The Aim of Your Worship, part 2

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. Last week at this passage in verses 1 to 13 where Jesus confronts the religious leaders, maybe more rightly said, they first confront Him and then He corrects them.

And they have come to ask Him why He and His apostles do not follow their tradition.

And what begins as an accusation against Jesus really turns into Jesus' words of condemnation on the religious leaders.

Just to remind you to kind of reorient where we are in the Gospel of Mark. He has just had the feeding of the thousands. That night He has sent the disciples on, on the boat.

He, the storm comes up. Jesus then walks on the water to them. We are about a year away from the crucifixion.

And while there are still large crowds coming to hear Him as witness by the feeding of the thousands of people, there is also increasing opposition to Him as seen here in Mark chapter 7 when the Pharisees and the scribes gather around to ask Him why He would dare to not follow their man-made authority.

And what follows is this brief but very pointed teaching on worship. As we looked at last Sunday, the truth is that everybody worships.

Whether they worship the true God of the Bible, they worship a false God, they worship an idol, or may worship wealth or worship their own independence or worship their own health, whatever it may be.

Everybody has something in their life that everything revolves around. And it's possible to be a deeply religious person, even involved in the life of a local church, and still offer worship that is not pleasing to the Lord.

That is precisely what Jesus says in verses 6 and 7 as He quotes from Isaiah chapter 29. When He says, These are highly religious people that Jesus is confronting here.

These are men who would have known the Old Testament. They were very familiar with its law. They have established their own man-made tradition that has now usurped the law of God.

And what they love most is their own authority. They didn't stop being religious. They just stopped loving God.

Instead, they loved themselves. They loved their tradition, their rules, their authority, their power, their clout. And while they still did things as far as an offering of worship, the very words that Jesus uses here from the prophet Isaiah is verse 7, that they do it in vain.

It's empty. There's nothing there. And so, we left off last week by looking at these four implications from what Jesus says.

And one was that it's possible to love your religion for all the wrong reasons. Second, it's possible to be devoted to spiritual exercises and leave Christ completely out.

Third, it's possible to use Bible language to excuse disobedience. We looked at that in great detail in verses 9 to 12 last week, which means forth.

It's possible to be in church every week and not be pleasing to God. That's possible. And at the very end of this passage we looked at last week in verse 13, the last sentence, Jesus says, many such things you do.

He gave them the accusation that they honor the Lord with their lips, but because their hearts are far from God, that the worship they offer is empty.

There's nothing there. And then he gave an example of how they try to act religious and talk religious, but in reality, it's empty.

And what he says, we looked at last week in verses 9 to 13, is they would take this tradition where you would take your house, or you would take your property, or you would take your resources, and you would declare that it was devoted to God.

That sounds very spiritual. And the idea is that when you die, your resources get given over to the temple in an act of worship. They would make the statement, Corban, which is to say devoted to God.

But it wasn't really about worship. It had come to be nothing more than a loophole. And what they would do is they would pronounce Corban over their stuff. They would say, my house is devoted to God.

My income is devoted to God. My money is devoted to God. And therefore, when someone in their family had need, and they asked for help, what they would do is say, I'm sorry, I can't help you.

I've devoted it to God. I know you need a place to stay, but we've taken our extra room. We've devoted it to God. And if I let you stay in it, I'm giving to you what I've devoted to God.

I'm so sorry, I can't help you. Someone who is hungry asks for food, and they say, I'm sorry, I wish I could help you, but we have devoted our extra food to God. And to give it to you would be to give to man what I've devoted to God.

It wasn't about worship. It was just about a loophole. It was about sounding spiritual, acting spiritual, and in reality, not loving God nor loving man.

And because of that, there is no worship that pleases the Lord. And so, these religious people had feet that brought them to the right place.

They had lips that said the right thing. They had hands that offered sacrifices and offerings. And yet, in reality, their worship was empty because their hearts were sinful.

And at the end of that, Jesus says at the end of verse 13, and many such things you do. This is just one example. There are a number of things they would do that Jesus says, your worship is in vain.

Your worship is empty. Your worship is not pleasing to me. This isn't the only thing that you do that is empty. It's just one of the things that you do.

