To Worship God
Well, today, as you know, is the last day of 2023, and I want to begin his morning by telling you that the most important thing that you’ve done with your life in 2023 is to magnify the glory of God. And, the most important thing you can do with your life in 2024 is to magnify the glory God.
That’s why we exist. That’s what we’re here for, church! Our purpose is to magnify the glory of God, or we could say the worth of God. Another word for this is “worship.” We exist to be worshipers of God, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today in Hebrews 13, verses 20–21.
I just want to show you two things in these verses:
Worship is the goal.
Worship applies to all of life.
Let’s pray:
Father in heaven, we ask now, by your grace, that you would do more in our hearts over the next minutes than we could have expected. Accomplish your will, in Jesus’s name, amen.
1) Worship is the goal.
Look again at verse 20. Verses 20–21 are the concluding benediction and doxology of the Book of Hebrews. The writer tells us his concluding prayer for us as Christian readers, and he directs all glory to God.
Now in most English translations there are about 61 total words here in these two verses, and they all matter, but if we had to distill these two verses down to the main point of what the writer is saying, I think we can do it in seven words:
May God equip you to worship him!
The subject is God; the object is us; and the main verb is that God is equipping us for a purpose — and that purpose, or goal, is to worship him — but how am I getting worship from verse 21?
If you look at verse 21, we don’t see the word “worship.” So how can I say that the goal here is worship?
Pleasing in His Sight
Well, I’m glad you asked! It has to do with that word “pleasing.” If you can, try to find that word “pleasing” in verse 21. It’s in the second line:
May God equip you with everything good that you may go his will “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.”
A lot of times there are words in the New Testament that get their meaning from the Old Testament, and that’s especially the case for the word “pleasing” in Hebrews.
The word “pleasing” is a levitical word that has to do with worship. We see the word over and over again in the Book of Leviticus in reference to the offerings and sacrifices that people made to God. If the offering or sacrifice was according to what God had instructed, it was said to be pleasing to God, or acceptable to God (the original word could be translated either way). The idea is that God is pleased with the worship.
This topic is actually a theme we see throughout the Old Testament. There are two kinds of worship: there is pleasing worship and there is vain, empty worship. We see this distinction right away in the Bible, starting with Cain and Abel.
Both brothers brought an offering to God, but God was only pleased with Abel’s offerings. Genesis 4:4, “And Yahweh had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.” So there are two ways to go here. There’s true worship that pleases God or false worship (so-called worship) that God rejects — and of course we want to be true worshipers. We want our worship to be pleasing to God.
In the Writer’s Mind
And we know that this is in the writer’s mind in Hebrews Chapter 13 because of the immediate context here. We’re in verses 20–21, but just look back a little to verse 15. Hebrews 13:15. Follow with me here, verse 15:
Through him [Jesus] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
The writer is talking about worship here. The word “pleasing” is in reference to sacrifices — but these are New Covenant sacrifices. In the New Covenant, our ‘sacrifices’ — or our acts of worship — don’t involve animals anymore; it’s not tied to a certain time and place, but now our sacrifices, according to Hebrews 13:15–16, include things like praise — verbal acknowledgment of God — and love and generosity to others. That is worship pleasing to God. That’s what the writer has been talking about in Chapter 13.
But not only that, but turn back to Chapter 12, verse 28 for a second. This is just one page back. In Chapter 12, the writer has been describing the greater glory of the New Covenant, and then he says, Chapter 12, verse 28,
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship …
And that word “acceptable” is the exact same word for “pleasing.” Pleasing worship.
The Big Takeaway
So then, when we see the word “pleasing” in Chapter 13, verse 21, that God is “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight,” we should think about worship. That’s what the writer has been talking about. Therefore, I think a short summary of what the writer is saying in verses 20–21 is: May God equip you to worship him!
That’s the last thing this writer wants to leave us with in this book, in this word of exhortation. I think we should call this the big takeaway from the Book of Hebrews.
What else do we do with everything we’ve seen this year in this book?
What is the ultimate difference it should make in our lives that we have seen that Jesus is better, that he is our great high priest, that the new covenant is superior to the old, that we need (and we can!) endure in faith? What’s the point of all that? Worship. We want to magnify the glory and worth of God. Worship is the goal.
Here’s the second and last thing to see.
2) Worship applies to all of life.
There’s a parallel in verse 21 that I want you to see. God’s “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (which has to do with worship), that parallels and explains what it means that it’s God equipping us “to do his will.”
One way to paraphrase the first part of verse 21 is to say:
God equips you to do his will, which means God does in us what is pleasing to him.
Our doing the will of God is the worship of God.
The Will of God
Now I know that sometimes we can have a lot of questions when it comes to the will of God — ‘what is God’s will and how do we know it?!’ And we can get stressed out about this — but the Bible is pretty straightforward here. In verse 21, the will of God is restated as that which is pleasing to God, and as we’ve seen, what the writer has in mind is worship. We worship God when we do his will.
And here is where we need to be really clear about what worship means. If worship is doing God’s will — if worship is the goal, if it’s why we exist — then we need to know what worship is.
Well, worship, now — because of Jesus, because of the first Christmas — is no longer restricted to a certain act in a certain place done in a very stipulated way.
We already saw that the writer of Hebrews calls praising God and doing good to others sacrifices — and we can do those anywhere.
