Preface “Worship” in the Bible means more than just offering praise/thanks to God, it is the offering up of the whole of life.
Introduction
The Western church has experienced a revolution over the last few decades. The Christian music scene has exploded with worship pastors, worship conferences and megachurches best known as music factories trading huge amounts of money. The space once given for the exercise of spiritual gifts in Pentecostal churches is now taken up with singing, and congregational prayer has become a thing of the past. Where pastors would spend time visiting their flock they are now choreographing Sunday services and music itself has moved away from a congregational emphasis to a performance quality affair.
However talented and creative this “worship phenomenon” may be, its inability to produce holy disciples, its repeated scandals and its lack of missionary endeavour testify that something is wrong at the foundations. Since “no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 3:11) it must be the case that personal experience rather than Jesus has been placed in the centre of things.
Our English word “worship” comes from an ancient Saxon word meaning “the condition of being worthy”; worship is a response to worthiness. [In our culture we are repeatedly told, “you are worth it”, this is self worship.] The mention of worthiness takes our minds to the great worship scene in Revelation 5. A scroll appears in the hands of God signifying God’s plan for the world, but no one however “in heaven or on earth or under the earth was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it” (v.3,4). Finally, one is found worthy, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” ” (v.5) But when John looks, he does not see a lion, some mighty Aslan, but “a Lamb standing, as slain” (v.6) This is an image of the resurrected and crucified Lord. A chorus immediately breaks out in heaven, ““Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”” (Rev 5:9) According to this passage, the fullness of God’s worth, and so his worshipability, is known only in the death and resurrection of the Lamb.
The Lamb in the Beginning
If we ask, “When did Jesus become the Lamb of God?” the Bible’s answer is NEVER. Peter teaches, “you were ransomed …19 with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was chosen before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (1 Pet 1:18 – 20), Paul speaks of a “grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim 1:9) and in Revelation we read of the “book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” (Rev 13:8).
When Jesus introduces himself as “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”” (Rev 22:13) he is inviting us to recognise that from eternity as the Son of God he had taken on a lamb shaped identity. “A Lamb shaped identity”? Even before sin had entered the world Jesus both knew and decided he had to die for us. [It is not too much to say that blood was on the conscience of God from the very beginning. This is why Paul says, “God put forward (Christ) as an atoning sacrifice by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” (Rom 3:25), he is explaining why God did not punish human sin from the beginning, he always knew that the Lamb was to shed his blood.]
The Lamb Manifested
In the culture of the Bible the identity of a lamb as a sacrificial victim was imprinted on the conscience of the people. All Jews knew that the blood of the Passover lamb turned away the angel of judgement in the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:3-13; 21-24), and God had commanded the daily sacrifice of lambs in the temple (Exodus 29:38-46).
The first person to understand the saving significance of Jesus as the Lamb was John the Baptist , when he “saw Jesus coming toward him, (he) said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Through John God was prophetically revealing that his age – old plan of salvation was about to come to pass. To call Jesus the Lamb “of God” is to point to him as the one sent by God from heaven as the Redeemer. It is to testify to Jesus as the only way to the heart of God as Father.
There is a famous painting by Matthias Grunewald (Isenheim altar) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isenheim_Altarpiece) that illustrates the importance of Jesus as the Lamb. In the centre of this picture Jesus is hanging on the cross. To his right are woman, often assumed to be Mary Magdalene and the apostle John.
On Jesus’ left there is a man dressed in camel hair and a leather belt, John the Baptist. The painter has a striking point to make because the Baptist was martyred before Jesus’ death. He has the book of scriptures in his left hand open to the Old Testament. As he looks at the scriptures his right hand is extended with a long boney finger doing just what he did when he first saw Jesus coming toward him, he is pointing to the tortured Christ. At John the Baptist’s feet is a sacrificial lamb standing upright and bleeding, it too is looking at Jesus. This image powerfully illustrates John’s sole calling to point to Christ crucified. In a world dominated by celebrity status, including Christian celebrities, our defining role remains to point to the Lamb that was slain.
