Charles Spurgeon once told a story about how Caesar Augustus was invited to a feast in his honor; but the attendance was so poor, and the feast was so mediocre, that he arose in the midst of it and lamented: “Alas, you have fooled me; I supposed that I had been invited to be honored — but I find instead that I was invited to be shamed!” 

In light of Caesar’s statement, we might want to ask ourselves could we be doing the same thing to the Lord? When we come together on Sunday, we are supposedly doing these “worship services” in His honor.  But are they? Does the way we attend, the way we participate, the way we actually worship, really honor Him — or does it shame Him?

Luke 21:38 describes some things about the way the people came to be with Jesus that day, which should challenge us today regarding the way that we worship: 

“And all the people would get up early in the morning to come to Him in the temple to listen to Him.”

I. Your Attendance At Worship 

“And ALL the people” 

“ALL” the people, it said. The temple was crowded when Jesus was there; the people just flocked there to be with Him. Nobody “made” them go; it wasn’t a “holy day” or special celebration; they just wanted to be in the temple, their house of worship, with Jesus.

We should be the same way- we should just want to be in the house where Jesus is worshiped, to honor Him. Just like this passage: ”ALL” of us who are His people should be in attendance in His house of worship. “ALL” of us. If you are a follower of Christ, you should be faithful in your attendance in worship. Hebrews 10:25 says that we should be “not forsaking our own ass assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” The Bible emphasizes in that verse the importance of not neglecting worship attendance. 

I don’t think that this has been emphasized in our generation the way it was in times past. And I am not saying that it was always emphasized perfectly in the past, either. Some of you remember, they used to give out “perfect attendance pins.” They would give out a little pin if you had perfect attendance for a year, or 2 years, or 5 years; sometimes you would hear of somebody getting a 50 year perfect attendance pin! The problem with that is, you can get real legalistic about it, or do it just for the pin, or make it a matter of pride — or maybe even come when you ought to stay home!  I remember once when a kid got a perfect attendance award from his school, the person giving the award said: “this child even came when he was sick” — and one of the other parents not far away said, “Yeah, and he gave it to my child too; I wish he had stayed home!” That’s one of the good things we learned about during COVID wasn’t it — Sometimes, you need to stay home! If you’re sick with something contagious; stay home, and let everyone else stay well. I think we have a different view of that than we used to, and I do think that’s a good thing.

And then some people think they have to be at church every time the doors are open because they think it’s part of “being a good person” to get to heaven: “Better be there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night;” better give, and pray, and go, so you can be a “good person” and get to heaven. That’s wrong too. We don’t go to church to earn a place in heaven. You could LIVE in this building and it won’t get you a spot in heaven. That’s not what it’s about.  

Following Jesus is about more than just “being a good person and going to church.” Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people have thought the message is, but it’s not. The problem is, we are NOT “good people.” The problem is, we are all sinners, by nature and by choice. When we came to the age to chose to sin or to right, we have all chosen to sin. Every single one of us. The Bible says “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” This is why Jesus came — because we are all sinners, and none of us would have been saved. So He died on the cross and paid for our sins, so that we sinful people, who DON’T always do all the good things we should, can be saved, NOT by “going to church every Sunday” — that’s trusting our own good works to save us — but by trusting what JESUS did on the cross instead. Just think about it: what do you want your hope of eternal salvation to be based upon: your perfect church attendance and good conduct? Or Jesus perfect righteousness and His death on the cross? I know what I want: “My hope is built on nothing less than JESUS’ blood and righteousness”! Not my righteousness, or my church attendance.

BUT, having said all that, that it’s not all about church attendance, and we don’t need to go when we’re sick, and it doesn’t “earn” us a place in heaven — I think some us could still recapture some of the previous generation’s commitment to worship attendance. Too many of us nowadays thinks nothing about missing church for any reason at all. It used to be that you used to have a “reason” to miss church. Now many people miss for almost no reason at all. And I am not saying that you can’t ever take a vacation, or be away. I take vacations myself! And many of our best people have jobs at the plants that take them out every other week or so. That’s totally understandable. But if you aren’t sick, and you aren’t working, and you’re not out on vacation, you ought to be in church on Sunday. That should just be our commitment.

