Sermon Notes: Exodus 20:22-26 – Worship, The Source of Human Flourishing
Ultimate human flourishing is hard wired to right worship.
All humans worship. The question is who or what do they worship?
There are many who do not worship Jesus, and they flourish. They flourish to the extent they can because they bear God’s image and have great capacity to employ natural law in their favor and the favor of others. But their flourishing is not complete because there are dead toward God, and under his condemnation. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? – Jesus
The way out from under God’s just condemnation is through seeing in the whole of God’s word we cannot satisfy God’s standard of righteousness, so we look to Jesus who does, and died in our place for our sin as the gift of the Father for us. He is our Passover Lamb. He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. So, if you turn to him in faith, you can not only become a citizen of God’s kingdom, but you can truly pursue as much human flourishing as you possibly can when you engage in the proper worship of Jesus Christ.
For the follower of Jesus, our ability to flourish as the Lord has granted is pursued through proper worship. The enjoyment of Jesus Christ, worship as the life we live, is the door to human flourishing.
NOTE: We are not saying that human flourishing is perfect pain free lives. We are saying that worship is the means for human flourishing, and we flourish even in suffering for the sake of the kingdom. God’s people can and will flourish with little or much because our flourishing is not tied to material resources or freedom from of anguish. We flourish in this life through ups and downs because we are citizens of Jesus’ kingdom, God’s children in Christ, and will meet his good ends for us by grace as his workmanship in Christ Jesus.
As I mentioned when we studied worship this year, Exodus is going cause us to revisit worship quite a bit.
Today’s section is no exception. The Lord is going to revisit a couple of commandments that will make us focus on worship and the Ten Commandment’s intent to maximize human flourishing. The Lord’s intention to focus on commandments one and two are telling.
So, let’s get after it.
Let’s read it: Exodus 20:22-26
God’s word sets the boundaries of worship. V. 22
The Lord has given the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue. These foundational realities are boundaries God established for human flourishing. We highlighted this when we studied the Decalogue a few weeks back.
In the Commandments, God connects our flourishing as his people to our worship.
No other gods. No idols. Don’t worship them. Don’t misuse his name. Keep the Sabbath. Maximum human flourishing revolves around a theology of how we approach God relationally in worship, then of course our theology works out into how we treat each other. Thus, the summary of the law is love God and love neighbor.
Therefore, if we want human flourishing, we must make sure that our worship keeps in step with God’s instructions, his word.
What has God said? How does his word shape my thoughts, my actions, my habits, my character, my future, thus my life as worship, our worship together?
The Lord appeals to his people through Moses to remember that they witnessed him speaking, so they know he has given them his word. They have NO excuse. He has spoken, written it down, and spoke it through Moses to them.
Knowing his word then meant they understood that their worship must stay tied to his word, and he calls them to remembrance that they had what they needed to know.
They had to be a people who were anchored in God’s word, and they had no excuse for stepping outside of his boundaries.
They are accountable because God’s word is clear, and he will get even more explicit as we move through Exodus.
We are no different. Not only do we have the law, but we have the full revelation of the good news of the kingdom, and a completed canon of Scripture whereby we have the living and active word of God that is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the people of God will be thoroughly equipped, lacking nothing.
We have no excuse.
So, we must be a people continually making the connection of his word to our worship personally and corporately.
Idolatry distorts worship. V. 23.
Verse 23 is a repetition of what was already given in the first two commandments. When the Bible repeats something, it is wise for us to pay attention. The Lord chose to have Moses repeat commands one and two.
Idolatry is a nefarious and tricky evil.
Idolatry’s evil is not only contained in the spiritual entity being worshiped (see the first commandment). The evil of idolatry extends to the form that is manufactured to animate and/or represent that unseen entity (see the second commandment). Idolatry’s intent is to rival the Lord, to steal worship from God that belongs to him, and it happens in the unseen world and manifests in the seen world.
Idolatry is affection for in the unseen parts and action toward with our observable actions. Affection for the “god”, and actions performed to this “god”. Affection and action directed to any entity or thing above God is ultimately directed to a “god” either explicitly or under pretense.
Baal didn’t hide his name or his rivalry with YHWH. Molech didn’t hide it either. It was explicit.
Today, because we are western elites who are naturalists, the “gods” of the fallen cosmos like Molech disguise themselves as liberty and choice. So, we give our affections and actions to liberty and choice while Molech receives praise and we sacrifice to such “gods” in the form of children aborted as well as women and children trafficked in rival competition with Jesus who demands children and women be protected and led to worship him.
