Trinity 14

Luke 17:11-19- Trinity 14- September 25, 2011 

  Worship: God's Gift to His Church

Is worship our gift to God?  When we gather together here at Trinity Lutheran Church, are we somehow reciprocating some favor to God – like He gives us something, and we give Him something in return?   Of course not!   We are saved by grace alone through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  That means that what we do as Christians – whether here in church or anywhere else – whether serving our neighbor or singing a hymn or teaching our children the Catechism – it is never a compensation for what God gives us.  Rather it is a faithful response to what we receive.  We are not able to give to God anything worthy to be compared to the salvation we have in Christ.  And God neither asks for nor needs any such reimbursement.  He simply bids us to believe His promise that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus.  For such mercy, we worship our God. 

The word worship is an old word that comes from worth and ship – like friendship or fellowship.  Worth-ship, or worship, is when we ascribe worth or value to someone.  God commands us to worship Him.  In fact, it is the very first commandment that says that we should have no other gods before Him.  This means we should worship Him alone and none other.  When God requires us to worship Him, He is simply requiring us to have faith.  In this sense worship is not our gift to God at all.  No. WORSHIP IS GOD’S GIFT TO US. 

In teaching us how to worship Him, God teaches us what to believe, and in teaching us what to believe, He teaches us how to worship.  Faith and worship are inextricably bound.  Indeed, faith is worship.  Faith accepts every word that comes from God.  We don’t choose which things God says that we will believe.  No.  The nature of faith is to trust God and to regard everything He says as true and wholesome.  That is what faith does.  Indeed this is how we are justified: when we by faith simply accept God’s word that we are forgiven.  That is why our worship repeats those things that God says.  Worship is what faith does. 

Now, of course, our faith cannot be seen by anyone but God.  This means that true worship is also invisible.  It is an activity of the heart which only God can see and judge.  But what we do and say and listen to when we gather as Christians most certainly can be seen and heard.  It matters very much how we thank and praise God, because how we worship God proclaims what we believe about God. 

Most people assume that the word orthodox means right doctrine.  But it doesn’t.  The Greek word orqoV means straight or correct.  That’s where we get the word orthodontist.  The Greek word δόξα means glory.  This is where we get the word doxology.  To be orthodox means to correctly glorify God.  To be heterodox means to wrongly glorify God.  It is to glorify God in a different way than how God has taught us.  In order to determine what is the right way and the wrong way to glorify God, that is, in order to determine whether a church is orthodox or heterodox, we look at what their worship teaches and confesses about God.  Where does it locate God’s greatest glory?  Just as all true faith is focused and centered on Jesus, so is all true worship.  Faith is worship.  A church that presumes to give glory to God, therefore, without specifically proclaiming what God has done in Christ to atone for the sins of the world is a false church – it is, by definition, heterodox. 

A church might even have all the right doctrinal statements posted on its website.  But that’s not what makes it orthodox.  The proof is in the pudding, so they say.  Look at their church services.  According to Jesus’ own instruction, we are only to worship at churches that correctly glorify God.  That is, we only go to orthodox churches that preach Christ crucified – not only from the pulpit, but from the altar, the balcony and from the pews as well.  

There is no such thing as generic, one-size-fits-all worship, because there is no such thing as generic, one-size-fits-all faith.  True worship, like true faith, is always explicitly Christian.  Neither faith nor worship relies on anything inside of ourselves, but on the word of God that is preached to us and that fills our hearts with joy.  God’s word forms and shapes our faith and worship.  WORSHIP IS GOD’S GIFT TO US. 

We worship God for who He is.  God is Three in One: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  There is no other God than the God who has placed His name on us in Holy Baptism.  All true worship is Trinitarian.  Jesus is the Son of God, who took on human flesh and blood.  There is no other God than the God who became man in order to atone for the sins of the world.  All true worship is Christocentric.  We worship God for who He is.  We also worship God for what He has done.  In fact, God reveals who He is in the things that He does.  “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  Only the Son reveals the Father.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  Only in the things that Jesus does for us are we able to know and praise our God.  WORSHIP IS GOD’S GIFT TO US. 

10 lepers cried out for mercy.  10 lepers needed to know the Father.  9 Jews and 1 Samaritan.  The Jews were by definition orthodox.  Their worship was instituted by God Himself in order to focus the attention of His chosen people on the promise of the Savior who was to come and redeem them from their sins.  The worship that God established in the Temple was designed to teach them how to glorify God correctly.  WORSHIP WAS GOD’S GIFT TO THE NATION OF ISRAEL.  It was designed to teach them about Jesus.  The Samaritan was by definition heterodox.  The Samaritans had rejected the worship that God had instituted, and had invented their own.  That’s why they didn’t get along. 

