Episode 1454: Gathering for Worship

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1454

[00:00:03] Jack Allweil: of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. I'm Jack Allweil. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to set goals and consistently work towards them is key.

[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer. One of

[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: my favorite quotes is when did we as Christians stop Being fishers of men and become keepers of the aquarium. Because sometimes we look to worship for what we need as opposed to worship to what we need so that we can go out and be [00:01:00] the hands and feet of Christ. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:08] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you

[00:01:35] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about 2 Samuel 6, verses 1 5 and verses 12 19. I share and talk about our motivations for worship, and I also share why our worship is meant to be invitational and recharge us to go out, not to stay in. 2 Samuel chapter 6 verses 1 through 5 and 12 through [00:02:00] 19 says, David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30, 000.

[00:02:06] David and all the people with him set out and went from Baal Judah to bring up their, the Ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherub. They carried the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinab. Which was on the hill. Uzziah and Eho, the sons of Abanab, were driving the new cart.

[00:02:31] With the ark of God and Eho went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obadiah to the city of David with rejoicing.

[00:02:50] And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. David danced before the Lord with all his might. David [00:03:00] was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.

[00:03:20] They brought in the Ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well being before the Lord. When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well being, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts, and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, And a cake of raisins.

[00:03:47] Then all the people went back to their homes. This very beginning of this text actually has the word again in it. And that might clue you in to the [00:04:00] fact that there's more to the story. There's a lot of stuff. There's gatherings of soldiers. There's the story of how the art got to where it is. There's all of this background information that comes before this.

[00:04:16] And the truth is that we might never really know the whole story. There's one in the history books, there's the Hebrew scriptures that we've gathered these passages from, and then there's stories that we tell that gather before us every time we come for worship. And very often we know bits and pieces of the stories.

[00:04:38] We know highlights and sometimes lowlights. We know joys and pains and that kind of thing. We've given insight or an image But we often don't know every detail of the stories that are represented in these Bible stories that I think we all Know at some sense if I say the story of David I think [00:05:00] most people believe they've heard that story before they know the story of David They know some of his highlights, David and Goliath, and these sorts of things.

[00:05:09] They know some of his lowlights, things about him and choices he makes later in the story. There's all sorts of things that we know, but do we know or really know what is going on here? If you think about this story from Samuel, do we actually know why David is even bringing the Ark to Jerusalem? It could be because David wants to honor God, to bring God home to the place where God is known and worshiped, to bring him back there.

[00:05:45] David loved the Lord and was known to write songs and psalms that express that love. Many of which we still hear today. So of course, from that point of view, God wanted to be near David, and David wanted [00:06:00] God to be near him. Or at least this manifestation of God that he was seeing in the ark. This physical presence.

[00:06:09] There's also an argument to be made that David had some personal motives behind this decision. This is a newly conquered city. And even though in this passage we refer to it as the City of David, that's not really what it was called at that point in time. This was the city that they had just conquered.

[00:06:27] And the new king needed something to establish his power, to make a mark on the city, to let people know, Hey, there's a new sheriff in town, so to speak. So maybe there's a little bit of selfish motivation behind this as well. Maybe it was this that drove David out to find the Ark and bring it back home.

[00:06:52] Truth is, we'll never really know what was in David's heart completely. And the truth is, it was [00:07:00] probably a little bit of both. Think about what makes you come to worship on any given day. What makes you participate in the church? Think about what makes your neighbor participate or not participate in the church.

[00:07:17] Even those people that are standing up and leading worship, that are reading from the liturgy, that are singing, that are preaching, They all probably have a mixture of motives for doing what they do. I think it's often easy to be critical of someone like David and other leaders and say they should not have any sort of selfish motivation.

[00:07:42] And yet the truth is mixed motive. Selfishness, laziness, desire to please God, desire to please someone else. All of these things often lie behind not just their decisions, but our decisions, including our decisions to worship and to [00:08:00] honor God. Yes, we come to worship to honor God, but there's more to it than that.

[00:08:06] If you don't believe me, think about your reaction when something goes wrong. The sound system doesn't work right, the computer freezes up and reboots, and nobody can read the hymns on the screen, and we forget the words, the piano's out of tune, the altar flowers fall over or dying, or there's a typo in the bulletin.

[00:08:29] Often, People react as if that's a disaster. We might as well just pack it up and go home. Why didn't someone caught, catch this? Why didn't we pay more attention? Why didn't we take it more seriously? What then? Just give up? And David did. And the problem was more serious than just feedback in the microphone, but there's more to the story.

[00:08:58] In fact the [00:09:00] there's a skip in this lectionary story. If you notice we skip some passages and there's a story in there of za and tripping and touching the arc, and it drives him dead. It knocks him dead right there on the spot. And that story is not easy to hear under stand. And the lectionary just skips over it, but it's part of this story. There's often moments in our own lives that we have things that happen. I remember when I was growing up in a small town, there was a local police officer who stopped a car out on the highway and was killed in a regular traffic stop. He just walked up to the car and for whatever reason, asked some questions and ended up getting shot and killed during the traffic stop.

[00:09:54] And I remember Sunday morning after that and thinking to myself and to others, How can this [00:10:00] happen? How can this person that was trying to help, How is this fair? How is it just? Bad things happen and we often walk into worship with that wound fresh on our soul. Maybe it's a natural disaster.

[00:10:15] Maybe it's an event locally. Whatever it is, we have those moments and we go to worship sometimes to you. Find the words to explain it

[00:10:31] and yet here we just skip over That kind of story in this very passage because often we don't have the words to explain it This happens in the story then David comes back and the parade starts again. They go six steps. They stop they do an act of worship Sometimes that's the only response is to just get started again to just lean back into it and [00:11:00] say this is going to show the joy that I have, the worship that I have, the relationship that I have with God.

[00:11:10] Mixed motives or not, David danced. David actually showed worship. He danced with his whole heart, his whole mind, his whole body. Sometimes others danced with him, sometimes he danced alone, but this whole passage, this idea of worship, and giving over a sacrifice to God, and then there's a feast that follows, and the city rejoiced and shouted his name and thanked him, and they looked down and recognized that maybe there's more to this, or maybe they didn't, maybe they just enjoyed the food, but no matter what happened, it Whenever we come to worship and we pray and we bear ourselves before God, God sees us in all of our [00:12:00] motives, mixed or not.

[00:12:02] But the truth is, we need to keep dancing anyway, we need to keep worshipping anyway, we need to keep singing music anyway. anyway. Because part of what we're doing when we come to worship is we're recognizing the fact that yes, we're here gathered in worship, but there are many that are not here. There are many that will never walk into our church, that are set apart, that are ostracized by us, or that feel that they are not welcome here.

[00:12:33] In fact, in this story, Mahel looks out and she doesn't gather with the

[00:12:41] Anger, she despises David. There's more to it and the rest of the story goes on and talks about some of that. But the truth is she feels unfit and un part and apart from this worship and [00:13:00] has anger and hurt for it. There are people today that feel. that this worship that we do is no longer necessary in today's world, and there are people that we've driven away because we pointed fingers and named names, but the truth is that the reason we come to worship is to recharge ourselves, not so that we can stay in and circle around, not so that we can look to ourselves and our own needs, but so that we can recharge and go out and look to others.

[00:13:35] One of my favorite quotes is when did we as Christians stop being fishers of men and become keepers of the aquarium? Because sometimes we look to worship for what we need as opposed to worship to what we need so that we can go out and be the hands and feet of Christ. Thanks for listening.[00:14:00]

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[00:14:48] Until next time, invest your time and money. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the [00:15:00] world.