Empowerment Through Worship

Numbers is back in what's called the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. I said fourteen, I meant sixteen, number sixteen. It's been an interesting morning already. I'll be reading through the text as we go here in just a moment. By the way, on Wednesday nights, beginning in September, we're going to be giving every person that comes to be with us on Wednesday night a notebook in which you can insert these teaching outlines. They're going to be three-hole punched, along with some prayer teaching and so. You'll be able to build a notebook of your spiritual journey. Won't that be great? And I want to encourage you to do that. Take the ones that you're saving up. We started last week in this series on empowerment. You can begin to build a notebook of the teachings that you have received. I find just to brush up every once in a while, it helps me just to remember where God's brought me. So I encourage you to do that. Don't just go home and pitch these things, folks. Stick them in your Bible for now, and then get one of those notebooks come September, and it'll help us all. I mean, we're serious here. We really are about making disciples, and this is one of the things it's going to take, is us growing together in some of these basic disciplines. All right. You see, I want to begin this morning's message by talking to you about a time in my life that I would describe as probably the most difficult in my spiritual journey. It was the period between about June of 1980 and November of that same year. Carol and I had been seeking the Lord to discover where we were to move in order to take our next step of faith in that spiritual journey that I described last week. We wanted to serve God. We wanted to be obedient servants. And so we had been looking for about 14 months all over, especially the eastern part of the country, and the sum total of a dozen interviews and all kinds of visits, endless phone calls, was confusion and rejection. It just didn't seem like the Lord was going to open any doors. I'll never forget the evening I came up the steps in our house over in Shaler, and I opened the kitchen door, and the little kitchen Carol was cooking dinner, and she could tell I was discouraged, and I looked over and she said, she said, I don't care what we do. Let's just do something. She was tired, and I was too. 14 months is a long time to wait for the Lord to speak to you about something, isn't it? It's a long time. Well, that weekend I resolved that something had to happen, so I managed to get some time free, and I was offered a little cabin up in Prospect, just north of here. Went up for a few days of prayer, fasting, reading the scriptures, and worshiping the Lord. One evening, it was a warm evening like we've been having early in October, I walked out in this rolling cornfield. The moon was out. It was warm. Never forget this. As I walked amidst this cornfield, I was singing choruses, and just worshiping God. Just worshiping the Lord. And the Spirit of the Lord spoke into my heart. He just came... You can call it whatever you want. Some people say, oh, that was a vision, or that was a word from whatever. All I know is, He spoke to my heart. He said, one day, you will be part of raising up an army of worshipers that will be more numerous than this cornfield. And I had no idea what that all meant. And I looked over, you know, the corn had already been harvested, but the stalks were still standing. And I thought of that chorus that we sing every once in a while. The stalks of the fields shall clap their hands. Now, don't go, yes, that's not a chorus. It's the trees of the field, all right? I really appreciate that. You're right there with me. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I like that. But can I say that things began to really happen at a fast pace after that weekend? I count that incident as one of the most precious memories of my spiritual walk. Oh, I came home, and I was rejected a few more times. But in the end, you see, you're part of the fulfillment of that word. You're part of the cornstalk revolution. And when I see some of you lifting your hands, I can almost see a cornstalk giving praise to the Lord. I wonder if we have any idea how God sees worship. Right out of the chute this morning, I'm concerned for a lot of us for whom worship is just simply a Sunday morning practice. You know, it's like, fold the hands and shut down and get some Z's from last night's subject. Because, unfortunately, most of your Christian life, and if you're not a believer, most of your life as a church person or maybe just as an individual kind of figure, not God, worship has just been something you do on Sunday, and that's it. But God, you see, looks at worship entirely differently. He sees it as a much grander theme. It has to do with life. In fact, Romans chapter 12, if we could put that overhead up, please. This is what God says about worship. Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is your spiritual act of worship. That's Romans chapter 12. That's the New Testament. God's speaking and saying that worship is all of me. In fact, I define worship this way. Go ahead and put it down, Chuck. The whole person loving a holy God. That's worship. And the Bible instructs us that through our lives, as we learn to worship the Lord daily, even moment by moment, something wonderful begins to happen. And here's what it is. Listen carefully. God begins to respond to your worship. The Spirit of the Lord begins to respond to your worship. As I study the Bible, every time God's people present worship to Him, the whole person loving a holy God, He responds back. All the way back to Genesis. By the way, the first time the word worship occurs in the Scriptures, Genesis 22. The Bible says that Abraham went up on the mountain and worshipped. What happened when Abraham worshipped the Lord? Well, God provided a ram. You see, Abraham worshipped. God provided. A little later on, Jehoshaphat, we're told, is surrounded by enemies. Some of you feel surrounded by enemies today. Jehoshaphat led the people in worship. What happened? God delivered them. He did it. A little later on, the angel of the Lord appears to Mary. She worships the Lord. What does God do? He conceives a child. A little later on, the disciples are gathered together in a room, praying and worshipping, and the Holy Spirit comes and He speaks. Dear ones, if your life is on a plateau, if you're dry today, if you feel dulled out, if things aren't fitting together, if nothing's moving, worship the Lord. Because God always responds to people who worship. He's drawn to them. And I want us to look just for a few moments at this story to see a very important ingredient in this. I told the elders in prayer this morning, you know, a lot of people won't be able to understand this. They won't give themselves the opportunity to see the power of this principle. But I trust that you won't be among them. Look at Numbers 16. If you're just getting settled in, Numbers 16 is where we are this morning. The setting of this story is really crucial. And by the way, if you're one of those people who says, oh, the Old Testament, I never did understand it, it's boring. Listen to what Romans 15 verse 4 says. Don't turn, they'll read it. Romans 15 verse 4. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. The Bible says, hey, everything that God wrote is for us, to give us encouragement and patience. Now, in Numbers chapter 16, it's the story of Korah's rebellion. Korah was one of a group of people who got fed up with Moses and Aaron's leadership. And he and Dathan and Nabirah decided that they were going to rebel. How many of you have seen the movie The Ten Commandments? Sure, about everyone. Remember Edward G. Robinson in the role? Yeah, he wasn't Korah. Who was he? He was Dathan, that's right. And he was a bad guy. Of course, he plays that role wonderfully. But you see, Korah was the one that really incited all this. And in the movie, he gets the judgment that Korah incited. What was that? Well, when they rebelled, God said, I've had it with these people. Get the people that are following Korah together and put them right over here. And so Moses did that and they're standing there. And you can look in your Bible. They're rebelling. Verse 22 of chapter 16, Moses and Aaron fell face down and cried out, O God, God of the spirits of all mankind, will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins? And then the Lord said to Moses, Say to the assembly, Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. They moved them back. And down at verse 31, As soon as Moses finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them. Now, I don't know what that was. Was it an earthquake? How about a big sinkhole? I mean, those things happen, don't they? God could have used any of those methods. And here's the interesting thing. It said all their possessions, everything fell down and so on. And the ground swallowed them up and closed over them. Now, that's the interesting thing. It closed over them. Not only did it bury them, but then it closed over them. Now, you would think, I don't know about you, but I read that, I would think that the other 2 million Israelites kind of went, Oh my gosh! What do you think? Well, the next day, flip the page in your Bible, they come out of their tents and here's what they say, verse 41, The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. I don't know about you, but if I'd been one of those other people and seen what had just happened, you know what I would have said? I would have said, You know, Moses and Aaron, anything you want to do is fine with me. It's good to me. No, no, not these people. They rebelled. God didn't like that. God said, Get away from them, verse 45, so I can put an end to them at once. Moses and Aaron fell face down. God's judgment began to be unleashed. Look what happens, read with me, verse 46, Moses said to Aaron, Take your censer and put incense in it, and long with the fire from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the Lord. The plague has started. And so Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly, and the plague had already started among the people. But Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. He stood between the living and the dead. Say that with me. He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who died because of