Jesus is the Worship Leader

Let's read together from Hebrews chapter two, verses five through to eighteen. Hebrews two, verse five. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?

You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honour, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified, all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him.

And again, behold, I and the children God has given me. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely, it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

So far our reading. One of the easiest ways to get a room full of Christians fired up, to get a Bible study group fired up, is to ask them what their preference is for worship. Test this theory for yourself. If you're still meeting in a small group, ask them this question when you feel that things are just going through the motions. If there isn't any lively discussion happening, ask them what their taste in worship singing is like.

I'm sure you won't be surprised if I told you that one of the most common bits of feedback that I get as a pastor, week in week out, is whether the worship music was to their liking or not, and sometimes the preaching too. Now, of course, that's not open house, that's not us that I'm talking about here, because we have the most supportive, most compliant members in all of Christendom in our church. I'm referring to other people. But I'm sure all of us have had to recently think through and grapple with what it means for us to be worshipping Christ together corporately as a church, even though we're separated physically because of our current situation. We've had to think through what it means to hear a message through a TV or through an iPad.

What it means to stand and sing in the middle of our lounge room, hearing our dad's off-tune singing. I wonder who reached for the remote even this morning to turn up the volume on the singing so that they could hear Brandon over their family members. Or perhaps you've decided not to sing at all. Perhaps this morning you've rolled out of bed, you've decided not to participate in worship singing. And I wanna tell you, all those decisions about how you've participated in worship this morning is based on an ideal that you have about what worship should be.

We all have an opinion on worship. But in response to the question, what is your ideal form of congregational worship? A fascinating follow-up question to ask this room of Christians is to ask, can you describe to me two or three situations or circumstances that have had the most profound impact on you in terms of worship? In my experience, when that question has been asked, you get some of the most amazing responses that often don't correlate very neatly to what those ideals are of worship. You might hear people talk about an intimate moment around a campfire one time at a camp where just a group, a handful of Christians reflected on God's grace and His love, or just had one guitar together and they could sing about God's praises.

And others may talk about massive concert events that they've been to where they've heard tens of thousands of people worshipping together, but personally, they might prefer smaller churches and worship experiences that are much more humble. Others might talk about simple prayers being made by persecuted Christians in very lonely, isolated places. And then if I was to ask you a third question and ask you why is this so significant, they will express something along the lines of, it was in that moment where I sensed God was really amongst us. The passage we read this morning from the book of Hebrews is largely concerned with this very idea of what it means to worship God. You see, the book of Hebrews has traditionally been given the name because it was written to a group of Jewish Christians, Hebrew Christians.

And remember how the Jewish Christians would have understood worship in that time. They had very defined understandings of worship. Remember, these Jews had a temple. They had priests.

They had orchestras and choirs. They had ritualistic sacrifices. They had huge congregations of people. But now when they become Christians, they are excommunicated from all that. Now they're meeting in homes.

They're sometimes meeting in the desert or in caves. And if you read carefully, you get the idea that some of these Jews are starting to long for the good old days. And if you read the book of Hebrews, you start reading between the lines that there is a real fear that people are wanting to move back towards Judaism, away from Christianity, because they felt that some of the worship aspects were truer, were closer to God than what they were seeing and experiencing in Christianity. They put their faith in certain practices. And so part of the purpose for the author of Hebrews is to write to them and tell them, fix your eyes on what God has given you in the gospel, in Jesus Christ, because it is nothing less than the very presence of the Lord Jesus Christ among you as your leader in this very moment.

Jesus Christ has become for us our worship leader. And so, today, as Christians having to worship, especially in our corporate setting, our communal setting this morning, in totally foreign and new ways, I think it's appropriate and helpful for us to come to grips with understanding what happens when we worship God together. The Bible says this, the Lord Jesus is standing there with you. He is there with you in your lounge room, leading, facilitating your singing, leading your offerings, leading your meditations on the word, leading the response of your heart to the gospel. So I wanna look this morning at what God tells us in His word from Hebrews chapter two.

