Course: Spiritual Life of the Leader

Lecture 22: Examples of Worship in Revelation 4

The elders fall before the throne, they worship the Lord and they cast their crowns before him. Falling before the throne represents an acknowledging of God as absolute deity. What is going to happen in the future tells us what we should be doing now. When we fall down before the throne, our heart condition is inward humility and submission to the Lord. Then they raise up and exalt the Lord by proclaiming his worth. Inward love results in proclaiming what is right, good, just and holy. Taking of crowns is an outward expression of placing everything we have under the Lordship of Christ and an inward movement of total abandonment of everything we are to God.

I. Three Movements of Worship in Revelation Chapter 4

I would like to continue on in Scripture looking at what the Word has to say. I want to commit this lecture to M. Robert Mulholland, who has been a guide for me for many years. Also, I want to add that Biblical Training Institute has a course by Mulholland in Revelation. I highly recommend this to you. Dr. Mulholland studied and taught for decades on the Book of Revelation. He was a New Testament scholar. I think that his work in the 4th chapter of Revelation goes to the very heart of what we have been talking about. It goes to the heart of pastoral congregational leaders in terms of how we understand our own personal living and understanding of how we are to lead others here. This is going to apply to all of us who are working for God’s church. John proclaimed with the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, full of eyes all around inside, day and night without ceasing, they sing holy, holy, holy, the Lord God, the almighty who was and is and is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one seated on the throne, who lives forever and forever, the twenty-four elders fall before the ones that is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and forever. They cast their crown before the throne singing, you are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. As the four living creatures continually sing their song of worship, the twenty-four elders enter into a three-fold action of the worshipping church. These are movements for all of us. The first fall before the throne and they worship the Lord; they then cast their crowns before him.

Mulholland comments that this posture of falling before God’s throne represents an acknowledgement of God as absolute deity. It is important to also say in quoting Mulholland from Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, a Tyndale House publication. They are acknowledging God as an absolute deity. This is the whole falling down before which is classic Christian worship. In their movement of falling before God, they are paying him proper homage by adoring him. Then in throwing their crown before the throne, Mulholland notes that this represents authority and rule with the elders yielding control of their lives to God. So, falling before the Lord and worshipping him and cast our crowns; we are yielding all of the authority and rule and control of my life before God. This allows God to be God in their lives on God’s terms, not on their terms. Since all of the indicators in the Book of Revelation point to worship as the primary activity of the Bride of Christ in the New Testament and in the New Jerusalem that is to come. Theologically, what do we say about that? The end determines the now; in other words, what we are going to be doing in the kingdom determines what we need to be learning to do and actually doing it now. So, the end determines the now. The Bride of Christ in the New Jerusalem; we are going to do well to allow our future adoration of God to give literal substance and shape to our present worship in the church. Dr. Mulholland’s exegesis of the Word can help lead us in our contemporary worship today and can lead the whole church.

There is a physical action; I fall down before the throne. What is the heart condition as the Lord is very concerned with the heart. We can go through physical actions and it can be worthless religion. The heart condition is inward humility and submission to the Lord; not my will Lord but your will. This outward posture of acknowledging God as our superior in all things is matched with an ongoing inward movement of claiming God is Lord and Master. You fall down and then raise back up and you exalt, lifting up your exaltation of the Lord by claiming his worthiness. He is worthy and we declare all of those attributes that he is. This is the raising up. The outward posture is the raising up in terms of adoration of God; I am lifting up my eyes and my heart. What is the inward love? It is inward love expressed by lifting up the Lord. How do you feel when your husband or wife speaks well of you; this uses the Latin word of benedictory, speaking well of someone. We are speaking well of God is what we are saying here. I am speaking well of God. This is important because when you live and people get caught up with all that is wrong with the world, or when you live in place and time with partisan bickering and contrary political views, both in the church and out of the church. You are not going to tie into that; what we are going to do is tie into speaking well of God. We are getting our eyes off of what is wrong with things by declaring what is right, good and just and holly and honorable and all of that is grounded in who God is. This is inward love which is an ongoing movement of declaring the goodness of God, even in the mess of our own daily lives. Then they take their crowns off. These are our achievements, our good works for the Lord and any honor that has been given to us. It is a good thing to take if off now. I had at one point a number of plaques, awards and diplomas on the office wall. One day I thought when any of my children or grandchildren would even want one of those things, much less put them up on a wall anywhere. No, of course not; so I took them all down. Nothing is there now.

We thank the Lord and we throw our crowns before the Lord. It is acknowledging that every good thing that happens in my life who made that possible. All of this comes from his mercy in our lives; this is undeserved mercy. It is an outward action of placing all that we are under the Lordship of Christ. It is an ongoing inward of total abandonment of everything, all that we are to God. Now, we have a formative movement of bowing low and lifting high and casting our crowns.