These were the words of arrogant religious men clinging to their own authority when the gospel teaches us to be humble, broken people clinging only to Christ.

And so, the first thing we saw is the accusation from the religious leaders against Jesus. The second thing we saw was the answer that Jesus gave to them.

And what I want to do this morning is just build on this with a third prolonged element here of application for us from this passage.

They accused Jesus of not submitting to their authority. He answers them and says, your worship is in vain and it's empty. And now this morning, I want us to look at our application from these truths of what we must be careful of.

Because it is possible for us to also be guilty of doing the same things the religious leaders were doing. It's possible for us to say the right words with our lips but have hearts that are far away from God.

And if our hearts are far away from God, it doesn't matter what we give or what we sing or what we say, our worship will be in vain. It will be empty.

And so, I just want us to kind of push pause here and stay in this passage for one more Sunday. Because I think the temptation for us is always to look at mistakes the apostles made or mistakes the religious leaders made in Jesus' day and to say, I can't believe they would do that.

I can't believe they could be so stubborn or so hard-hearted. What's wrong with these people? And sometimes what we do is we turn a blind eye to how we may be making the exact same mistakes, but we find our covering in looking at the folly of somebody else.

When Jesus says Isaiah prophesied, what he's saying is hundreds of years ago, there were religious people who were making the same mistake.

And now here we are in Jesus' day, 700 years after Isaiah, and you're making the exact same mistake. And it's also possible now, 2,000 years later after the day of Jesus, for us to still be making that same error.

And so I want us to consider what Jesus says to these religious leaders in a deeply personal and highly practical way so that we can ensure that our worship that we're offering is pleasing to God and in no way vain or empty.

When Jesus says there are many such things you do, we need to be on the alert because that would be true for us. There could be many such things we do that are not pleasing to the Lord.

So what would the application be for us? What would be ways that we could go through the motions of our worship, the ceremony, so to speak, that may be a part of our life?

How could we do that in a way where we may say the right thing and be in the right place and yet offer worship that's still not pleasing to God? How can we be aware of that so that we don't follow in that way?

Well, walking through verses 1 to 13, as we bring this section to a close day, let me just offer you some what I pray are very helpful, clear, practical applications so that we don't repeat these mistakes.

Number one, I want you to think about our singing as the people of God. The people of God have always been a singing people. That was true in the Old Testament where the book of Psalms was their songbook.

It's what they sang. It's how they taught their children. It's how they would say the same thing at the same time the same way by singing the hymns from the Psalms.

In the New Testament, we are told to sing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs to teach and encourage each other as we sing. God's people are always a singing people.

So, how would it be possible in the singing of the church for us to be guilty of what was being called out in Mark 7? How could you sing in a way that is empty or in vain or not pleasing to God?

Well, one very obvious way is we're not pleasing God as we sing if we don't do it, if we don't sing. You see this in churches.

I pray not in hours, but you see this in churches all the time where you've got people that just don't sing. They just sit out. I don't like to sing.

I don't like the music. I don't care about singing. It's just the warm-up. It's not the real thing. And so, they just don't do it. That's a tragic mistake.

Understand, singing is not our invention. This is the Word of God. This is the will of God for His people. Singing is not just a warm-up act before the preaching.

Singing is part of our worship. It's part of how we teach. It's part of how we instruct. It's part of how we unite our hearts together. It is a God-given gift to the church, and it is a command of God that the church be a singing church.

And I think that many people can be guilty of exactly the Mark 7 kind of mentality when we approach singing in the church by not participating, or when we say, I'll sing when it's a song that I like or I prefer.

Sometimes this happens when you have people who love hymns, and so they'll sing to the top of their lungs, how great thou art, but won't sing a song that is new.

Or you have people who maybe love new songs, and so they love to sing the latest worship song, but won't sing when the church sings holy, holy, holy, because that's an old hymn.

And if a church lives like that, that is a Mark 7 kind of mentality. If we don't sing, or we just sing when it's our preference, what we're doing is elevating our ideas over the will of God, and that is the exact thing that Jesus is calling out in Mark 7.

