10
Glorifying God in the Church by Our Worship (Revelation 4-5)
Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on January 27, 2008
www.goldcountrybaptist.org
I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation 4 and turn your hearts upward to heaven to get a glimpse of what worship looks like before the throne of God above. Of all the pictures of worship we have in scripture, I don’t know of any more moving or lofty picture than chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, and I pray that we can even worship together as I read these 2 chapters in their entirety, and seek to set our minds on things above, not on things here on earth, to lift our minds to heavenly thoughts of the glory for which we were created for, the reason for our existence, and the ultimate purpose of the church – the glory of God. One of the chief ways in which God is glorified by His church as well as by His heavenly hosts is by worship.
Revelation 4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” 2 Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. 3 And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. 5 Out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God; 6 and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal; and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. 7 The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. 8 And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.” 9 And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
Revelation 5:1 I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. 2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it. 4 Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it
5 and one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” 6 And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” 14 And the four living creatures kept saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.
Abraham Kuyper gives a good summary of our study last week: ‘the purpose of the Church does not lie in us, but in God, and in the glory of His name’[1]
And the glory of God’s name is most magnified and God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him and mesmerized by Him, as we praise and worship Him and enjoy Him forever on earth as it is in heaven.
New Purpose Statement of Gold Country Baptist Church:
This church exists by the grace of God, for the glory of God, which shall be the ultimate purpose in all our activities
Isaiah 43:7 says God created us for His glory. Ephesians 3:21 says “to God be the glory in the church.” We as individuals and as a church exist by God’s grace and for God’s glory above all.
We’re going to spend several weeks and messages expounding how we as a church glorify God, by the God-given mandates of the church, or the means by which we will seek to fulfill our ultimate purpose, which is to glorify God by the activities He calls us to.
In our new constitution we have that overarching purpose statement about the glory of God above everything else, and then underneath we will have a separate section that says this:
This church will seek to glorify God by:
#1. The Worship of God. (Ps. 34:1-3; John 4:22-24; Rev. 4:8-11)
In the weeks ahead, we’ll be spending a week or more on other priorities through which the church is to glorify God (View of God, Word of God, Loving and Obeying God, Serving and Edifying the People of God, the Gospel of God - Evangelism, Missions, etc.). There’s a reason we put worship first on the list. Worship is to dominate everything and pervade everything we do. Some might put missions first on their list, or evangelism first, and I appreciate that zeal. But worship has a preeminent place because:
- all other actions should flow from and be fueled by a heart that worships in spirit and truth (if we are not truly worshipers, God is not pleased no matter what we do when our heart is far from Him, like Jesus said of the Pharisees)
- also worship is above man’s duties because it precedes the existence of humanity and does not rely on man
- when the earth was being created the angels sang for joy and worshipped God, days before Adam and Eve existed
- the heavens and earth created before man were to declare the glory of God, as Psalm 19 says
- worship not only came before humanity on earth, but it is one activity which will continue long after there is no man on earth and this world is recreated to a new heavens and a new earth. Missions and evangelism and teaching the Bible are only around for awhile in this life, but worship is eternal
In fact, worship really should be the motive and fuel of missions and evangelism, to bring others to worship this God and enjoy Him forever, which ultimately gives God glory. Evangelism exists because there are many places and peoples where God’s worship does not exist, and where God is not glorified as a result.
John Piper says it this way: “Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over … missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”[2]
The chief end of man and the chief end of the church is to glorify God and enjoy Him (not just forever but now). Arguably the chief way in which we do that is through our worship and praise of God.
Ps 50:23 “Whoever offers praise glorifies me” (NKJV)
Ps 86:9 “All nations whom You have made Shall come and worship before You, O Lord, And shall glorify Your name.”
God’s worship and glory are clearly linked throughout scripture
So how can we glorify God as a church in our worship?
1. A SUPREME FOCUS ON GOD
Throne – appears 18x in the passage we read. To put that in perspective, the word throne appears more times in this text than it does in all the other books of the NT combined. Throne occurs nearly 50x overall in Revelation, and is an undeniable theme or emphasis of the book – not just a chair, but the sovereign rule it represents and the Sovereign One seated on the throne.