The first thing about how Jesus leads us in worship is that he binds us together as a family. In worship, Jesus unites us as a family. In our passage, the author explains from verses five through to nine how Jesus has become the founder of our salvation. Jesus became man. He took on our sin and our guilt.

He suffered a death on our behalf, and then he was crowned with life and glory in the resurrection. Then it moves to say that after his saving work on the cross, Jesus has an ongoing work now. As he waits, as he rests from what he's done at the cross, he waits for his enemies to be subdued under his feet. And as he is waiting, as the church takes up the mission of the gospel, he is busy building and growing the kingdom here on earth. And so that is what Jesus is doing right now.

In verse thirteen, we find a quote from Isaiah eight. So in verse thirteen, this is a quote from Isaiah. It says, I will put my trust in him. And then it says, behold, I and the children God has given me. Those are quotes from Isaiah eight.

Now, the author pictures Jesus as the one who has put his trust in God the Father. But then it moves on to say that he is bringing to the Father his fellow brothers and sisters, the children of the Father. In other words, Jesus says, Father, here I am and with me your children. Now, I wonder if you know what the basic message or theme or metaphor in the New Testament is for the picture of the church. Some people will say, it's the body of Christ.

I mean, that is a very vivid, memorable image, the body of Christ. But it's actually not the most widely used image for the simple reason that only Paul of all the apostles uses it in his writings. The more central picture of the church in the New Testament is that we are a family. That we are the family of God. And so here we see Jesus leading worship by saying, I am bringing my brothers and sisters before the throne of God the Father.

Father, here I am and the children you have given me. We come this morning to honour you, Father. We come this morning to give you glory. So each time we come to worship, even in our lounge rooms, we remember that Jesus is facilitating us as brothers and sisters, as our oldest brother, to worship God around His word. Each time we take on our lips the praise and the honour of God through song, Jesus is leading that.

Each time we bring our requests and our thanksgiving to God in prayer, remember this incredible privilege that you are children of God brought into His presence by our great older brother, Jesus Christ. And now, we may come to God because of Jesus Christ as our Father. He is not anymore the fearful judge that we dread to come and see. But also, you are being brought into the presence of the Father through none other than Jesus Christ who is calling you his brother, who is calling you his sister. And so in worship, Jesus brings to us and binds us together as a family.

Second, notice the Lord Jesus leads our praises. You notice the quotation in verse twelve again. It says, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. These are the words of Jesus. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation.

And then it says, I will sing your praises. This is Jesus speaking to God the Father. Now, if your eyesight is good enough, you might be able to flick down to the footnotes there and see that this is actually a quotation from Psalm 22. And you might remember that Psalm 22 was also quoted by Jesus on the cross. The opening verse, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

But when you read the whole psalm, it is a wonderful prophecy of what was happening at the cross. What was happening at that moment of Christ's sacrifice. We see here, therefore, when Psalm 22 is quoted again, a part of that ministry of the cross is being highlighted. And what it is highlighting is the resurrected Messiah. It's towards the end of Psalm 22.

It's the resurrected Messiah. His suffering completed. His victory won. Calling his brothers now to join him in worship. And so as our ascended Saviour standing at the side of the Father, still dressed in humanity, he says to his heavenly Father surrounded by us, we bring you praise.

We lift you high. We magnify and glorify your name because you alone are worthy. Oh Lord, how marvellous you are. How great are your ways. What mercy you've shown.

What grace you've given. How great is our God. Jesus leads us in that praise. Many years ago, when I was at Bible college, I was studying Hebrew, the language. Boy, that was tough.

Hebrew felt like Greek to me and Greek felt like Hebrew. But for some reason, my lecturer decided to give us a field trip, an excursion, which was great. It meant that we could stop learning Hebrew and get away from the books. But then he took us to the Jewish synagogue and we had to listen and participate in a Jewish worship service, all in Old Testament Hebrew. And I think that the idea was for us to be immersed in the language and so on, but what was fascinating for me to notice at that time was that the rabbi facilitated and led and on behalf of everyone, sung worship songs.

