Four Faces of Worship 2 Lion Face

Everyone thinks they know everything they need to know about Jesus and going to church but there are a lot of misunderstandings about worship. Some of it’s caused by the person we call the “worship leader”—the acoustic guitar playing hipster who victimizes the congregation with the latest fashion trends—an unnecessary scarf, a Breaking Bad Pork Pie hat ,or a trucker ball cap that says, “God bless whoever is hating on me.” If they really go for it, they might have an ironic tattoo—like Hebrew letters spelling the word CHRIST—but then they find out it says “decaf coffee.” Tragic.

People think the music and singing is the worship part of the worship service. They think the after-life is going to be this eternal worship service—and by that they mean artists from KSBJ doing a never-ending concert in heaven. I mean, that might be alright for a little while but after a bit, I don’t think even God would be listening. Probably about the time Bethel Music takes the stage for the extended drum solo in Oceans. It’s true that “God Listens” but it doesn’t mean He likes it—we don’t have to try and make His ears bleed.  

Last week we started this series with a message called “Heavenly Weirdness,” where we looked at the heavenly worship leaders, the cherubim, the angels who put all the modern “worshipsters” to shame with their bodies made of fire and light and metal, mechanical parts, and eyes all over them with four faces, hooved feet, human hands, and wings—no matter how many clever hats or feather boas the hipsters put on they can’t compete on the level of weirdness the heavenly worship leaders supernaturally have going for them. We talked about how when we gather like this for church, that we are mysteriously also worshiping in the heavenly throne room before God will thousands and thousands of those strange living creatures—with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

The angels are leading us in worship—and we’re going to look at the four faces of the cherubim and see what they tell us about what our worship should look like. The Ox face: a symbol of how our worship includes service and sacrifice, the Man face: the symbol of God's connection to humanity and how we were created in His image, plus the incarnation and how our worship must include the proclamation of the Gospel, the Eagle face: a symbol of vision, and how our worship must include perseverance and helping each other soar in our faith. And this message is looking at the Lion Face. A symbol of strength and courage, and majesty—The Lion Face calls for our worship to be bold in our belief, our confession of faith, and our actions.

These four faces of the cherubim are full of implications and imagery from the Bible that we, God’s people, are supposed to be familiar with. Which is why we’re doing this—because I’m pretty sure most of us need a refresher course on what the Bible says about these things. These four faces tell us a lot about what our worship is to be like.

If some sportsball team wanted to come up with a mascot that had four faces—don’t you think they would choose four creatures that said something inspiring about their team? If they wanted to be a winning team, fierce and powerful—they probably wouldn’t be like—”We should have the face of jellyfish on the right, and on the left a kitten with oversized adorable eyes, in the front, right in the middle, how about the face of a sloth—yawning—slowly—and also the face of a Dodo Bird unsuccessfully attempting to fly—in the wrong direction. 

They wouldn’t do that unless they wanted to say their team is just the worst, spineless, bunch of losers in the league. I’ll let you come up with your own example for what team you think that might be. Mostly because whatever team I bring up would get me in trouble with someone—especially this year if I brought up the Lions.

In the Four Faces of the cherubim, God is telling us what our worship, which is our response to Him calling us to be His people and saving us, what it’s supposed to look like. 

The image of the Lion inspires us to embody bravery in our faith, courage in our convictions, and boldness in our actions.

The Lion Face also reminds us that angels are God’s fiercest warriors—they do all His dirty work.

Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? Angels.

Death of the firstborn in Egypt? Angels.

In 2nd Kings chapter 19, King Hezekiah is in a tight spot with the Assyrian leader Sennacherib and there’s no way out. 

Verse 1: As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 

Verse 15: And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. … O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”

Verse 35: And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

Hezekiah was in trouble, he went to the house of worship and prayed for help—God sent a single angel to take care of business. One.

