Worship – Dull or Dynamic?

     What comes to mind when I say the word "worship?" In Playing Marbles With Diamonds (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1985; p 49), Vance Havner commented on the low quality of much "worship" in modem America: "God forgive us for gathering in His name, not expecting much to happen, praying for rain but not carrying our umbrellas. We pay church staffs to do church work and then gather on Sunday to watch them do it! It is a performance, not an experience. When the preacher stands up to preach, the attitude is, 'All right, preacher, let's see what you've got.' When he finishes we say in effect, 'I move we accept this as information and be dismissed.' No wonder we meet at eleven o' clock sharp and end at twelve o' clock dull." A lot has changed since Havner wrote those words. Many worship services are now anything but "dull." Churches have left no stone unturned in trying to fill the pews and keep people coming. Many church services are built around high-production music performances, drama and so-called "sacred dancing," give-aways, and preaching that seeks to be upbeat and assure you God wants you to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and to always feel good about yourself. But The New Testament hasn’t changed. It still directs every worshiper to worship God "in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). Jesus warned, "These people draw near Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:8-9)." A careful study of these passages on worship reveal that we ought to be concerned to do what God wants in worship, but also with the way we go about doing it. We who worship are, in the final analysis, in charge of the quality of our worship. If we are dull, worship will be dull. If we as worshipers are dynamic, worship will be dynamic too.

Revelation 4:8-11 describes a worship scene in heaven – "Four living creatures ... do not rest day or night, saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!' Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: 'You are worthy, O’ Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.' " Worship in Heaven is not dull. And it is not about me and it is not about you. No one there is saying they don't get anything out of the worship. No one is bored or calling for "worship renewal." No one is asleep, texting, wandering the halls, talking in the foyer, or in a hurry to get out and leaving during the closing song. No one is engaged in any of the many distracting things some people do during worship here on earth. In Heaven the congregation is not worshiping praise or praising worship. They are worshiping and praising and thanking and adoring God for who He is! The worship there is dynamic – not dull. Not empty ritual, mindless habit or grudging obligation. Not about being entertained. The focus is on the Almighty, eternal, creator God. If everyone worshiped the way you do, would worship be dull or dynamic? Let us worship according to God’s word, and do it in spirit and truth.

  Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN

2Sa 10:3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to overthrow it?

The king of the children of Ammon died and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. David remembered the kindness that the king of Ammon had before shown to him and hence, he sent comforters to his son, Hanun. It was a good gesture on David’s part and a show of his gratitude to the deceased family. Hanun was a young and inexperienced king. He listened to the ill-advised of his princes. Evil men think evil of others. These wicked princes persuaded their king that David was hypocritical and that his real motive was but to spy out the city and the country with a view to conquer and bring them under his dominion. Hanun believed their evil report and humiliated the comforters sent by David. Obviously, his action offended David. David sent his army and defeated the Ammonites. Have you ever had your good intention misjudged by others? You did a good deed but someone commented it was hypocritical and said you had other motive? David’s action was pure but based persons thought otherwise. The men who persuaded Hanun to scorn David’s friendliness did not know David but yet they judged him to be a man like unto themselves - hypocrites and incapable of doing good. Wicked people are themselves incapable of doing good and think the same of others. They look with suspicion those who do good. They trust no one but themselves. Have you ever attended a meeting with your boss and when the meeting was over and as the two of you walked out of the meeting, he said: “Don’t trust that guy. I don’t believe a single word he said in the meeting”? One reason why a person cannot trust another person is because he is not trustworthy himself. As Christians, God wants us to see the best in others. I know it is not always easy to do so; but try we must. One way is to find the positive intention behind every action. Think positive and not negative. Paul wrote that true love believe all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). He means love is ever ready to believe the best of every person. That in regard to the conduct of others, we will put the best construction on it, believing that they are actuated by good motives and they intend no evil malice. Love produces this because it rejoices in the happiness and virtue of others. This does not mean we should be overly trusting in others to our perils. Christ says: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). The serpent is cunning but wise. The dove represents simple mindedness. Christ wants us to take the good from the serpent, which is wise, and throw away the cunning portion, and take on the innocence of a dove. Should we then be suspicious or be trusting of people? If you are overly suspicious of others, the consequences can be severe; the Ammonites overly suspicious character was self-hurting. Overly suspicious people bring problems to themselves. First it robs them of happiness. If you spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about what others are thinking or doing, it will affect your happiness. Your mind will be filled with so much negative thoughts that you cannot enjoy life. Paul says: “Love thinketh no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:5). That is, love puts the best possible construction on the motives and the conduct of others. Our Lord Jesus always sees the good in others; never mind what others say about them. When Jesus saw Matthew, the tax collector, He saw potential for good (Matthew 9:9). He was right: Matthew was a faithful apostle and the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Jesus saw in Simon the potential for good (John 1:42). He knew Simon was impulsive and would one day deny Him, yet He also saw the potential for this man's ability to stand like the Rock of Gibraltar on the day of Pentecost and proclaim the first gospel message. Most of us see the potential for bad in others; we focus at their flaws and are blind to their good. Let us pray and ask God to give us the eyes of Jesus so that we too can see the potential for good in the people around us.

