Closing Thoughts on Sincerity

On Friday, we watched a message from Voddie Baucham titled "A Warning to Insincere Worshipers" from the Passion: One Day Conference back in 2000. While the video was quite old, as noted by a much different style of dress, the message was still gripping and applicable as the truth in God's word is timeless. He spoke on Isaiah 1:10-15

10 Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!

11 "The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?

13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;

It's pretty clear in this passage that the Lord does not desire our actions in themselves. He desires our heart. He desires a genuine and sincere heart. I cannot agree more. The Christian life is not and never will be about merely our actions. The more important underlying factor is the source of our actions.

However, I believe that this message should have been marked with an asterisk, or Sincerity*. I am not saying that sincerity isn't required in our worship. Sincerity is demanded of us. Here's where I think the asterisk comes in: Sincerity in what?

I remember a time when I was back in third grade. We were taking a math test and the question talked about finding the perimeter of a square with a side length of 3. So naturally, this meant 3+3+3+3 or 12. Wanting to be cool, I decided to bust out my multiplication skills. So I thought to myself, 6+6 is 12 which means I need two 6's. Ok, so the answer is 6x6 and I wrote it down. Well, we all know (hopefully) that 6x6 is actually 36 and not 12. I had mixed up my multiplication. I was genuine and sincere in my answer, I really meant it. That does not change the fact that I was wrong.

Take this biblical example now. In 1 Samuel 15, God instructed Saul, the king of Israel at that time, to go and destroy the Amalekites. The instructions were clear: destroy EVERYTHING and take NOTHING. Saul then attacked the Amalekites. Rather than destroying everything, he took their king and the best of the livestock back to offer up to the Lord. When Saul offered his sacrifice, the Lord did not accept it. Saul was genuine in his offering and sincere as could be. However, he was misguided, incorrect, and straight up wrong in his sacrifice.

Here's the caveat of sincerity. We can be as sincere as we want but if we if we are sincerely wrong, all that sincerity was for naught. Sincerity is no excuse for ignorance. It doesn't matter how sincere or how genuine our motives are if we are living and doing things contrary to the will of God in which we learn through reading His word. It is not okay to say "Oh well, sorry God. I was sincere in my actions and I just didn't know that they offended you." Look at Saul. Saul was sincere and yet God said that he was "grieved that [He] made Saul king". This stresses the importance of knowing God and His will through spending time with Him. Yes, sincerity is an integral part of our worship. However, that sincerity needs to be coupled with the knowledge and obedience of the Lord's commands.