In this message, Pastor Matt reminds us that gathering at church is about worshipping God through Christ, not about pleasing ourselves or our tastes.

Why do we come here?

I think many people’s idea that what happens in this space is often mistaken and it’s not your fault, it’s mine. I think too often I’ve cared far more about what you want and not enough about what we are actually supposed to be doing here.

It’s easy to assume that this church is like everything else in life. It’s something that we do for the benefit of ourselves. After all, we go to the movies to be entertained. We go to the library to read. Maybe we go to the church to be enlightened, encouraged.

After all, we have coffee. We have comfortable chairs, soft lighting, an inviting and welcoming atmosphere. All of the soft signals that tell you that this is a place built for your comfort and enjoyment.

Now, we’re not getting rid of the chairs, at least until they’re worn out. It’s a sunk cost and I’m Dutch, but we need to take seriously what are we doing here?

We are drawing near to God Almighty in the name of Jesus Christ by his blood, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are here to meet none other than God Almighty.

There’s one big command in this text. Let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire.

The big question is what is acceptable worship? Now that implies that there is unacceptable worship. But right away in the text it gives us one important qualifier that is worship with reverence and awe.

The reason why we need reverence and awe is because our God is a consuming fire whom we are meeting with when we come to worship.

My secret title for this sermon which isn’t secret anymore is it departed with no one’s regret final words for the seeker sensitive movement because my chief goal today is to show us how worship that is tailored primarily to our tastes and wants falls far short of what God calls us to in this text and I think in my study this had real consequences for how we do things. In fact, there will be a change to our order of service starting next week.

So, what is acceptable worship? How can we as a church offer acceptable worship with reverence and awe?

So, I’ll just tell you everything I’m going to tell you up front. Acceptable worship is joyfully drawing near together in Christ to the invisible God with reverence and awe.

We’re going to see this play out in four key ways.

1. In spirit, not stuff

One, it’s about spirit and not stuff, not outer trappings.

Now one could very easily get an idea and many have that reverence is mostly how we dress, what kind of church building we have, the tone of our songs. Now none of these things are completely unimportant. But Hebrews wants us to see that our worship does not consist primarily in the kind of physical trappings but in our drawing near to the invisible God.

Now he begins with what they had in worship in the Old Testament. For you have not come and so this is going to call about what was in the old covenant under Mount Sinai. You have not come to what may be touched, that is a physical thing, a blazing fire, and darkness and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearer beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, if even a beast, that is an animal, touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”

Now, Hebrews wants us to be reverent in worship, but not like this. Not with all of the physical trappings.

Now, we worship again. This is God is a consuming fire. It’s going to end. God is a consuming fire. But the difference is in the old covenant, they were separated. And now we draw near to the very heart of the God who is a consuming fire.

We’re called to draw near to that. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews calls us to the kind of worship that is reverent, but it’s a kind that draws us in joyfully and closely. And we often have this false dichotomy that either worship is relaxed and approachable or it’s distant and reverent. But God calls us to reverent closeness. That our hearts are aflame with a joyful love of God that exists right beside a reverent fear of God together in our hearts.

In fact, I think most things misfire in the Christian life when we take one truth to the exclusion of others. Either we focus on the fear of God or we focus on the love of God. But real maturity comes when both of these things are in our hands and we go to the father.

The core of New Testament worship. It is not about a place. It is not about carpets, pews and steeples, things that we often argue about, but a joyful reverence which draws near to the invisible God.

Acceptable worship is joyfully drawing near together in Christ to the invisible God with reverence and awe.

2. Is together!

Now we see that it is in spirit and secondly it is together.

We haven’t come to a physical mountain, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

The you here is plural. Hebrews is talking to a people whom he is reminded not to neglect meeting together. And Hebrews wants to pull back the curtain to see what is actually happening here when we worship and it is awesome beyond what we could imagine.

And we come hear the kids swimming around like songs. Maybe not something I totally love. Instead, this goes on and on. The pastor prays too long.

Hebrews wants to pull back the curtain. See that when we approach the throne of grace that we are connected to the invisible realities of God and everything that goes along with those invisible realities.

It’s like innumerable angels in festal gathering. That’s a little bit of a weird word. It’s like a festival. Literally, you could say like an angel party. Like the angels who are rejoicing in heaven around the throne room when we come to worship together. We are joined with them. And if we could just peel back the veil just a little bit right now, we would see them joining with us in worship of the risen Lord. And that we are joined not only just with all of us together, but we are joined with all of the assembly of the firstborn, those called sons and daughters of the king. That as we go to God, we go together joined with all the people of Christ.

And not only that, we are also joined the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

And often we like talk about like our relatives they you know maybe looking down grandma looking down on us from above. And it’s true that we are connected with your grandma who worship Christ. But it’s not like that. It’s not them looking down at us. It’s them looking to Christ alongside of us. That’s what this says. That when we go to God in worship, if we could peel back the veil, that right along our grandfather who loved God is worshiping God right now. When we come to worship him, we are joining with that praise. We are joining with the angel’s praise. We’re joining with all of our praise across the world. That is what is happening when we go to worship. If we could just see an inch beyond the veil to the invisible realities that Hebrews is enlightening us to.

