As I’m sure you are aware, we as a church are spending this first month of the year as a kind of orientation month. Over the last few weeks Cody, Eric, Gavin and Jeff have been sharing with us their hopes for us as a community as we jump into this new year. Cody began our series talking about the calling that Christ has placed on our lives, that we have been called by God to the professions, locations, and lives that we live. Eric then told us of the call to joy, that there is Joy to be found in Christ and we should be taking that particular fruit of the Spirit seriously. We also heard from Gavin and The Bishop about the Loving God and getting Jesus right, I couldn’t be here last week and I’m actually disappointed that I missed that one. If you will listen to me and turn you ear to what Christ has to say through me, I would like to contemplate our call to worship. So if you have your Bibles with you, you can go ahead and turn to Revelation 14, that’s where we’ll spend a large chunk of our time today.
If we were to look at the grand narrative in the Bible, we would see the interactions and responses between God and Humanity, the root of enmity and conflict between us and God is really an issue of worship. The cycle of conflict that we see regarding humanity and God is one of humanity’s idolatry and of God’s fidelity. From the third chapter in Genesis to the end of Revelation we see that man seeks to worship literally anything and everything other than God. We, worship: foreign gods, idols crafted by the hands of other men, work, youthfulness, bloodshed, relationships, possessions, other people’s possessions[1], and most devastating of all, ourselves.[2]
It is in Genesis that the story of man begins. In the beginning God created. God created everything. God created day and night, God created heaven and earth, God created plants, God created the sun and the moon, God created fish and birds, God created beasts of the land, God created man and woman in his image, and then God rested. After God created the man, he placed him in the garden, and then said that it is not good that the man should be alone, and in an act of divine mercy, prudence, and grace he created woman. A decision I will be forever thankful for.
In chapter 3, we see humanity’s active and passive rebellion against God come to fruition as Eve takes the forbidden fruit and eats, and as Adam stands off to the side like a scared little boy and does nothing. The serpent deceives both the man and the woman “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” What is the greatest irony of the fall of humanity? It’s that we were made in God’s image. We already were like God. It is in the desire for knowledge of good and evil that we are enticed to elevate ourselves to be our own authority.
It is in the garden where man is placed to do nothing but enjoy God’s presence and bask in the glory of all that God has made. And it is here where man first turns from worshipping God and resting in his authority to attempting to be his own source of truth and placing himself first and foremost in the created hierarchy.
To crystallize this notion we can look to Deuteronomy 6, this is where we find Moses sharing with God’s people the greatest commandment:
The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Later on in Matthew 22, Jesus adds: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.[3] I am told that these commandments assume all ofthe other commandments. If we affirm these two, the others by default are affirmed. And in turn, if we deny the others then by default these ones are denied as well.
For us, who get to see Israel’s future unfold in the rest of the first Testament, we see that the last thing that God’s people do is affirm this first commandment. The rest of the first Testament’s story is the telling of how God’s people again and again, sought after anything and everything other than God. The times when God was closest to them, were the times when they worshipped him and only him. And much to our dismay, those times are few and far between. The Bible, instead of telling the story it should be telling, tells not a story of fidelity, but a story of deceit and betrayal as time after time, Israel pushes God away, refusing his love and seeking fulfillment in anything but what they will find it in.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking, how does any of this connect with the passage that we are supposed to be focusing on? Thank you for reminding me, the answer is simple. Because where we turning to, there is hope. Where we are turning, the tone of the story takes a drastically new approach.
It is in the second Testament that we meet God’s final and all encompassing response to our idolatry, and his response is Christ. So, being a good student of theology, I turn to Revelation, because the book of Revelation is the theology of the Church. For those of us who worship God, Revelation is a source of over abounding hope. And because this is where we find our hope, this is where we will find joy.
Revelation is probably the most misunderstood book of the entire Bible, if not, the New Testament for sure, and to a certain extent, understandably so. I mean, let’s face it, if it were not for the fact that the church had indoctrinated Revelation into the canon, we would pass it off as a peyote tripping crazy old guy rambling on about angels, beasts, bowls and prostitutes. Right? Like, I’ve never done drugs, but I imagine that if I got hopped up shrooms and then proceeded to write out my thoughts, the result would be something akin to Revelation.
