

When we come to worship, God has told us some things that are acceptable. For example: we know both that singing is acceptable and how we are to sing. Pastor exhorted you about the kind of singing we ought to do. Look at Colossians chapter 3. This is what God says about worship, and whatever people may think, “Oh, we have this good idea, we think this would be nice. This will draw a lot of people in.” I’m much more concerned about the question, “Is God smiling in Heaven?” Is God receiving that which is pleasing to Him in Heaven? When we sing, we know, it’s not a secret, it’s not a guess. Notice Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

Our singing is to be guided by the very Word of God, it’s to be a reflection of the things God Himself says. “With all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another,” there is the doctrine aspect of our hymns, they are to be “doctrinally rich,” as one man has said. “You are to be teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” That’s what God says He wants, that’s what God says He likes. That’s what pleases Him, and when we come to worship and we open our hymnals and we sing those hymns which enrich our minds with the glory of God and our hearts respond to Him in faith and love and adoration, God is pleased! It’s acceptable. He says so, brethren!

That’s the only way we can know. We cannot assume that God desires some activity not declared in the Scriptures, particularly in the New Testament. We can’t guess! It’s ludicrous, but suppose somebody decided that juggling is a gift, and he wants to juggle in the worship service. Well, how can we know that God wants that in worship, and whether or not that will be acceptable? Well, how do you juggle so that God is pleased? He hasn’t asked for it, and He hasn’t regulated it. If we’re offering acceptable service, God has to tell us and God has to regulated it, and that’s what he does with our worship in the New Testament. Well, so far I’ve sought to set before you the ways in which the New Testament, the New Covenant worship, is similar to Old Covenant worship. First of all: it is described as service and sacrifice, and secondly, closely related, actually: it must be acceptable service. So, New Covenant worship is similar to Old Covenant worship in these ways.

The second place: there is another principle I want to set before you, and it is that the work of the Lord Jesus has greatly transformed worship and made it what it now is. I believe, brethren, if we consider this carefully, we will see some of the reasons why people are interested in unregulated worship, in innovations in worship, because they have not taken stock of this point: the work of the Lord Jesus has greatly transformed worship, and made it what it now is. I suppose that I wouldn’t really need to say an awful lot more about that, because you already know this truth, but, again, I want to strengthen your hands. I want to show you how this touches our worship.

The writer of this letter is very concerned to tell us how important the work of Jesus Christ is to our worship, and, really, he can’t wait to get started. When you open the letter he, right away, jumps at you with two important principles: God is speaking, and He is speaking through the Lord Jesus Christ, who has become our Great High Priest. Turn back to Hebrews chapter one, and I’m going to limit myself to a few texts, because this is a subject dear to my heart and it is scattered throughout the book of Hebrews, it’s amazing! I encourage you to think of Hebrews in the light of these opening verses. The writer, as I say, is urgent, he can’t wait to tell you about Jesus and His work and how it influences our worship! He says, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory, the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” There’s a majesty of the Lord Jesus in His relationship to the Father, in His relationship to the creation; and then he jumps right in, right in to how Jesus touches our worship. “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become much better than the angels.” He says this is what Jesus has done, right away. He made purification. He offered Himself a sacrifice for sins, so that our sins would be forgiven. This is what Jesus has done, and it has changed worship forever.

The writer comes to the high point of his teaching in chapters 9 and 10, and he speaks about the changes that the Lord Jesus Christ has made. Look, again, at chapter 10, verse 11. Hebrews 10:11, he has talked about the difference between those old high priests and this Great High Priest. He says the problems with these high priests is they’re always standing, they’re always standing, they’re never done. “Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

You see the difference between the Lord Jesus Christ in His work, and what the priests did? They’re always offering, always offering, why? Well, you might say that the people were sinning and sinning, but that’s not the point. The sacrifices couldn’t do it! They couldn’t take away sins, and they couldn’t affect the consciences of the worshipers! The consciences of the worshipers still had sin. In fact, the writer says in another place that there is in those sacrifices a reminder of sins. The Old Testament (indistinguishable) was being reminded that the matter wasn’t done, because the Great Sacrifice was never offered, but when He comes, when He comes He does what? He perfects worshipers! He brings them to the goal that sacrifice and worship are really intended to make: He has sanctified them. He sanctified them by one offering, and there’s a finality to it: “For all time,” the writer is saying, “He has perfected.” The Lord Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice, has done what He set out to do. It’s nonrepeatable, that’s why we don’t have a mass, that’s why we don’t need anymore sacrifices, because the Lord Jesus Christ has done what was necessary to do.

