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Jul 24, 2022

Worship Matters

Worship Matters

Passage: Deuteronomy 5:8-10

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Life in Ten Words

When monuments to Martin Luther King, Jr were unveiled several years ago in Washington, D.C., many rejoiced at the majestic representations of the celebrated Civil Rights leader. Others who knew him well tended to be disappointed in how those representations failed to capture something essential in him. Notwithstanding their intent and investment, some found those reverential figures obscuring if not distorting his memory, rather than preserving it. Among ancient faiths, only the God of Israel permitted no physical representations of His divinity. One might rightly wonder why if He intended to be known among all. We’re considering the second of the ten commandments this week which calls not just for the worship of God, but right worship–worship true to His being.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Isaiah 40:18, 21-23
LEADER: To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?

Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

ALL: It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER:)
Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
ALL: Thanks be to God.

CENTRAL TEXT: Deuteronomy 5:8-10
Deut. 5:8 “ ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

CONFESSION OF SIN: based on Psalm 8, Psalm 19
ALL: You have set your glory above the heavens. The heavens declare that glory; the sky above proclaims your handiwork. What are we that you are mindful of us, that you care for us–we such a trifling in an immense universe. But we have forgotten ourselves as we have forgotten you in the large and small ways we have ignored your rightful claim on us. You have made plain your love for us in making us like you. You have made it plainer still in giving up your son to restore that image we bear. Forgive us our estrangement. Help us to see that worth you invested in us and died to rescue.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON : Romans 5:6-8
LEADER: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ALL: Thanks be to God.

BENEDICTION: 1 Timothy 1:17
LEADER: To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
ALL: Amen!

Related Resources

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Genesis 1:26-27
  • Exodus 32:1-10
  • Deuteronomy 4:5-8
  • Deuteronomy 4:15-24
  • Deuteronomy 7:9
  • Deuteronomy 24:16
  • John 14:8-10
  • Acts 17:29
  • Ephesians 4:24
  • Hebrews 1:1-3

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Can you think of a time when you have been misunderstood, misrepresented, or misperceived? What were the details? What did you think, and how did you feel? Why?
  2. What is being prohibited in the 2nd commandment? Try to be as specific as possible? 
  3. How is this second commandment similar, yet distinct from the 1st?
  4. What is YHWH’s reason for this prohibition? We humans only know jealousy as a response of fear, anger, and hurt from the sense of rejection. If God is not insecure in any way, and needs nothing from us (Acts 17:25), then how might we understand the characterization of God as “jealous” differently? What is, so to speak, the “goal” of jealousy? What is it seeking, or trying to protect and preserve? 
  5. How do you reconcile what you hear in verse 10 with what you can later read in Deuteronomy 24:16? Can you point to either historical example or personal experience (or observation) of the choices of one generation having long standing effects beyond their lives into the lives of those who follow them–either harmful or helpful?
  6. Why is Jesus an “exception” yet also a fulfillment of the rule established in the 2nd commandment?
  7. How might this commandment have implications for those tasked with leading a people in worship? Now how might it apply to any who would worship God?

QUOTES:

  • There were ten or twenty good reasons why she would not go to church… Doll never did. The place was full of strangers. She had only the one dress to wear. They all knew the songs, they knew what they were supposed to do and say and what it meant. They all knew each other. The preacher said things that bothered her, she couldn’t make sense of them. Resurrection. …she guessed she liked the candles and the singing. She guessed she didn’t have a better place to be…. - Marilynne Robinson, Lila
  • Unless everything peculiar to divinity is confined to God alone, he is robbed of his honor and his worship is violated. - Calvin, Institutes, 1.12.1
  • A God who was not jealous. . .would be as contemptible as a husband who didn’t care whether or not his wife was faithful to him. . . .Jealousy is God’s love protecting itself. - Christopher Wright
  • Franny, if you’re going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St Francis and Seymour and Heidi’s grandfather wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as you’d like him to have been. - Zooey in J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey
  • The Son is the human in whom the Ten Words of the Father at Sinai become enfleshed. Jesus Christ is in fact the only conversion of humanity to those Words. . . . In the person of Jesus all humans can trust that they, too, hear and enact them, and so experience genuine freedom. - Kenneth Tanner
  • If I had a spell of magic
    I would make this enchantment for you
    A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
    With a window you can look through
    So that when all the mirrors are angry–with all your faults and all you must do
    You could peek through that heart-shaped medallion
    To see you from my point of view.
    - “Burgundy heart-shaped medallion,” David Wilcox

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