Now what we’re doing together here is worship — we gather here every Sunday for corporate worship, but I’d actually argue that the most unique thing going on here is not the worship, but it’s the mutual edification. It’s that we’re worshiping God together, which builds one another up. That’s the one thing happening right now that won’t be happening tomorrow when we’re not gathered. But the worship continues. You come into this place as a worshiper of God, and you are commissioned out of this place as a worshiper of God. We are worshipers of God wherever we can do the will of God — that’s everywhere and anytime. Worship applies to all of life.
But now, practically, what does that mean? How does worship in all of life look?
It looks like Jesus. It means that we are radically centered on Jesus and we are Christlike from the heart.
Centered on Jesus
Jesus is the one who changed the meaning of worship forever.
Remember the conversation Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well. This is in John 4. She brings us the topic of worship, because there was a dispute about true worship, so she asked Jesus, Where is the place of true worship?
And Jesus basically said, It’s not a place anymore, it’s me.
Now that Jesus has come, all true worship is focused on Jesus himself. He is both the way to God, and the ‘place’ where God’s presence dwells. And we certainly see this in Hebrews!
Just think of the ways that Jesus transformed Old Covenant worship. All the pieces of Old Covenant worship are now fulfilled in him: Jesus is the temple; Jesus is the high priest; Jesus is the sacrifice. It’s like Jesus became the entire worship service.
True worship now is radically centered on Jesus … but it’s not just centered on him, it means that we actually become like him.
Becoming Like Jesus
Turn back to Hebrews 10 for a minute, and we’re going to end on this. I think this passage in Hebrews 10 brings it all together. If you can, follow along with me in Hebrews 10, starting in verse 4:
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world [which is what we celebrate at Christmastime!]
when Christ came into the world, he said, [to God]
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Now that word for “prepared” there — “a body you have prepared for me” — that’s the same word that’s translated “equip” in Chapter 13, verse 21. God equips us to do his will. God ‘equipped’ Jesus with a body.
And being equipped with a body, verse 7:
7 Then [Jesus] said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’
Now listen to how the writer explains this, verse 8,
8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
In other words, the old way of worship is over. The new way of worship is do the will of God.
Verse 10,
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
So worship is centered on Jesus — you can’t worship God apart from Jesus — but also worship now means that we become like Jesus. We do what he did.
A Living Sacrifice
Jesus completely surrendered himself to the will of God — “I’m here to do your will.” “Not my will, but yours be done,” he said, even with loud cries and tears. Jesus completely surrendered himself to God, which means that his whole life was a sacrifice that was pleasing to God.
And now for us, through Jesus, we do the same. Through Jesus, like Jesus, we also surrender our lives to the will of God. There’s no wonder the apostle Paul says what he says in Romans 12:1,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship.
To be a living sacrifice is New Covenant worship. That is our calling. That’s what it means to worship God. Jesus was the ultimate living sacrifice, and we, in him, become living sacrifices, completely surrendered to the will of God.
Absolute Surrender
There’s a South African pastor from the 1800s named Andrew Murray, and he wrote a classic book, some of you may have heard of, called Absolute Surrender. My pastor growing up gave me his copy of the book years ago when I was trying to discern God’s will for my life, and there’s a key section in the book when Murray is talking about exactly what we’re talking about here. Listen to this.
Murray writes,
Jesus gave up his life to God, and he thereby taught us that the only thing that life is worth living for is to give it back to God even unto death. If you take your life and spend it on yourself, even partly, you are abusing it. You are taking it away from its noblest use. O Christian, learn from Christ that the beauty of having life and will and body is that you can give it to God, and that then God will fill it with His glory … Christian, do you want a life of fellowship with God, and of glory and power and joy, even here upon earth? Remember, then, that there is but one way to secure it. Give your life up to God. That is the one way. That is what Christ did. (Absolute Surrender, 25).
Many of you, as we have prayed for our church in this new season, we have prayed for increased surrender — and this is what we mean. Increased surrender is a life of all-consuming worship. Increased surrender is to be a living sacrifice.
This is not just for an hour and a half on Sunday morning, but you’re a living sacrifice over lunch this afternoon, and when you’re putting your kids to bed tonight, and when you step into the office tomorrow, and when you think hard about challenges in front of you …
You’re a living sacrifice when you do good work, not half-hearted work, but excellent work as unto God, not man.
You’re a living sacrifice when you show kindness to the people around you, and when you speak words of grace, and when you wake up early to read God’s word and to pray.
You’re a living sacrifice when you do the uncomfortable thing for a purpose bigger than comfort, and when you steward your body well, and when you are generous with your time and resources, and when you endure in faith even as you’re surrounded by the whirlwind of suffering.
You’re a living sacrifice when you testify of a joy down deep in your soul, even though the fig tree may not blossom … even though the cancer may not go away.
When you are a living sacrifice, when you are surrendered to God like Jesus, through Jesus, it means simply that you belong to God. Every part of us and all that we have is his, and we want to magnify his glory and worth in everything. That’s why we exist. It’s the most important thing that we’ve done in 2023, and the most important thing we can do in 2024.
Father, would you make us to be, as individuals and as an entire church, make us to be a living sacrifice. Overcome with the joy of being yours, and through us, would you magnify your glory in these Twin Cities? Be pleased with our lives of worship, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
