"Good morning, Pastor," replied the boy, focused on the plaque. "Pastor, what is this?" Alex asked.
"Well, son, these are all the people who have died in the service," he replied
Soberly they stood together, staring at the large plaque.
Little Alex's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which
one, the 9:00 or the 10:30 service?"
With regards to the church, have you ever asked, “Why?” Why did Jesus organize His followers into local churches? Why not just have a bunch of followers?
Well in answering this question it is helpful to look at the three spheres where the church operates and then overlay those spheres with what Pastor Rick Warren popularized as the 5 purposes of the church.
The 3 spheres refer to God (at the center), the church (those who already have a relationship with Jesus Christ), and the world (those who do not know Christ as of yet). We direct ourselves to God through worship. God’s work flows out from His being through us to the world. With regards to one another (believers) we are called to fellowship and to equipping (growing in Christ). As God works in us and through us, His power is shown to the world as we serve others and spread the good news of Jesus who died and rose again!
All of these are things every church should be doing. We will spend the next few weeks exploring these things, starting with worship.
The Nature of Worship
Our word worship come from an Old English word “worth-ship” and has to do with ascribing or proclaiming the worth of God for who He is and what He has done. In worship we come into God’s presence to praise him and adore him for Himself –because He alone is worthy of that honor.
Worship includes whatever we do to honor and express to God His amazing glory and power. Singing, the reading of the Word, even preaching are forms of worship. The offering time is a powerful form of adoring God by giving back. Even evangelism can be worship as we seek to honor God by proclaiming his praises to others.
True worship focuses everything we do as a church, and especially the corporate worship time, directly on Christ! The Church is foremost about Christ, not about meeting my needs or me! Everything else flows from that!
Now some people feel worship not all that important, so we need a few minutes to reflect on The Primacy of Worship.
You will note that the center of diagram is God. He is always the center! It is all about Him! Just as Christ is the cornerstone of the church, He is the focus of our worship! From the beginning of time worship has been both desired and required by God. It is built into fabric of creation – 6 days of work, one day focused on God!
The first murder was direct result of a dispute over worship! Abel’s sacrifice to God was accepted, Cain’s was not –instead of fixing the problem Cain killed his brother! And we think disagreements over music style are a big deal!!
The first 4 commandments all have to do with worshipping God properly: No other God’s means I can only worship the Lord. No idols or images means I cannot make a representation to worship. Not using His Name in vain (empty ways) tells me His Name is to be exalted and honored. And keeping the seventh day Holy to the Lord means Ineed to set aside time to honor Him.
The Old Testament has numerous chapters devoted to the exact ways to worship God. The Temple and its worship were the center of Israel’s spiritual life and God carefully regulated their worship.
By New Testament times we know the early church met every Sunday for worship in song, teaching and the sharing of the Lord’s Supper. In fact, this is the only thing the church does now that will continue on into eternity. In Revelation 4:8-11 and 5:11-14 we see God’s people praising and worshipping him – we don’t see any preachers preaching or anyone trying to win someone to Christ – but we will worship!
There is never a period in history past or future where God is not worshipped by His people! This is the central focus of God’s people:
Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Paul tells us in light of all Christ has done for us (focus of first 11 chapters of Romans) I am to offer myself, to present myself as a sacrifice to God, and that is an act of worship! Next week I want to come back to Romans 12 and talk about the actions of worship, because worship in the Bible is a word associated with another word we are not so comfortable with – sacrifice! But for now I want to spend more time talking about attitude:
Ephesians 5:15-19 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
In the parallel passage to this in Colossians it says:
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
In context of living wisely Paul tells us about the Lord’s will – part of that is to worship! Worship here involves singing and teaching and being taught! Now maybe you don’t like to sing, or don’t like your voice. Or maybe the music’s tempo or style. Maybe you find sermons boring or preachers boring (and admittedly sometimes we are!).
That leaves no excuses because worship is about our attitude toward God in those things – notice how we are to make music in our hearts – attitude precedes true worship! How we come to worship on Sunday AM has a lot to do with worship, that is why attitude is The Heart of Worship.
Jesus left one major instruction regarding worship in John 4:24 God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
Truth has to do with content ; we cannot worship any old God we want, we cannot worship any old way we want.
But spirit here has to do with what is inside us - it cannot be Holy Spirit because Jesus would say “in the Spirit” or “my Spirit.” In fact John MacArthur says it better than I can: The word "spirit" does not refer to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit. Jesus’ point here is that a person must worship not simply by external conformity to religious rituals and places (outwardly) but inwardly with the proper heart attitude.[1]
My favorite example of this comes from the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 6 (which you can get your Bible out and read!).
David has solidified his kingship, and taken
The first attempt to bring the ark to Jerusalem ends in failure because they did not follow the proper way for moving the ark according to God’s law. Numbers 4 & 7 make it clear that ark was to be carried on poles by Levites.
God cannot be worshipped just anyway we please – he is not interested in just any old worship or whatever way we want to worship, but must be worshipped in the ways He has given us.
The second attempt goes much better and they bring the ark to Jerusalem. David danced and worshipped: David is passionate about God – think of all God has done for him – he loves God and could care less what others think of his love for God – we might say he was a religious fanatic!
Does our worship of God really reflect our love for Him? Is it infectiously joyful like David’s? DO we really love God all that much?
After they get the ark back and David blesses his people, he returns home to his own house, full of joy and ready to bless it also. However, unbeknownst to him, his first wife Michal has been watching the festivities. Michal’s wrath is engendered because in her mind the king has acted like a fool – dancing around and singing and such.
David’s answer to her is profound – he basically tells her that in fact although she doesn’t like it he puts the Lord first, even to the point of humbling himself in front of all the people to worship God. And in fact others esteemed him for his heartfelt worship.
The big question is why wasn’t Michal at the festivities? Her responses to David’s worship and her lack of participation tells us something about the hearts of those who do not want to worship – her heart is cold to the things of God – maybe because God took the kingdom from her dad and gave it to David or maybe because she was somehow personally embarrassed, but she certainly was not interested in worship! The end result was that she received nothing from the Lord, not even children!
Do we have the desire to worship? Part of worshipping in spirit is that I desire to worship! I have to want to do it, even though I may have stress or have had a bad week or be tired or whatever the case, I still want to worship God and praise him and because of that I will not hold back.
We are so easily embarrassed by shows of emotion in church during worship, yet no one is embarrassed at the football game when their kid makes a touchdown! When Michigan comes to Iowa and plays the Hawks at Carver my dad and I (and Mikayla this year) get tickets and go. College sports are great because the crowd really gets into it – when Hawks score the crowd goes wild. When the call is bad the crowd boos…
If worship according to Paul is the best use of our time, and we really love God as much as we say we do, then why does our worship not always reflect that? We come in tired Sunday morning having not slept enough the night before to prepare for coming into God’s presence, and we get looks on our faces like it is pain to be worshipping and singing.
When we worship we are as close to eternity and heaven as we will get in this life – we should have some passion and emotion, and we shouldn’t care so much what others think – if we can cheer at a basket or enthusiastically clap at a concert, then we certainly can raise our voices and sing with all our might to the Lord in worship on a Sunday!
[1]MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Jn 4:24). Nashville: Word Pub.
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