The Power Of Our Worship

Good morning. I am delighted to be able to share once again on this Evangelism month and honored to start off the process this year that we as we look at these sayings of Jesus from the Cross today, we look at that first saying, that famous saying, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? If you have your bibles with you, you'll open them to Mark chapter fifteen. We find the saying in multiple places, but I want us to examine it here in Mark's Gospel, Mark fifteen, and we'll look at verses thirty three through thirty nine to put that saying in the context. And it reads, and when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, eloi la masabachthani, which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, behold, he is calling Elijah. And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine to put it on a reed and give it to him to drink, saying, wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the centurion of the temple, I'm sorry. And the curtain waiting for the centurion leader. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way, he breathed as last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. Truly this man was the son of God. Like to address you this morning from the title The Power of our Worship, The Power of our Worship. Oftentimes, when we think about worship, we think solely about singing. In fact, one of the grave theological errors that we make, and we make it regularly. We will have an event and we'll say we're going to have worship, and men somebody will preach, as though preaching is not a part of worship, or our giving is not a part of worship, or our praying is not a part of our worship. We have come to define worship solely in terms of our singing. And that is wrong. That is a grave error. It is an error that truncates our understanding of what it means to worship God. And it is an error that truncates our understanding of what it means to evangelize and to be evangelistic. True enough, the songs that we sing are very important components of our worship, But why are they important components of our worship? If we reduce worship to mere singing, then we may think that our songs are important components of our worship because of the way they make us feel, and so we sing our songs in order to achieve a certain feeling so that we're ready to move on to something else. The or we may think that our songs are designed to sort of transform our mindset. But what we see here is that in the midst of the crucifixion, Jesus makes a clear reference to a song with which people would have been familiar and puts it in the context of an environment that people would not have thought of as worship. But it absolutely was. And this is the power of our worship. First and foremost, our worship is powerful because it is rooted in reality. Look at those first couple of verses there. Look at verses thirty three and thirty four. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, elouis la masabaghtani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then after that we have the bystanders who are hearing this, and they say he's calling Elijah. We know from other accounts from other gospel writers that these weren't the only responses to what he said. There were others who responded by saying, he saved others, let him save himself. If you are the king of the Jews, come down from the cross. And so in the midst of all of this, he calls out a worship song. By the way, if you and I are watching something happen, if you and I are seeing something that is a powerful moment that is impacting us in ways that few things ever could, which is exactly what a crucifixion would be. If you and I were standing there watching a man die on the cross, in fact, watching three men die on crosses, and all of a sudden one of the men said pass me, not o, gentle Savior, or he said, amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Immediately as you and I are being struck by that vivid moment, the moment he says the first line of the song, what comes to your mind? The next line, and the next line, and the next line. Jesus is here calling people's attention to a very well known song, and it says something about the power of our worship. You see, there are many people and many religions who use their songs or their worship experiences to create some alternative reality or to deny the reality that they see. That's not what our worship is, and it's not what our worship does. Is see, if our worship was only about expressing these positive feelings, then in moments like this, it would make no sense. However, because our worship is rooted in reality and not designed to change reality, and not designed to cause us to move away from reality by taking us to another place, there is a power there. This is the darkest of dark days. Notice that the text says when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, So there are three hours of darkness in the middle of the day. And this is not ordinary darkness. The text doesn't say that clouds came over and blocked the sun. The text says there was darkness. This was a spiritual reality, not a meteorological reality, but a spiritual one. The Sun of God, very God of very Gods, was dying on a tree. And as he stood there, dying and being crucified, having been beaten and mocked, the entire creation went dark for three hours, And in the midst of the darkest of dark days, the song still had meaning and power. Not only was this a dark day, but this was a day when the Sun of God was experiencing great pain. The ninth hour, he cried with a loud voice, and he breathed his last. He is an agony on the cross, and there is a song that fits his agony. There is a song that explains his agony. Because Christian worship is not about ignoring reality, and it's not about changing reality. It's not about denying reality. It is rooted and grounded in reality. On our darkest day, there is worship that we give to God that is appropriate. In the midst of our greatest pain, there is worship that we give to God that is appropriate. And in the midst of the scorn of unbelief, there is worship that we give to God that is appropriate. If you are the King of the Jews, come down. He saved others, ken he saves himself. Even that phrase, the King of the Jews, it was meant as mockery. The soldiers scorned him. They put a crown of thorns on his head, not to honor him, but to torture him. They put a purple role on him again, not to honor him, but to mock him. Publicly, they wrote, hell, king of the Jews, not to honor him, but to mock him. In the midst of your darkest day, in the midst of your greatest pain, in the midst of the scorn of unbelief, the worship of God speaks to that reality. You see. As Christians, our worship is not an attempt to escape reality, but an attempt to explain and understand reality in light of who God is. God does not somehow become worthy of our worship