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So far in the series
preaches a living gospel
The good news about Jesus Christ has the ability to transform us into the people God always wanted us to be – it’s a living message!
leaders love their followers
At every level church leaders and Christian influence-holders need to genuinely love the people God has trusted to them
evangelism reaches our friends felt needs
The outreach of a thriving church will always have people’s felt needs at its heart
Today …
The thriving church is one where worship lifts us into God’s presence
I’m very aware that every time we meet like this there are some of us who are new or guests of unfamiliar with a service like this.
So a phrase like “worship lifts us into God’s presence” is not part of your vocabulary.
In fact I’d be fascinated to find out what springs to mind for you when I use this phrase ‘Christian worship’ or ‘church worship’
- It may be a magnificent state occasion
- it may be school assemblies
- or it may be a church visit where the people went through the motions and whole thing was a bit naff
- or other negative stereotypes.
There was once a man who took his 6 year old son into a village church to have a look round. On the wall there was an ornate plaque commemorating the people from the village who died in the two world wars. The little boy asked “Daddy, what’s that thing there for?”
Daddy replied “That’s a plaque to remember the people who died in the armed services”
Boy “Which service daddy, the morning service or the evening service?”
I am a Christian worshipper! I desire to give heart soul and mind to following Jesus Christ – and it is that commitment that has transformed my life – and the same for many of us here today
Did you notice the words I used when we prayed for Joseph Arthur Slezacek?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments … are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.
That is the essence of Christian worship – and I know Carl and Chrissie well enough to know that these are not just empty words, but the genuine desire of their hearts. And I believe God will honour them for that commitment!
Rene Descartes came up with the famous aphorism ‘Cogito ergo sum’ (Latin) ‘I think – therefore I am’ (I think, ruminate, concentrate, cogitate I’m aware – and that’s what gives me a sense of reality)
- I have a friend who is an artist – and a very talented artist. He created for himself a tee shirt which showed a self-portrait of him behind a easel. Around the image he’d woven the message “I draw, therefore I am”.
- IW – I preach, therefore I am
- (what would it be for you?) – jot it down in box in your notes >>>
For every true Christian “I worship, therefore I am”! – I find my true identity, my highest meaning in worshipping the living God. The format, the mode, the method is relatively immaterial, the relationship with God is paramount.
In thriving church its people worship in such a way as to worship lift each other into God’s presence
The task of worship will never be over. Heaven is full of worship!
There will come a day when services will be done, singing will be done, working life will be done, marriages will be done, evangelism will be done – but we will only just have begun to scratch the surface of worship.
We have said farewell to 4 of our friends recently – Jerry Bonnick, Ruby Snowling, Ken Brown and Pam Allpress – all believers in Jesus Christ, all people who walked with God – they have only just begun to worship in the way God made them and you and me to worship! For them,
- frailty is over,
- dementia will have been forgotten
- bodies racked with pain have been cast aside as one discards a raincoat when you come in from the cold – and true worship will be just beginning!
Discovering the God who loves them in all His awesome glory
- and discovering the wonder of the person he made them to be – that’s what heaven is going to be like!
Absolute and derived reality (optional material)
God and the way we are designed to respond to him personally
God is absolute reality, before the foundation of the world
So you and I are derivative reality – we derive from Him. He is responsible for our existence. We may have all sorts of theories about the mechanism but
Some people say “If you can touch it, smell it, feel it – it’s real” more real than those thing we can’t touch, feel or smell – but that’s ridiculous! We are touching, feeling and smelling derived reality but God is absolute reality.
The question follows – if He is the absolute reality and all things flow from him, all things are from him and through him and to him, what are we all about? – A: He made us to show that about him! He made us to magnify him, to reflect him to communicate him, to show him, to reveal him – so next question – How?
We are his advertisement
You exist for God – to display God’s glory!
Worship words in the Bible
IN OT word for worship Hebrew means ‘to bow down’ <ppt>
Hence the song “We bow down and confess you are Lord in this place” this morning
In about 320 BC King Ptolemy II sponsored a translation of the original Hebrew Old Testament into common Greek – because that’s what everybody was speaking at the time.
