Reverent Worship
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 (ESV):
1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.
2Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heav en and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
3For a dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words.
4When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
6Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messengerthat it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?
7For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; butGod is the one you must fear.
What are your expectations when you come to church on Sunday? I’m fully aware that we all come to church with certain expectations. Here are some examples:
♦ We expect people to be warm and accepting, helping everyone feel they belong to the church.
♦ We expect the worship experience to be meaningful, with music and prayers that draw us to the pres ence of God.
♦ We expect sermons to be relevant and applicable to our lives and help us navigate the challenges of our daily grind.
♦ We expect the church to provide us with a sense of comfort, hope, and peace, especially during our most difficult times in life.
Now, are these some of your expectations this morning? Let me assure you that these are some of the expectations we hope to meet every time we gather on a Sunday. These are undoubtedly reasonable expectations.
However, my sermon today is not about meeting your expectations but about meeting God’s expec tations when we attend church. When we examine the Bible, the main emphasis is that we must put more weight on meeting God’s expectations first before our expectations. As Jesus Christ had said clearly in Matthew 6: 33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be add ed to you.”
Unfortunately, many Christians today have allowed their lives to be “me-centered” rather than God centered. We often misunderstand verses like John 3:16, which talks about how God loves us so much that we begin to think that God exists to please us rather than for us to please Him. For this reason, our church life has deteriorated, and we are always insisting that the church pleases us. It should always be meeting the people I like, the music I like, or the sermon I like.
However, the shift in our sermon is worth examining this morning. If you go back to verse 1 of our
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text, we read, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.” Starting in August, we started this sermon series on the Book of Ecclesiastes, entitled “Living Our Lives with No Regrets.” For the past four chapters, King Solomon concluded that all the pursuits of
man under the sun are meaningless. So, he shifted to providing us with better alterna tives in life. Now, we have to begin pursuing Him, who is above the sun.
Last Sunday, Pastor Jerome showed us the significance of the book's phrase “better than.” This refers to a better way or a different path we should be willing to take because where we are right now is not work ing. One of the emphases last Sunday was choosing contentment over covetousness. We would be a fool if we continued to insist on a path that would not lead us to a more favorable end. But because of our sinful nature, we often have difficulty following the better route. So, we must be willing to put our best efforts into moving to the better way.
With this new shift to meeting the expectations of God, in our text, we will study three specific expec tations:
I IN PRACTICING THE WORSHIP OF GOD, BE COMPLIANT (v.1)
Let’s begin with verse 1, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.”
When you read these words, it is essential to emphasize that King Solomon assumes that going to the house of God is part of your spiritual habit. Because if not, then this verse does not apply to you. Of course, for King Solomon, who built the temple during his reign in Israel, the house of God is fundamental to his rela tionship with God. If you are not sure why? Allow me to explain.
If you go back to the Book of Genesis, when God created Adam and Eve, He allowed them to have the privilege of communing with Him in the Garden of Eden. However, because of sin, humans have lost this in credible privilege. Adam and Eve had to be driven out of Eden, and the Cherubim were placed to keep them out of the garden (Genesis 3: 22-24). However, out of God’s compassion towards humanity, He made a way to restore this communion. First, he allowed Moses to build the Tabernacle in the wilderness after Israel was delivered from Egypt. Exodus 25:8 plainly states this truth:
8And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
Through the Tabernacle, God constantly reminded them that His awesome presence was with them on their journey. He made a covenant with them that as long as they acknowledged Him, they would experi ence the manifestation of His presence.
Then, when they finally came to the Promised Land, the Tabernacle, which was temporary, was re placed by the Temple built by King Solomon. During the dedication of this Temple, God reiterated His cove nant with the nation of Israel:
2 Chronicles 7: 12-16 (ESV):
12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have cho sen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.
13When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send
pestilence among my people,
14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
15Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.
The house of God was built to restore God's communion with humanity. When God’s people take the time to go to God’s house, it is because they desire to go deeper in their relationship with Him. We often hear this cliché, “Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship.” This is absolutely true, and we must con stantly find ways to pursue a more intimate relationship with Him. Of course, we may do it by going to His house.
However, when we go to the house of God, King Solomon encourages us to be prepared to listen. When this act of listening is mentioned, the main emphasis is being ready to obey what we hear from the Lord. There is a contrast in the verse that we should take notice of. Often, during the Old Testament, most people went to the Temple to fulfill the ritual of offering their sacrifices to God. They believed that God would be pleased simply by their offerings more than their obedience. It is almost like today when we go through all the rituals at church - sing, pray, and listen to the sermon, but we don’t come with the anticipa tion that God might tell us to change something in our attitude or life. So, we fail to please the Lord.
Remember the time when King Saul was rebuked by God through Samuel:
1 Samuel 15:22 (ESV):
22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
“To obey is better than sacrifice.” King Saul had to learn the hard way that no amount of sacrifice could replace his obedience to God. The truth is that genuine worship of God requires a heart of obedience. Remember, God allowed His house to be built so the people could enjoy His presence, but without obedi ence to Him, this relationship with Him will remain stale and distant. Have you been restored back to a rela tionship with God through Jesus Christ? How is your obedience to Him? Again, to remain close to God, al ways be attentive to Him. The great expositor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said:
“Faith and obedience are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God, trusts God, and he that trusts God, obeys God.”