The Life of the Lamb
Jesus knew himself to be the sacrificial Lamb from an early age. When only 12 years old he lingered in Jerusalem talking with the teachers in the temple during the Feast of the Passover (Luke 2:41- 51). Given the location and timing of this event, the Father was surely already revealing to his Son, [on the verge of formally entering the Jewish religious community (at age 13]) that he was the real sacrificial Lamb.
It is important to read the whole Bible in a Christ- centred way. When David so beautifully says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” (Ps 23:1) we are to think of the fulfillment of these words in the Father’s care for the Son. The Father is the shepherd of Jesus. God watched over the finest detail of Christ’s life – his birth in the stable, the warnings given to Joseph in dreams to flee to Egypt and move to Galilee (Matt 2:13, 22), the miraculous escape from the angry crowd at Nazareth who tried to kill him (Luke 4:28 – 30), the Father shepherded every step of his life journey.
Jesus was fulfilling the tender prophecies about Messiah, “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ 27 And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him.” Yet there is an element to this psalm that takes on a bitter note, “If his children forsake my law ….32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes…” (Ps 89:26 -28, 30, 32)
This takes us immediately to the cross, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his stripes you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1 Pet2:24-25).
The Lamb’s Cry from the Cross – the Ultimate Act of Worship
The command, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1) is true for us because it is first of all true for Jesus. The cross is the ultimate act of spiritual worship.
There is an old saying, “Man’s chief end (ultimate purpose) is to glorify God (Ps. 86:9; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; I Cor. 6:20; 10:31; Rev. 4:11), and to enjoy him for ever. (Ps. 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 12:2; Luke 2:10; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 21:3-4).” (Westminster Confession Article 1) A modern preacher (John Piper) has rephrased this, “The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever”. This is very biblical, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” – Psalm 37:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” (Phil 4:4). By its very nature the worship of God was designed to be humanity’s highest joy – higher than food, drink, friendship, sex …anything. The pure pleasure of intimacy with God is the highest possible human delight.
This is why the ultimate worship scene in scripture is of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:6 – 10) .
The biblical writers (Ezek 16; Hosea, 2 Cor 11:1 – 3; Eph 5:31-32 etc.) understand that every human experience of joy, celebration, eating, drinking, fellowship and sexuality, has its basis and completion in the union between the Lamb and his bride – the church.
Worship in so much of the church today is dominated by an atmosphere of pleasure, for two reasons. Firstly, worship and pleasure are united in the eternal purposes of God. Secondly, we live in a society that worships pleasure. Donna and I visited a church opening a few years ago and afterwards I could hardly sleep, in the morning I spoke to her about this and she said, “It was like a nightclub in there” – dimmed and flashing lights, coloured lights, crooning music, young people swaying to and fro. I suddenly realised that much of what the church takes for spirituality is actually sensuality and romanticism. If we were worshipping “in Spirit and truth”(John4:24), our union with the power of the sacrifice of the Lamb would impart to us a sacrificial lifestyle. This is the opposite to what we find in many “worship – centred churches”.
This brings me to my main point, the great sacrifice of the cross, the essence of Jesus Lambness, is that the cross is worship without pleasure. “And at the ninth hour (the hour when the lambs were being slaughtered in the temple) Jesus cried with a loud voice… “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark15:34). This is a cry to the shepherd heart of the Father, a cry to him who promised his Messiah, “When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.” (Ps 91:15). It is a cry that has no answer, it is as if God has hidden his face, it is as if he has no heart – no heart for the weak, hungry, sick, lonely, broken – it is as if God is not the Shepherd of his Lamb.
In taking away the sin of the world (John 1:29), the Lamb must take upon himself its sinful state – its refusal to allow God to be its shepherd, its arrogant assumption that it can conquer the dark forces of this world in its own strength, its insistence that it does not need God. In its proud beastly nature the last thing humanity wants to acknowledge is that it needs a Shepherd, because the last thing it wants is to be like a weak, defenceless lamb. To experience being without a Shepherd is the cost Jesus must endure for us on the cross.