There’s a lot of Old Testament accounts where angels are sent by God to do terrible things to His enemies. And that doesn’t change in the New Testament—which is a very important thing to remember about God: He doesn’t change, and His Holy angels have the same job they’ve always had. 

For example, after the resurrection, in Acts 12:23, King Herod is struck down by an angel of the Lord for not giving God glory and was eaten by worms and died. 

And Jesus talks about angels a lot. He says they’ll handle the wetworks at the end of time, too.

Matthew 13:39 Jesus says,

"The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

In Matthew 25:31, this is where Jesus says the angels will separate the sheep from the goats—sheep being the people of God in Christ and goats being everyone who doesn't believe the Gospel or take care of His people. Jesus says it will be all the angels who will throw the goats into eternal punishment. 

That’s not what you want. That’s not what any of us want—for anyone. Which is why the mission of the church is to proclaim the message of the Gospel—repent and believe in Jesus who came to save us. He’s the only way out of this mess. So, that’s what worship is—responding in faith to the message of Jesus. Bowing before Him in submission and thankfulness—with all the courage and boldness of a lion. 

That includes showing up for worship here but also continuing to live your life in worship of God the rest of the week. Proverbs 30:30 says, 

"A lion, mighty among beasts, retreats before nothing;" There is nothing that should stop you.

Isaiah, who was the prophet and advisor of King Hezekiah, says this in chapter 31 of his book of prophecy,

"This is what the Lord says to me: 'As a lion growls, a great lion over its prey—and though a whole band of shepherds is called together against it, it is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor..'" Isaiah 31:4-7

The Lion Face reminds us to worship God with unwavering courage. The world makes a lot of noise, shouting lies and threats at us, banging pots and pans trying to scare us away. We retreat before nothing. The gates of Hell can not stop us. We will follow our king into battle and be victorious in our mission: to announce He is here to save us. And not only us, He is here to save all who will listen—all who will repent and believe in the name of Jesus, who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Our God and King.

And when the world tries to break us, tries to wear us down, tries to discourage us with all its sadness and misery and suffering…

Revelation 5:5 says,

“Do not weep. Look, the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.” Jesus, the promised Messiah, the Christ, has come to save you. In this world there will be trouble but be of good cheer, do not weep, because He has overcome the world.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis portrays Jesus as a great, powerful lion named Aslan. There’s a wonderful passage where Lucy, a young girl, is going to meet Aslan and she’s nervous about it. She asks if he is safe. The answer gives us a lot to think about—because she’s told, “Oh, no child, Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. He’s a lion. But he's good.” 

He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He isn’t safe but he’s good.

God is not a benign, comfortable, safe God. He is overwhelming in His raw power and absolute goodness. He is justice. He is holy. His presence demands reverence and awe the same way a wild lion would demand our attention and respect if we were in the same room with it—the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But God is good—we have complete confidence that we can trust Him. We can trust God’s intentions and plans for us, even when they seem overwhelming. The Christian life is not promised to be without danger or problems—it’s an adventure that will require courage and boldness. We are called out of the world to face the unknown with faith in our powerful and mighty God. Goodness doesn’t mean the absence of hardship—I know that’s hard for us to get in our head. A good life doesn’t always mean a comfortable life. God promises that He’s ultimately leading us somewhere good, He doesn’t promise to lead us somewhere safe—not in this life. In the next life, in the resurrection—yes—but not yet. In worship, we encounter the Lion Face of our God that is reflected in the face of the cherubim, and we are called to the same bravery.

All these things about warrior angels and God’s unflinching power paint quite a picture of His raw nature and righteous justice—we might feel a little like Lucy, “Is He safe? Is God safe?”

He’s not but He’s good. We can trust Him.

I also think it’s interesting that the devil pretends to be a lion and tries to scare us. 1st Peter 5:8 says, "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." “Like” a roaring lion. The devil is an imposter, he wants us to be confused and listen to his stupid roar instead of the word of God. He wants us to respond to him, bow to him, worship him, instead of the true God. We need to pay attention, keep on our toes, follow Jesus and trust in Him—and not listen to or be afraid of imposter lions. Devils. Because one little word in the name of Jesus shall fell him—as Luther’s most famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress” says.

