08-23-2026 - RETURN TO WORSHIP - AND BOW DOWN -Chronicles 29:28-36

Lou Hernández

Sep 5

9 min read

MESSAGE BY PASTOR DANIEL PARK

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

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I invite you to pray and make this prayer personal. For whoever needs support in difficult times, we mention the names of those who are in need, and also pray for the members of the family and friends. You can also

mention the name in need.

(Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara’s mom H, Margarita G, Rosy Ch, Patricia L, Lina J, Manuel D, Silvia H, Magda-, Miguel H.L, Manuel D.H, Alicia G, Margarita G, Brianda M, Alejandro M, Natalia M. Maria Elena C, Les N, Oscar N.D, Luis Carlos V, Alicia R.)

I ask for your healing over every part of my life – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I ask that you make me strong and resilient for the days ahead. I know that you have a great purpose for those who believe in your name.

Help me not to allow the distractions and struggles of my days to weigh me down to the point of exhaustion. I know that your desire is for me to live this life abundantly and free. And my greatest desire is to reflect your love and light to a world that so desperately needs your hope.

For those I love who are facing cancer or a hard diagnosis, I pray for your covering of healing and grace. I pray for your strength and your great peace to fill their lives, reminding them that you are close. Thank you; nothing is impossible with you. Thank you for fighting for us, and you are bigger than anything this world throws our way.

I lean fully on You, Lord, for You alone are able. We love You; We need You this day,

and always in Jesus' Name,

Amen.

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SPECIAL PRAYER: Heavenly Father, God of all comfort and healing, we come to you with unwavering faith in this moment of profound need. We place in your loving hands the life of Ana Feri Sucar, who is in a coma after suffering this serious accident. You see her now, for you are the God who sees.

You are the God of miracles, the one who breathed the breath of life into creation and who is in control of each of our days. We ask that you send your healing power directly to her body. Restore every organ, heal every brain injury, align every bone, and cleanse every wound caused by the impact. Break her coma and awaken her according to your perfect will and mercy.

Lord, grant profound wisdom to the doctors, nurses, and all the healthcare staff caring for her. Guide their hands and their decisions. Likewise, fill the hearts of her family with peace, strength, and hope; sustain them in this process and do not let their faith falter. We declare that nothing is impossible for you and that your love is greater than any medical prognosis.

In the mighty name of your Son Jesus, we pray and give thanks. Amen.

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East Asian cultures take honour very seriously

The foremost application is in the giving of honour
Practically, this is expressed most commonly and frequently in greeting people
There are protocols for how you greet people every time you see them, depending on who they are in relation to you
There is the spoken aspect - in Korean, depending on your age gap and the direction of the age difference, you use a particular mode of speech - casual to formal
Then there is the physical aspect as well - to bow or not to bow, and how low do you go?
As summarized by this infographic.

The image on the right is a Korean custom - I believe Japanese and Chinese may have something similar - called, literally translated, the “big bow” or expanded, “big action of worship”

The physical form is different for men and women
It is done on special occasions to elders - most commonly to parents, grandparents, but also to others
It is usually done to express deep gratitude, but can also be done as an act of contrition

It’s all very complicated and a bit of a minefield if you are not familiar with the intricacies of the culture

As someone who has lived in a bi-cultural state for 91% of my life
I often learned the hard way
So I pass on to you a lesson and advice an older Korean pastor gave me when I was living in the country of my birth as an immigrant - in Korea, the most important thing relationally is the greeting - every time, all the time

The greeting grounds the relationship and maintains it in the proper framing for both parties

And the protocol involves both physical and verbal aspects.

This is literally what we will unpack today, as we continue to part 3 on our miniseries on worship

To give a quick recap of parts 1 and 2:

First, worship is the most important thing we do in life
- An activity we need to keep coming back to and continue as a priority
Second, worship is the celebration and reminder of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
- Worship always highlights the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s Son, whose blood was shed as a propitiation for our sins

Today, we learn to bow down in worship as we submit and humble ourselves to God

Because worship is the recognition of God as our Lord and Master
And recognizing that we are sinners who cannot save ourselves

How Low Can You Go?