These men love their ways, their preferences, their standards. They have completely forgotten about the call of God, the command of God, and instead they elevate their own opinion.

Which is exactly what happens in churches when people say, I don't like this song, it's too old. I'll wait for a song I like. Or I don't want to learn this song, it's too new.

I'll wait for an old one I grew up with. Understand every song we sing at some point was new. Everyone.

You won't find, I don't think, I don't think you'd find anyone in our church who loves hymns and could go toe-to-toe with you on quoting verses of hymns.

I would just, I'll take that challenge on. You like hymns, I like them more. You know hymns, I know them more. I'll just throw that out there. But understand that every beloved hymn that I love and that you love, at some point was a new song.

And songs we sing today that are new, if they're able to stand the test of time at some point, they're going to be old. And so the issue can't just be what year was this song written.

It's a terrible way for us to decide what we sing or any church. And it can't be, well, the youth will sing when it's a new Pepe song, and the adults will sing when it's an old traditional song, and we just kind of play tag team singing.

That can't be the way we do it. One of the things I love is when our church sings on Sunday morning, our youth sing. If you go to our youth service on Wednesday nights, the songs they sing on Wednesday nights aren't much different than what we do in here.

We don't want to have a church within a church. It's one of the reasons why, though we, for space, have two services, they're identical. We don't have one service that's this style of music and one service that's a different style of music because we don't want our church to be grouped by people according to preference and opinion.

We want it to be anchored upon the truth of God's Word. And so one of the things we do as the church, every church is commanded to sing, and when we sing, we must make sure that it's not in vain or empty.

So we want to sing songs that are true. We want to sing songs that edify the body. We want to sing songs that are generally singable. But most importantly, we want to make sure that as we sing, our hearts are engaged, our minds are alert, and that our singing is pleasing to God.

How would we know? Not by the year a song was written, but by the truthfulness of it and by the hearts of those who sing it. That's verse 6. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

When I was a youth minister, I remember after Wednesday night youth services, it would often be that a student would come up to me and say, boy, I really enjoyed our singing tonight.

We really worshiped tonight. And our youth group, when we would get finished with our youth service on Wednesday nights, most all of our youth group would go to the local Mazios. We would just invade it.

Dozens and dozens and dozens from our youth group would just go and take over this Mazios nearby. And I would always tell our students when they would say things like, boy, tonight's worship was great, or I loved worship tonight, or we really worshiped tonight, I'd always tell them, we'll see.

We'll see at Mazios if we worship tonight in church. Because if you didn't pay for the buffet and you're stealing it, that's not a heart of worship. I don't care what songs you sing.

And if you are being rude to the people who work there, that's not a heart of worship. And if you are being unkind to the other people sitting around you, and if you're gossiping about them, whatever we did tonight was not worship.

The way that you know if you worshiped is not simply by how loud a song was. It's by the inner heart transformation that takes place as we express our love to the Lord.

And so in churches, in youth groups, in youth camps, on mission trips, wherever we may be, it's possible to honor the Lord with our lips, but our hearts be far away from Him.

We want to be careful with that. In fact, go back, just turn the page back to chapter 6, verse 52. This is where Jesus has walked on the water right after the feeding of the thousands of people.

And in verse 52, it says, of the apostles, they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. It's possible to be a part of where things are happening and worship is taking place.

And though you're physically there, you missed it all. The apostles witnessed this amazing work that Jesus did when He performs the miracle of feeding the thousands of people.

And though they saw it and they heard it and they were right there, they missed it all. How'd they miss it? Because their hearts weren't right. And so, the church must be careful as we sing to make sure it's not just about if we're singing, it's always about our hearts.

There's a second thing that we would do every time we gather for worship, and that's the preaching of the Word. Whenever our church gathers for worship, we always preach the Word.

And we want to make sure that as we're preaching and as we're listening to preaching, that we do it in a way that honors the Lord. How would we not honor the Lord with our preaching?

Well, one of the obvious ways would be if we don't preach the Word. Another obvious way we would dishonor the Lord when it comes to preaching is if the Word is being taught, but if the people that are in the sanctuary are not listening, that would be a way that we would dishonor the Lord.