Thank God for Augustine. From Augustine we receive the lens for the right way of interpreting Revelation. And here it is, Are you ready, this is important, if you walk away today and you learn nothing else other than what I am about to say, I will be satisfied. DO NOT READ REVELATION LITERALLY. Breathe. The book of Revelation is about worshipping God. The book is addressed to several communities of believers, much like ours. In chapters 2 and 3 John addresses the specific churches that he has in mind as he writes Revelation. Then from chapters 4-11we have the recounting of the story of humanity played over and over again with specific focus on different things. Chapters 12-14 are we call the deeper conflict. It is here that the author explains to us the spiritual struggles that we do not see or understand. And the rest of the book is focused on God reassuming his authority and dominion over everything. It is in the deeper conflict that we see the desires of the author for the churches. And not just the seven, but the global church. It is his desire for us as well.
And so we turn to Revelation 14. As I had said earlier, the book of Revelation is really a book about worship. If the deeper conflict is the focus of Revelation, then chapter 14 can be seen as the focus of the deeper conflict. The section serves as a hinge to Revelation. It is the gateway from history to consequence, and it is in chapter 14 that we find the meat and potatoes of the message of Revelation.
So here we go. Chapter 14, starting in 6.
The first angel passes by saying, “Fear God and give him glory… worship him who made heaven and earth.[4] This is our call to worship. The second angel tells us that Babylon, or the great idol, has fallen. The idols have been destroyed. And the third angel tells us that those who worship the idol will fall just the same as the idol itself. The author betrays his narration to explain to the people what this all means: Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. This connects us back to the commandments, and ultimately the greatest of commandments.
John is writing in the context of oppression, a time when the Romans and Jews are persecuting and killing Christian men women and children daily for what they believe. The line between oppressed and oppressor is sharply defined. John is writing to the communities to remind them that they have nothing to fear in life, for their reward in death is greater than the suffering that they will experience in life. However, we are not in a time of persecution. We cower in the folds of safety that our society has put in place to protect religious freedom, and grow fat on the prosperity that we earn for ourselves, and as we become drunk with the luxuries of our times, we eventually forget our need for God altogether.
While Revelation is a book given to the believing community to bolster their faith against the persecuting oppressors, John offers us as believers absolutely no compromise. In the eyes of the revelator there are those who worship God, and those who do not, and the consequences of our decisions lead either to rest in God’s peace or to eternal enmity. I don’t know about you, but this scares the dickens out of me.
I have a very easy time identifying the sins and iniquities in my life. Sufficed to say that I am more often than not one of those who does not worship God, at least not with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my might. Thankfully, I am not dead yet. And every so often I can swallow my pessimism and see God’s redeeming work in my life, and rest in knowing that he is not finished sanctifying me yet. I could go on for a good month’s worth of sermons regarding sanctification, but since my time is fast disappearing, I will relent. It boils down to this, Christ’s yolk is easy, and his burden is light. “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
The question then, that I am so eager to answer is, “What does it mean to worship God?” I believe the answer is found by looking to the God man. I believe the answer is found by looking to the one, who lived the way I should have lived, and died the death I should have died. I think that we see what it is to worship God, by looking to Christ. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Christ reiterates what we have already been told. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”[5] To worship God is to love him with literally every part of our lives. It means to submit my pride to the love of Christ. It means to submit my lustful mind to the will of Christ. It means to submit in my utter lack of wisdom to Christ. And it means to love God.
Amen.
[1] Deut. 5.
[2] Gen. 3.
[3] Jesus also changes might to mind. This may be changed because of the drastically different kingdom that the Jews had expected him to instate. Although unfortunate, war is sometimes necessary. Christ did not come waging war, he came to bring peace to those who recognized him as God.
[4] The end of the verse actually says: “and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the spring of water.” The terms ‘Sea’ and ‘Water’ refer to chaos. It is out of chaos that God forms the earth and all that is in it. The idea here is that even though there are things in life that seem utterly chaotic, God reigns over even the most unreasonable circumstances. It is because God is sovereign that we can continue to worship him joyfully in spite and through the darkest of paths and the driest of desserts, for it is he who made the paths and the deserts.
[5] Matthew 22:37