2Sa 11:3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

2 Samuel records the worst of David’s life. With Saul out of the picture, David is now rich and powerful. And with prosperity and success, comes complacency. In his troubles, David prayed to God. Now that everything is smooth sailing, he drifts away from God. It is as Agur warned: “Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD?” (Proverbs 30:9). Wealth tempts to pride, unbelief, and a scorn like that of Pharaoh (Exodus 5:2). When men reach this stage in their lives, they say: “Who is God? I do not need Him: I can live without Him.” The devil moves into David’s life when God is forgotten. David is enjoying life at this moment; he stays at home while his generals are fighting wars for him. With nothing to do, he is at his roof top enjoying an evening breeze. He sees a woman bathing. Godly men will quickly move away their gaze. But David stays on. The woman is beautiful in his eyes. Which man does not like beautiful women? David loves women for he has more than one wife (1Samuel 25:42-43, 2Samuel 3:2-5). David’s practice of adding wives shows a lack of restraint of his passions. Today, he shows the same lack of restraint when he looks on the woman and lusts after her. It is no sin when your eyes suddenly caught sight of a beautiful girl; it is a sin when you begin to lust after her. It becomes worse when you stalk after her. Well, it’s what David did: he made inquiry concerning the woman. Then he knew she was married and her name was Bathsheba. And her husband was his loyal soldier and his name, Uriah. But it did not stop David from leaving her alone – he brought her to his house and lay with her. She became pregnant. To conceal his crime, he called her husband back from the front line. Pretending to be a good boss, he told Uriah he could take time off and be with his wife. He even had dinner sent to Uriah’s house. What a great hypocrite! But Uriah chose to stay in the barracks with the soldiers. Frustrated, David decided to get rid of Uriah. He wrote to his commander in chief, Joab, to have Uriah killed in the battlefield. And worst of all, he had Uriah delivering his own death sentence to Joab. Indeed, it always gets worse each time – sin starts small and it gets bigger. David’s sin was not in seeing Bathsheba; it was accidental. David’s sin was in choosing to keep his eyes on an alluring image which let the lust fester with serious outcome. James warns: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14, 15). The way to overcome temptation is to “nib it in the bud.” The idiom means to stop something before it gets worse, like nipping a flower when it's still a bud so it can't grow. If David had just walked away the moment his eyes caught sight of the woman bathing, nothing would have happened. Solomon says the way to flee from temptation is to flee from temptation: “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away” (Proverbs 4:15). Isn’t it obvious – the way to stop smoking is to stop smoking?                                                                   Joseph was more severely tempted to commit sexual immorality than David was here, but he fled that temptation (Genesis 39:7-13). Instead, David pursued the temptation. He inquired about the woman. He brought her to his house. He committed fornication with her. Then, he killed her husband so he could have her permanently. In it all, David embraced the temptation. One reason you are stuck into a certain sin is because you embrace it; you love what you are doing and you cannot live without it. Ask the adulterer and he will tell you he loves the woman. Ask the person who is in an unscriptural marriage and he/she will reply he/she cannot help it. Brethren, there is no repentance until there is a giving up of sin. May the experience of David be a warning to us to flee temptation.