The word for worship (to bow down) appears 171 times in the Hebrew OT and when they did the translation, 164 of those 171 occurrences were translated with the same Greek word. proskuneo
Meaning of proskuneo – can be spilt into two component parts “come towards” and “kiss”
Approach and intimacy. They are the two key ideas carried by the NT word for worship.
Illustrate it with a triangle
bow down in awe
approach
intimacy
we can link them together as they are all part of the same thing – worship
We expect approach and intimacy to be linked together – When two lovers become intimate they approach each other. You can’t be intimate over an e-mail!
But I don’t expect to be able to have access to someone so great or powerful that I feel like bowing down in awe before them <ppt>
Similarly I don’t expect to be able to be intimate, to share the deep things of my life, with someone who is majestic and commands my obedience – but that is exactly what God enables to happen when we worship. <ppt>
Worship in the NT
Let’s trace this word “to-come-towards-to-kiss” through the NT – and we quickly spot something remarkable
- It’s used 26 times in the gospels – used 21 times in Revelations – virtually absent from all the epistles 9 (very odd!)
- The word prevalent in the gospels where the Son of God is walking around ministering
- and it’s prevalent in Revelation where the Son of God has taken his place in glory, and is visible for who he really is
but it’s almost absent from the places in the NT where Jesus is not visible, present and approachable!
What you find in the NT is that there is so little explicit advice about what to do in worship
- 1 Cor 14 when the whole church’ gathers together’ – it’s not called worship
- Acts 2:46 >>> “every day they devoted themselves to meeting in the temple complex” it’s not called worship
- Heb 10:25 >>> “let’s not give up meeting together as some people are …” not called worship
The gathering of the church in the NT is never called worship! How odd!
That’s why I wanted you to hear those scripture readings. Four chunks – 4 places where the word ‘wroship’ is used and every time it’s Jesus himself who is the object the target, the focus of their worship!
- As a baby, visiting dignitaries worshipped him
- as an adult his followers worshipped him
- after he’s been raised from the dead his disciples worshipped him
- No-one else in the NT is spoken of like this!
>>>
So notice this – since it’s Jesus who is being worshipped so frequently,
The NT is carelessly indifferent to form and place.
It is focussed on a person – Jesus Christ
Form – the way we do it, and place – the location – are both relatively immaterial. What matters is the state of our hearts before God.
True worship
It’s an affair of the heart
Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13 in order to express the root problem with the Pharisees’ way of life. “This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the ideas of men.”
Jesus is talking here to Pharisees, well known cynics of Jesus’ ministry, and he’s saying something simple and profound at the same time
You can go through the motions and say all the right words (i.e. honour me with you lips) come to church, small group, say prayers while at the same time your heart can be far from me
We all know this sort of experience in our ordinary life. A man in your company or office retires. And everyone loves him! You all respect him for his hard work, his graciousness, his leadership etc. and what happens?
A party is given to honour him, everyone knows that the hand shakes, the speeches, the congratulations and the gold watch are utterly sincere. They come from the heart.
But then the next year old grumpy-guts retires, what happens? Out of duty the party is given with the same handshakes and speeches and gold watch, but everyone knows this time that honour was paid with the lips, but the heart was far away.
You may say ‘yes, Ian, I get that’ but how can I worship from the heart, how can I give more at heart level to the Lord when I worship, be it in church, small group at work, in my family – wherever?
I could give several answer to this but probably the best is to get to know God better – personally
Take some precious, quality time to read and soak in His word – and along with that, listen to what you feel he’s telling you.
- some of those messages are going to be tough – you need to get your life or your work in order
- some of them are going to be inspiring – you’ll realise afresh the wnder and the greatness and the sheer undeserved love that God has for you
- Some of them are going to be comforting – maybe you’ve been deeply disappointed with life, or loves
b Prizing Christ
the essence of that inner experience of worship is the prizing of Christ – delighting in C loving of C a treasuring of Christ
a valuing of Christ above other things in life so that if we lose everything in life and are left only with Chist, we’ve gained.
Paul said “for me to live is Christ – and to die is gain!”
What are the consequences of this kind of radical satisfaction with Jesus?
it means that the pursuit of joy in God is the highest part of worship and it’s not optional
God is glorified most clearly when we enjoy him most intimately.
>>>
Pray