I remember a father in a church we served once saying, I don’t want my kids asking me “Are we going to church today?” He said, I want them to already KNOW we ARE going to church today — because that is what we do!” That’s the kind of commitment we need to have. We just ARE going to be there. Just like here in Luke, “all” of God’s people should be in His house of worship. 

II. Your Sacrifice At Worship 

Secondly, not only does this verse say that “ALL” the people would come, it says they ”would get up early in the morning.” To me this is an interesting part of the verse; it tells us something about their commitment — that they would make the sacrifice to get up early in the morning to come to meet Jesus. 

In the early days of Christianity, they actually had to get up very early to come to worship. I was reading a book some time ago about the church at worship in previous generations, in pagan cultures. It said that in the early days of the Roman Empire, they didn’t have “Sunday off” like many of us do. Sunday was just another day of the week for that society. They still had to go to work. So those who were Christians would get up and go to church very early in the morning — often while it was still dark — and then go and do their regular work for the day. 

So Christians in those days had to sacrifice to go to worship. Most of us don’t have to do that any more, do we? Many of us have Sundays off. And there’s often not much “sacrifice” involved in our worship. Our church in Louisiana had two morning worship services, one at 8:30, and the other at 11:00. It was interesting to sometimes hear people talk about why they would go to the service they did. Some people said they’d go to the 8:30 service because it would”free up the rest of the day”, or they could “get to the restaurant early.” Others said they liked to come to the 11:00 service, so they could “sleep in.” Not much talk about “sacrifice,” was there? But we need to know that there is something about sacrifice that makes worship pleasing to God. 

In II Samuel 23:13-17, when the Philistine army had captured Bethlehem, David, who loved that town, said, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate.” And the Bible says that three of his mighty men heard what David said, and fought their way into Bethlehem, and got him some water from that well. When they came back and presented it to David, he said, far be it from me that should drink this water; I would be drinking the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives. It was a precious gift they brought to him; a sacrificial gift. It was their sacrifice, that made it so precious.

Then the very next chapter, II Samuel 24, God commanded David to make a sacrifice to save the people from a plague. One of David’s citizens, Araunah, bowed before David and told him that he would give David the oxen and the wood for the offering. But David said in :24, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the oxen and wood, and made the offering. But here we see an important principle of worship: it pleases God when we make a sacrifice that costs us something. 

So how do we apply this to us today? What would be some examples of sacrifices that we can make for worship?

— The sacrifice of SLEEP.  We see in this very passage that the people got up early to come and hear Jesus in the Temple. They sacrificed their sleep to come. We can do that same thing. Some of you do that. Several of our ladies have told me that their husbands have worked a night shift at the plant the night before, but instead of going straight home to bed, they came to church instead — or slept an hour or two and came. I’m not saying that everybody has to do that; but I think when you make a special effort to be at church, that costs you sleep, that is a sacrifice that pleases God. 

By the way, this also also applies to our own personal worship. It pleases God when we make the sacrifice to get up early enough to spend time worshipping Him before school or work in the morning. I have a schoolteacher friend (Vickie Barto) who told me that in order to leave her house at 7, she has to get up at 4:30 so that she can exercise and spend some time with the Lord for the day. I believe that is a sweet smelling sacrifice to the Lord when she does that!

Let’s be willing to sacrifice some sleep for the Lord, both in our own personal daily worship, and in our corporate worship together at church. “With such sacrifices the Lord is well-pleased.”

— the sacrifice of PREPARATION.  As you read the New Testament (John 19:42, etc.) you see the term “Day of Preparation” for the Sabbath used. This refers to the day before the Sabbath, when they would get everything ready so that they could keep the Sabbath the next day: they got their food laid out and ready so it wouldn’t have to be prepared, they wouldn’t take a long journey, so they would be back for the Sabbath. It wasn’t the Sabbath; it was the day of preparation for the Sabbath. But if they were going to take the Sabbath seriously, they needed to prepare for it. 

