Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Ecclesiastes 5 - Instructions for Worship

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

In this series, Jonny Ardavanis explore the main themes in the book of Ecclesiastes. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, we're exploring the main themes of the book of Ecclesiastes. And in this episode, we look at chapter 5. After four chapters of making observations about life under the sun, Solomon is now going to turn and provide for us a level of instruction. Solomon, our preacher king, has acknowledged a God who rules and reigns over everything in creation. But the question he will ask and the question that he will answer in this episode is how does God desire to be approached? How does God desire to be worshiped? Let's dial in. The people that Solomon is observing have seemed to forget that they are worshiping

God. They might clap and sing along. They may have placed themselves within the pews of the church, but they have misplaced God from their focus. Chapter five is going to warn us against hypocrisy and the meaninglessness of mechanical worship, Solomon is going to teach you this morning. God doesn't just want our attendance. He wants our affection and our attention. We live in a world where the worship experience typically begins with us, how we feel, how we evaluated the service. We ask questions like, how did you feel about the sermon this morning? What did you think about the music? What do you think about this or that? But the question that Solomon is going to ask is what is God after? Solomon is going to provide a synopsis for us of how we are to approach

worship God's way. And he's going to highlight our own tendencies and then provide a level of instruction for us in light of those tendencies. Four tendencies and then four instructions in light of them. Number one, we are going to see that we are prone to walk too fast. So Solomon instructs us to watch our steps in verses one through three. Verse one of Ecclesiastes five says, guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they do not know they are doing evil. Solomon is going to instruct us. In a world where people waltz into worship, Solomon says, watch your step, slow down, tread carefully as you approach the king of the universe. He is not the mayor of a small village. He is the creator of all

things. And if you think that God is indifferent to the manner and method in which you approach him, think again. Our step or our walk, biblically speaking, means more than our physical gait as we go from point A to point B. It implies our conduct as we live our life under the sun. So Solomon tells us to be careful.

But what is he getting at when he says, watch your steps? Well, Solomon knows that it's possible to just go through the motions of religiosity and the mere mechanics of worship. Many people today believe that performing the deed or act of religion, aka going to church, giving an offering, negates the necessity of an internal humility, submission, and worship of God within our hearts. Martin Luther speaks to this when he writes that the natural default position of the heart is towards religion. We automatically think that if I do this, God will do this for me. If I

do something good, God will get rid of my bad. So Solomon says, watch it. He tells us that God sees through the charade of all the externals people bring to him. The act and the motive matter to God. And our motive often relates to our perspective. Now, as people approach the temple, everything about the temple system was established in such a way where people would think. In the Old Testament, the whole setting and structure was meant to instill within the heart of the worshiper that God was unlike them. He is holy. The temple was grandiose and majestic

to garner an understanding that God was majestic and glorious. The architecture was stunning and dwarfed you in size in order to teach you that God wasn't on your level. He's not a peer. He's not a homeboy. He's bigger than you, but he's not just bigger than you, and he's not just better than you. He's totally other than you because he's holy. So Solomon says, watch your step. This is so vastly different than the emphasis of many churches today that try to put God on our level. But Solomon says, watch your step. Pause as you approach God in worship. Ask the following

questions. Is my heart right before God? What sin do I need to confess? Have I considered the holiness of God or am I waltzing in to worship? Verse one says, guard your steps as you go near to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools. Now watch this, for they do not know they are doing evil. What does he mean here when he says they do not know they are doing evil? Well, Solomon refers to those who gallivant into the house of God and offer worship to God that is void of a humbled and reverent heart. He refers here to people who have become so used to playing games with God and with his church that they no longer expect religion to be anything other than precisely that, a game.