But I think in keeping with Mark 7, there's something else we must be aware of because the religious leaders that Jesus calls out in Mark 7, go back to verse 1, He mentions the Pharisees, He mentions the scribes.

These are people who would know the Word. These are people who would not, to put it into our terms today, that they wouldn't be sleeping in. They'd be at church, they'd be at Sunday school, they'd be there.

And yet, Jesus says to them, your heart is far from me. And again to verse 7, the worship they offer is in vain. It's empty. It's not pleasing to Him.

And one of the ways we can be guilty of doing exactly what they did in Mark 7 is that we would come to church, even listen during the preaching, even take notes during the sermon, but go home and not live it out.

We need to understand that what the Lord wants from us is not simply to be at church and to listen, but that it changes us, it impacts us.

The truth that we talk about would be a truth that we live out. And so the issue is, in part, did we listen at church?

Sure, but far greater than that, did the truth that we listen to transform us? I mean, what value is it to come to church, open your Bible, and take a journal full of sermon notes, and then go home and disrespect your parents?

Or to go to Sunday school and to have studied your lesson and be well-prepared and to listen and to participate in the class, and then to go home and to be unkind to your spouse?

Or to go to work on Monday and steal from the company? What Jesus is telling these people is that if your feet take you to the right place and your hands offer the right offerings and your mouth says the right things, but your heart is not changed and transformed, then whatever you're doing, it's empty and it's all in vain.

And so we want to be careful. Verse 8 in Mark 7, he says to them, you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.

You leave the commandment of God. Now, in our church, most likely, I won't be naive to pretend this couldn't happen, but most likely in our church, we don't have members who would say that we don't believe the Bible.

We don't have members or teachers or leaders in our church who would say that we care more about our opinion than the Scripture. We wouldn't say that. However, whenever you study the Bible and you know the truth that it contains and you choose to ignore it and do your own thing instead of the Word of God, that is a form of leaving the commandment of God.

Verse 8, don't leave the commandment of God. Don't leave the Word of God behind. You can leave it behind by ignoring it. You can leave it behind by not reading it. You can leave it behind by not knowing it.

Or you can leave it behind by listening to it, affirming it, taking notes on it, and then going home and just doing your own thing anyway. And so, we have to be careful here.

We have to be careful here because almost everybody in our church brings a Bible, as they should. And almost everybody in our church listens, as they should.

And while that is essential, that's never all of the matter. The issue still comes down to, will we live this out?

The truths that we affirm and the truths that we write down, will they really guide our lives? Will it be our authority and our standard even when we're upset, even when we're at home, even when we're at the ball field, even when we think no one's watching?

Will we do what God's Word calls us to do even if nobody else is watching? If our answer is that we show up to church and we listen and we take notes and we affirm and then we go home and ignore it, what we are doing is Mark 7, verse 8, leaving the commandment of God.

So, we've got to make sure that we're not just here and that we're not just listening, but that we are obeying, thinking, praying, meditating, passing on and obeying.

None of us, none of us want to be a part of something that's vain or empty or of no value. None of us, I hope, I trust, none of us got up this morning and came to church, came to worship because we want to offer to God that which is displeasing to Him.

No, we want to honor Him. We want to be pleasing to Him. And that does include our hands and our feet and our eyes and our ears and our bodies, but it absolutely must also include our heart.

Again, just notice what Jesus says as He quotes from the prophet Isaiah and back to verse 7. With your lips, with your bodies, you're doing, you're saying the right things.

what makes it empty, what nullifies it in verse 7, what makes it vain is that their heart is far away.

it's possible to physically be in all the right places and have hearts that are a million miles away.

So be careful. those of us that are at church every Lord's Day, those of us that love to sing and love to listen to the Word, those of us who are fastidious to make sure that we're where we're supposed to be, be careful because your body can be present and your heart be distant.

And when that's true, the Word that Jesus uses, the Word the Old Testament prophet used is that whatever we're offering in that moment is in vain.

So when we gather, we sing, we want it to be pleasing to God. When we gather, we have preaching, we want to be pleasing to God. Here's a third thing that we do when the church gathers. We give.