P.T. Forsyth, the so-called “prophet of the cross”, put it like this, “as a race we are not even stray sheep, or wandering prodigals merely, we are rebels taken with weapons in our hands.”
To lose the experience of the eternal pleasure of God as a Father and to be plunged into the human hatred of needing a Shepherd, is the ultimate sacrifice. It is for Jesus to reckon God worthy of receiving glory, at the cost of his enduring the pains of hell. Because the Son honours the Father, he is equally honoured by this Father (Phil 2:9).
The first step in Jesus elevation to glory is a revelation before he actually breathes his last. The Spirit of God imparts to the heart of the Lamb, “All will be well” (where all means all things). From this hidden revelation comes his cry of triumph, “It is finished” (John19:30), a proclamation that all God had intended from eternity, a plan far greater than that found in the original creation, would certainly come to completion.
The Lamb continues to Conquer
This brings us back to the vision in Revelation of the slain Lamb standing i.e. crucified – and -resurrected.
11 “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” 14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshipped.” (Rev 5:1 -14)
From this point on in the book we witness the Lamb taking the Lordship of all history; in Revelation 6 he progressively opens the 7 seals of God’s scroll, bringing forth war, famine, plague and natural disaster. Finally a cry comes forth from the tortured earth, “…hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev 6:16 – 17).
The wrath of the Lamb is a terrible thing for a fallen conscience to endure, it drove me mad with fear of eternal judgement day after day before I came to Christ.
The wrath of the Lamb is the witness of a life who gave to God all that he deserved and it proclaims him worthy of all worship. This infallibly testifies to those who have worshipped themselves, and their own image in idols, are worthy of eternal punishment. Such a testimony provokes either repentance or anger.
Human beings cannot stand it, deep in their hearts they know God is in the right and they are in the wrong, their hatred of God will finally reach a terrible climax. As we follow the course of history in Revelation the antichrist, the beast, rises up in fury with all the evil power of dominion that Satan promises man fighting against the purposes of God both in the world and in the church (2 Thess 2:3 – 4; 1 John 2:18ff.). It is easy to recognise the antichrist spirit, its boasting (Rev 13:5) is the very opposite of the humility of the Lamb.
The outcome of this struggle is however assured, “They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.” (Rev 17:14 cf.19:16). In refusing all claims to personal prestige, power, celebrity and authority (Luke 4:5 – 8) Jesus remains content with his God – dependent Lambness forever. This is why the all conquering resurrection power of God is manifested through him. (There is a lesson in this for us.)
The Lamb is at the End
Even after all evil is destroyed our lovely Lamb is still there. The eternal presence of the Lamb is the assurance that the security of our salvation will never end.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev 22:1) “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.” (22:3) [“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (Rev 21:22 -23)]
All this is supremely wonderful, but what does it mean to follow the Lamb NOW?
The Lamb is my Shepherd
Since God “chose us in him (Christ)before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:3) I have always been in the Lamb and God has always been my shepherd in the way that he shepherded his Son. Or, to put it another way, God the Father has always been my shepherd because I have always been in Christ and he is first of all the Lamb’s shepherd.
Sometimes the circumstances of our lives seem to deny this. Sometimes we hold a deep heart – felt grudge against God because of the unjust sufferings we have experienced. These experiences are part of being a follower of the Lamb (Rev 14:4). It is important that we understand that in the midst of the unjust sufferings of the cross, hidden from those who live by sight rather than by faith, God was there in Christ (2 Cor 5:19) shepherding the whole world back to himself.
As we walk with the Lord over the years we can begin by faith to see that inside all the despair/abuse/dereliction/abandonment of our human experience, and in the midst of all sin and judgment, the Lamb has always been present. Present and suffering in every act of violence, abuse, in every illness, every depression, every divorce….whatever we have endured. The Lamb has been present, serving and worshipping the purposes of the Father “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11) by his turning all things for good for “those who love God work and …are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). In the Spirit, we begin to understand what Jesus meant by saying about his sheep, “‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” (Matt 25:40).