Worship is the main way we actually acknowledge God as our Lord and Master, Adonai

God is, simply, GOD

The Creator
He is someone our minds and intellect just CANNOT rationalize or understand fully
If we could, then God would be part of creation with us
Worse, God would be a creation - our creation (like all the other gods people worship)

Worship is living out the proper dynamics of our relationship with God

And it begins with the simple baseline expectations and commands HE gave us
Which is the basic reverence due from us to Him

John the Baptist, in John 3:30 said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

When John’s own disciples were wary that Jesus was getting more followers This was what John was born for - to prepare people for the revelation of the Christ, their Messiah, their Saviour

Worship is an activity, and there is a posture that goes with it

The Hebrew word for worship is “saha,” and it means:

to prostrate, bow down, fall
Worship is a very physical activity - of prostrating oneself
It’s not an imagery to help us understand
That’s what it actually is

Grovelling before God is an appropriate posture of worship

We need to regain and/or learn some of this physical posture of submission and worship

Your thoughts on the monarchy aside, if you were to meet King Charles, would you not at least bow your head?

As the King of a country
Even purely out of respect for the history and the people he represents

Or meeting a president or prime minister of a country

Out of respect for the responsibility and burden the office entails

As they say in the military, you salute the rank, not the person

Is God not owed so much more, out of respect for CREATING the world, humanity, the cosmos

Much less loving us, sending His Son to die for us to pay for OUR mistakes
So that we can have an intimate relationship with Him

As King Hezekiah said in chapter 30, verse 7-9:

7 Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were faithless to the Lord God of their fathers, so that he made them a desolation, as you see. 8 Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. 9 For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”

Don’t be faithless and stiff-necked, but yield

What do you believe in in life?…
Believe in the evidence you see of the Creator
And bow in reverence to that Truth

As a father, I would be pretty upset if my children were to go to another kid’s dad on the playground and call him dad, and tell him how they love him and how great he is

People turned away from their Creator and credited RANDOM explosions for their existence!

God DESERVES our worship

We OWE Him our worship
God alone
God is the only one we long to worship

Do not be faithless and stiff-necked. Yield

There is no worship before we give up our self-autonomy and our self-righteousness
Righteousness is set by the one who created and authors life
We need to bow down and receive our righteousness from God

2. How Close Can You Get?

Last week, I referenced a worship song from 1989, today we skip forward a decade to 1998, to a song written by a Canadian, from nearby Abbotsford, Brian Doerksen - who actually passed away only a month ago

The song is Come, Now is the Time to Worship
Come now is the time to worship

Come now is the time to give your heart

Come just as you are to worship

Come just as you are before your God

I remember one of my Old Testament professors referring to that song in one class, saying that technically, the song is theologically unsound

At least if you only take the Old Testament’s perspective
Can you guess the part?
You cannot go to God just as you are
Just as you are, a sinner

The easiest way I know to explain this is to imagine God as the Sun- all-powerful and all-consuming

If we were to try and approach the Sun, we would just be vaporized
It’s like that with sin to God
Sin cannot exist in God’s presence - it must be and will be destroyed
‘Unfortunately, along with the sinner

We are NOT supposed to be able to approach God because of our sin

Maybe we could know about God, but not get close
Not as we are

Which is why, as we talked about last Sunday, God taught the Israelites the burnt sacrifices of animals, which took the place of people for their sins

Only then could people stand before God in the temple after they were consecrated or purified

As we looked at last week, in v21 Hezekiah already sacrificed 7 bulls, 7 rams, 7 lambs and 7 male goats

28 animals
Which were for the sins of the kingdom and Judah.

In verse 32 of today’s passage, the general public brought:

70 bulls, 100 rams, 200 lambs, 600 bulls, 3000 sheep, which is 3970 animals
Solomon sacrificed 142,000 animals to dedicate the temple

To come near to God, this is what is required: to repay the debt of sin we owe to God

Bowing seems a lot easier now, doesn’t it?

It seems overwhelming, so good thing God made a way

A new and living way - Jesus
Jesus took the place of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of animals as the ONE, perfect sacrifice
More than the countless animals that would have to be sacrificed in our place, Jesus took OUR place on the cross to die in OUR place

Philippians 2:1-11

1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So now we don’t need animals to die

WE don’t need to die
All we need is faith in Jesus, and we can be as close as we could ever want to God the Father
Closeness and intimate love of a child with their ever-loving dad

Jesus doesn’t just grant us a new life

Jesus gives us a new identity as a child of God

Jesus: every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So now we don’t need animals to die

WE don’t need to die
All we need is faith in Jesus, and we can be as close as we could ever want to God the Father
Closeness and intimate love of a child with their ever-loving dad

Jesus doesn’t just grant us a new life