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Trumpets and jars
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Do you hear it? The shofar is blowing! That's God's trumpet summoning his own into his presence. The purpose? Worship with a facedown posture of surrender, brokenness, and repentance. It is a mixture of boldness and humility.
Lead worshipper Matt Redman reminds us that "worship is always in reply to revelation." There are no geographical limits, but there is a generational observation. Most of the serious worshippers I know are under thirty-five with a smattering of oldsters alongside.
Most of the three decades I've known Jesus I have not been facedown before the Most High God. If I'm honest, I probably would have edited Paul's declaration in Philippians 1:21 to read: "For me to live is church." I would have said it was Christ, but, in reality.it was church. I gave my attention to programs and potlucks with Bible study sprinkled in. Approval and belonging won my heart. But I'm realizing that if anything other than "Christ" is in that blank, then "to die is not gain." Belonging isn't wrong; but Jesus needs to be central and first.
Judges 6 and 7 records Gideon's worship journey, which is not unlike my own. For much of his life he worshipped in the flesh. He sought God for what he could get from him rather than being in pursuit of him. Larry Crabb says: "Our passion to know Christ often seems weaker than our desire for blessings. We don't particularly care whether we know Christ well or not. We figure he's doing his job of blessing us and we're doing our job of living responsibly. Rather than a thirsty deer panting after water, we're more like hibernating bears with paws resting on full stomachs."
Judges 6:34 declares, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon." That changed everything! Paul stated the importance of this in Philippians 3:3. He said: "For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh." So what's the difference between worshipping in the flesh and in the Spirit?
As the first scene unfolds in Gideon's drama, we see him hiding from the ravaging Midianites. The angel of the Lord told Gideon that God was with him. Gideon's response? "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" (Judges 6:12-13). What Gideon didn't understand was that worship occurs because God is worthy, not because our circumstances are favorable. He offered no worship. I wonder how many times I have been in the same place-not acknowledging God's presence because my situation was sour.
In Judges 6:17-18 Gideon offered worship to get something. God told Gideon to take the Midianites. Gideon made excuses and literally asked the Almighty to wait while he prepared an offering so he could "get a sign" that it was really God talking to him. In his grace, God waited. Gideon returned and "fire flared from the rock." God will receive even fleshly worship.
Gideon then worshipped God because he had received a blessing-namely he saw God and didn't die. "So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there" (Judges 6:24). But God requested: "Build a proper kind of altar.using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down" (from his father's pagan altar to Baal). The next verse says: "Because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime." That reminds me of Jesus' warning in Luke 9:26, "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory.."
Gideon went from no worship, to worship to get something, to worship because of a blessing, and even then-because it was costly-it was covert worship. But then the Spirit came and changed the drama. Gideon's worship became a lifestyle.
After the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon he believed God's Word. "Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands" (Judges 7:15). He surrendered his 32,000-man army to God's whittling hand and with 300 he lived the truth that "the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world" (2 Cor. 10:4). Gideon worshipped with boldness and humility.
How was Gideon bold? He blew the trumpet. How was he humble? He broke the jar. And, when the clay crumbled, the torch light shined forth. Victory was at hand.
Our best lifestyle worship comes when we are bold in trumpeting God's Word when our own lives are broken and surrendered. That can only occur in the Spirit. In the flesh we are bold with our own ways and timid about God. But God is looking for broken, contrite hearts that his light can shine through. We are the clay jars he speaks of!
"For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness'; made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us" (2 Cor. 4:5-7).
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