Korah. When the people refused God's select leadership, in this case, He'd had it with them. He was going to wipe them out. The plague began. Let me say something, may I, about God's judgment. Folks, we have an inclination to perceive that God judges us by smashing us with His hand down. Can I say that maybe judgment really happens when God chooses to lift His hand off of us? When God allows for the things that would normally destroy us to do so? How many of you believe that God's protected you when you don't even know it? And you see, sometimes we open... You can use sexually transmitted diseases as an illustration. God doesn't put that on you. He protects you from it. But when you choose to walk outside of His covering, you open yourself up to the judgment of God and promiscuity. People say, oh, well, God put AIDS on people. No, He didn't. People put AIDS on themselves in most cases. But God has a solution. And I want us to look now at four parallels to stopping the plagues in our lives. Listen carefully. How many of you think that there may be something that's loosed in your family, your business, your marriage, your neighborhood, your place of education, where you see a struggle between life and death or destruction and blessing, whatever you want to call it. But you realize that something just isn't happening. In fact, you sense you're losing ground. Listen carefully because today, in a very practical way, God's going to show you how you can draw the line between life and death, between the living and the dead. Four parallels of Aaron's worship in our life. Number one, Aaron is called the high priest. The high priest. That's on your outline. You see, in the midst of any plague, any destruction, God wants to raise up a person to intercept the powers of death and destruction. In this story, Aaron is God's chosen representative. Moses is a picture of Jesus sending Aaron in to stop the plague. Dear ones, listen. You, you are God's high priest. Why do you say that, Jay? Because 1 Peter 2.9 says that we are a royal priesthood. Revelation 1.5. And Revelation's not all about the future. It's also about the present. Listen to Revelation 1.5. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us to be a kingdom and priests unto our God. You are a priest. You are one who God has appointed to raise praise to the Lord. You know, and this is a byproduct of what was declared by Martin Luther way back in the Reformation times. How many of us grew up in a Protestant church? Let me see your hand. Now, what does Protestant mean? Well, it means protester. Turn to someone and look at them and say, are you a protester? Are you? Now, some of you are from Catholic backgrounds, so this may not touch you where you itch. Protestants, Martin Luther's, listen, his whole argument was that God had appointed us all to be priests, not just the clergy. His 95 Theses that he founded on the Wittenberg door basically said God has entered us all by His blood into a priesthood. And there wasn't an elite hierarchy. You see, it was never intended that these were the worshipers and you were the spectators. It was never intended to be that you sat there and just did what you were told and the rest, a few, just a chosen few, they had the pipeline to God. Somehow, you see, that's gotten lost, hasn't it? Even today, the whole purpose of the Reformation has gotten clouded. Don't be a spectator. These people, I can tell you, I know their heart. Their heart is to help you to worship. That's all it is. And if you sit back there and just get, well, I don't know if I liked it today or it was too loud or too raucous or too quiet, just enter in. Just say, I'm coming to be a priest to my God. That's what I've been called to be. Now, the powerful thing is not that we can all just come and sing here in church. The powerful thing is that we can avail ourselves of the power of worship in our lives. That we can be among those who draw a dividing line in the spirit between the living and the dead. We can be among those who stop the plagues of destruction, of division, of disease that would seek to set themselves against our lives. Dear ones, listen please. You are in a place of responsibility. You may be the only person in your family who understands these things. The Bible says that Satan comes to what? Steal, kill, and destroy. But I have come, Jesus says, that they may have life and have it abundantly. Could it be that God would have you to raise up your worship to stop that plague of destruction, to stop that plague of bitterness, to stop that plague of disease by raising up your worship? Several years ago, a group of our people went every Saturday morning down to the Summit Medical Center on the north side. This was before the days of Operation Rescue and those kinds of things. Small group of people. Every Saturday. Patty Flacari, who's out in Seattle, was one of them. And they would just simply walk in front of the medical building there. They didn't make a big scene. They didn't do anything to impede the people going in and out. They just worshiped the Lord and prayed. I'll never forget one day when Sue Gere, Mike and Sue Gere now lead the Pennsylvania Family Institute. Sue Gere called me and said, Jay, we