because it's not a dark day, or because there's no pain, or because there's no scorn. God is worthy of our worship in spite of those things. In the midst of the darkest of dark days, God was worthy of worship, in the midst of the pain of all pain, God was worthy of worship in the midst of the scorn of unbelief, God was worthy of worship. This is why we sing things like when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, it is well, It is well with my soul. This is the power of Christian worship. And if you are an outsider to the Christian faith, this is something that you will not be able to comprehend, but it's something that you must press into. We do not gather and worship God believing that if we're good enough that somehow we won't have dark days. We do not gather and worship God believing that somehow, if we show up enough, there will not be days of pain, or of scorn or of sorrow. No, as believers, we gather together and we worship God, oftentimes in spite of darkness, in spite of pain, in spite of scorn, and our worship is still relevant and it is still powerful. In fact, sometimes more so. It is an amazing reality. But sometimes the worship of God never ever, ever means more to us than it does when we gather in the midst of our darkest day and our greatest pain, and the scorn of unbelief when a loved one has died and the world says they died to young, or the world says that they died unfairly, or the world says that their death was unjust, when everything in us is saying I don't understand this. And in the midst of that kind of darkness and that kind of pain, and the scorn of unbelievers who may be looking at us and saying, you worship this God. You give of your money, you give of your time. The church doors are open, and you're allways there. And yet look you're standing over this casket right now. And we stand there and we say, through tear stained eyes, when peace like a river attendeth by way, or when sorrows like sea billows row, whatever am I lot? He has taught me to say it as well with my soul, as the Apostle Paul says, we have learned to be content with plenty, and we have learned to be content in want. We have learned as Job says, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him? This is the power of Christian worship. Not only is our worship powerful because it's rooted in reality. Whatever our reality is, it's also powerful because it's rooted in history. Notice what he says here. Notice the exact nature of Mark's words. And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness to the ninth out. How many times do we read in scripture something like in the year that King Uziah died, or on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, they did thus and such when Quarnius was governor. These things that root us in time and space, because the Christian faith is not merely a faith that is based on the idea that we need something to control ourselves and our surrounding. It's not like transcendental meditation that says if we can somehow learn to tap into the universe, then then we can engage in exercising power over things so that we No, no, no, that's not our faith. We believe what we believe because it happened, because it's real, because it's true. The crucifixion is an historic event. In fact, not only is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ an historic event, but listen to me carefully. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most well attested event in all of ancient history. It's the most well documented event in all of ancient history. It happened. It's split time in half. We now speak about BC and ad Anno Domini. The year of our Lord, the most well attested historical event in all of ancient history. It's real. There were witnesses, and First Corinthians Chapter fifteen Paul gives us a list of over three hundred eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ who are still alive during the time of the writing of First Corinthians Chapter fifteen. There is also evidence that remains the place where he was scorned and scourged remains. I've stood there. I've stood there in the fortress of Antonia, in the place where Roman soldiers took the victims of their torture prior to taking them outside the gates for crucifixion. I've stood there and looked at carvings on the ground. There. There are carvings on the ground from a game that was like a board game that we would have where you roll the dice and if you roll the dice, you know you get this, and you roll this and you get that, except this board game was a board game that Roman soldiers played with torture. You roll here, and the man is whipped and scourged. You roll here, and the man is beaten. You roll here, and this you roll here, and that carved into the ground, touched with my own hands fifteen, Verses sixteen through twenty. The soldiers led him away inside the palace that is the governor's headquarters, and they called together the whole battalion, and they clothed him in a purple cloak and twisted together a crowd of thorns. They put it on him, and they began to salute him, Hail King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed, and spitting on him, and kneeling down an homage to him. When they had mocked him, they stripped him of his purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him. Even the place where he was crucified easily identifiable today Verse twenty two. They brought him to the place called goldguth Up, which means the place of the skull. You can stand there and look at this rock just to the north of the temple mount and the fortress of Antonio, just outside the city gates along what is still a main road, and the Romans always crucified along a main road, right there where everyone would pass by and see, there is a rock. And when you look at this rock, you see distinctly that it looks like a human skull. The place where his body lay easily identifiable today. Chapter sixteen, the first eight verses. