While phase 2 has already kicked in and the restrictions have already loosened and there can be 50 people gathering for worship, we may not be going back to church anytime soon because we will not be able to sing hymns to praise God in church. While we are in the comfort of our homes, it is good to be reminded of the kind of attitude we should have now as well as the attitude for when we go back to church.

Whenever we gather together (even online), we are gathered in worship. What is worship? Is singing hymns part of worship? Is praying part of worship? Is listening to sermons part of worship?

The obvious answer is yes, because we are doing this now. However, though we do these forms of worship, we may not be worshipping God in spirit.

A man saw a vision and was led by an angel to a church building. He saw that people were streaming into the church hall and also followed them to see what was going on. He saw the pianist playing the keys but heard no notes coming from the piano. Then he turned around to look at the congregation. Their hymn books and mouths were opened but strangely no sounds came out. He saw the congregation kneeling to pray but they were muted. He decided to turn at the preacher on the pulpit moving his lips accompanied by gestures but nothing was heard.

This man was surprised and asked the angel, “Why do I hear nothing?”

“That’s the way it sounds in heaven! You hear nothing because there is nothing to hear. These people participate in various forms of; they honour God in lips but their hearts are far from Him.”

From this story, we are reminded that we should be fully immersed in worship for it to have meaning. Though we may be physically separated (or perhaps we have family members streaming together), our prayers can also be like the incense that rises up to our Lord. While we sit before our devices, our hearts can also be set ablaze when we listen and understand God’s will and words. All these boils down to our attitudes as we worship.

For today, the speaker would like to use the example of Abraham to discuss the attitudes of exemplary worship. It is interesting because the very 1st time the word ‘worship’ was found in the Bible in Genesis regarding the worship of Abraham; he was using this word to describe what he was doing. His worship was indeed the exemplary worship.

1. Humility

We read Genesis 22:1-14;

1 ‘Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” 6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together. 9 Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” 12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” 13 Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of the place, The- Lord -Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”’

This passage tells us about Abraham and his worship. The very first mention of the word ‘worship’ is in v5. Let us read v5 again;

And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”

Abraham had already journeyed for 3 days and when he saw that the place was somewhere beyond yonder, he told the young man (/his servants) to stay put while Abraham and his son went over there. He instructed the young men to stay there with the donkeys. Realise that the servants have been following him for 3 day and have been helping to carry his wood and items. The donkeys have also been following along the trip to make Abraham and his son’s journey easier.

But when Abraham saw the place for worship, he left his servants behind, why? He was rich enough to own servants, so neither he nor his son needed to carry the heavy woods up the mountains alone. Why order them to stay behind? It may be possible that he decided to do so because he didn’t want anyone else to witness the sight of him killing his own son. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to stop him from offering Isaac. But if that were the case, why did he leave the donkey behind? It would have been easier to proceed with the journey with the donkey. Also notice that in this worship, Abraham didn’t use his status as a master to order his servants to split the wood for offering. Read v3 carefully;

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

Abraham personally split the woods for the burnt offering. What is the lesson to learn here with the consideration that though Abraham was rich and powerful, he didn’t use his status as master in his worship? In his worship, he humbled himself so that he personally chopped the wood. When he and his son were to worship God, he personally carried wood for the sacrifice to be made. It is this humility in worship that we ought to learn from Abraham. Worship in the original (Hebrew here) means to pay homage to lower and prostrate oneself. Worship requires you to bring yourself down to humble yourself.

The following story will depict how to lower yourself to worship God:
There is a legend of a Danish king named Canute. He ruled Britain from 1016-1035. He was such an imposing and successful king that the people around would praise him over and over. The people in his courts didn’t dare to say anything else but to bring flattery to him. Is it possible to grow tired of this?

One day, in the year 1032, he brought the people in the courts with him to the coast of Northampton. He put his throne in the sand as the tide was coming in, turned and looked around at his advisors and said, “Do you think I’m the mightiest and the mighty?”

“Yes, your majesty,” though they were a little doubtful.

Looking at the tides coming, the king said, “Sea, stay! Come no further! I, the commander of the universe, commands you!”

We know that the tide continued coming up closer and closer to him until it started to come up to the feet of the people. Ultimately, everyone ran to safety. Now, he said to those who followed him, “You see how little I am obeyed? There is only 1 God over the heavens and earth, 1 Lord over the sea and dry land. It is Him alone and Him we should offer our praise too.”

Slowly the king and the men walked back to town. There was a cathedral where the king removed the crown and attended the church.

When we attend a service, we are coming before the throne of the true and living God. Whatever status we have, whatever position we hold in our workplaces, whatever achievements that seem to give us something to be proud about, are likened to crowns we owe. But these are to be removed from our heads when we worship our king of kings.

While most of us may think of achievements and status from an earthly sense, the speaker would also like to caution us on the following: Some of us may have many experiences in studying the Bible or listened/spoke many sermons. Hence when we read the title of the sermon, we can guess the sermon points. If at that time we start to switch off/belittle what is about to be spoken, we must be reminded that the words about to be spoken are the name of the Lord Jesus. When it is spoken in accordance to the Bible, we must bow down and humble ourselves.

Consider if there is pride in us even as we are listening to a sermon. Perhaps this is also a crown we must lay aside when we come before the true God of heaven and earth, the king of kings. Apart from having this attitude of humility, what else must we have when we worship God?