went down this Saturday and the Summit Medical Center was closed. There was no one there. There was a sign at the door saying, Closed for business. No longer here. Not even relocated. Just closed. Shut down. And one of the five major abortion clinics in Pittsburgh was shut down by the power of prayer and worship. Someone decided they're going to draw a line in the heavenlies and stop the flow of the plague. Powerful. I'll never forget that. So number one, you're a high priest. Number two, there was a censor involved. Now, let me ask. I've asked the Protestants, how many Catholic background people do we have? There's a lot of you. Look at that. Just in case you're wondering, am I the only one? No. How many of you are both? I saw some of you. Okay. Well, that counts. I understand that. Well, if you're from the Catholic tradition, you know what a censor is, don't you? I tried to get one, and no one would lend me their censors. David wouldn't lend me any. The Catholic Church tried to borrow. They said, No, we need ours for the services. But you know what it is. It's on a chain, and you've seen them. Well, Aaron had one of those, and he went out, and that's what he walked with to give his worship incense to the Lord. What is the parallel in your life? Well, you are the censor. Your body is the censor of worship to God. I think it's worthy. Hold your hand there. Flip over to 2 Corinthians. Go ahead. Flip there. I want you to see this. Chapter 2. All the way back in the New Testament. Hold your place in the Old, but look in the New. 2 Corinthians 2 and verse 14. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. Now, look at this. Did you see it? Fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ. Isn't that beautiful? We're the aroma of Christ to God our Father. Our lives are fragrance. Turn to someone right now and say, you smell good to God. Tell them. Go ahead. Encourage them, David. We're the aroma of Christ to God. The fragrance of life to those who believe, and interestingly, the fragrance of death to those who do not. That's a powerful statement. It just says that people realize you're different and they don't like it until they get right with God. That's what that says. But dear ones, you see, Aaron went and got a coal off of the altar of sacrifice where the animals were cut up, you know, blood would drip down on the hot coals, and he picked out a couple of those with some tongs, put them in the censer. And there's a picture there. Listen. Worship that's pleasing to God is that which is born of blood-washed sacrifice. And I thought about this. I just want to submit something to you. If you're here today and it's difficult for you to worship God, if you think, man, this is, you know, I go five minutes and I'm bored. I don't understand why people get hyped about this. Could it be that there's something lacking in your understanding of what God has done in your life, if you indeed are a believer at all? I was led to a powerful Scripture in Luke chapter 7. Don't turn there. But there's a story there about a woman who goes to a party where Jesus has been an invited guest by some big shots. Some CEOs from Jerusalem. They invite Jesus in and they're kind of like, you know, they have this interesting iconic class coming to visit them. This man is causing a stir. And so they're kind of checking him out. And this woman comes and disrupts the party by breaking this expensive bottle of perfume. And with that, she's wiping the master's feet with her tears. Well, the Pharisees and the big shots of the party step back and say, you know, if he knew who that was. She's a sinner. She's a whore. Jesus gets up and He walks over to Simon. I mean, I'd love to have seen this. He says, Simon, I have a question for you here. I mean, I came into your house and what did you do for me? Well, nothing really. We had the party. Simon, you didn't do anything for me. You didn't acknowledge me. You in no way honored me. This woman, she poured out all that she had with tears. Simon said, yeah, you're right. Jesus said, the reason is she's been forgiven of her sins because of her act of faith. And he or she who is forgiven much loves much. You see, the people that have no problem worshiping are the ones who realize how really destitute, how really despicable, how really sinful they are without God. The problem, really, for most of us with worship is that we don't realize what God has done for us. I have no problem pouring out my heart even to the embarrassment of some because I realize that apart from God, I'm a lost, filthy, despicable, judgment-bound sinner. He who loves much or forgiven much loves much. That's the key. Look at your heart. Do you know what God's done for you? Then it's no problem to raise up that sweet fragrance. Let's look at the incense itself, number three. What is it that was in that little censer? Well, you think, well, I just grabbed some of those oriental spices and made it kind of neat. No, no. Did you know that in the Bible, Exodus chapter 30 and following, 34 and following? Exodus 30, 34 and following describes exactly what God wanted to be in that incense. He said, these are the spices, these are the fragrances, mix them this way, these are the