He sung scripture. There were times where the congregation would interact and would respond, but he led everything in singing. And this is the idea that I think we're getting of Jesus as well. We are seeing in Jesus the New Covenant version of this. That in him, we have a perfect high priest who not only is the recipient of our praise, not only do we bring our praise to him for what he's done, rightly so, but he is wholeheartedly, freely, willingly praising God the Father because it was God the Father's plan and will for us to be saved.

That's why in verse eleven of our passage it says, he who sanctifies, Jesus, and those who have been sanctified, us, all have the one source. Now that source is the will of God the Father. It was God the Father's will to save us. It was his will to send Jesus. Jesus was willing to go, but the Father said, will you go?

The enormity of this loving action, the vastness of that grace is so big that the Son gladly now offers his praise to the Father saying, how marvellous that was. How gracious that was. Oh Father, on behalf of these people with me, I bring you praise. Isn't that astounding? What this means for us is that even though this morning you may have turned up very cold, in fact, you may have woken up just fifteen minutes ago.

You might be sitting, listening to this message in your pyjamas. You may not have come prepared spiritually at all for this moment of worship. But Jesus Christ, by his perfect heart, with his soul that is bursting, his heart that is bursting with praise, well, that praise covers even our tuneless worship. It covers even our unprepared hearts.

His love for God the Father swallows up our coldness and complacency. Our hearts are hidden behind his delight, behind his joy, his fullness. This is explained more fully a few chapters later in Hebrews chapter eight, where we are given a summary of the work of Jesus Christ. And it says that he was like and is like the high priest seated at the right hand of God, a minister in the holy places, it says. He is a minister in the holy places.

And now that word minister is where we get our English word liturgy from. It's order of service. It means literally the leader of worship. Jesus is the worship leader of our church. He is the one who comes into the holy places and he leads worship on our behalf.

Jesus stands as our leader, bringing our praises into the presence of the heavenly Father. Which leads us to our third and final point. In worship, Jesus understands our needs. It's wonderful, isn't it, that the profoundest worship we Christians will ever experience is not going to be listening to the perfect sermon, because you're not gonna get it, definitely not from me.

It's not from hearing the most majestic pipe organ in the best cathedral. It's not gonna be feeling the moving rhythm of an excellent band with professional musicians. Our profoundest worship isn't even dependent on how willing we might be to be worshippers. Our worship is dependent on Jesus Christ who knew our hearts and knew they were very far from God and came to turn us into worshippers. It comes from Jesus Christ knowing that we never wanted to sing God's praises.

It comes from him who understood our deep need for reconciliation and who chose to become our high priest of devotion. Jesus is our worship provider. And so as the resurrected ascended Lord, Jesus at this very moment is watching the kingdom. He is waiting for his enemies to be subdued. At this very moment, he is also gathering together his people as a family.

He is, at this very moment, leading us in our worship to God, but he's done all of this because he knew and he understood our need. Look at verse fourteen where it says, he partook of our flesh and blood in order to destroy the power of the devil over us. You have perhaps been a Christian for a very long time. You may have been a Christian so long that you might be forgetting the dread and the fear of what a guilty conscience before a holy God feels like. The Bible says, the greatest fear of the human heart is not public speaking.

It's not losing your job. It is not surviving a pandemic. The greatest fear is a guilty verdict before a righteous God. That is humanity's greatest fear. Guilty people do all sorts of crazy things to deal with that guilt.

I remember not so long ago, a few years ago in fact, a cricket commentator who was fairly well known, discovered, I think it was somehow discovered by the media that he had been a horrendous paedophile. And when news broke of that, as soon as he heard about it, before police could turn up to arrest him or to at least keep him safe, he had jumped out of a high-rise building and committed suicide. Why? Because he couldn't deal with facing up to his guilt. Hebrews two ends with saying that Jesus has done two things for us.

He has destroyed the power of death and he has also delivered us from the fear of death. What do you think that means? What it means is that Jesus is an all-sufficient Saviour. On the one hand, it means that our death is not final because for all time, people have realised that death actually cuts life short. None of us are okay with death.