And so for our own purposes, guarding our steps means that we don't play games with God. We don't put on the externals and accoutrements of religion without humbling ourselves before him. Watching our steps means that we prepare our perspective for the Lord's day in such a way that we don't spend all day Saturday on ourself, wake up late Sunday, check our fantasy lineup, or check our makeup all day Sunday morning. And then by the time there's a call to worship at church, we think that we will have our hearts automatically tuned by the first song that we sing. Guarding our steps or watching our steps means that we are mindful of the way that we approach worship, and we understand that the Lord's day is unlike every other day. It's a day that has been set apart from the rest of the week

for a God who is set apart from all else in creation. Solomon says, watch your step. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses gives the Shema and says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And he says this is important. He says our God is one, and that means that he's undivided. And because God is undivided, he deserves and demands non-fragmented, non-compartmentalized, and undivided worship. And only the worshiper who approaches God in a fearful and humble way can offer God holistic

worship. This is why Solomon says, hold on, you walk too fast. Watch your step as you approach the one true God and make sure you approach him with one undivided heart. So not only does he say we walk too fast, so watch our step. Secondly here, he says you talk too much, so listen up. In verse two, he says, do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth. Therefore, let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort in the voice of a fool through many words. The first word of the Shema isn't just you shall love the Lord your God, but it begins by saying here, oh Israel, meaning that the human instinct is to speak before

we listen. Solomon knows this. So he says, not only do you need to watch your step, you need to watch your mouth. There are two extremes here in view. One would be the conservative church that knows how to speak all the right elements of doctrine and practice and yet haven't prepared their heart. Or the other one who declares the freedom and joy and liberty of knowing God, but hasn't fully surrendered their life to him. You can speak Christian jargon without having hearts that are rightly prepared before God. Solomon knows that people know how to speak Christianese. They know how to pray correctly, but he says, listen up before you speak up because God is not honored by the pontificating of profound truths

if you haven't prepared your heart before him and if you aren't prepared to listen to him. All of our spiritual doodling is gibberish to a God who looks directly at our hearts. Matthew 6, Jesus is going to say the same thing. The Pharisees heap up empty phrases thinking that they honor God, but they mean nothing to God because God discerns prayerless prayers. We come to church and think we have to say the right things with our mouth, but the scripture here says we need to hear the right truths with the right heart. The commentators have noted that many people think that God hears our prayers as if he listens through a heavenly speaker system and there's a heavenly microphone taking our words of our prayers to God and he listens to them through speakers. But contrastly, we have a God who

listens not through heavenly audio speakers, but through a spiritual stethoscope, just like a doctor who says, let me hear you breathe. The great physician listens into what he cannot see, and so he learns truths about our heart, and his spiritual stethoscope is always working. You need to understand this. God isn't evaluating our words when we approach him in worship. He is evaluating and searching our hearts. For this reason, we need to be quick to hear and slow to speak because only when we shut our mouths can we hear God open his through his word. Solomon instructs us, don't drop evangelical Christian cliches thinking that you impress God, even if you think it impresses God's children, because God sees through the invisible and hears the

inaudible. And regardless of the noise you are making, he is listening to the words of your heart. He hears us not through speakers, but through a stethoscope. Third here, Solomon says, you promise too much, so pay your vows. In verse four, he says, when you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it, for he takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. The preacher here has in mind the person that makes great promises to God in the midst of trouble or in the midst of great conviction and yet fails to deliver on their promise. They say things like, oh God, I will never sin this way again.

I promise you. Or God, if you get me out of this situation, I'll give this amount of money to your kingdom. So they make a vow. Time moves on. Excuses come. And that's a recipe for religious hypocrisy. Solomon says,

God is not like one of your neighborhood buddies. If you make a promise to God, you fulfill it. If you make a vow to God, you pay it. Often because our perspective is off when we come to thinking about God, we think that we can make promises to God in a way that manipulates him. And Solomon has this in view. God, if you do this, I'll do this. God, I'm going to make you a deal as if we can negotiate with the king of the universe. God, I'll give you my gifts if you give me the gift of this job or the gift of a spouse. We negotiate with God and make promises to God, thinking that if we do, we can get something from God. But Solomon wants you to know this is not how God works, even if it's the way that the fool thinks. Well, why do we make vows

to God? Well, we do it for a few reasons. I'll look at three of those. Number one, it's to look good before other people. If we make vows to God, they might think that we are extremely committed to God. Or secondly, because we want to look good in the mirror. We like the feeling of making a commitment, even if we never follow through with it. Many people want this type of commitment after the sting of guilt. And once that sting has settled, they no longer feel the need to live up to their commitment. But for the moment, it makes them feel good. And then third, we think that making vows or promises to God will make us look good before God. We think we can fool him by promising to do or not to do something and it'll make him think that we are more committed to following him than we really are.