Look back at chapter 9, and see how the writer, again, emphasizes this, starting in verse 11,

“But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh…”

He says, that’s all that those Old Testament sacrifices could do. What were they there for? Well, the people were sinners, they had to draw near to God, and if they came without any sacrifice God would kill them! He would destroy them! And all the sacrifices did is that they kept them from the external judgement of God, and he says if they had some kind of effect, verse 14, “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve?” An act of worship! His sacrifice cleanses the conscience, it makes the conscience perfect, so that there is no more need for another sacrifice, not a bloody sacrifice! It cleanses your conscience to serve the Living and the True God. It has a great effect on worship. We worship, brethren, with cleansed consciences, with no need for any other sacrifice. We think back to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We often cry out to God in our singing, “Cleanse me from my sins in Your blood; Lord let the cleansing blood, blood of the Lamb of God wash ore my soul,” and this is crucial to worship.

Worship. What is worship? Worship is drawing near to God, anybody knows that; anybody who is serious at all about the Bible, who opens the Bible and says, “What are we going to do on Sunday? What are we going to do in the morning and the evening service?” We’re going to draw near to God, and what happens when sinful men and women, boys and girls, draw near to the Real God, to the Holy God? It almost sounds impossible for us, sinners, for we, sinners, to draw near to God, but that’s what worship is in its essence! How can sinful creatures draw near to God? A holy God must reject sinners and judge them for their sins! That’s one side of the problem, but the other side of the problem is that when sinners draw near to God it makes them miserable, it oppresses their soul if they have any sense of the holiness of God, it brings them a sense of their wickedness and misery and demerit, their guilt and filth and pollution.

You remember what happened to Adam after he had sinned? It’s very interesting. Adam, when he sinned, knew something that he had never known before, he knew two things that he never knew before: he knew that he was naked, he had never known that before; and he knew that he had sinned, he knew fear of God! So, God comes walking, and he has to call, “Adam, where are you?” “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I hid myself.” He was ashamed and he was guilty and he had to hide! Direct contact between him and God, undistracted contact between him and God, made him feel unclean and vile! “I can’t, I can’t bear the presence of this God.”

Even Isaiah, a good man, basically not a wicked man, he wasn’t going around robbing banks and selling drugs and committing acts of immorality, but when he sees God, when he sees the Lord Jesus Christ enthroned in the temple, he says, “Woe is me! Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” That’s what happens when people draw near to God, that’s what happens.That’s why some people don’t like worship: they can’t draw near to God. Why does it repel some people? Some of you, you’re brought by your parents, and sometimes you say to yourselves—many times, probably—“I wish I didn’t have to be there.” Why? Because God is here, God is among His people. It’s not that worship is not exciting, and that’s what people say, “We need to make worship more exciting! We need to make it more entertaining! We need to make it something that our kids will like!” Sorry, but you can’t make unconverted people like drawing near to God, that’s the problem, you see.

The problem is not that the hymns aren’t enjoyable or the seats aren’t comfortable or it’s too warm or it’s too cold, it’s God. That’s the problem! It’s God, and this is why it’s easier to do anything else than meet God! It’s tied to the preaching that we hear too. People have gotten tired of hearing about sin, and imagine this now: you’re coming to God and you’re hearing about sin!

Perhaps people say, “Well, I feel uncomfortable in church; I feel unclean in church; I go discouraged from church!” That’s what ought to happen! We should welcome preaching that searches us and brings us nearer to God, so that we feel our sins and we go to the Lord Jesus Christ and avail ourselves of His grace! That’s what ought to happen, but, you see, as long as you’re unwilling to draw near to God and to feel the sense of His presence and be impressed with the sense of His holiness, you’re going to find other things to do.

It’s easier to be friendly to the people around me, it’s easier to stop in the middle of the worship service and shake the hand of the person, hug the person behind you and say “I love you,” than it is to meet God! The horizontal is much more easy than the vertical, brethren. When you have movies and entertainment it’s a lot easier than meeting God, but that’s why Jesus transforms worship! We can face our sins, we can have the arrows of convictions coming to our hearts, we can meet God and feel the majesty of His presence, because Jesus has offered one sacrifice for sins! Church is worship, brethren, we can meet God now! We don’t need to invent other things to fill the time. We can worship freely, we can worship boldly, we can worship gratefully, and that’s exactly what we are called to do!

If you’re still in Hebrews chapter 10, look at verse 19. This is acceptable worship, brethren! This is what God says He wants, “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place,” where God is, “by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” We are warranted, we are commanded to draw near to God in this way!

