Summary
We just spent a year and a half studying the Revelation.
We discovered that it can be summed up in two words: Worship God!
Who is he? He is that slaughtered Lamb standing on the throne.
What is Worship? Worship is praising something, exalting something; it is enjoying something.
Worship is your favorite thing to do. Worship God.
If you’re like me and you’re honest, something inside you thinks, “That doesn’t sound like my favorite thing to do. I’d rather worship the Denver Broncos, my ’62 Chevy Impala, a can of Budweiser, or maybe my girlfriend, or myself . . . but not God.”
The Hebrews had a book of poems and songs to help them worship.
Most of them appear to have been written by David.
They’re called “The Psalms.”
We will be preaching from them for a time; perhaps they’ll help us “Worship God!”
In Psalm 145—the last psalm explicitly attributed to David—David declares:
“On the glorious splendor (kabod hador) of your majesty . . . I will meditate. . . . The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. . . . The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you . . . You satisfy the desire of every living thing . . .”
(Every living thing, desires “the good.” In Hebrew that word “good” means “that which is desired.” It’s the thing hanging on the tree in the middle of the garden.)
David continues: “The Lord is right in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.”
It’s at this point, most people say, “OK… BS… How can God have mercy over all that he has made and destroy the wicked? That’s BS. That’s impossible!”
Is it impossible? . . . for the Creator? Next verse.
“My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forevermore.”
Will you let all flesh bless his holy name forevermore? That’s what Heaven is—all flesh blessing his holy name forevermore.
Will you let you bless his holy name forevermore? Because you probably just said “BS” to all of David’s reason for blessing his holy name forevermore.
Do you realize that your chief complaint against God—ever since you took knowledge from the tree—is that he doesn’t destroy the wicked?
Instead, he tolerates the people that you hate.
David wonders why God tolerates his enemies, and then, he wonders why God tolerates David.
The Good News is that God will destroy the wicked and God will destroy you—the old you, that you thought you had made, and in his or her place reveal the new and eternal you that he has made.
Perhaps wickedness is not really something God has made, but something more like the manifestation of the void in which everything is made, the chaos in which the Logos is made known, the darkness in which the Light is revealed, the knowledge of evil that makes us fall in love with the Good.
And what is “the Good?”
It’s the kabod hador that would appear on top of the Ark between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies behind the veil. It is a lamb standing as if He had just been slain. He is the Good and he is how God destroys the work of the evil one—that is, wickedness.
David couldn’t contain him, explain him, or comprehend him, but he did trust him, when he began to worship him in the house of the Lord in front of the veil.
It was his favorite thing to do.
And it’s your favorite thing to do, whether you realize it, or not.
Every moment in which you have been truly happy was a moment in which you worshipped—a moment in which you forgot about trying to be good, and just celebrated the Good . . . in something.
What if instead of worshipping the Denver Broncos, you could worship the Good in the Denver Broncos?
What if instead of worshipping wine, you could worship God with wine? (maybe even communion?)
What if instead of worshipping your girlfriend, you could worship God in the temple that is your girlfriend?
Then maybe you wouldn’t destroy your girlfriend, yourself, and become an idolater—in need of destruction. And maybe you would never ever need to stop doing your favorite thing to do?
God is the Good in everything that’s anything, and you are being made to worship him.
When we learn to worship him, we receive all things with him.
He is the Good and he always comes to us as Grace.
In the End, we cannot “take” what is eternally given—the kabod hador.
If you think you can, that’s wickedness. If you know you can’t, you worship in Spirit and Truth—you are the image and likeness of God.
The “chief end of man/woman is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.”
It is your favorite thing to do.