We think ourselves above those ancients who constructed physical idols, when in fact we are more deceived than the ancients, and perhaps in a deeper darkness than they were because many worship at the feet of Molech and believe it’s just their superior intellect to rise above the rest of humanity with their superior social position.
What if God values our service to him rather than complete liberty? What if God values limited ability to choose evil so that we are protected from evil?
Affections work themselves out into actions. That’s how the Wise Creator Jesus wired us to operate. Our affections for God are designed to work themselves out in joyful obedience to his word on mission with him.
When our affections were hijacked by the Serpent Dragon through the rebellion of distrust in the garden, our actions followed suit fast.
The next scene we see in the Garden after the rebellion offered as affection for the Serpent Dragon’s theology is the action of hiding from Jesus in fear, shame, and guilt. Desire for the Lord turned to distrust in the Lord, and that produced the action of hiding rooted in fear, shame, and guilt.
The evil of affection for another “god” in Eden worked out in actions to animate that “god’s” will in the earth for evil. The fruit of this idolatry has been working for mankind’s destruction since its original launch.
Murder. Slavery. Child sacrifice. Harsh treatment of humanity and the human body (examples: suicide, addiction, cutting, lies about our identity). False teaching. Adultery. Sexual immorality of all sorts (probably related to a different “god” for each kind). These are the actions of idolatry and thus the fruit of the flesh that is not controlled by the Spirit.
Idolatry takes the worship of God that defines mankind’s relationship with God in which humans were designed to flourish and turns it upside down so that mankind is in a bondage relationship to an evil “god”, and they work that relationship out in evil actions designed by the Serpent Dragon to destroy humanity.
So, idolatry then distorts worship by having a codified set of practices that can then be used to infiltrate true worship to dishonor God and ultimately entice the worshiper into destruction. Small and seemingly insignificant “things” that slowly draw people from God to the Serpent Dragon.
The Lord will address this in an introductory way in verse 25.
As you can tell from your reading of the Old Testament, Israel will struggle to keep their worship in line with God’s word and not warped by idolatrous practices designed by the Serpent Dragon to steal worship from Jesus. And as you can also see, that results in Israel’s demise not their flourishing.
Israel wants to incorporate things like other nations have, even a king rather than the Lord with a prophet.
We are not much different in the local church. We want things like others have, so we may incorporate seemingly benign practices, and end up compromising the mission for the sake purposes God does not value.
What you win people with, you win them to. If you win them to a service provided, you won them to that service. If you win them with Jesus and his mission, you’ve won them to Jesus and his mission.
Worship is a strategy of mission, and worship is the result of mission. V. 24
The Lord connects our worship to his mission work. You will find this connection all over the Bible.
By saying mission, I mean God’s work to see that Jesus is known and worshiped among all nations.
Note there are two sentences in verse 24. He instructs them about making an alter for sacrifice, which is one of the components of their worship. Then in the next sentence the Lord says he will come and bless them in every place where he causes his name to be remembered.
Building an alter for sacrifice which is part of their worship is one way the Lord makes his name be remembered by those who have forgotten who Creator Jesus is. The Idea of “forgotten” here is not they knew then just “forgot” a weeK later because they had too much on their mind. Moses has in mind “forgotten” over multiple generations. The idea is that the Lord was known in the earth, then abandoned in evil distrust, and successive generations have been caused to not know thus they “forgot”.
God blesses his people as they worship rightly, and in so doing his name is remembered or brought to remembrance. Worship heralds the name of Jesus outward to those who have forgotten.
They worship. God visits in blessing on his people, and he causes his name to be remembered. Worship has a mission component to it. Worship projects the good news far and wide in the heavenly places and in the earth.
Israel knows his name, and that’s why they are worshiping him. So, God being remembered is not for Israel’s sake alone. They know him. God being remembered is for the nations who don’t know.
The implication is that they are on mission to people who don’t know the Lord and those people are worshiping other “gods”. So, as Israel worships and relates to God rightly the Lord blesses them, shows those who don’t know that he is God in how he relates to his people, makes those who don’t know to know, and they come to worship him as they turn from the Serpent Dragon to faith in the Lord Jesus.
So, worship is an appropriate strategy of mission, and worship offered to the Lord is the result of mission.
Notice that it is God who makes the unbeliever remember as his people obey his word about relating to him correctly in worship. This is another glorious moment where the Lord reminds us that our task is to hear and obey, and his work is to make sure our obedience is effective.
So, mission begins and ends in right worship.
Our worship must not reflect the worship of other nations who worship other gods. V. 24a, 25
The Lord told Israel to make an altar of earth in verse 24. In verse 25 he allows them to make a stone alter, but to not use tools to shape the stone.