[In seeing this reality in the Spirit we begin to identify FIRST with Jesus presence in the dereliction/abandonment and suffering of the world, and with his restoration. This is the inner meaning of Galatians 2:20“” all things have been taken up into the sacrificial life of the Lamb and transformed. Knowing this in the Spirit imparts the strongest possible sense of identification with Jesus.]
The Lord is my Shepherd
While praying in the desert recently the Lord started to speak to me about the course of my life, that whatever I have suffered I have always been a recipient of the justice and wisdom of God. He has kept me under his protection in such a way that I would never be excluded from the fullness of the Father’s blessing in Christ. Sensing this caused me to repent of an attitude. I have long realized the faithfulness of God in all my afflictions and how he has used them to teach me about himself, and particularly to share with me the truths of the cross, but I have said many times that I would never want others to go through the sort of rejection and betrayal that I have been through. I have had to repent of this sinful attitude – for there is no other way to know Christ as the Lamb other than finding him in the depths of your afflictions, as both a co – sufferer, and a deliverer.
As I was meditating on these things a scripture came to mind, the dying Jacob “blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,”(Gen 48:15). Jacob, the stealer of the inheritance, the striver with God and men, recognizes that God had never left his side. In saying such things to Joseph, he spoke to one who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, betrayed and imprisoned, forgotten by those to whom he prophesied in the dungeon, but released, restored and set as governor over Egypt. (Joseph’s life is the shape of the life of the Lamb.) We know Joseph understood these truths for he was later to say to his brothers who plotted his death, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Gen 50:20) Such is the walk of life of those who follow the way of the Lamb. (Do you want to follow the Lamb?).
A few nights ago I had a series of dreams, they were very disturbing, but at their end the Lord spoke to me clearly. He showed me there have always been two fingers pointing at my life – and this is true for every Christian – one is the finger of Satan, he points to destroy and brings into our lives all manner of suffering, but there is another hand pointing at your life, the hand of God, and it points to exactly the same circumstances of suffering, betrayal and pain as the finger of Satan, but this finger, like the finger of John the Baptist, calls forth the Lamb out of the depths of your pain, so that the very things destined to destroy you become the power of your witness to Jesus, because they are the place where we, again and again, experience God as our Good Shepherd.
Worshipping the Lamb Today
Tonight, in the Spirit, we are in the midst of the heavenly council of God (Rev 4; 5; 7:9ff, 14:1ff,) amongst the 7 spirits of God, the 7 flaming torches, the 4 living creatures, the host of angels and all created things crying out that the Lamb be glorified as worthy. This is the purpose, the destiny, the meaning [lama] to which all things point, and whether you realized it or not, it is for this that you were saved. You have been saved that you may be moved to worship the Lamb, not merely by prayer and praise a few times a week, but by the laying down your whole life before him as an act of willing sacrifice.
Conclusion
You know how Christian leaders talk about “their vision”, generally it is put in terms of church growth, conversions, expanding ministry and so on. My vision is simple – to point to the worthiness of the Lamb, that the adoration of Christ might spring up in every place and in every time, no matter if we feel like it is giving us pleasure or not. That we might offer to him the worship of our whole lives, wherever he has set us – in the home, school, factory, office… of this he alone is worthy.
One of the great movements of the faith came from a little group in the 18th century known as the Moravians. After years of division and conflict, followed by intense intercession, the Holy Spirit fell on them and they established a continuous prayer watch that ran without interruption for over a hundred years. They were an important inspiration for John Wesley and impacted the whole of the Christian Church in Europe, including Roman Catholicism, with the love of God. The motto of their leader Zinzendorf was this, “I have one passion; it is Jesus, Jesus only.” May this be the motto of every Christian today.
These Moravians were the first Protestants to organise global missions and to send non – ordained people to the mission field. On October 8,1732, a ship left the Copenhagen harbour bound for the Americas. On board were the two first Moravian missionaries; both had sold themselves into slavery as the only way to reach the slaves of the West Indies with the love of Christ. They knew they would never see their friends and relatives again. As the ship slipped away, they lifted up a cry that would become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering.” May this be the cry of every Christian today.