Now, I don’t believe that Sunday is “the Sabbath” in the sense that they kept it in the Old Testament. It’s “the Lord’s Day,” a new kind of day. There is no New Testament command to keep the Lord’s Day as a new “sabbath.” But I do think that it would be good for some of us to see at least some of our time on Saturday ~ and especially Saturday night – as a “day of preparation” for Sunday like the Jews did for the Sabbath. If we are going to be serious about worshipping God on Sunday, we need to prepare for it on Saturday. If you’re a teacher, be sure your lesson is ready to go. ALL of us should make sure we get enough sleep. How many people absolutely RUIN any chance of going to church on Sunday morning, by staying up way too late on Saturday night? Get your clothes ready, and have your breakfast plans made, so you don’t have to rush and scramble on Sunday morning, and ruin the spirit of worship. Get your alarm set on Saturday night.  I believe many of us would do well to adopt this concept of the “Preparation Day.” Even if you don’t take all day Saturday, make Saturday night a time of Preparation. Don’t stay up too late, or fail to prepare, so that you make it hard to go to worship Sunday. There’s been a saying going around on Facebook and Twitter: “Sunday morning worship is a Saturday night decision.” There is a lot of truth in that. Make the sacrifice of preparation on Saturday night, so that your Sunday worship for the Lord is all that it should be. 

— The sacrifice of HOLINESS. I Timothy 2:8 says that when we gather for worship we should “lift up holy hands without wrath and dissension.” One important sacrifice we should make for our worship is the sacrifice of holiness; the sacrifice that it takes to cleanse ourselves from sin. God says He wants us to lift up HOLY hands when we pray and worship Him. That means if we are going to be the worshipers He wants us to be, we need to be holy; we need cleanse our life from sin. When we do, that is attractive to God.

One time a guy who was asked, “Why are you wearing what you have on?” He said, My girlfriend likes it, so I’m going to wear it. And that’s just kind of a principle, right? You want to please the one you love. You want them to be attracted to you. Well, scripture tells us that God is pleased when we come to Him dressed in HOLINESS. God says here, I want you to lift up HOLY hands in My presence!  He says in Psalm 96:9,“worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” When we make the sacrifice of cleansing our life from sin, our holiness is beautiful to God. That’s attractive to Him; that’s what He wants to see in our when we worship Him. So what about your life? Are you attractive to God when you worship, because you are dressed in “the beauty of holiness”? Or is there something in your life today that you need to be cleansed of, to be more beautiful to God when you praise Him? The sacrifice of holiness is an important one to God when we worship. 

— Then there is the Sacrifice of PRIDE. God said in Isaiah 66:2, “To this one I will look, who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at My word.” God says the sacrifice of our pride pleases Him. One of the biggest roadblocks to genuine worship today is our pride — pride in the worship service. If the truth be known, many of us make it our most important goal in the worship service, not to praise God with the utmost of our ability, but instead our goal is just not to “embarrass” ourselves somehow: I don’t want to sing too loud and have anybody look at me; I don’t want to raise my hands and make a spectacle of myself; I don’t want to cry or get too emotional, or I don’t want to go down front and kneel and pray, or people might think I’ve got some problem.  WHY do we think things like that? It’s our pride. We are more concerned with protecting our pride, than we are with worshiping God the most fervent way that we can. But God says He looks to the one who humbles himself. In another place He says “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Do you want grace from God? Then humble yourself. And one of the best places to humble yourself is in worship. Lose yourself in worship; forget a about protecting your pride, and just sing and worship and give Him the glory He is due. Lay your pride on the altar and just focus on HIM! Sacrificing our pride is one of the best sacrifices we can make in worship.