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalen married the mother of James, and Salomi brought spices so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb, and they were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us? From the entrance of the tomb, And looking up they saw the stone had been rolled back, and it was very large, And entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side. This is important. Why is this important? Because today not far from the place of the skull, just outside of what would have been the city gates, not far away from that road, just under the place of the skull, which is where the crucifixion would have taken place. There are some tombs carved into the rock, not the ordinary types of tombs that you would find for peasants, but tombs in a garden where a rich man would have had his tombs carved. And one of those tombs in particular, right now to this day you walk into, and it's unique because it's the only one that you would walk into and have to turn to the right to look where the bodies would have laid, more than likely the very tomb where they laid Jesus is Yet, our worship is not rooted and grounded in wishes and hopes, but it's grounded in things that happened, things that to this day remain verifiable. Matters, It matters. This is the power of our worship. It happened. Our worship is not an exercise in self delution, nor is it merely seeking our comfort. It is telling and retelling what God has done in redemptive history, and specifically through the person and work of Jesus Christ, to redeem lost sinners. This is why we sing songs like the one we sung, Oh for a thousand tons, to sing my Great Redeemer's praise the glories of my God. And King, the triumphs of His grace, the things that God has done, the things that have actually had happened. When we gather in our worship, for example, and we partake of the Lord's supper, the bread and the wine, they are there to represent something. What are they there to represent the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, this very event. When we gather to worship, it is not empty platitudes, but it is recalling and retelling the old old story. This is the power of our worship. Our worship is also powerful because it is rooted in redemption. It is rooted in that old old story. The ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lui la masaani, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? What is this about? This is about Psalm twenty two. This is about the fulfillment of a promise. Turn with me and your bibles to Psalm twenty two. If you will remember what I said earlier. You and I are watching a man being crucified, and the man is being crucified all of a sudden says, amazing grace, How sweet the sound? What immediately comes to your mind? You can say it that saved a wretch like me. You immediately think about the rest of the song Psalm twenty two. By the way, he says, Ali la sabatadi. You know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Bible was not written with chapters and verses. We've only had chapters and verses in the Bible for one hundreds of years, not thousands. So if I wanted you to open your bibles to Psalm twenty two during the life of Christ and during most of history, I would not have been able to say, turn to Psalm twenty two. I would have to say, open your bibles to Eli la masabaktani, because that's the name of the song. The first line of the song is the name of the song. You have to understand this to understand the power of Christian worship, because this is a song that the Jews sang as part of their worship. The song in and of itself is only meaningful and powerful because of what it points to. But what is it point to? Psalm twenty two, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Go down to verse number six. I am a worm and not a man, schooled by mankind, and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Go down to verse twelve. Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me, like ravening and roaring lions. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. My bones are out of joint. Why because you're nailed to a cross. My heart is melted like wax. Interestingly enough, the soldier, after he dies pierces him in the side, thrusting upwardly, puncturing the paricardium, and blood and water rush out. My strength is dried up like potshard. My tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death, which would make you say I thirst is another one of those sayings you'll hear about next verse. For dogs encompass me. Dogs is a reference to gentiles. Guess what Roman soldiers are gentiles. A company of evil doers encircles me. Jesus is crucified between two evil doers, one on his right and one on his left. I can count all my bones. Why is that significant? We know that Jesus was crucified before a high holy day? Why is that significant? Oftentimes it took days to die of crucifixion, not ours days. This is why you hung men on a public thoroughfare where people would pass by, and for days watch these men agonize and die, because death by crucifixion was ultimately death by suffocation. You hang a man's hands on the cross, and then you hang a man's feet on the cross, but you do not hang him standing straight up. You hang the man with his knees bent, and all of a sudden, all of his upper extremities are pressing down and he can't breathe, and so in order to get air, he stands up in order to open up the chest cavity. But when he stands up, he stands up against the spikes that have been driven through his feet, and the pain is agonizing, so he falls down again, and slowly and slowly he is less and less able to bring air into his lungs until finally he suffocates to death. It took days, but the Jews could not have dead men on a cross on a high holy day, So in order to expedite the death, you break the man's legs, and in some instances, if spikes are used in his wrists, the death would be almost instantaneous. Jesus was hanged on a cross the day before a high Holy day. It should have been necessary to break his legs in order for him to die expeditiously enough, But instead, after a few hours, he cries out with a loud voice, and he breathes his last so that he fulfills Psalm twenty two. None of his bones were broken. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Why is that significant, Well, it's significant because, as you see, it is a detailed prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus. But it's more significant than that because it was written a thousand years before Jesus was born. And it's even more significant than that because not only was this detailed description of the crucifixion of Christ written a thousand years before he was born. It was written by someone who never once in their life saw a crucifixion. How do I know this because crucifixion had not been invented yet. In fact, the empire that would eventually invent crucifixion did not exist yet when Psalm twenty two was written. And yet the worship of the people of God a thousand years before the birth of Christ was rooted in the story of redemption. When we gather, we gather as the redeemed. When we gather, we gather to celebrate our redemption. When we gather, we gather to celebrate because there is one who took our sin upon himself, Mark fifteen thirty four. Or I'm sorry, Isaiah fifty three six. All we like sheep, had gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all one Peter three eighteen. For Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. You see, it's not just that this was a dark day. It's not just that there was pain and suffering It's not just that there was mockery. We have to understand that God is just and he is righteous, and that we are all fallen in Adam. We have to understand that Adam's sin has been imputed to us. We are born in sin and shaped in iniquity, and we are, all, as Paul says in