2Sa 12:4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

David’s sin displeased the LORD. The LORD sent Nathan to David. Nathan told David a story of a wicked rich man who had many lambs and a poor man who had only one ewe lamb which was dear to him as a daughter. One day, the rich man had a guest in his house. Instead of taking one of his many lambs to entertain his guest, he stole from the poor man and took his one and only lamb to entertain his guest. David was exceeding angry when he heard the story and immediately pronounced a judgment of death on the rich man. Nathan thereupon revealed the parabolic character of his narrative by saying unto David: "Thou art the man!" (v.7). David’s self-righteous attitude reminds us of the words of our Lord Jesus: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). A mote is a splinter from a piece of wood; a beam is a huge log. David’s was the rich man in the story. David had many wives. Uriah had only one. Yet, David stole the wife of Uriah and made her his own. And David did far worse than the rich man in the parable – David murdered Uriah while the rich man in the parable did not kill the poor man. Yet, David pronounced death on the rich man. David saw the “small” sin of another but did not see the “big” sin in himself. But today, I’m not focusing on self-righteous judgment. What caught my attention is verse 4: “And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.” Will we do what the rich man did? Of course we say we will never do such a thing. What the rich man did was stealing. What he did was also SELFISHNESS. You ask: What is selfishness? "Selfishness" means to act by the principle by which your actions are directed to benefit you, to make you happy. In a nutshell, “selfishness” is all about pleasing self. Human beings are very selfish by nature. The difference is in the degree of selfishness; some are more selfish than others. Reserving four seats in an eating outlet for friends who are queuing for half an hour for their food is selfishness. Piling your plate with food in a buffet while there are so many others who have not eaten is selfishness. But we don’t have to remain that way! The Christian way is: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4, ESV). It means: Be considerate! The Scripture instructs us that whenever we come together we are to “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24). We provoke one another unto love when we do things that promote love. Conversely, we show inconsiderate behaviour for our brethren when we do things that stumble them. For example, selfishness is when you see a brother overburden with the work of the Lord while you are not doing anything to help. Selfishness is when you are glued to your favourite seat when you see a visitor looking for one. Selfishness is when it is in your power to help ferry an aged brother/sister to church but choose not to do it. Considerate actions promote love and good works. A new convert who sees you doing good works is encouraged to do too. Selfish persons do not walk in love. The rich man in the parable was not walking in love towards his poor neighbour. Let us consider one another and walk in love.

2Sa 13:30 And it came to pass, while they were in the way, that tidings came to David, saying, Absalom hath slain all the king's sons, and there is not one of them left.