So, it’s clear that the Lord is not hung up on the material used to construct an altar, and it’s not merely about using tools to make the altar.
He’s going to give instructions for the use of wood, metal, animal skins, and the like in the tabernacle that all must be shaped by tools. It’s not the material or tools.
What the Lord is concerned about is Israel taking their actions of worship from others who are working their idolatry out according to the Serpent Dragon’s desires that are abusing humanity.
The Lord does not want Israel to mimic what other nations do in their affections and actions offered to the dark forces of evil.
The nations around Israel shaped their stones to make large and tall ziggurats where the “god” would meet with leaders in acts of sexual and sacrificial ceremonies that were just evil.
In fact, if you are curious, I’d encourage you to watch Graham Hancock’s “Ancient Apocalypse” series on Netflix and note how nations around the world built various stone mounds for worship to various “gods” connected to the stars, sun, and moon, with shaped stones for worship and a hope of escaping a globally catastrophic event using. Hancock’s findings and theories defy naturalism’s timeframe and evolutionary ideas about man. Hancock is not a Christian. So, don’t go watch thinking he’s going to affirm Bible, although he will reference Genesis now and again.
He is curious about what archaeology is digging up. He’s curious about what it is telling us, and what is being dug up defies science, history, and sociology as taught in government funded academia. It’s worth a watch.
But what you will see also is an affirmation of what Genesis 10 tells us about Babel and the worship of the Serpent Dragon. Babel and the nations scattered after Babel had practices that worked out of their affections for their “god” in some hopes of avoiding the Lord’s instructions to fill the earth. Rather than repent and follow the Lord, they kept worshiping evil and were scattered to continue their evil in building tall mountainous structures of shaped stones.
The Lord told Israel to NOT incorporate any of that nonsense of doing what the Serpent Dragon’s followers were doing in their state of slavery to sin.
Israel was to be careful about remembering the Lord’s word and obeying him lest they drift into the spiritual influence of dark forces by using dark ways of worship.
Our worship is to be pure. V. 26
Human sexuality is holy and good. What the Serpent Dragon has done to it is the darkest of evils.
From the Garden God made it good, and part of that goodness was our sexuality expressed inside God’s boundary of marriage for flourishing between a husband and wife expressed as worship.
Since the Serpent Dragon cannot create ex nihilo, he can only work with what the Lord made. So, what happens? He influences humans to take human sexuality and make it into worship for his praise performed by humans who bring the sacrifice of their actions outside of God’s boundaries. That evil starts taking all kinds of forms.
Remember, the Serpent Dragon’s aim is to rival YHWH, steal his praise, and destroy humanity.
So, he twists what is good so that we take it outside of God’s boundaries for flourishing. He turns it into worship directed to him and destroys us in the process.
That perverted twisting is currently a multi-billion-dollar industry that is fed through slavery to men, women, and children through satellite technology we hold in our hands.
All over the Old Testament, you’ll find human sexuality connected to dark worship practices. Cult prostitution is a rampant problem in the Promised Land and will become integrated into Israel’s practices.
Genesis 6:1-4 is the second rebellion Moses recounts (Genesis 10 is the third) as these evil forces cross over boundaries for flourishing and inject some of the darkest evil into humanity that is possible through breaking God’s boundaries of sexuality.
Thus, sexual perversion has been a blight connected to worship since the Serpent Dragon and his minions crossed that line.
Therefore, it should not be lost on us that it is sexual immorality that causes so much death and destruction in the local church. This is why.
The enemy has twisted God’s good into evil practices, connected it to worship, and our failure to keep God’s boundaries can result in a cascade of evil. You don’t have to search too far to see it in the local church.
I don’t need to get specific. We’ve experienced it in our church and had to deal with it to the hurt and wounding of so many people.
We’ve seen it in our denomination. We read about it almost monthly in churches around America.
Worship and being careful about crossing lines in the heavens and among mankind is on Paul’s mind. His instructions in 1 Corinthians 11 are not disconnected from texts like ours this morning. God’s prohibition of steps is a mystery in line with a woman’s head covering in 1 Corinthians 11. These are not disconnected.
God would later tell the priests to wear undergarments in their tabernacle work to keep themselves covered while they do the work of corporate worship. Exodus 28:42-43.
We will need to deal with that when we get there.
But for now, just know that the purpose was to cover up what God created regarding male sexuality.
Not because it’s evil, but because there is more going on in worship with spiritual warfare than our eyes can see, so he created boundaries for our protection and flourishing. See Genesis 6.
It’s not the steps. It’s what might get exposed on the steps, seen by spiritual forces and used to entice worshipers away. So for now, he wants them to avoid the steps until they learn about the underwear to cover up what gets exposed.
