3/3/18 – Leviticus 9, Leviticus 10 Mark 11:28-33, Mark 12:1-12 Psalm 29

Lev 10:1-2

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorised fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. 

Unauthorised fire. Wrong Fire. Strange fire.

They were doing something God had not asked them to do. They were trying to add to what He had done. God set the fire alight – yet they tried to add to it with fire of their own. God had just lit it! Why would they think their own little fire had any place in the offering?

They’ve moved from reverence to overexcitement and hype.

It seems like they let their pride got the better them, they may even had had too much to drink (as the safeguard put in place after this mentions that).

How much worship is fleshly, rather than what God commanded? When we seek to worship God out of what we can get from it, or out of our own sense of pleasure and enjoyment, we are adding our own unauthorised fire to His flame. When we seek to hype up the Holy Spirit instead of letting Him to His work, we are bringing strange fire. When we strive for the miraculous instead of trusting God for it, we are offering wrong fire. We don’t hype the Holy Spirit up – The Holy Spirit comes down.

We worship to glorify Him – not to make ourselves look good or even to entertain. When worship becomes about how others see you – when you try to add to what God is doing… you are moving away from true worship.

Mark 12:10

Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

This is a quote from Psalm 118:22. Who is Jesus asking this question of? Well, in chapter 11 we see that it’s the Chief Priests, the Scribes and the Elders. They’ve challenged the authority of Jesus.

So when Jesus is asking, have you not read this scripture… we have to say that they would have been very familiar with it.

They challenged His authority and then He did not answer their question. (The right answer to the wrong question is always wrong. Some questions are traps that shouldn’t be answered) Instead he takes their question to bits, then tells them a parable about a son that was rejected.

He then quotes this Psalm, which the Jewish people all applied as a Messianic Psalm.

Do you see what Jesus did? He actually does answer the question, but reframes it. He tells them exactly who’s authority He does everything in – the Father’s. Because He is the son, the promised Messiah. As soon as He says this they want to arrest Him.

Did Jesus ever say He was God? Totally. Again, I don’t understand how anyone can suggest otherwise.

Ps 29:2

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness.

 

Ascribe is a lovely, poetic word. But what does it mean? I means give what is due. Give to the Lord the glory that He is due.

First – He is worthy. How much glory is God worth? All of it. He is the most glorious, wonderful one. We worship because He is worth it. How do we know He’s worth it? Though His goodness to us and through the glory revealed to us through His word.

If you don’t see His worth, your worship will be empty and false. Worship is a response to the awesomeness of God.

Second – worship Him in the splendour of holiness. Why should we seek to live holy lives? Because God is sitting with a big stick? No. Because Holiness is a beautiful act of worship. It’s great to worship God with song, but there is such splendour in worshipping Him with our lives.