Luther definitely wore his Lion Face most of the time. He was very bold in how he approached almost everything he did. He said, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times." Our response to God’s grace, the Gospel, is to trust Jesus with unwavering confidence. Luther said when we run into trouble, he said to, “Pray, and let God worry about it.” I love that.

I said last week that God doesn’t need our worship—we do. We’re the ones who show up here as beggars needing everything God has to give us. But there is someone else who needs you to show up here every week to worship God. 

When it comes to this thing we do on Sunday morning: God doesn’t need you to show up for church, but the rest of the people in your church do! We show up here to encourage each other in our faith, that’s one of the primary things this church thing is for—and it takes actually showing up to do it. You’re going to have to put on your lion face and boldly get out of bed, courageously get in the car, fiercely drive to church, and humbly join the pride of other lions in worshiping our King. 

So showing up here is very important but we need to embody the boldness of lion the rest of the week, too.

But what else does this mean for us? What are other ways we’re supposed to embody the courage and boldness of a lion in our response to the Gospel, in our worship? In how we live our lives?

What we do here in church, when we gather for worship, is supposed to inform how we live the rest of the week—the rest of our worship. Everything we do in response to God is worship. We bow before Him with every aspect of our lives.

Another Luther quote that I really love is, “God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." God is going to send you on little missions all week long to answer other people’s prayers—all those good works He prepared in advance for you to do, those are all to help other people. Do those things with courage. Don’t let anything scare you away.

In your relationships, have the courage to be kind, even when someone isn’t being kind to you. This is really hard. Anger is contagious. I struggle with this, maybe you do too. The strength of a lion allows it to be unaffected by the feeble attacks of lesser creatures. Just because you have a mighty roar, doesn’t mean you have to use it against the people you love. Save it for the enemy. Save it for defending the people you love.

In a culture that is slipping into madness and dark faithlessness—let the boldness of the lion remind you to stand strong. Don’t let the yapping of demonic bad ideas cause you to back down from the good fight of faith. 

There’s probably nothing in this life that requires the boldness of the Lion more than when we have the opportunity to share our faith—that always takes courage. Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you—and be strong enough to be gentle.

You’re going to have to deal with difficult things, difficult people, difficult temptations. The Lion Face reminds you to be strong. Be faithful. If you’re facing a hard situation—sickness, financial, whatever—don’t waste it! People are watching how you handle it, how you deal with it. They wonder what your faith is for? I’ll tell you—it’s for situations just like the one you’re in the middle of. Be brave. Be faithful. Have courage. You will never have the opportunity to speak with more clarity about your faith than when you are in the middle of it.

That’s when you can trust God’s word. Trust His promises. Take heart in the assurance that Jesus is taking you somewhere good. If you’re not in a good place right now then you know your story isn’t over. The only difference between a tragedy and a happy ending for the people of God is where you stop telling the story.

So, we’re not here to bargain with God, or try to impress Him—we’re here to respond to His boundless generosity and perfect goodness. We’re here to encourage each other to remember everything He’s done for us and promises to do for us.

So, remember what Jesus did for you: He set His face toward Jerusalem to die—with unwavering courage and determination. He faced the cross with perfect bravery—He could have called down an army of angels to rescue Him, but He knew if He did that, He wouldn’t be able to rescue you. So, He died to save you from your sin—by exchanging His perfectly holy life for your completely unholy life. He took your sin and gave you His righteousness. He died, He rose from the dead—proving that everything He said was true—including His promise to raise our bodies from the grave and give us everlasting life. The Lion of Judah conquered sin and death—I want to invite you to respond to this good news with the same boldness and faith that it took Jesus to offer it to you. Thanks be to God. AMEN.