And all of that unites us as the privilege of drawing near to such a throne of grace.

But as much as being with the angels and the saints should cause us to be reverent so much more to God.

Acceptable worship is joyfully like the angels in festival gathering. Joyfully drawing near together in Christ to the invisible God.

3. Draws near to the living God

God is who we go to meet here. And we can never forget this. When we meet to worship, we do so not for our benefit but to honor God who is our creator, sustainer, redeemer and here reminds us that he is our judge.

And so when we go home from our service, we should not primarily go home and think, well, how did these songs and prayers and sermons please me? Oh, how did you like that, dear? But our concern should be, how did these songs, prayers, and sermons and especially my heart as I participated in all of this with the angels and saints above approaching the invisible throne room of God, how did all of these please God? How did we draw near to a God joyfully, but with reverence and awe? A God who is a consuming fire.

Hebrews reminds us especially here that we draw near to God, the judge of all.

And coming before a judge, you might be a little scared and there is that’s awe and reverence because he is a judge. But do you know what kind of judge you joyfully go to? You joyfully go to a judge who’s going to vindicate you, who’s going to prove your faith, right? And that’s what I said. We go before the God who is both the fearful judge and the one we go gladly because he will vindicate his saints. He will rescue his church.

This is reverence. And it’s probably far more than we’re accustomed to in our relaxed attitudes, but we don’t just go to church, we go to God. And as much so as you might have seen the Old Testament of them approaching this flaming mountain, how much more to us who draw near to God do so with awe and reverence?

Acceptable worship is joyfully drawing near together in Christ to the invisible God with reverence and awe.

4. Is through Christ

It is only in Christ that we can go past the boundary of the mountain that his blood covers our sin and go with confidence to the throne of grace.

We must in Christ, we must in worship always, always look to Jesus and remember the sweetness of our savior.

We go to God and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. Think back. That’s what he was explaining from chapters 4 to 8. New covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Call back to the faith chapter in chapter 11.

This is the core of what we need to be reminded of when we come here that we come reverently and we come near but only through the work of Jesus Christ.

So in our songs, in our prayers, in our hearts, we look and as we go beyond that curtain, we remember that the door, the curtain is Jesus Christ. And we must never forget the work of Christ. We must be radically centered around Christ in his person. He must be the one lifted up. He must be the center, not ourselves or our tastes.

Acceptable worship is joyfully drawing near together in Christ to the invisible God with reverence and awe in spirit together to the living God through Christ.

So acceptable worship that’s this is acceptable worship and reverence and the joy of the angels worshiping together as we meet with God here.

So then how can Valley Alliance Church offer acceptable worship to God with reverence and awe? Three points.

Number one, pray more. How do you talk to God? How do you make things about God? You pray. You pray. And we want to pray more. And so, specifically, like at the beginning of our service, we are going to have a prayer of confession and assurance of pardon, looking to Christ. So that as we come into worship, we are reminded specifically of the work of Christ and what he does.

This is a reminder that we do not deserve to be here except for the blood of Christ which speaks a better word than Abel’s. And as we come to worship, we need to have that driven into our hearts so that we never casually come thinking that we come here because we are better than anyone else. And for those who are far off in sin, so that they are reminded that the blood of Jesus makes even the foulest sinner clean.

Secondly, we’re going to remove distractions so that we are centered on God in worship.

Now, you might be thinking here of loud kids or adults, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” So, we want them take crying kids any day.

But I am talking about how we do announcements. And we do a lot of things around here and we wanted you guys to know what we’re doing, but we are going to put announcements. We’re still going to have announcements. I’m not killing announcements completely, but announcements are going to go before everything else. Okay? 10:27, someone is going to be up here telling us what we are going to be doing. Okay? They’re going to talk about us and then that will end. And once that’s ended, then we will not be talking about the things that we are doing. We are going to keep our eyes focused and fixed on God, reminded that we are entering the presence of the living God. And some things just aren’t appropriate in that space.

I would far rather have people, you know, moving around, getting to their seats during us talking about what we are doing as a church than when we’re supposed to be worshiping the Almighty God in song.

Finally, we want to test everything with the question, does this honor God in Christ?

Now, it can make us uncomfortable to do different things, but Hebrews does not tell us that God is a consuming fire so that we merely sink back into what we have always done. And this isn’t a call to go back to the 1950s or a certain kind of traditional church. This is a call to go back to the scriptures as we boldly go forward to where the spirit is leading us realizing that in every way and from every side, whether it be formal or whether it be casual, whether it be traditional, whether it be more charismatic, on every side we are assaulted by the danger of making it about what pleases us instead of testing everything by the question, does this please God in Jesus Christ.

And so let us Valley Alliance Church offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire that we may joyfully draw near to in Christ. Let’s pray.

Oh Lord, I repent of my own heart that so often just wants to please itself, that fears too much of man and forgets who we are meeting with today. Oh Lord our God, I pray that you would reform our church into more of a thing that pleases you daily. And may we as a people. May we as a people draw closer to you in this reverently but not far away so we can come close to your heart see and receive your grace and worship our God in the name of Jesus Christ. His name we pray. Amen.