These are examples of some of the sacrifices we can make in worship. God’s Spirit may lay some others on your heart.  But ask yourself this morning: what sacrifices am | offering to God in my worship? Now, let me remind you again: we do not somehow “earn” our worship with God through our sacrifices. Ephesians 3:12 says “we have boldness and confident access to God through faith in Him.” The blood of Jesus brings you into presence of God; You don’t “earn” your way into it with your sacrifices. But when you come, you ought to bring Him a sacrifice of worship that shows Him how worthy He is to you. What sacrifices do you need to offer God in your worship? 

III. Your Motivation For Worship 

“To come to Him … to listen to Him”

What was the big attraction to the people here? WHY did “all the people” come? WHY would they get up early in the morning? The answer is given twice here: it says: “to come to HIM … to listen to HIM”! Who’s it all about? It was JESUS! HE was the motivation. They made all those sacrifices and came early and did all that they did, to see HIM! 

This should be our motivation for worship too. But I think if we’re honest, we’ll admit that’s not always so. When I was pastor at a church in Louisiana, we had Governor Bobby Jindal come to share his personal salvation testimony in our service, and we had the largest crowd we ever had at that church — in fact, we had a bigger crowd that day than we did on Easter Sunday! Now, I LOVED Governor Jindal. He a very genuine personal testimony. But folks, we are here for someone greater than the Governor of any state, every single Sunday.

It is like Jesus said in Matthew 12:42, “The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold something greater than Solomon is here”! Jesus said, listen: there is something greater than Solomon, there is something greater than the Governor, there is something greater than any celebrity or sports star or giveaway prize, in church, every single week: the LORD is here! THE LORD IS HERE!  And He is here every single week! And HIS PRESENCE is to be our greatest motivation for worship! His presence should be the reason why we make every effort to attend every week; His presence should be the reason why we make all the sacrifices that we do for worship — it is because HE IS HERE. Nothing else is more important than that.

Years ago, someone wrote C.S, Lewis and asked him: What if the clergyman in their church was inept; how could they worship; what should they do? And his answer was: thank God, because now you have the opportunity to focus your worship on God HIMSELF, not on the skill of the clergyman. He said too many people go to church to either admire or criticize the skill of the ones leading worship, and they forget WHO it is that we are supposed to be worshipping in the first place! We are not here to be entertained by, or to admire the skill of the preacher or music leader. WE ARE HERE TO WORSHIP JESUS. 

That is one of the reasons why it really bothers me when the pastor is gone, and people stay home from church; or a staff member changes, and a ministry falls off. It should not matter WHO is leading, or who is directing, GOD is always here – and you should be a art of the worship choir, and you should participate in worship, NOT for the quality of the leader, but for the quality of the GOD who is worthy! We are here to worship JESUS. HE is our motivation for worship. 

The single best thing we can do in worship, is look to Jesus. “Consider Him,” as Hebrews says. Think about Jesus, whom Philippians 2 says was “equal with God,” but who saw us perishing in our sin, with no hope of saving ourselves. And somehow though we were sinners who chose to rebel against Him, He LOVED us, and came to earth, humbling Himself to become a man — and not just “a man,” but a servant of man, a poor man — and not just that, but that He would die the death of the cross, to pay for our sins, so that we could be forgiven and saved. And He did that for YOU. He did that for ME. He did that for all of us! “Amazing love, how can it be?” But then He rose from the dead, to sit at the right hand of God in heaven, and He is coming back in glory — and as the scripture says, “every eye will see Him”: glorious; clothed in white robes, His eyes a flame of fire, His face shining like the sun, crowned with many crowns, “and on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords” — and with one word He will judge all the enemies of God for all time. That’s our glorious King! He has no rival! He has no equal There is no one like Him! HE is why we worship. HE is why we come to church. HE is why we sacrifice, He is why we give, HE is why we do everything that we do. It’s not the pastor; it’s not the staff; it’s not the church; it’s not the people — it’s Jesus! HE is our motivation for worship. We are here to worship Jesus. “Crown Him with many crowns; the Lamb upon His throne”! We are here to worship Jesus! Just like the people in Luke 21, “We have come to HIM”!  HE is our motivation to worship.