How to Worship According to Jesus

OT Lesson: 2 Chronicles 29:25-30 (CEB)

Hezekiah had the Levites stand in the Lord’s temple with cymbals, harps, and zithers, just as the Lord had ordered through David, the king’s seer Gad, and the prophet Nathan. While the Levites took their places holding David’s instruments, and the priests their trumpets, Hezekiah ordered the entirely burned offering to be offered up on the altar. As they began to offer the entirely burned offering, the Lord’s song also began, accompanied by the trumpets and the other instruments of Israel’s King David. The whole congregation worshipped with singing choirs and blaring trumpets until the end of the entirely burned offering. After the entirely burned offering was complete, the king and all who were with him bowed down in worship. Then King Hezekiah and the leaders ordered the Levites to praise the Lord by using the words of David and the seer Asaph. They did so joyously; then they bowed down in worship too.

NT Lesson: Matthew 5:1-2 (NRSV)

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to speak, and taught them, saying:

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning and Happy Father’s Day! We have the Titus Bakery Gift cards for fathers. If you have not picked one up yet, please do not forget to get one after the worship service at the back of the sanctuary. It is not much, but I am told it should cover a small coffee and a doughnut.

Fathers in today’s America have a very interesting status. Traditionally, fathers used to hold a great deal of power in the household and over their children but I guess not any more. When I was in Canada, I heard that the traditional hierarchy in the home was Father → Mother → Children → Pets. Now, it seems to have shifted to Mother → Children → Pets → Father.

A few years ago, around this time of year, I was listening to a Christian radio station, either Moody Radio or K-love. They were discussing an incident that happened at a prison in California. Before Mother’s Day, the prison prepared some postcards for the prisoners to send to their mothers, postage included. They quickly ran out as the prisoners eagerly sent them to their mothers. With this experience, the prison prepared even more postcards for Father’s Day. However, only a few were mailed out, leaving almost all the postcards untouched. This sad story highlights the idea that respect and honour are not forced but earned. And it also highlights the importance of fathers at home because almost all of the prisoners did not have a good father figure at home.

Last Wednesday, I took two Korean War Veterans—John Quinn and Ralph Willard—to a Korean restaurant on Pendleton Pike to thank them for their service. During lunch, a gentle-man from the next table came over to honour the veterans and to show his respect. He even paid for our lunch. Korean War Veterans and all other veterans have earned their respect and they deserve honour. I also want to thank and honour all the fathers in this congregation for being wonderful fathers. You all deserve the love and respect from your children. Happy Father’s Day again!

How to Worship According to Jesus

We are working through the Gospel of Matthew, and today we begin one of the most famous chapters in the Bible—Matthew 5. Today, let us talk about how to worship God properly by following the examples of Jesus, as we are all His followers and disciples.

By this point in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus had already begun His ministry, called a few of His disciples, and His fame had spread throughout many regions. According to the Gospel of Matthew, this is the first gathering of people with Jesus. People gathered, Jesus and everyone sat down, and He began preaching the famous Beatitudes. Our sermon series on the Beatitudes will begin next Sunday at the Worship in the park with the Central Christian Church. Since Rev. Kibler preached last year, I will be preaching this year.

In this gathering, we see Jesus’ preaching, which John Calvin considered the most important element of worship. But the question arises: can we call it a worship service when there is nothing but gathering and preaching? If we say yes, then worship can be extremely simple. We could gather at 10:30 AM on Sunday morning, and I could speak for about five minutes, and that could be the entirety of our weekly worship service. But if we say no, then it implies that there might be nothing we could learn because there is no examples to follow.

Worship Service in the Old Testament

Before we delve further into Jesus’ example of worship service, let us take a moment to reflect on worship services in the Old Testament. The very first recorded worship service in the Bible is by the brothers of Cain and Abel. However, the Bible does not provide details about the order of service or any other specifics, except that God refused Cain’s offering of vegetables but accepted Abel’s offering of meat. The only information we can get from here is that God is a meat-lover. And so am I being created in the image of God and His likeness. And our little children also being created in the image of God, they refused to eat veggie no matter how much their mothers tell them to eat veggie. If this is the case of your children, just remember that they are exactly in the image and likeness of God.