10 lepers cried out for mercy.  One thing brought them together: their disease.  Having leprosy required that one be separated from the community and live outside the city or village.  The social disadvantages were enormous.  No doubt these lepers missed their family and friends, and all the benefits of the community.  But by far the greatest drawback to having leprosy was that it rendered them ritually unclean, and therefore, according to God’s command to Moses, it disqualified them from entering the Temple and taking part in the worship that God had prescribed for His people.  They were removed from the sacrifices that God required, and so they were removed from God.  Only upon the priest’s examination and approval could they return.  These 9 Jews and 1 Samaritan were reduced to the same lowly level of unclean. 

But one day, on the outskirts of a village where they had been sequestered, God answered their prayers in the person of Jesus.  They cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  And He did.  Jesus healed them from their disease.  “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” He said.  Through Jesus, God’s power and mercy was revealed to them.  And God taught them how to worship. 

Jesus showed mercy.  He healed their disease and He brought them back into communion with God.  This is generally what most people want.  Naturally people want to retain and improve their health.  But people are also naturally religious.  They want to have some sort of relationship with God.  That is why we see mega-churches and wannabe mega-churches filling up all over the country with religious folks who want to feel closer to the Lord.  Look at all the self-help books, and spiritual advice that the market offers today.  The market is simply responding to a demand.  It is a very religious demand.  But it is not always a demand for Jesus. 

Sinners want to be religious on their own terms.  They hear the law that tells them to worship God and Him alone.  And they believe that they are able to fulfill this law by their own efforts.  But the first commandment is like any other commandment.  It shows us how we have disobeyed.  It shows us our sin, and our need for mercy. 

We need to know God on His terms.  We need God to have mercy on us for Jesus’ sake.  We need Jesus to show us how to worship God.  All divine mercy is always for Jesus’ sake.  Whether it be for better health, better financial success, or a stronger marriage, all mercy that God shows is shown through and for sake of the forgiveness of our sins that we have through hearing the Gospel.  All our prayers and praise are answered and accepted based on what Jesus has done.  That is why we worship Him.  That is how we know how.  WORSHIP IS GOD’S GIFT TO US through Jesus.  

10 lepers cried out for mercy.  9 of them went back to the Temple.  They wanted to be back in the religious community.  That’s only natural.  They wanted back into the Temple worship where they could render their sacrifices and fulfill all their religious duties and do all their religious things.  They showed themselves to the priests at the Temple but missed the whole point of the Temple’s worship, namely to point them to Jesus.  In relying on their own orthodoxy, they forgot how to worship God.  

The Samaritan did not go to the Temple.  When He saw that he had been made well, he returned to glorify God, falling at the feet of Jesus and thanking Him.  By worshipping Jesus, this man showed himself to the true High Priest who offers Himself as the sacrifice for all sins.  Jesus is the fulfillment of all the worship that God had required in the Temple.  This Samaritan had been heterodox.  But in recognizing Jesus as the one who made him well, he learned how to rightly worship God.  He worshipped Jesus and so became orthodox. 

When we gather together here at Trinity Lutheran Church, our worship is not primarily our own doing.  It is not what we do and offer to God that makes us orthodox.  It is what He does and offers to us.  If we regard our own service as that which makes us acceptable to God, than we cease to be orthodox, then we forget what it means to rightly glorify God.  Worship is primarily God’s service to us.  It is why we call it Divine Service.  Because it is here that Jesus has mercy on sinners and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. 

Just as both Jew and Samaritan, orthodox and heterodox together were reduced to the same lowly level of unclean by the disease of leprosy, so we also see in our own lives and thoughts and actions the disease of sin.  We see those works of the flesh that the law condemns and that separate us from God.  We see sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, and things like these.  And we know that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  And so we cry to God for mercy.  We do not claim any right to gather in His Temple.  We do not find in ourselves the right to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, but only the due reward for having dwelt in the house of wickedness. 

But we also see where God has placed our sin on Jesus.  We see Him who knew no sin become sin for us; we see the holy Son of God partaking of flesh and blood in order to obey the law perfectly in our place; we see Him take our sin and uncleanness into Himself as the one true atoning sacrifice offered to God; and we see Him suffer in body and soul on the cross the severe judgment of the law in our place.  It is there where we see our Savior win for us peace with God and eternal life in His heavenly courts that we learn what true worship is – because it is there that we see what our faith clings to, and sings about, and thanks Jesus for.  WORSHIP TRULY IS GOD’S GIFT TO US.  Because it is here in this house of worship through word and sacrament that God gives to you what He earned on the cross, and secured in His resurrection from the dead.  It is here that Jesus teaches you how to worship God by teaching you what to believe.  This is how God gives to us the faith that makes us well and saves us. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.