Jesus’ death changes everything. We are called to worship God through Him, to bring acceptable sacrifices through our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, this has something to say to those of you who have not yet come to Christ. You have never, really, known what it is to taste the goodness and the majesty of God’s forgiving grace. If you desire—you ought to desire—you want to meet God, you need to meet Him through Jesus Christ. You need to draw near to God. I know how unpleasant it is to feel the weight of your sins. Feel them, open them up to God! Draw near to God, tell Him of all your sins, of your rebellion and uncleanness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ! Ask Him to cleanse you from your sins, and you will meet God as you have never met Him. And you will come to understand why some of us love to be in the places where God’s people are gathered singing His praises, hearing His Word, loving to hear the Word which convicts us of our sins, because it brings us back to our Savior!

Well, we have looked at the fact that New Covenant worship is similar to Old Covenant worship in some ways. We have looked at the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and how it transforms worship and made it what it is. I’ve talked a little bit about the atmosphere, what is the ambiance, what is the atmosphere of New Covenant worship? It’s freedom of access to God; it’s confidence, bold confidence to pray to God, knowing we are accepted to the Lord Jesus Christ; it is glorying in God; it is worshipping with reverence and awe. Isn’t it interesting the writer says that is the atmosphere? That’s the attitude with which we are to come: not tritely, not casually; reverently, with awe toward our God. That’s the atmosphere of New Covenant worship. I want to draw this more to a close with a couple of lines of application.

Much more could be said, but I would urge you, again, to beware of the trends in worship that push reverence for God aside, brethren! Can you see from the Scriptures that reverence needs to mark all of our worship? It’s a reverence for God that doesn’t say, “Well, I think I’ll decide; I think this would be nice; God would probably like this.” You can’t afford to have that attitude! Reverence to God demands that we make sure of our way before God by looking at His Word and seeing what He says, He wishes, and how He wishes it to be done. You know, people say today that style is negotiable, that different people have different ways, well, to some extent I believe that’s true. I sing mostly in English and you sing mostly in Spanish, so maybe that’s a difference, but style does matter, manner does matter.

You remember what Jesus said about the children in the marketplace? He said we had a style, “They said, ‘We played the flute for you, and you would not dance; we sang a dirge for you, and you would not mourn.’” There was happy singing, there was playful singing that makes one skip and dance, and then there was somber singing. He says there’s a style, and what you are trying to promote in the response of the soul does have a correspondence to the way in which you do it. There is a grateful way of singing, a grateful way of praying, there is a grateful way.

Like one man, he used this illustration: what if you went to a heart doctor and he had to tell you that you needed heart surgery, and so he decided that he was going to tell you your diagnoses by strumming on a banjo? What would you think? You’d say, “That’s awful! I have heart disease, and he’s going to play a banjo? That’s not the way you do that!” You see, brethren, we can’t just come any old way. The way that we come speaks of our reverence to God, so I urge you: beware of trends in worship that push reverence of God aside. “Hold fast what you have!” Those are the words of the Lord Jesus in Revelation, “Hold fast what you have, that no one take your crown!”

I would urge you who are Christians to deal with your sins as you come to the worship of God. Deal with your sins honestly, thoroughly, quickly. Our sins bring us shame, they ought to. We are to come to this place having confessed our sins, hoping to come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. In the preaching of the Word of God, in the hints of the Word of God sometimes, in the reading of the Scriptures, God’s going to point out more sins. We need to deal with our sins and be prepared to have God speak to us and sanctify us by pointing out our sins and drawing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t ever allow yourself to think that because you sit under a ministry that convicts you often, that something is wrong. No, brethren, something is right. We are drawing near to God. Thank God we have a Savior who has made the sacrifice for us! We can afford to be convicted of our sins and draw near to God with confidence.

Finally: never be satisfied with anything less than meeting with God! Our sense of how much of the presence of God will vary from one Lord’s Day to another, from one service to another, but we should never be satisfied, brethren, with anything else than meeting with God. May God help us! May God bless you as you worship God in this way! Let’s pray.

Our Father, how grateful we are for Your holy Word! Your Word is, indeed, a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. We thank You that You have not kept it secret from us how we may worship You, but You have made it clear to us. O God, help us to hold on tightly to what You have taught us from Your holy Word, and we pray that You would increasingly give us an appreciation, a deeper and deeper appreciation, for the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to love Him more and more! Help us to be devoted to Him, to seek His grace, and to seek to have our sins washed away by His blood. Continue to do us good in the days ahead. In Jesus own name. Amen.

This is a lightly edited transcript of a sermon. All rights reserved.