oils. God, listen, God doesn't make, I mean, He's not a haphazard. I've never heard God say, hey, anything you want to do is fine with me. God's very specific about what He wants worship to be. Question for you, what is the incense that's coming out of your life these days? What's the fragrance that's being lifted from your car stereo? Or from your home TV or stereo unit? Or conversation for that matter? You know, from what I can tell, there's a lot of different fragrances out there. Everyone kind of thinks that, you know, however they want to do this worship thing is fine. And I'm not going to slam traditions or liturgies. I've been in a lot of very formal settings and places where the Holy Spirit's been given opportunity to move and God's people have raised up acceptable worship to Him. I've sensed His presence there. But there's always one basic prescription. All the Holy Spirit wants you to do in worship is to give all of you. All of you. I started thinking, that's a great name for a fragrance, isn't it? And if you were marketing a perfume, wouldn't that be a great name? Yeah, thank you Betty. I'll get you some. That's what God wants of us. He doesn't want just a part of us. Remember Romans 12. He wants all of us in worship. Worship is the whole personality coming before God. And dear ones, there's four components of our personality. We have another overhead here. This is under point number three. Four components. Number one, there's spirit. God wants your born again spirit in worship. John 4, 34. He wants then your emotion. I'm sorry, your mental capacity. He wants your brain power. Listen, worship is reasonable. It's not irrational. It's not making no sense. When people come and say, well, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just doing it. That's the kiss of death. Liturgies are that way. People just stand up and sit down and go in and go out. It doesn't mean anything. They don't understand it. Likewise, I've been in places that are quote, spirit filled. Everyone's lifting their hands, so I lift my hands. It's a big deal. Do you understand it? No. Everyone's clapping, so I just clap. Do I know what I'm doing? No. Folks, please understand something. There's a reason for this. It makes sense. Number three, there's emotion involved. Worship is to be animated and liberated by God and felt in the heart. If you don't feel something, then there's something missing. That's what it means to have a soft heart. You feel it down inside. Number four, worship is to be physical. These are scriptures you can look up on your own and see if I'm just laying a line on you here. Is this really the truth? This physical one is where I get a lot of resistance. Why? Well, people kind of feel like, hey, God looks at my heart. He doesn't care about what I do with my body. Is that true? Did we just read that we're to present our bodies as living sacrifices? People say to me, no, well, you know, I'm just glad to get my body here, let alone present it to God. But see, Scripture teaches a whole list, litany really, of ways of expressing. Lifting our hands. Lifting our head. Clapping our hands. Bowing down before Him, we sing. Sometimes lying prostrate before Him. Raising our voice. Sometimes even dancing. I counted about 15 expressions of worship and praise that the Bible teaches us. People say, well, you know, I don't want to be manipulated by that person up front. I've seen a lot of fakes up there in those stages, and I'm my own person. Or someone says to me, well, I was in places where it got out of hand and out of control, and I don't want to be out of control. I hear this more than anyone. People say, hey, come on. I'm not that kind of person. Usually the men will say, I am not that kind of person. I mean, I'm really controlled. Want some news? None of us are. None of us are that kind of person. None of us are, you know, just right on the edge always of being expressive. Some people have a more natural bent. But nobody really is that kind of person. Because it goes against our grain. And you see, it's easy to look at all this and say, well, it doesn't really matter. And besides that, you know, I have a right to worship in my own way. The Constitution says so. Doesn't it? Doesn't the American Constitution say that? Everyone can worship in their own way. They have the freedom of religious expression. So there it is, you know. I can just see some people saying, well, God, I'm kind of holding back today because I'm an American. And I have the right to do so. And wow, I mean, God would probably be impressed, wouldn't He? God bless America then, I guess. That's it. It's so true. We have a design to hold this stuff our way. Interestingly, some of you are very scripturally oriented. You would never do something that Scripture says not to do. And you'd always do what Scripture says, for example, in communion. The Bible says, take communion this way. That's the way you take it. The Bible says, give your financial resources this way. That's the way you do it. The Bible says, prepare for eternal life this way. That's the way you do it. The Bible says, worship this way. You say, no, not that kind of person, God. And by the way, I reject the idea that this is like