Death is the enemy of life and we cherish life. But in Christ, death has been conquered because Jesus was raised to life and all those who trust in him will receive his cleansing from our guilt. Because Jesus Christ dealt with sin, which is the curse and the cause of our death. Because he has dealt with that, he was raised to life. And through his life, as we'll hear at Easter time, through his life, he is promising us that there is life after death.

And yet, while we might die once, there is the promise of an unending, everlasting life that can be given to us. And this saves us from the fear of death. Not only from death, but the fear of it. You see, the fear of death that is talked about here is not the fear of dying. It's the fear of who we stand before when we die.

Because in dying, our period of turning to Christ has ended. We will then stand before the Creator who will say to all of us, what did you make with the gift of life that I gave you? Was that life marred by sin? Was it wracked by guilt? Was it broken?

Was it tormented by moral failure? Did you not or why did you not reach out to me? The enormity of that moment, friends, of meeting the holy God who has created us, that is the fear of death. But if you're in Christ, if you know him, if you put your trust in him, this fear has stilled forever. Since he is the perfect leader of worship, the perfect priest, Hebrews seven, verse twenty-five says this, Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.

Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. Are you ready for that day? Are you standing at the side of Christ as he leads you as his brother and his sister in worship? Turn your heart to him. Bring your life in line with him.

Believe in the gospel. Commit yourself to him as Lord and Saviour. Why not? Why not? Even now, even in your lounge room, commit yourself to that today.

There's a story of a poet, an Italian poet by the name of Dante, who was one Sunday deeply immersed in meditation during a church service. At one point, he failed to kneel at the appropriate moment during worship. Some church members who weren't particularly fond of him, hurried to the bishop and had a quick little gossip to him that Dante should be reprimanded for his disrespect. Standing before the bishop, Dante had to explain himself. And this is what he said, if those who accuse me had their eyes and minds on God as I had, they too would have failed to have taken notice of the events going on around them.

They certainly would not have taken notice of what I was doing or not doing. As we wrestle with how we live out our worship of God, as we wrestle with what it looks like in our current circumstances, both corporately and privately, will you come back to this? That Jesus Christ is standing at the centre of your praise. Where your worship falters, his worship is perfect. Where your praise is heartless and cold, his praise cleanses and nourishes it.

Where your praise is heartfelt, where it is vibrant, he amplifies that. May our hearts and our minds be so swept up in the majesty and the wonder of Jesus Christ that we can't help but lose ourselves in the exasperated thought, how is this possible that he would love me so much? Can it really be as glorious as this? Could it be true that the sinless perfect Lamb of God should be sacrificed for me, the least deserving of all people? Can it be really for me?

Our friends, our hearts and our minds can be focused on that. You can worship him anywhere. You can worship him with any song, with any tune, with any ability, with any speaker, with any instrument. And every time, you will reap a harvest of joy. If our hearts and our minds are there week in week out, the most wonderful words you'll ever look forward to hearing is, let us worship our God together.

Jesus is standing amongst his people today in his risen power and he's able to save to the uttermost those who desire to draw near to God. He is a Saviour you can trust. He is a Saviour who understands your need and let's thank him now for that together. Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that we can come together this morning to bring our praise and our worship to you.

We thank you that we could come to give our very hearts and our lives to you again. Oh Lord, we thank you for the truth of scripture that not only have you done something for us objectively, you have taken us out of the kingdom of darkness and you have placed us into the kingdom of light. Not only have you done that objectively for us, apart from us, without us needing to feel or think anything, you have done that for us through faith. And yet, the privilege of our hearts, the privilege of our lives as Christians is that we are subjectively tied to you as well. That at any time we may know, we may sense that God is amongst us.

Lord, I pray for challenging and interesting and extraordinary times. I pray for us as we miss one another. I pray for us as we long to be reconciled again. But Lord, I pray that even in these times, you'll be refining us, purifying our understanding of what worship is. Help us, Lord, to above all seek you, to desire you in all we do, in all the ways we think, and especially in the ways we draw near to you in worship.

To your praise, to your glory, to your majesty, we say these things. Amen.