The people of God are called to be givers. We know that. So how would it be possible for us to, as believers, as church members, how would it be possible for us to dishonor the Lord with our giving?

Well, one obvious way is to not do it. That's pretty easy. nobody would read the New Testament and have any question about whether we should be givers.

Nobody. Now, if you've never been taught, if you've never read, you may not know. But if you've read the New Testament, it would literally be impossible to close the New Testament and say, I wonder if the Lord wants us to be givers or not.

That would be crystal clear to us. So, one way that people fail to please and honor the Lord in our giving is just to not do it.

Now, if that's you, I want to just ask you to, would you consider beginning to prayerfully be a faithful giver to the Lord through His church?

Not because you feel guilty, not because you feel pressure, not because we're trying to twist your arm, not because we're going to have to shut off the lights if you don't start giving, but because one of the most dangerous things we can do is know what God has called us to do and grow comfortable ignoring it.

That's a dangerous thing to do. Anything the Lord has clearly revealed in His Word that we have grown comfortable ignoring, that's dangerous.

Now, when we gather for congregational worship, you can look around, you can see if someone's singing or not, you can see if someone has a Bible open or if they're playing on their phone, you can see if someone's listening or if they're getting up and walking around distracting everybody, like we can see those things.

What you can't see is if someone is a faithful giver. And so, what people can sometimes do is say, you know what, I'm not faithful to give, but I sing, I listen, I serve, I sing in the choir, I teach the sun and soul class, all the things that everyone else can see, you make sure it's covered, but the part of your worship that only God can see, you become comfortable ignoring.

Now, that's dangerous. It's a dangerous way to worship. In fact, I think about verse 9, go back to verse 9, Jesus said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.

In other words, you're very creative in the way that you justify your sin. And the same thing happens in our world today. We say things like, well, when I make more money, I'll be a giver, or when my kids are out of the house, I'll be a giver, or if I get a big inheritance, I'll be a giver, or I don't really need to give because after all, I serve in this area, I don't ever give, but I always show up here.

And what we end up doing is we say, these are the ways that we excuse our disobedience. Now, our church is not going to go broke if you don't start giving.

We're not in trouble, we're not in a bind, I don't want you to feel guilty, I'm not trying to twist your arm. What I am trying to do is to help you understand how we in 2023, if we're not careful, do the exact same thing that Jesus called the leaders out on.

When we come up with our man-made excuses for why we don't obey.

So, if you're here on Sundays and you don't sing, sing with us. Sing with us. Join your voice with ours and sing.

Don't just watch it, don't just endure it, don't just wait for your favorite song, sing with us. And when the word is taught, study with us.

Don't just do your grocery shopping list or your work to-do list, let your heart and mind be engaged and listen to the truths of God's word and consider how you can obey them.

And on the Lord's day, be a joyful, cheerful giver. And you say, but why would I give? I mean, the church is making it without me, and after all, no one even knows that we never give. love. But who is your worship aimed to please?

Is your worship aimed to please us? Or are you aiming to please God? This is the very thing Jesus is calling them out on.

You love to do all of your religious ceremony that everybody else can see, but what you're neglecting is what only God can see, that's the very thing He calls them out on.

In fact, it's interesting because in verse 6, He says, well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? It's a pretty strong term.

And you know, He uses that term elsewhere. In Matthew 23, Jesus says, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. Exact same thing, but look what He says here in Matthew 23, verse 23.

You tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law like justice and mercy and faithfulness. You know what's interesting?

The very people He's calling out here would have never been non-givers. Never. If you're not faithful in your giving, you're not even doing what they did, but for those of us who are faithful to give, be careful because Jesus has a word for us too.

And His word is, if you give faithfully and you ignore things like justice and mercy and faith, Matthew 23, 23, He says, you too are a hypocrite.