David did not raise a godly family. It is his fault; he has lost the right to teach morality to his children after his own adultery and murder. As a result, sin begins to reign in his house. And, it begins with his first-born son, Amnon. Amnon was sexually obsessed with his half-sister, Tamar. He listened to the evil devise of his cousin, Jonadab, and lured Tamar into his chamber where he raped her. After committing this heinous crime, he kicked her out of his room. Tamar had a brother called Absalom. Absalom comforted his sister and told her not to speak of what happened for the present. But Absalom had set his mind to kill Amnon at the first opportunity. Two years later, Absalom decided that it's time to take revenge. He invited all his brothers, Amnon included, to a feasting with the sheepshearers. When he saw Amnon was drunk from the wine, Absalom ordered his servants to kill him. Amnon died. News reached David: “Absalom hath slain all the king's sons, and there is not one of them left” (v.30). It was fake news. Not all the king’s sons were dead; only Amnon. But, David and his servants believed it anyway; they believed without verifying whether it’s true (v.31). Fake news equals falsehood. Fake news is in abundance these days. Like David, many are deceived into believing a lie because they do not bother to verify if the information they receive is correct and true. It’s called laziness. The devil plays on this weakness of man and spread lies in the name of God. Everyone agrees fake news is a problem. Fake news isn’t new; it’s been around since Biblical times. The devil was the first to spread fake news. He told Eve that she shall not surely die if she partook of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:4). Eve believed in it in spite that God had told her she would die. I believed when Noah was building the ark and warning the people that a great flood would come to destroy the earth, many were telling the people otherwise: “Don’t believe this crazy old man. How is it possible to flood the entire earth? There will be none of those things.” Many believed! When the apostle were preaching that Christ will come again and judge the whole earth, some were spreading falsehood that Christ is not coming again (2 Peter 3:4; 2 Timothy 2:17, 18). Still up to this day, they are some who believe that the second coming of Christ had already happened. Fake news originates from the devil whom Jesus called the "Father of lies" (John 8:44). How can we recognize fake gospel? 1. By knowing the truth ourselves. We cannot know what fake gospel is until we know the truth. Paul says we can only rightly divide the word of truth by a diligent study (2 Timothy 2:15). The Christians in Berea would not take in wholesale everything they heard until they conduct a diligent search (Acts 17:11). Never mind that the preacher was the great apostle Paul, they compared it with the scriptures. We need to be like the Bereans and verify what we hear with the scriptures. 2. By stopping its influence. An experiment conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reveals that falsehoods were 70 percent more likely to get retweeted than truth. And, “political” fake news spread three times faster than other kinds, reaching as many as 100,000. True news, on the other hand, hardly ever reached more than 1,000 people. As Christians, with so many false doctrines propagating in the social media, we need to flood the NET with truth. We need to “retweet” and “share” whenever we come across a piece of truth. The first century Christians turned the world upside down with the truth (Acts 17:6). They flooded the world with the gospel message. David believed in a piece of fake news; Jonadab came and corrected it. Likewise, we need to correct whenever an error is propagated in our midst. Let us contend earnestly for the faith and stamp out false doctrines (Jude 1:3).

2Sa 14:24 And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king's face.

Absalom killed his eldest brother, Amnon, and ran away. David misses Absalom very much (v.1). But he can’t just bring back his son and treat it like nothing has happened. The Law says blood for blood and so the murderer must die (Leviticus 24:17). Through the intervention of Joab and an old woman, David is “coerced” to bring home Absalom from exile. Absalom returns to Jerusalem but the king’s command is: “Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face” (v.24). Why did David forbid Absalom from coming to his presence? There are many opinions to it and your opinion is as good as mine. Still, let me tell you what I think. 1. Return But Not Forgiven. David wanted his subjects to know that what Absalom did was sinful and he did not approve of his action. It is an honour to be in the attendance of the king, so by forbidding Absalom from seeing him, he is showing his displeasure. Likewise, in the New Testament, we are to show our displeasure to a member who continues in his sin by putting him away: “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Corinthians 5:13). 2. Hoping Absalom Would Reflect On His Deeds And Repent. By this humiliation, David was hoping that Absalom might reflect on his action and make a change. Probably, he saw that Absalom was unremorseful and evil still reigned in his heart. If that’s so, David was right. We see later that Absalom was unrepentant. His behaviour was based in the extreme – he revolted against his father and committed fornication in the open with his father’s concubines (2 Samuel 16:15-22). There are two reasons for church discipline: 1. To keep the church pure. 1 Corinthians 5:5, 6 2. To let the sinner see the error of his way and repent. James 5:19-20 David hoped that by this means Absalom might be brought to a more thorough consideration of the heinousness of his crime, and to repentance for it. Unfortunately, Absalom was evil to the core that instead of repenting, he committed more evil. 3. Appreciating Grace. David hoped his son could see how much he loved him. But Absalom abused the love his father had for him. He did not treasure the second chance his father had given him. It was by his father’s grace that he was able to return but he rejected that grace and committed more wickedness. Like Absalom, we are returned to the Father’s house. Our heavenly Father is a God of grace and His grace is abundant. But some Christians abuse the Father’s grace and continue to live in sin. Paul has to write to them and ask them this: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). Paul introduced the idea that where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20). He now wonders if some might take this truth to imply that it doesn’t matter if a Christian lives a life of sin, because God will always overcome greater sin with greater grace. Paul answers the question himself: “God forbid” (Romans 6:2). It means, No, we should not! If we are dead to sin, how can we go on sinning? The gospel of grace calls us to come out from sin and live holy life (1 Peter 1:15, 16). Let us not be like Absalom and grieved his father. Let us be transformed and live a new life for God.