II. Intentional and Focused Worship of God is Often at Best, Secondary

We are painfully aware that as we attended worship services over a broad area. That intentional and focused worship of God is often at best, secondary. All too often, not even mentioned in worship services; these things are neglected. We are failing at every primary level of recognizing and honoring the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as our triune God. This is the one Lord of our lives, the three of our love. Without being prescriptive in any manner for every Christian tradition has a way of working out the application part of worship or without trying to dictate specific styles of worship. I really want to press all the streams of Christianity that we are being summoned by the elders in Revelation. This is the true elder board here, to bow before God and to declare his praise. The people of God deserve this and they are going astray because of its absence in the light of worship is not breaking into the darkness of this fallen world. I want to also suggest that we learn how to worship by looking back at an account in Scripture that shows up in all four Gospels.

You will see this first in Matthew 26:6-13 where a sinful woman comes to Jesus. She has lived a life of self-curvature where she is has taken the love that has meant to be for God and others and turned it back on herself. She has lived an immorally and corrupt miserable life. She was obviously filled with shame. As it seems that things can’t get any worth for her, she finds herself in the presence of Jesus. No dough she had heard about him; she knew about him. I think like everyone else she thought that he would condemn her. The Son of God sees right through her sin and shame to which she was meant to be. He responds to her, not with condemnation but with mercy, with love and with amazing forgiveness. Nobody is beyond the reach of forgiveness and she in turn responds to his love by receiving this forgiveness. She trusted that he would indeed work out the mess that her life had become. So, while her life was still difficult for she still had issues that she was going to have to face. She had been restored; her basic dignity had been given to her. She was love and she knew the love that she was seeking. She now had the opportunity to know God’s intention for her life. What does she do? She brings the most expensive things she has and she broke it and poured it out on Jesus’ feet. It was an expensive perfume; she bowed before her Lord and anointed his feet with her costly gift and she wipes his feet with her own hair. Now this woman offers up the most costly gift that she had to give to Jesus and she gave her complete self with that gift and she literally offers all that she had in love and worship and adoration with the twenty-four elders.

We too are called to bow down and rise up in praise and to cast away the costly things of our lives; all of it before him, before the feet of Jesus. I have learned these from Robert Weber; as leaders we want to come into the presence and also to draw people into the presence of Christ and want to be really clear that we are here to worship. We are invoking the Holy Spirit to make this possible. We are praying and reaching out to God. In whatever tradition that you are in, I am trusting that the Word of God will be held up. I also like what John Stott said many decades ago, sermonettes make for Christian-nets. People of God need to come to the feast of the Word; Weber says that we come to the feast of the Word of God. We then respond in a classical sense. How? We come to the table of God to receive all of the gifts he has before us, then, we go out to serve. All of this is an action of worship and of bowing down and rising up and the blessing of going forth after throwing our crowns. Why? Why are we gathered? We are gathered to still our lives and to focus upon God who calls us into worship. We are inviting the Holy Spirit to enable our worship; this is why we are doing this. We come for the mystery of God and we bow down in submission and praise and then we listen. We listen to the Word. This is so important for anyone breaking the Word of Life and for them to listen to what God has to say. You want the mind of Christ for your people, not your own mind. The great systematic theologian, Thomas Olden said that this was why Jesus came. This kind of sets our agenda in bringing forth the Word. Jesus came to reveal God to humanity, to provide a high priest, interceding for us, who is able to sympathize with our human weakness and to offer us a pattern of fullness of human life. It was to provide a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of all of humanity and to bind up the demonic powers. All this fullness of the Gospel is coming out in all that we preach and teach and it is all focused on Christ.

These are the things that we listen to as we study God’s words; listening to Gods word, faithfully presenting God’s word and in response the Word who is Christ Jesus; we say yes to him. We say yes to all that he wants us to. We do that by entering into the great sacrifice of our Savior. We remember what was done for us in the atonement. That is why we celebrate Holy Communion. We remember and look forward to the fullness of the banquette that is to come. We are also presently receiving all of his love through grace. Finally, we go forth; as a people of God who has listened and worshipped and responded and received and given our lives. We go forth. For those of you who are in leadership today. I want you to be encouraged; we don’t have to collapse to the level of what is called anxious people pleasures. When you take the courage of God, he will help you, lovingly, graciously and at times firmly present his Word. We don’t ever want to use the Word as a hammer to beat people. We don’t want to use the Word to promote our own agenda. We want to let the fullness of the Gospel speak. When bow before him and rise up to praise him and cast our crowns before him, he is going to equip you. He will equip you; this is his work and his job and his kingdom and his church and I bless you in the name of Christ our Lord. May you be a true leader for God’s Kingdom. Amen.