Isaiah’s vision of heaven (Isa 6:1) also begins this way
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”
There’s a lot of things we could focus on from Isaiah’s vision and glimpse into heaven but notice it’s essentially the same picture and activities that John sees, angelic creatures surrounding the Lord crying holy, holy, holy, praising the Lord, glorifying God, worshipping, and the Lord’s majesty is on display, high and exalted – but the first thing both see is God’s Throne. There were a lot of difficulties for God’s people in Isaiah’s day and John’s day but God is always on His throne, ruling and reigning no matter what happens here on earth. The hearts of kings are in God’s hand and God turns them wherever He desires. God is now, always has been and always will be Sovereign! King Uzziah died but the real King is alive and enthroned, and God alone is to be the source of our strength and comfort, not any man or even the greatest of men.
In John’s day, it was not the seemingly all-powerful Roman Empire that would determine the future of Christianity. Caesar was not ultimately in charge. God and God alone occupies the throne of Omnipotence and actively rules over all, working all things for His glory and the good of His people.
There are many different approaches and nuances and interpretations of Revelation as a whole, but one point that should be very clear to any reader is that the Sovereignty and Supremacy of the enthroned Lord is dominant in this book. He is in charge!
Original audience:
Seven local churches in the Roman province of what in old days was called Asia Minor, in modern times would be on a map of Western Turkey. These were seven local churches, that had some good things going for them, but in other areas they were struggling, not unlike our churches today; struggling with sin, lukewarmness, lethargy, lack of love, lack of church discipline, tolerance of bad teaching, troubled by tribulation and persecution.
When you think of the book of Revelation, many of you immediately think of the prophecies of chapters 6 and following, these apocalyptic judgments of God, and God’s future plan for His saints, the people of Israel, etc. But after addressing each church and their sin issues in chapters 2 and 3, God doesn’t immediately launch right into giving His people what the future and end of time will look like or helping us get a chart laid out so we can put it on our wall or put it into bestselling books. Studying the details of future events has its place, but the first place and first thing God wanted John to see was this vision of majestic worship of the supreme and Sovereign Lord of the universe. God spends all of chapters 4 and 5 with this focus on God-glorifying worship, two full chapters that are mostly about the worship of Himself in all of His splendor and majesty and dominion. Don’t miss this focus!
To be sure, Revelation does give us details about how it all will end, but lest we get stuck in the trees and miss seeing the whole forest, what God wanted John and those original churches to first be caught up with was this vision of the throne room and the Master of the Universe who rules and reigns despite all the persecution and problems that first century Christians were facing.
When God is truly big in our minds, our problems are not as big.
That’s the big picture. So let’s not jump right to the prophecies and symbols to try to figure out what international politics or modern newspaper headlines have some correlation to the rest of the book of Revelation, and be so consumed with those secondary things that we miss the all-important primary message of chapters 4-5 about the worthiness of our Lord, the worth-ship of our Lord, the worship due His matchless and majestic name. In fact, the book is called the “Revelation” of Jesus Christ – He is the main character of this book, Christ not the antichrist is to be our focus. Christ is central and this book is primarily unveiling (that’s what Revelation means “unveiling”) the glory of the King of Kings who is coming back. The main point of the story is that King Jesus will be triumphant and victorious, and Revelation 19-21 tell us His kingdom will be setup, Satan will be bound and encarcerated in the abyss so he can longer deceive the world, Jesus will conquer His foes, and one day judgment will come on fallen angels and humanity.
It’s my personal belief that unfulfilled prophecies will be fulfilled by Christ as literally as the prophecies He fulfilled while here on earth the first time. In other words, God will fulfill promises in the future the same way as he fulfilled promises in the past during biblical times. I don’t assume that God’s pattern for many hundreds of years of fulfilling prophecies literally to the detail is now abandoned and prophecies are fulfilled mostly spiritually now. I think the way God accomplished promises at Christ’s first coming is the pattern we can expect for promises about His 2nd coming.