This Sunday I am going to be preaching on what the incarnation means for our worship. It's difficult to appreciate, but believers of God in the Old Testament were physical people who found their physicality an obstacle to worship. When I have a bad cold I could kiss my wife but I don't because I know that, however sincere the gesture, however much love I am expressing by it, I am also expressing some very undesirable germs. The Old Testament believer felt this acutely: he desired to kiss God, to worship in the flesh, but knew too well that his flesh was polluted with a fatal illness.
That's why God's people, who could change nothing about their physicality or God's holiness, kept gravitating toward idols. An idol will always consent to be worshiped by me in my flesh, no matter how unwholesome that flesh may be. It raises no objection.
So in Habakkuk God tells us "woe to the one who says to lifeless stone 'wake up!'" That's the story of the Old Testament: hopelessly physical people trying to wake lifeless stones.
But the story of the New Testament turns that story on its head, because it is the story of a Living Stone telling us to wake up!
Jesus is not only the Living Stone, but the Cornerstone on which we too, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5) By taking on the flesh as an infant Jesus not only demonstrated that he was worthy of our worship, but he also made it possible for us to worship him in the first place. He removed the obstacle of our flesh by joining us in our condition. Our physical worship is now made acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
That being the case, shame on us if we're found sitting on our hands, right?
Call to Repentance
2 Peter 3:13-14 (page 1896)
Call to Worship
Psalm 61 (page 897)
OT Reading
Habakkuk 2:2-3, 18-20 (page 1458)
NT Reading
Hebrews 10:1-7 (page 1872)
Message
The Cornerstone of Worship
1 Peter 2:4-6 (page 1888)
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