2. Faith

Turn to Genesis 22:5;

And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”

“I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” – “WE will come back to you” Was Abraham taking these words lightly? Recall that Abraham at that time was the only one who knew what he was going to do; offer his son to God. Knowing this, he said, “WE will come back to you.”

These words were either a lie, or a true declaration of his faith to God. Of course, we know that Abraham, the father of faith, and these words stemmed from faith. What we should learn from Abraham is this: when we come for worship, we must come with an attitude where we truly believe we have this faith. What sort of faith is this? Turn to Hebrews 11:17-19;

17 ‘By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.’

With his faith, Abraham knew that even if he killed Isaac, God would raise him up from the dead.

When we talk about faith, we know that we must never have blind faith. Blind faith is faith in something when there is no basis to believe in something. The author of Hebrews tells us that Abraham’s faith was based on God’s promises and words.

God already promised Abraham in Genesis 21:14 that the seed of Isaac would be a son of blessing. This happened before Genesis 22 where Abraham was tested to offer up Isaac.

Therefore, when Abraham heard the words of God, “take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, go offer him up”; while he was trying to consider what that meant, at the same time, God had already promised that it was through Isaac his seed must be called. He concluded that God must keep His end of the bargain and hence He will still raise up Isaac.

This is a faith hard to come by; a faith that whatever God promises will come to pass.

When we come to worship Him, what sort of faith must we come with to worship Him? Read Hebrews 11:6;

‘But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.’

When we read this verse, we must believe that God exists, “Because God exists, He deserves nothing but my attention and praise in this hour of worship.”

If we believe that God exists, we must believe in His omnipresence and omniscience; He is here NOW! He also tests my heart to see if I am truly diligent in seeking him. If we are truly diligent in seeking Him to know HIs will, that is what we are doing when we worship God. When we listen to the sermon in His name, we are listening to His will explained.

Do we believe that He is with us NOW, testing our hearts to see if we truly believe Him? Do we truly believe that if we now listen attentively, He will bless us because He is a rewarder of those who seek Him?

3. Obedience

Read Genesis 22:2-3;

*2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.*

Here we read of God’s command to Abraham. He was to offer up his son, Isaac, not anywhere but at a mountain where God would tell him what to do. When he was there, Abraham was also prepared to offer his son; he was already going to put his knife on Isaac. All these show that there was an attitude of submission and obedience to God in his worship. Abraham coupled his faith with obedience. He trusted, then obeyed. Ultimately, this is what God looks out for in our worship.

In Abraham’s worship, he didn’t choose to go to a 3-day worship to Moriah. He didn’t choose the actual location where he would offer up his son and he definitely didn’t choose to offer his son on his own accord. They were all done according to God’s command. Because God commanded him, he went to Mount Moriah. Because God commanded him to offer up Isaac, he offered up his son. They were done out of obedience. In order for Abraham to be obedient, he needed to put in tremendous effort. The speaker thinks that he never wanted to kill his own son. Even though he knew that Isaac would come back to life, he probably never would have thought that he would have to plunge a knife at the son given to him at his old age. But he was still able to put aside his wants to obey God. He did not negotiate with God. This is a stark contrast to King Saul.

King Saul was rebuked in 1 Samuel 15:22-23;

22 ‘So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord , He also has rejected you from being king.”’

This reminds us that in our worship, obedience is better than sacrifice. In the worship of God, we must always be prepared with our hearts to be willing to submit our hearts to God’s will to obey God. We must be prepared to learn from the sermon to listen to God’s will in our daily lives. We must prepare ourselves to be obedient to God’s commandments before we even go to worship. For example, we must go to the place God wants us to go to worship. In Abraham’s context, it was at Mount Moriah. We must also be obedient to God’s command during the service. Abraham was asked to offer Isaac and that was what he did during his worship. Later on we know that the ram was there but God was certain that Abraham would obey Him.

Not only must we prepare ourselves to obey God BEFORE and DURING worship, we also must be prepared to obey the words in our daily lives AFTER worship.

One direct application to obeying God during worship would be with regards to attending services. We may have gotten used to streaming our services online because it has already been about 2 months. During this period of time, we may have developed some habits; perhaps it is attending more Sabbath services because we have not done so in the past since we are now home. It is a good habit but the fact is, we are now in phase 2. Now that the venues outside are opening up and more of us have started going back to our workplace, has the urge to skip some of the services started to creep up?

If we consider even further; when the situation is good enough for normal services to resume, will we on account of the fact that we have tasted the more convenient way of worshipping service (online), we start to reduce the regularity of worshipping IN church?

Remember what Abraham did — how he was obedient in his worship. He didn’t give any excuses or ask for another way of doing things, instead, he fully obeyed. He went to where God directed him to worship. He went to perform this worship though it would have brought a lot of inconvenience for an old man as well as the pain of offering this son. He did all these things because he fully obeyed God and was obedient to Him. Let us learn from Abraham’s attitude in worship so that we can truly worship God from our hearts.

As a summary, be reminded of the right attitudes we must have when we come to worship God:

1. Have humility to allow us to see how lowly we are to truly appreciate our great our God is
2. Have faith to truly believe that when we spend our time and concentration in service to worship, He will reward us
3. The attitude of being obedient is very important regardless of whether it is before, during or after the service so that our worship is an acceptable and sweet-smelling offering to God.

Let us give thanks to God for the great grace He has given to us. We trust that He will guide us through these difficult times where things are slowly going back to the way things were.