I totally agree. We cannot separate our faith in God from our obedience to Him.
II IN PRAYING TO GOD, BE CAREFUL (vs. 2)
Once the believer is inside the house of God, he must be careful or conscious of what he or she prays for. Listen to the next verse – “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”
If you examine the first part of verse 2, it is pretty clear that the warning is about
the verbal and internal dialogue with God. God’s people should avoid being careless in what they say to God, forgetting that they are approaching the most high God who de serves our utmost respect. By the way, that’s what the verse implies when it says, “for God is in heaven and you are on earth.”
The question is, how can we disrespect God in our prayers?
A. When we try to manipulate Him with our words.
The Lord Jesus made a reference to this type of manipulation in Matthew 6:7-8 (ESV): 7“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
With these words, Jesus Christ explicitly reminded us that we should not be like the pagans, who thought that God would be so impressed by their many words that He would ultimately hear their prayers. But our prayers do not have to have the minimum number of words; otherwise, they don’t count (just like a term paper). Besides, as Jesus has emphasized, He already knows our needs.
Elijah's prayer is one perfect example of a prayer in the Old Testament. If you remember, he chal lenged the prophets of Baal to a public competition to prove whose God is worth trusting and obeying. The object of the competition is to demonstrate to the people the true God by sending fire from heaven. To make the long story short, the 450 prophets of Baal failed to see their god respond in prayer. Now comes the turn of Elijah; listen to his prayer in 1 Kings 18:36-39:
36And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
37Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
Notice that there is no piling up of many words. The prayer is short and direct to the point, and God has answered it. The same should be evident in our prayers.
B. When we try to tell God what He needs to be doing.
Let me emphasize again these words, “for God is in heaven and you are on earth.” This phrase was meant to remind us that since God is high above in the heavens and we are on the earth, He is the One rul ing over us and not the other way around. You see, so many times, people approach God as if God is equal to them that they can boss around or that God is obligated to answer our prayers because of the way we are
living for Him. Remember the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector found in Luke 18:10-14 (ESV):
10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collec tor.
11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extor tioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, say ing, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The tax collector's prayer was heard because he approached God with the perspective that he was at His mercy. We should not be like the self-righteous Pharisee, who assumed that his prayers were acceptable because of his way of life.
How is our attitude whenever we pray? Do we maintain a cautious and humble attitude that perfect ly understands who we are before God? It is a great privilege to talk directly to the Almighty God. But we should do it with a lot of carefulness for our prayers to be effective.
III IN PROMISING GOD, BE CONSISTENT (vs. 3-7)
Lastly, we have to also watch out for the promises we are making to God. Let’s read again verses 3-6, “For a dream comes with much business, and a fool's voice with many words. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say be fore the messengerthat it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; butGod is the one you must fear.”
After the warning about our prayers, we also should be cautious about our promises to God. Do we take them seriously or not? Do we make them with sincere intentions to keep them? When you refer to verse 3, the keyword “dream” can help establish the warning concerning making promises to God. The word “dream” refers to the aspirations of the person who approaches God in prayer. Often, with the so-called “dreams,” people could be tempted to make promises to God. How many times have you heard people make a promise that if God would heal them, they would use their healthy bodies to serve the Lord? How about people who dream of becoming successful and would make a promise that once successful, they will take God more seriously and be more generous in supporting the work of the Lord? How easy is it to make a promise to God and turn our backs on those promises?
Verse 4 does not just remind us to fulfill our promises; the emphasis is on not delaying them. Why? If we procrastinate, we might not accomplish what we have promised. Remember that God regards people who do not fulfill their promises as “fools.” They are fools in believing that God would not hold them ac-
countable for their promises.
So, do you have unfulfilled promises today? Was there a time when you promised God that you would serve Him more or that you would take Him more seriously? Today, one of the promises that many fail to fulfill is the promises they make when they get married. People stood at the altar, making essential promises to God. I hope you and I are still keeping those promises this morning.
The last two verses simply reinforce why we should not be fools, allowing our mouths to lead us to sin. King Solomon is quite practical, right? We seriously don’t want God to be angry at us that He would eventually destroy the work of our hands. For this reason, we ought to fear or treat Him with a sense of awe, knowing He is the sovereign ruler of the universe.
Let me close by reminding everyone that God is worthy of our highest respect because of who He is. If we genuinely respect Him, then we will commune with Him with a commitment to do the following:
1. Always be compliant with His words.
2. Always be careful with how we speak to Him.
3. Always be consistent in fulfilling my promises to Him.
You might be thinking, wow, maintaining an intimate relationship with God is so demanding. I would say yes, keeping an intimate relationship with God should cost you something. But remember that it literally cost God everything when He gave up His own Son, Jesus Christ, to restore us to Him. He is worthy of all our sacrifices.