Ephesians too, by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest. One of the first things we learned how to say is that's not fair. Because we know that there is justice in the world, and that there ought to be justice in the world. And every time we say that's not fair, we condemn ourselves because number one, we acknowledge the fact that we recognize that God ought to punish sin. But number two, acknowledging that means that we know we are guilty and deserve the wrath of God. But what can we do to assuage God's wrath? What can we do to escape the penalty of our own sin? The answer is God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus is born not of ordinary generation, but born of a virgin escaping original sin, not only is he born of a virgin, thus escaping original sin, but Jesus lives a sinless life so that he might impute his righteousness to us. And then in his passive obedience, he dies a death that he does not owe, but one that we owe to God, so that our sin might be imputed to him. And through this double imputation we have, in Jesus Christ the only plausible answer for man's sin problem. Every other religion can be basically boiled down to this. In a nutshell, you need to have a religious experience, and from that moment on you need to do more good things than bad things, and then hope for the best when you die. There are two major problems with that theory. Number one, it does not account for the things I did before my religious experience, and number two, it does not account for the fact that even the good I do I do with wrong motives. So that is not an acceptable answer. The only acceptable answer is double imputation. My sin imputed to Christ, him paying my price on the cross, his righteousness imputed to me, and God reckoning me as righteous because I've placed my faith in Jesus Christ. This allows, as Paul says in Romans three. God to be, on the one hand, just because he punishes sin and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus. This is the only answer to man's sin problem, and so our worship is rooted in our redemption. This is why we sing things like when I surveyed the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain, I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride. We gather together to remind ourselves and to announce to the world that we have been redeemed by the person and work of Christ. This is why our worship is powerful. Our worship is also powerful because it's rooted in evangelism Verses thirty seven to thirty nine. Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. Isn't this amazing? He stands there and he witnesses the essence of Christian worship. The essence of Christian worship is our redemption. By the way, the essence of Israel's worship was centered around what the sacrifice of the sacrificial Lamb, which is exactly who Christ was, the sacrificial Lamb who pays for the sins of God's people once and for all sacrificed on that high holy day. He stands there in everything the people of God have ever done in their worship, everything the people of God have ever said in their worship, everything the people of God have ever hoped for in their worship, is personified in the person and work of Christ, every last bit of it. And the Centurion sees it, and he professes the only thing that can be professed at that moment. Surely this was the Son of God. You see, when our worship is rooted in reality, and it's rooted in history, and it's rooted in our redemption, it can only be evangelistic in that it is a proclamation of the good News, a proclamation of the person and work of Jesus Christ and what has been accomplished thereby. That's why we sing things like I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died from me, how he left his home in glory for the cross of cavalry. I was lost, but Jesus found me, found the sheep that went astray, threw his loving arms around me, drew me back into his way. It is powerfully evangelistic when the people of God gather together to remember and announce what God has done to save sinners through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And finally, our worship is powerful because it's rooted in God. Our worship is not mansinered, it's God's centered. We do not gather to entertain men. We do not gather to appease men. We don't even gather to convince men. We gather because the God who made and redeemed the world first of all, did it in six days and rested on the seventh. And because of that, we gather one day in seven, over and over and over again to remember the God who created the world. We gather on the first day of the week. Why because that's the day when our redeemer rose from the grave. So one day in seven, on the first day of the week, we gather to remember the God who created the world and redeem the world through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That direction occurring on the first day of the week. We gather together because we're made in the image of God, and we were made for God's glory, and so we gather to bring him glory for who he is and what He's done. This is why we're here, not to appease men, not to entertain men, not even to convince men. We are here because God is God, and he is worthy. That's why. That's why. And we are here to say to you that if you have not come to repent of your sins and believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ, then you are in great jeopardy and in great danger because you stand continually under the wrath of God, condemned in word and thought and deed. You know this, and you've known it. You're in life. You know that justice is required. It's just that you usually forget that if God were to meet out justice to all of us tonight, none of us would be here tomorrow. Because you too deserve the justice and the wrath of God, and your only hope is the person and work of Jesus Christ. We gather here week by week, one day and seven, over and over and over again to be reminded of that great reality which took place in history, which was for our redemption, which is proclaimed in sinner's ears. To call every man, woman, boy and girl to worship the God who is and who was, and who is to come. This is the power of our worship. Let us pray. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above, Ye heavenly Host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. God. Thank you for reminding us today of the power of our worship. The power that is found not in the volume of our songs, the power that is found not even in the sincerity of our prayers. The power that is found not in our works of holiness or righteousness, but the power that is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the power that exists because everything that we do is rooted and grounded in that reality. Grant by your grace that we might worship You in spirit and in truth. Grant this we pray in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.