WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULD SEE THE INVISIBLE? —WORSHIP!
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23–27 ESV).
What would you do if you could see the invisible?
The first thing some think of when they hear the word “invisible” is fantasy, sci-fi, or superhero fiction. “What would you do if you had some kind of superpower?” is a different question. True invisibility isn’t fiction; it’s a present spiritual reality. This is why, despite what many in our times think, Scripture never ever pits faith against knowledge. According to Hebrews 11:1, genuine faith is knowledge!
Scripture pits faith against sight.
God doesn’t call us to trust what we can’t know; He calls us to trust what we can know despite the fact we can’t see it.
That’s what makes it trusting rather than wishing.
Wishing on a star is believing in something you can’t know. Trusting in what you have ample reason to know despite not being able to see it is faith as Scripture defines it.
The fact is, most of reality is invisible to us, and I don’t mean microscopic things that would be otherwise visible if they weren’t so small. I mean, the celestial and terrestrial halves of the universe have been thinly separated by an immaterial “veil” or “curtain,” represented under the Law of Moses by the veil in the Temple that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy, so that those of us in the terrestrial realm cannot see into the celestial realm. God put this “curtain” in place to protect us after our race fell into sin. In Exodus 33:20, God said to Moses, “Man shall not see me and live,” meaning, of course, sinful mortal Man. So, our spiritual blindness is a protection. God loves us and doesn’t want us to die (2 Pet 3:9). So, the question is, what would you do if you could see all reality, both material and spiritual?
To help us answer this question, let’s all imagine we were physically blind (speaking, of course, to those who must imagine). You move around amidst threats and dangers you only know of by sound and feel. In the outside world, you’re forced to get help from others who can at least see better than you can. You learn to look for the good in people as much as you can because you depend on it. In your own space, you put everything into precise order—"a place for everything and everything in its place,” always, no exceptions. The layout of your home is a pattern. You memorize it to the point that you can move about as freely as if you could see. So, to thrive, blind people use their other senses and the help of good guides to create a rhythm of life that lets them live, as much as possible, as if they could see. They literally walk by faith and not by sight.
Now imagine you found a healer, MD or otherwise, who could restore your sight. Imagine you’d never seen anything other than the blackness of total blindness. Imagine the day has come to unwrap the bandages from your eyes as you stand in view of the most beautiful thing you can imagine: the mountains, bearded with low clouds against a broad, red sunset, the Grand Canyon under a clear blue sky, Niagara Falls. Imagine your first sight. That feeling is what we mean by the words wonder and awe, leading to reverence, gratitude, and contemplation of the meaning of life. Those are the feelings we tap into when we worship God—they are why we worship, not because of the feelings themselves but because of the worthiness of what inspires them.
WORSHIP IS JUST A SHORTENED FORM OF THE OLDER WORD, “WORTHSHIP.” WORSHIP IS THE PROPER RESPONSE TO WORTHINESS. WHEN WE ACT TOWARDS SOMETHING OR SOMEONE AS THEY DESERVE, OR AS THEY’RE WORTHY, WE’RE SHOWING THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF WORSHIP TO THAT THING OR PERSON. WHEN EVERYTHING IS CONSIDERED, GOD IS SO MUCH MORE WORTHY OF WONDER, AWE, REVERENCE, GRATITUDE, AND CONTEMPLATION THAT THE BIBLE LEADS US TO LIMIT THE WORD WORSHIP TO HIM AND HIM ALONE.
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:10 ESV).
Many people have now had their sight restored from total or near-total blindness. You can watch videos of their amazement as they see the beauty of God’s Creation for the first time. But all of this is an illustration to help us imagine what it would be like if our spiritual blindness were instantaneously totally cured. What would it be like to see God’s glory? What will it be like?
MercyMe released a song almost a quarter of a century ago now called, I Can Only Imagine.” A section of the lyrics goes,
I can only imagine what my eyes will see When Your face is before me. I can only imagine. Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for You, Jesus, or in awe of You be still? Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing “Hallelujah!”? Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine.
We can only imagine because our eyes have not yet been opened to see God with our eyes, but we must imagine for the sake of the eyes of our hearts! By living as if we can see our invisible God, we can tap into the wonder and awe, leading to reverence, gratitude, and contemplation of the meaning of life, which are the heart issues of worship.
Keeping all this in mind, you’ll see why Jesus used physical blindness to illustrate how to live as if you could see spiritual reality.
Read John 9:24–41.
Back to our illustration: Imagine that all our eyes were opened to see reality as the spirits see it. Imagine that the scales fell from all our eyes so that we could see the whole of reality. What would we do? John 9 mentions it twice. WORSHIP. Nothing could stop us from falling on our knees in awe before the glory, beauty, power, and undiluted perfection of the goodness of God. Consider Isaiah 6:1–7 as well.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (ESV)
Let’s unpack what we’ve been thinking about:
1. We cannot see the spiritual realm, but the spirits in it can see us, and its realities affect us.
2. It’s possible, with the help of someone who can see spiritually, to get guidance so that we won’t fall (Matt 15:14). Jesus is the only source of this guidance. Through the Helper He sent in His name, the Holy Spirit, we have the Bible, our only trustworthy guide to spiritual life, visible and invisible. Guided by the testimony of Scripture, we can order our lives according to its trustworthy pattern so that we can live, even though spiritually blind, as if we could spiritually see.