Following Cain and Abel, there were many instances of worship by figures like Noah and Abraham. The Bible records God’s responses to these acts of worship, expressing His pleasure or providing answers. However, it remains silent on the specifics of the worship practices themselves. In those times, there were no Books of Order or Book of Common Worship as we have in the PCUSA. There were no written rules, and worship services were likely freestyle. Abel, Noah, and Abraham each worshipped God in their own ways. There was no regular place of worship either; wherever they went, they built an altar and worshipped God right there. For example, in Genesis, Jacob slept in the middle of the road one night and saw God in a dream. Upon waking, he built an altar and worshipped God, naming the place Bethel.

Then came the great leader Moses, who established a specific place of worship, the Tabernacle. In Exodus chapters 25-31 and 35-40, Moses provided detailed instructions on constructing the Tabernacle, the designated place of worship for the Israelites. This included the design of the Ark of the Covenant, the altar, the lampstand, and the priestly garments. In the book of Leviticus, Moses outlined the specifications for the worship service itself. Chapters 1-7 describe various offerings, such as burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings, each with a specific purpose and ritual, illustrating the structured nature of worship practices. Other chapters provide even more details, such as the type of offerings to prepare, how to cut the meat, and how to burn them. The book of Leviticus is filled with these minute details about ancient worship, and it can be quite tedious to read, often likened to a natural remedy for insomnia. Whenever you cannot get asleep, take the Bible out and read the Book of Leviticus. I guarantee that it will work better than a sleeping pill.

However, there are challenges in adapting these Old Testament worship styles and instructions to our current worship practices. For instance, we no longer use animal sacrifices and their blood in our worship services because Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, became the eternal sacrifice for all worship services by shedding His blood once and for all. And there is no mention of pipe organs or pianos in the Old Testament worship services; the music was played with harps, zithers, lyres, cymbals, tambourines, trumpets, and horns, as mentioned in today’s Old Testament lesson. Additionally, women and children were not allowed to attend the worship services at all. If we were to follow all the Old Testament worship rules, we would have to kick out all women from the sanctuary. They could worship in the fellowship hall but not in the sanctuary. However, we no longer hold these beliefs. We believe that women and men alike are all precious children of God and thus can worship together in one place. Moreover, we do not wish to get rid of our pianos or pipe organs, though we are not opposed to harps and trumpets. So, there are many challenges in worshipping God exactly as they did in the Old Testament.

Another example is found in Nehemiah 8 when all the people of Israel gathered together at the Water Gate for a worship service. The priest Ezra brought out the Scriptures and began to read in front of the people. Let me read a portion of the chapter: “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” If we were to follow this example, we would all have to stand up from the Scripture readings until the end of the preaching. Additionally, we would have to put our faces to the ground in worship. Are you willing to do this, standing through the sermon? By the way, this worship service in Nehemiah 8 lasted from early morning until midday, possibly five hours. Do you want the worship service to last five hours? I guess not.

However, not all the worship elements and instructions in the Old Testament are obsolete. We can learn from their solemnity, sincerity, reverence, and honour. There are many valuable lessons from the Old Testament examples. One example can be found in Nehemiah 9:1-5, which emphasises the importance of confession of our sins in the worship service, which we already do weekly.

Learning from Jesus

Let us now return to Jesus. What can we learn from His example? The challenge is that Jesus is never depicted in the Bible as leading a formal worship service. Wherever Jesus went, people followed, and crowds gathered. Jesus spontaneously preached whenever He had the opportunity. So, is the conclusion of today’s sermon that there is nothing we can learn from Jesus about worship? Not quite.

In John 4, Jesus and His disciples travelled through Samaria, which was not Jewish territory. Jesus sat by Jacob’s well, a place I had the privilege of drawing water from during a visit. The well is usually locked, but the priest at the Greek Orthodox church overseeing it surprisingly singled me out and allowed me to draw some water with the bucket there. I have no idea why he chose me out of so many others, but I was thrilled and grateful. In such cases, I will never complain about being singled out. All I remember is that the well is much smaller than I expected but very deep. The water itself was quite good tasting and refreshing.

