Here we have the completion of the temple in Jerusalem, finished by King Solomon, the son of King David. As you can tell, especially if you’ve been reading the whole of 1 Kings 6-7, this was an elaborate construction project. This was to be the “house of the Lord.” It was to be the place where God’s presence dwelt among His people. It was in the center of Jerusalem, at the very beginning of the reign of the house of David over the people of Israel. These were God’s people, and God would dwell among them.

In front of the temple were two pillars cast in bronze. They were more than 30 feet tall, topped with capitals with bronze latticework and bronze lilies and pomegranates all around them. On the north and south of the temple were bronze wash basins that were six feet square and three feet high. They were decorated with images of lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the southeast side of the temple was a huge basin called the “sea.” It was 15 feet across and more than seven feet tall. It sat on top of 12 oxen, three facing each direction. The sea held about 12,000 gallons of water.

Along with the pillars and the wash basins and the sea were pots and shovels for use in the operation of the temple, for the sacrifices. Those pots and shovels were also made of bronze. And no one knew how much bronze was used to make all of these objects. The Bible tells us “the weight of the bronze was not ascertained.”

Inside the temple were the furnishings and tools for the temple. These were made of gold – the altar, the table for the bread of the Presence, the lampstands, the lamps, the tongs, the cups, the snuffers, the basins, the incense dishes, and the fire pans. Even the sockets of the doors of the temple were made of gold. Again, this was an elaborate construction project.

So what was this text about? What do we have to learn? Are we just supposed to understand that Solomon’s kingdom was one of great wealth? They easily could make stuff out of bronze and gold because they had a lot of bronze and gold. I suppose that’s part of the point of this text. But I think there is more to it than that.

I think this text teaches us about worship. Specifically, this text reminds us how a person ought to worship God.

Worship is not made out of just anything. Proper worship is made with the best a person can offer. In 1 Kings 7, this was the best that God’s people could give to Him. And they gave it. Their worship – and their preparation for worship – cost them something. It was extravagant and over-the-top. It required work and effort on their part – years of labor and tens of thousands of workers. It required people of skill who used their skills. It required the most precious of metals the earth has to offer. And it required those precious metals in abundance. Everywhere you looked outside the temple – and even more so inside of it – you’d find shiny objects. Everything was shiny and bright and reminded you the glory and value of God. And all of this had to do with the worship of God.

And sometimes, I find it hard to get my sleepy head off of my pillow on a Sunday morning. It’s possible for our worship to feel cheap in comparison. And sometimes it is. When we’re slow to come to worship with our church family on the Lord’s Day as we’ve been taught in Scripture, our worship gets cheap. When we worship in a haphazard and half-hearted and distracted way, our worship gets cheap. When we keep all sorts of sin in our lives but give the impression to others that we are saints – all while refusing to repent – our worship gets cheap.

Be wary of that. Don’t do that. Give God your very best in worship. Prepare your heart for worship and then worship well.

In finishing his long letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul had an important request for the Christians there. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Worship involves presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. It means we give everything. In the church age – in this season after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – it’s not gold and bronze that God wants us to place in front of Him. No, it’s you. You are the prize. You are the precious metal. You are the sacred object to God.

We visited our old church last weekend to help that church celebrate its 200^th anniversary as a congregation. That little church in the mountains of east Kentucky was founded in 1825. It’s quite the milestone. As a former pastor of that church, they invited me to speak. I was one of four former pastors who were there for the celebration. They thought we would have something valuable to share with them as they remembered their long history that dated back to before the Civil War. It was a humbling experience.

I reminded them I was born in Kansas. My home state was founded in 1861. By the time Kansas became a state, that little church in Kentucky already had been preaching the gospel, baptizing new believers, and training people up in the way of the Lord for 36 years.

I told them I live in Colorado now. Colorado became a state in 1876. By then, that little church in Kentucky had been preaching the gospel, baptizing new believers, and training people up in the way of the Lord for 51 years.

I also told them that I now preach here. This church was founded in 1977. By the time the people here were having their morning coffee and thinking about starting a church, that little church in Kentucky had been preaching the gospel, baptizing new believers, and training people up in the way of the Lord for 152 years. The founders of that church had passed the gospel work to their children’s, children’s, children’s, children’s children – or something like that. That little Kentucky church is the oldest thing I know!

What makes a church like that last for so long – for 200 years? The grace of God, surely. It must be God’s doing. But how do you see the grace of God most clearly in a person’s life? I can tell you. You can see it in a person’s worship.

One of the pastor’s wives of that east Kentucky church told me she’d been to Colorado once. Went up on Pike’s Peak. She was determined to go up there and sing, at the top of her lungs, “How Great Thou Art.” But when she got up there, overlooking the eastern plains of Colorado, all she could do was sit on a bench with her head between her knees and whisper the words, “Then sings my soul …” It’s hard to breathe up there!

But that woman of faith sang, in spite of it all. That’s not cheap worship.

When it came my turn to speak to that old church, I reminded them of a time when a fierce old man in that congregation came forward to be re-baptized. My church tradition doesn’t believe in second baptisms, generally speaking. One is enough. But I re-baptized him anyway. That man wanted it because he wanted to show his grandchildren, who all were sitting in a row next to him, the way.

That’s not cheap worship.

I also told the church of an old man who had been well loved there but has since gone to be with the Lord. The man’s name was Philip. He was a blue-collar guy. Overalls and tractor grease. Plain-spoken. He used to mow the church grounds with this tractor at no cost. One day while Philip was mowing, he pulled me aside as I was walking from the church to the parsonage. He put a $50 bill in my hand. “Preacher, you may need this.” Philip wasn’t a man of wealth. Then he went on mowing.

That’s not cheap worship.

At that 200^th anniversary worship service, I got stuck on the stage with all the other old preachers and worship leaders. So I was looking out at the crowd. It was a mighty crowd. Midway through the service, they invited the “Church Street Boys” to the front for a few songs. It was a reunion for that old singing group in the church. Those “boys” were no longer boys. They were old men. But that didn’t matter. They sang. I didn’t know some of those old gospel songs. But I looked out at the faces in the congregation, and those people knew those songs – because they were singing. Young and old, men and women, they knew the songs. And they sang right along with the “Church Street Boys.”

That’s not cheap worship. This is the kind of worship to which Christ always has called people.

Three wise men came to Jerusalem looking for the King (Matthew 2:2). They found a man named Herod instead. So they asked Herod, as they held their boxes of gold, incense, and myrrh: “Where’s the King? We have come to worship Him.”

After Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again, the disciples found Him on a mountain in Galilee. Some of those disciples had their doubts, as you know. But some didn’t. “And when they saw him they worshipped him” (Matthew 28:17).

At the end of the book of Revelation, after the disciple John had been given the big vision of the end times, John saw the angel who was with him. John fell down on the spot to worship at the feet of that angel. The angel would have nothing of it. The angel said, “I’m just a fellow servant with you and prophets.” And then what did the angel tell John? “Worship God” (Revelation 22:8).

How is your worship?