Sermon Tone Analysis
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True Worship
I want to know why are you here today?
Why did you take time out of your busy life to come to church this morning?
Is it b/c you’ve done it since you were a child?
Is it b/c you feel like it has to be done to check it off of your “good person” checklist?
Were you dragged here by a friend or family member?
Were you made to come b/c your parents forced you to come and you would rather be home watching YouTube or playing video games?
Did you come here expecting that by being here, God would somehow make your life better?
That if you attended church God would be impressed and give you what you desire?
Or did you show up to truly worship God?
Did you come to show gratitude toward the almighty savior for providing Salvation through his sacrifice?
I don’t know if you realize this or not, but God is concerned with how you worship him.
He is concerned with what we do when we gather together each week.
He is concerned and cares about what we say and how we approach him in worship.
And this is a reality that is demonstrated in both the Old and New Testament.
There are right ways and wrong ways to worship God.
And this morning, Solomon is going to help us to see that in Ecc 5:1-7.
He is going to lay out the fact that we need to come before God in both awe and reverence.
That God is worthy of our worship.
He is worthy of our praise.
And he is worthy of us offering it to him with a humble and grateful heart.
Up to this point in Ecc., Solomon has talked a lot about the things he has observed, but this morning’s Scripture is the first time that he presents us with an action to be taken.
He is now, as the Royal Preacher, commanding that we take the worshipping of the Lord seriously.
Worshiping God isn’t a game to be played.
Or a game to be won.
Rather worshiping God is a Grace that has been given to us.
And we should take it Seriously.
There should be thought and intentionality in our worship.
Now if your following along in Ecc, this pivot in Ecc 5, could seem out of place.
Why is Solomon all of a sudden talking about worship.
Why is he concerned with coming before the Lord.
He’s talked about his pursuit of pleasure, wealth, and possessions.
He’s talked about the seasons of life and the reality of God’s oversight in those seasons.
He’s talked about the need for friendships, relationships, and companionship.
But now he turns to Worship of God.
What’s going on here.
Well if we dig in deep we realize that Solomon has been talking about worship this whole time.
The pursuit of pleasures, wealth, and possessions is a form of worship.
It’s the Worship of Idols.
It the worship of false gods when your pursuit of something takes the top place in your life that’s what you worship.
Think about it this way, our journey through Ecc. has been like thumbing through a photo album or scrolling through Instagram.
Solomon has provided us with pictures and snip-its and snap-shots of life.
Of Activities.
Of Grief. of Frustration.
Of pleasure.
Of Pain.
Of success.
Of the vanity of life without God and chasing after the emptiness the world has to offer.
And here he is providing us with the picture of the religious worshipper.
He is presenting us with true value when we rightly worship God.
The reality is we are all worshippers.
We all worship something.
And we either worship the King of Everything, or we worship emptiness.
Things that are vain, meaningless, or a pursuit of the Wind.
Now, real quick before we look at the text, I want to give you a little insight into the structure of the this section.
These verses are broken into 2 paragraphs and a conclusion.
The first paragraph are v.1-3
Second are v. 4-6
And the conclusion is v.7
These paragraph’s follow the same pattern.
The first like of the paragraph is a positive statement.
The second is a negative statement and
The third is a proverb.
With the conclusion coming in v. 7
All of this instruction is leading us toward the understanding and the conclusion in v. 7 which states.
“Therefore, Fear God.”
So as we look at and study these verses know that Solomon is pointing us toward the fear of the Lord.
That’s where we are going.
That’s where he is taking us.
If we Fear the Lord then our worship of him will not be frivolous.
It will not be empty.
It will not be oriented toward self.
Rather it will be oriented rightly toward God and his goodness, grace, love, compassion, and authority.
So before we dive into God’s word Let us pray.
Prepare: Listen
Like I said earlier, God cares about how we worship.
And Solomon knows this.
He urges us to be prepared when we come to worship God.
Back in Solomon’s time people would come to the temple as worship.
The Temple was the place where Heaven met earth.
Where God dwelled with his people.
So it was imperative that people take this worship seriously.
In fact, there are warnings about coming into the House of God in the Old Testament.
Now before the temple, when the Israelites were still wandering around in the wilderness, God instructed Moses and the Israelites to build a mobile temple.
This was called the Tabernacle.
And God was very specific about the ways the tabernacle was to be built and how people were to worship God in the midst of the tabernacle.
The tabernacle could only be entered into by the priests and they would have to be cleansed and follow God’s instruction or they would heap wrath upon themselves.
This happened very early on in Israel’s history.
Right after the construction of the tabernacle.
Aaron, Moses’ brother, felt the weight of God’s holiness and importance of God’s instruction when it came to his worship.
Aaron had two sons, Nadab and Abihu, who were going to help him take care of the tabernacle and be the mediators between God and Israel.
But Nadab and Abihu didn’t take God’s instructions to heart.
I’m going to read what happened.
Did you catch that, Nadab and Abihu died b/c they disobeyed God.
They were penalized for dishonoring God’s Tabernacle.
Now this wasn’t a regular occurrence in the OT, but it did happen and it happened to prove a point.
Approaching God and worshiping God is done on his terms and not on our own terms.
We should worship him according to the ways he has instructed us to worship him.
Meaning that as we approach God for worship we need to watch our steps.
We need to guard our steps.
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