Scripture speaks to the reality that God is not indifferent to the promises we make to him. Just read the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Ecclesiastes 5 teaches us, if you tell God you are going to do something, do it. He takes no pleasure in empty promises. Far better to not make a promise in the first place than to vow and not pay up. Don't let your mouth make you a liar. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Vows in the New Testament are not commanded. They were permitted, but Jesus says they're unnecessary. He says, let your yes be yes. Anything more than this comes from evil. And as we follow the flow of the passage, we see that when we watch our steps and approaching God in worship, we will also watch our mouth.

We'll be careful over everything that we say, and if we're watching our mouth, we'll be careful and cautious of the vows that we make, knowing that everything we say is heard by a God who analyzes our hearts. Now Solomon has given us the three symptoms of people that are identified by mechanical worship. We are also guilty of this today. We often walk too fast into worship. We often talk too much. We promise too much. But the question is, what is the prescription that Solomon is going to give us to remedy the hearts of people who need their hearts tuned. Well, fourth and finally, we see here that Solomon instructs us,

we fear too little, so we need to stand in awe of God. In verse 7, he says, rather fear God. In order to tune our flippant hearts, Solomon instructs us to stand in awe at the character of God, meaning that it's not a guilt or despair when he speaks of biblical fear, but a breathtaking reverence at the one who upholds the universe. Solomon says in Proverbs 1-7 that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But here in Ecclesiastes 5, he says it's also the beginning of worship. To fear God means that we live our entire life under the banner of God's holiness and love. We fear his dismay. We grieve when we have grieved God. Solomon here probably has in mind Psalm 130. The psalmist saying, with you there is forgiveness of sin that you should be feared.

What's the irony of this? Well, we think that if God forgives sin, then we should no longer fear him. But Solomon says true fear, biblical fear, means that we understand who God is, his love, his holiness, and yet his readiness to forgive sin in such a way that we are terrified of grieving our heavenly father. One pastor says, when my soul begins to grapple with the reality that God sees all of the sin in me and yet has paid for it in Christ, then we stand in awe and we no longer play games with God. The type of fear here that the Bible speaks of is fear that asks the question, will my heavenly father approve? This fear means that we long to live under the

smile of God and dread the idea of living under his frown. Fearing God means that we have such an exalted view and perspective of God that we wouldn't dare waltz into worship. We wouldn't dare be quick to speak, but rather we would be so humbled by an accurate view of God that we anticipate hearing his word. This type of elevated view of God also means that we would never be careless with our words, especially with our promises. The way we view God, Solomon teaches us, determines and dictates the way that we worship. This, of course, is not isolated to Ecclesiastes, but is also Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church, that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened

so that they would see more fully who God is, because the more they see God, the more they will fear God, and the more they fear God, the more they will worship him with sincerity and with affection. The Lord our God is one. He is an undivided God, and because of that, he deserves and demands undivided worship. But hearts are only compelled to offer non-fragmented worship when they have been

properly gripped by a healthy fear of their heavenly Father. For believers today, we are reminded of the massive temple. We're reminded of the massive curtain that barred entry from the presence of God and reminded all the people that this curtain did that God is not like us and in a world where everyone tells you to come as you are this entire Old Testament system wanted everyone to know you can't just come as you are before a holy God you can't just gallivant into the presence of the king of the universe but we are also reminded today that after the greater preacher King Jesus Christ was slaughtered, that veil was torn

and symbolized that God can now be approached through his son, Jesus Christ. Yet even though he is to be approached, it doesn't mean that he is no longer approached with fear. Hebrews 10, yes, says that our hearts have been sprinkled and now we can approach God with full assurance, but it also says with sincerity, meaning that we approach God with awe and reverence. God doesn't become less holy to those who are in Christ. He is just as holy

and deserves and demands the same reverence. So in light of that, the living and active word of God in Ecclesiastes 5 instructs us, watch your step as you approach the house of God. Watch your mouth in the house of God and pay your vows to God and stand in awe of the God who created you, loves you, and upholds you by his hand as you approach him in worship. The father's extension of intimacy for you Christian is never permission for flippancy in his house. Stay dialed in.