3. This is what Paul is getting at when he says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7).
4. Remember where faith comes from: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Faith comes from hearing, not seeing. Remember that.
5. John 9: Through Jesus, all who worship God and do His will are cured of their spiritual blindness so that we can live this life as if we could see the spiritual realm, and so we’re made able to avoid its pitfalls and thrive into eternal life.
In a word, WORSHIP is what we would all do with no exceptions if our eyes were open to see what the spirits see.
This being true, if there’s one thing we will surely do if we live as seeing Him who is invisible, it’s worship. If you don’t worship God, you’re not spiritual. If you don’t worship the true God, you’re not spiritual. If you don’t worship as the true God has directed, you’re not spiritual because, in the invisible world, there’s no question about how to worship God. There’s no debate about traditional versus contemporary. There is simple faithfulness and rebellion—those who obey God’s commandments and those who don’t, and the same thing is true in this world of the spiritually blind.
Our primary obligation to God as children created in His image is to worship Him. The first four of the 10 Commandments are all about worshipping God. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus plainly said that the kind of people God seeks to be His special people are “true worshippers” (John 4:23–24).
Worshipping God is not only step one towards being cured of spiritual blindness; it’s step one of being truly human. We were made to worship God, our most basic responsibility in life. If you never think a lustful thought, never utter a proud or blasphemous word, never do any evil work, but you choose to deny God the worship that is His by right, you are by that failure alone a sinner, a fool, and spiritually blind. The pitfalls await you. Apart from Christ, you will fall.
For all who, through faith, are in covenant relationship with Christ, the veil between the celestial and terrestrial realms has already been removed, symbolized by the tearing of the curtain in the Temple from top to bottom when Christ died for us, even though, still being mortal, we cannot yet fully experience it. When we worship, even though our mortal eyes cannot see, we ARE in God’s throne room (Eph 2:6). We cast our crowns before the throne along with the victorious saints who’ve gone on into heaven before us, praising the One Who sits on it (Rev 4:10–11). When we sing our hymns, our voices are heard in heaven and blend with those of the angels. There are angels around us right now. Demons too. We can’t see them, but they can see us. But we need not fear what we cannot see if our trustworthy guide guides us. These are the things we need to focus the eyes of our hearts on as we enter worship.
Along with the psalmist, we can say, “In your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). Enlightenment is what we’re thinking about here. It’s only possible through the true God, and His guidance through His Son, Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, will always lead us to our knees (sometimes literally) to worship. Enlightened people worship God!
The pathway to eternal life leads through worship!
Lord willing, we’ll explore the gift of worship over the next several weeks.
The first two steps along that path are obeying the gospel and making worship the central thing in your life. Let’s make application with this passage from Scripture:
So, brothers, we are completely free to enter the Most Holy Place. We can do this without fear because of the blood of Jesus’ death. We can enter through a new way that Jesus opened for us. It is a living way. It leads through the curtain—Christ’s body. And we have a great priest over God’s house. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith. We have been cleansed and made free from feelings of guilt. And our bodies have been washed with pure water. Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed. We can trust God to do what he promised. Let us think about each other and help each other to show love and do good deeds. You should not stay away from the church meetings, as some are doing. But you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the Day coming. (Heb 10:19–25 ICB)
Every Lord’s Day, we come into the presence of God as blind men and women, and God guides us, sets our lives in order, shows us the way, and clears the pitfalls from our paths. Worship is vital to living as if seeing Him Who is invisible. When we worship, it's as if we're in God’s very presence as if we could see Him, and we need to allow the significance of this thought to fill us with awe and wonder so that we can worship Him passionately in spirit and truth.
But there is an essential act of worship everyone who has come of age must submit to before being made worthy by the gift of God’s grace to enter His presence at all: obeying the gospel (Rom 10:16; 2 Thes 1:8; 1 Pet 4:17). Obeying the gospel is the embodiment of obedient faith (trust) and is our first significant act of worship to God through Jesus and the first step into spiritually opened eyes we must take if we ever hope to see God in His full glory someday literally. Hebrews 12:14b says, “If anyone’s life is not holy, he will never see the Lord” (ICB). Romans 12:1 flows from Romans 6:1–14! Only those who have obeyed the form of Christ's self-offering (trusting belief, repentance from sin, confession of faith, baptism into His death, burial, and resurrection) are made worthy of offering themselves to God as worthy worshippers.
This world is indeed more than what it appears to be, and your life depends on learning to live as if seeing the invisible.
---JLP
Image by Chris0223 via Pixabay.
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