While Jesus was sitting by the well, waiting for His disciples to bring food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water. At that time, Jews were not supposed to converse with Gentiles, but Jesus did not adhere to this restriction. He freely began a conversation with her. You might remember the famous part of their dialogue: “You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” But their conversation included much more, especially about worship.

The woman asked, “We Samaritans worship on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Which is the right place of worship?” Jesus responded that the location of worship does not matter. He then continued and said, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus taught us that the physical location of worship does not matter. The specific order of service does not matter. The content of the worship service, in terms of rituals and formalities, does not matter. I recall a church where I volunteered as a seminarian. People involved in planning the worship service had fierce arguments, pointing fingers and yelling at each other over differing opinions about the order of service. If we brought this issue to Jesus, His answer would likely be, “It doesn’t matter. Your theology and reasoning don’t matter. What matters is that you worship God in spirit and truth.”

Who Can Come in Worship

You may remember that during Lent, we had community Wednesday worship services followed by communal soup and supper. When we had worship at the Episcopal church, I sat at the back of the sanctuary with my family. Soon enough, Samuel got bored and began to make some noise. Hannah took him out of the sanctuary to the narthex, not to bother other people. Rev. Kibler’s wife and his children were out in the narthex as well. They did not even come in. I think it was a very thoughtful behaviour.

But in the sanctuary, there was another family with two little children on the other side of the aisle from me, and because they were just little kids, they also made noises and talked to each other. It was not too loud, but as you know, noise is noise. Then, there was a man, whom I would not call a gentleman, who began to give the family dirty looks and sigh loudly. His sighing got louder and his breathing got rougher. That man’s noise bothered me much more than the children’s noise.

Honestly, I understand how that man felt. He must have wanted to worship God solemnly without any distractions, especially during the season of Lent. The Jewish people at the time of Jesus likely felt the same way. One day, there were little children making noise, and people could not hear Jesus clearly. The disciples and others wanted to kick them out. But Jesus stopped them and said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto Me. (KJV)” We may sometimes want to remove the little children to worship God in solemnity, but Jesus tells us to let them stay in the sanctuary. He said to “suffer the little children,” and yes, we might feel we are suffering because of them. Even so, we need to help them worship God together with us. No little child will sit still like an adult, but we need to worship together. Jesus said in Matthew 21 that “From the lips of children and infants, You, Lord, have called forth Your praise.” So the children and infants are supposed to worship and praise God together. And these children will gradually learn how to worship God in the sanctuary. If they are removed all the time, how can they learn? And the guy, who had loud sighs and rough breathing, should have focused on God and worship itself instead of getting angry at other people bothering his worship.

Worshipping God in spirit and truth is selfless worship. Our faith is essentially selfless. In faith, we donate various items and money to the Women’s Shelter and to the Caring centre. If we were selfish, we would never give but only take and receive. We come to worship on Sunday mornings. Frankly the hours are precious. You could sleep more. You could relax more. But because our faith is selfless, we sacrifice our sleep and our time. We spread the gospel because we are selfless. If we were selfish, we would think, “I only will believe and be saved. I will go to heaven by myself while others burn in hell.” But because we are selfless, we spread the gospel so that we all can believe together, be saved together, and go to heaven together. Likewise, in our worship services, we need to worship together—young and old, women and men, rich and poor, White, Black, and Asian, all together.

Conclusion

Friends, Jesus calls us to true worship. We are not bound by strict rules and regulations concerning our worship service. If we fail to comply with the PCUSA Book of Order 100%, that is okay. If we do not use the liturgy from the Book of Common Worship, that is alright. If we make mistakes during the worship service, God will not be angry about it. If the order of the service is not what you prefer, please be gracious. If the person next to you is smelly, please be forgiving. If there is someone you do not want to be in the worship service, please be inviting and welcoming. 

Jesus did not say, “Come to Me only those who are well behaving.” Instead, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” So, friends, let us come to Jesus together and worship our great God in spirit and truth. Because in worship, spirit and truth only matter, nothing else. Amen.