So, we can miss it by not being faithful and giving, or we can miss it by always being faithful and giving, but using our giving to ignore the rest of our sin.

when the church gathers we sing join us as we sing when the church gathers we listen to the preaching of the word join us as we do when the church gathers we give join us as we give and then the fourth thing we do in the church gather is we pray join us as we pray if me or someone else is here at this pulpit voicing your prayer for us make sure your heart stays in tune let the prayers that we offer be offerings on your behalf to help teach you truth and and to help incline your heart to the things of god when i grew up in middle school the church i went to part of our worship tradition there was the pastor would read scripture and then he would pray and i mean pray long long prayers and the youth loved it and it was a high stakes game of trust because if you could not stay awake and the preacher was starting that long morning prayer you say to your body make sure you wake me when he says amen because back in that day i mean i watched it if if you had a teenager not paying attention he'd call them out he'd say i need a deacon to come sit by this guy right here he's not paying attention there was no cell phones back then can you imagine what would have been said if there were and so if a youth fell asleep he'd call them out so when he gets ready to pray these long prayers i mean it's just a game of trust do you trust the guy sitting beside you to really wake you up when he says amen so our youth group had a high degree of trust because we had a high degree of fear and so that morning prayer we were sitting and he would pray forever and it was nap time that's why when i pray what are you always doing standing right i learn d now week you think i'm praying with the youth sitting no way they're standing if they fall asleep when our prayer time they're crashing be careful because i grew up in a church good church youth group good youth group but public prayer was just a time to catch up on sleep our feet brought us to the right place our bodies were there but hearts were far away from god and jesus says that kind of worship is in vain in fact again go back to verse 6 he says you're hypocrites well as you might imagine jesus uses that term elsewhere like matthew 6 verse 5 when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners to be seen by others and he says that's not what pleases your heavenly father the question always comes down to who are you worshiping and whose praise are you seeking are there things in your life that you do just for religious show if so jesus says that's empty that's vain don't do it

and then lastly as we close when the church gathers we build relationships so we sing we study the word we give we pray we build relationships the new testament has a lot to say about the importance of relationships love this isn't an exhaustive list by any means but the new testament says honor one another be devoted to one another build up one another greet one another care for one another serve one another bear one another's burdens forgive one another be patient with one another be kind with one another be compassionate long bear with one another teach one another comfort one another encourage one another stir up one another to love and to good works, show hospitality to one another, pray for one another. Are you getting the sense that the New Testament wants us to be connected? Understand this.

If you come to the church sanctuary every single Lord's Day and never miss, and you're not connected to each other, to love, to serve, to show hospitality, to pray, to bear burdens, you are missing one huge part of what the New Testament says a church should be.

And we might excuse ourselves and say, yes, but it's just my preference. I don't want to know anybody. I don't want to have any friends. I don't want to need anybody else. I don't want anybody else depending upon me. Just understand if that's the way you think, what you're doing is you're taking your preference and elevating it above the command of God, which is exactly what happened in Mark 7.

And you say, but I'm here every single Sunday. So were they. You say, but I read my Bible every day. So would they.

But the issue is, have we become comfortable with certain parts of disobedience and we're going to be able to do that.

And what Jesus says is we never leave behind the commandment of God.

So, if we're going to gather as a congregation and offer worship that's pleasing to God, it must be from hearts that are pure, minds that are engaged, lips that say the right things, hands that serve, it must be our whole person.

Which when in the New Testament you see the word heart, that's the point. It's your whole person.

Your mind, your will, and your emotion. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Do you sing when we sing? Do you listen when the word is taught? Are you a faithful, joyful giver?

Do you pray when we pray? And do you build relationships to serve in the body of Christ?

Can I just tell you there's nothing better than that? And that's the kind of worship that pleases Christ and brings glory to His name.

in His name is what worship is always about. Let's be faithful to worship in a way that honors our King.

One of the ways we do that is by remembering the sacrifice of the Lord on the cross. And so at this time we're going to prepare to take the Lord's Supper together. Father, let me ask you congregation if you would just to bow your head and close your eyes for a moment as the deacons of our church come and join me here at the front.

if you know Christ as your purse Lord and Savior you have a relationship you've been saved by grace through faith we invite you to join us as we take the elements.

If there's not been a time in your life where you have confessed your sin and you know Christ as your purse Lord and Savior let me encourage you let the elements just pass by. Parents use this as a time to teach your children this afternoon what these elements are.

They're not good. They're not good. They're not They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good.

They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not good.

They're not good. They're not good. They're not good. They're not