That helps to explain Paul’s little phrase in 1 Corinthians 11:10 about head coverings in worship for women, “…because of the angels…”. You will need to learn about their view of a woman’s hair. To help you, we did a podcast on this and you can listen right here: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/R9Po1j45sOb
God’s concern, and thus Paul’s concern is about our purity connected to our worship because there are forces looking for opportunity to inject their poison into our sincere efforts so that they can steal God’s worship and destroy a church and it’s witness to the world.
Therefore, we must be tuned in and aware that the Serpent Dragon can and will come after the purity of God’s people privately and corporately in and with worship.
So, beware.
Worship must be a sacrifice. V. 24, 25, 26
The word for “altar” is the Hebrew word for “slaughter”.
The alter was a place for the slaughtered animal to be presented as a sacrifice for worship and atonement.
Altar is repeated three times in verses 24-26. One time in each verse. It’s repeated, so remember to pay attention.
What the Lord is communicating is that our worship must have as a core principle the laying down of something for greater purposes. We are giving up something of great worth for the praise of the One we are bringing the offering to.
2 Samuel 24:24 (CSB) 24 The king answered Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
David understood that a sacrifice is costly, and anything offered that was not costly was no sacrifice.
Therefore, worship as a living sacrifice must be just that, costly.
Worship is not to be something that we see as “filling us up”. Rather, worship is to be something that empties us. This is not how most of us see worship.
Worship is to be work.
What is wild about worship though is that what Jesus taught us is true: Matthew 16:24 (CSB) 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.
When we stop seeing worship as something for us and see it as an emptying of ourselves for the sake of Jesus’ praise, we will then receive the filling up to keep going. But if we see worship as something for us, we will keep putting water in cisterns that cannot hold water and wondering what’s wrong.
Worship is not entertainment. Worship is not consumables. Worship is work that prepares us for the eternal kingdom.
Application:
Engage in spiritual warfare through worship.
What is at stake is the honor of Jesus, and don’t believe the enemy is absent to take something good and ruin your life with it.
Immature faith treats the holy and spiritual warfare with flippant and irreverent effort.
Immature faith treats the honor of God as a light thing.
Immature faith believes holiness and weightiness must be downplayed to be attractive to outsiders.
Immature faith ignores that our habits now will be passed on to the next generation.
God does not need us to add to his word and ways for him to get done all he wants to get done when his people are fully devoted to him in lives of worship.
Keep learning worship. Don’t take anything for granted. Discipline your mind to center all your attention on Jesus. Obey his word. Sing. Pray. Listen. Obey.
Work at worship.
In 2008 Georgia played Alabama. The week leading up to the game the only thing that swirled was whether Coach Richt was going to bring out the black jerseys. Press conferences with UGA was all about the black jerseys and the mystery on if they would wear them.
When they interviewed Coach Saban, all he talked about was how their O-line was working on hand placement for run blocking.
I remember thinking: We are about to get the brakes beat off us.
Georgia came out with the black jerseys and the crowd went wild. Players were celebrating when they ran out of the tunnel like they had already won something.
Bama jumped out to a 31-0 lead. Bama won the game 41-30.
The point? It was not about the Jerseys. It was about hand placement.
Nothing attractive about hand placement. Just hard work and repetition. Hand placement didn’t have people celebrating. Nobody was fired up to hear Saban talking about fundamentals. But hand placement won the game and showed the world that the game is played in the fundamentals not the frills.
Worship is like that. If all we can think about is what we want and need, then we are looking at the “jersey” not the fundamentals, and the enemy has a foothold, and we will get the brakes beat off us.
Worship that pleases God and results in human flourishing is all about the “hand placement”, the fundamentals. The simple and holy instructions of God for his glory and our good and joy.
We are set on making sure Jesus sits enthroned on our hearts right now. We are fighting to keep ourselves in the moment, paying attention, listening to the Spirit, dialed in. We’re in a place of repentance, there is nothing hidden. We’re ready to honor Jesus and serve others before ourselves. We are going to offer Jesus our best 24/7 not just for an hour and a half, yet for this hour and a half we are dialed in to work. We are going to discipline ourselves to be in communion with God. We will set our mind’s attention and heart’s affection on the Lord. We are going to humbly glorify God in response to the revelation of his glory and majesty. We are going to pursue holiness when no one is looking to praise us for it but God.
When this is how we offer ourselves as living sacrifices privately and when we come together, our capacity for human flourishing is in place and the local church will flourish and the kingdom of God will go forward.
TRC, Psalm 147:1 says, “Hallelujah! How good it is to sing to our God, for praise is pleasant and lovely.”
Let’s get after it!