charismatic worship. People label it. It's charismatic. No, it's biblical. It's the Bible. It's not like Pentecostal. Psalm 63 tells us, lift up your hands and bless the Lord. You say, well, I know, but you can, yeah, but God for a long, long time. But you're the one ultimately that loses it, dear one. You're the one that doesn't experience the power of God through worship to impact your daily circumstances. That's what this is all about. Let me end with this. What does Aaron do then? Well, then he goes and walks out into the midst of the plague. And I want us to know something today. We'll be leaving here in a few short minutes and we're going to walk out where the plagues are. We're going to walk out into our business environments, some of us into our family situations, some of us into the places where we're going to school, maybe where we do recreation. And you have a privilege of walking into that place and deciding, I'm going to worship God here. I'm going to walk into those circumstances and worship God. It may just be that you go to work a little bit early tomorrow morning and you begin to worship God in your place of business. Wouldn't that be exciting? You say, well, someone might catch me. We'll go, you know, go at five then. I want to tell you something. This isn't any little cute thing. This is the way God has described that His church, His people will draw lines between death and life. I want to end with two stories. One is a personal one. A few years ago, I was going through a period with our family where the kids were continually getting sick. We were bickering a lot. Things weren't happening. There was always some tension and confusion. And one evening, I remember this very well, the Lord awakened me in the middle of the night, two, three o'clock. Everyone was asleep. Even the dog looked up and went back down. And I went downstairs and I said, Lord, what's going on? And all I can think, all that the Lord said to me, all I can recall is He said, just worship me. So I began just to walk around each of the rooms of the house worshiping God, quietly, gently. I wasn't screaming to wake everyone up. No, just lifting worship. Now, this is going to shock some of you, but I even went outside and walked the perimeter of the house. And I don't know, you can say it was a coincidence, but all I can tell you is from that day, it's as though a line was drawn around my home and the plague of division and bickering and sickness was stopped. God turned things around. It happened. This past Friday, our elders, the elders of this church met together for prayer for the first time in a long while as just elders. We met back in the family room. All of us were present that were in town that day, about 12 or 13 of us. And we began to worship the Lord together. We called upon His name. We raised up a banner over this place. Back in Exodus 17, the story is told about how Moses sat up on a rock and as he lifted his hands, the Israelites prevailed over the Amalekites. When his hands went down, they lost. And Aaron and Hur held his hands on both sides, put a rock there. What a symbol that is, isn't it, of worship? And the elders met on Friday and we lifted our hands and we worshipped the Lord and we prayed and we were interceding for a whole hour together. And I don't think it's a coincidence, you might, but I don't, that three hours later, I got a phone call from the owners of this property next door to us who've forbidden us to park there for the last three or four months. And they said, well, we think it's time to open the lots back up to you. Now, I have to say to you, you may remember when those little barriers went up, what did I say? I said, they're a symbol of what's happening in the spirit all around us. People of North Way, listen. We are on the verge of seeing many spiritual breakthroughs. We really are. In your life, in the lives of the people that you love and want to see come to Christ, we've got many things planned for the fall that are going to be exciting, deepening and enriching. But it's going to come as we learn to worship God. Worship God. And to draw lines between the living and the dead. To stop the plagues of destruction and defeat and discouragement. And to let God rule. You can leave here today and say, well, that was nice or I didn't understand it. Or you can leave here and say that tomorrow I'm going to get up and I'm going to worship God. I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to work early and worship God. I'm going to worship Him in my home. I'm going to worship Him in my car. I'm going to sing a few choruses. I'm going to just whisper some prayers of praise to Him. I'm going to read the Scripture out loud. What a great way to praise Him. Read the Psalms out loud. Lift up your incense and bless the Lord. Let's stand together, shall we? Lord, I've been so moved today by the sense of Your presence here. And I want to ask You, Lord, to enable my life to be a sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to You. And each of us, Lord, would add our prayers that You'd remove from us the obstacles of fear or doubt or hardness of heart that prevent us from being worshipers, true worshipers. Let us be a sacrifice to You, Lord.