How Should We Worship God?

Marvelous singing, marvelous song leading. It's not in my notes or anything, but I was just thinking it's so good for a preacher to feel an integral part of the whole rather than a climax. Do you understand what I'm saying? A lot of times the sermon is such a long thing, you know, everything else takes less time and we build up to the lesson. I do believe that the lesson is supposed to be woven into the whole pattern of things, but because of the way things are, it doesn't always happen.

Marvelous singing, marvelous song leading. It's not in my notes or anything, but I'm just I was just thinking it's so good for a preacher to feel, this may sound strange, but to feel an integral part of the whole rather than a climax. Do you understand what I'm saying? A lot of times the sermon is there, it's such a long thing, you know, everything else takes less time and we build up to the lesson. And I do believe that that the lesson is an integral, it's supposed to be woven into the whole pattern of things, but because of the way things are and so on and so forth, didn't always happen.

But tonight I feel so wonderful, so part of everything that's going on and I praise God for it. I thank the church and I'm in awe of the spirit for bringing together so many different kinds of people, but bringing us all together in one voice, one heart, one set of lips praising God. Boy, it's so good to know that what we're doing is the right thing. Isn't that good? It is good to know that the last, 15, 20 minutes, we have been praising and pleasing the God of the universe that he's smiling down on us?

Isn't that good to know that no matter what else we did before or after the last 15 minutes, boy, we've hit the target. We've hit the target. It's good to know that. Very encouraging. Well, I started to talk, I like consistency and continuity.

I'm very task oriented, object motivated. I like closure, I'm that type of personality. So I like the things in the morning to fit with things in the evenings many times. So I want to talk some more about worship. We talked about specific things this morning.

I'm going to go from specific to general. It's not usually I go from general to specific, but I talked about specifics this morning about singing, why we sing in worship and why do we do that as a thing? Is that just a peculiarity or is that what the Bible teaches? And we reviewed that. And the reason for that is that there seems to be a lot of discussion about, not necessarily about singing, but about worship, we're into that.

10 years ago we talked about evangelism, that was the hot topic, how we evangelize. There was a group in our brotherhood that kind of moved away from the mainstream, if you wish, based on the idea that there's a particular way to evangelize. If you don't evangelize in this particular way, you're just not a Christian. And it seems that the cycle is repeating itself again in this decade. Now we're not harping on evangelism.

We're really talking about worship, how you worship. Very important. So I want to talk about that, tonight. We kind of debate this issue. And I'm going to use some names here, but I'm not using them in a negative term.

I want you to know that. You have to because in communicating, you have to make references to things. But I'm not making any one of these terms a negative thing. They're just to kind of identify certain movements and currents, that are happening in our brotherhood. This debate about worship seems that, we have a group of brethren with a mindset, let's say progressive, let's use that term because I've heard that term bandied about progressives.

But talk about worship, make this the keystone idea of a lot of the things that, they're talking about these days, and make the comments if you wish, and the complaint many times that our worship style is not in sync with the times. That's the if I've been able to synthesize this argument, our worship just doesn't seem to be in sync with the times. The music that we use is either too old fashioned or it doesn't sound like the age. It doesn't just sound like the age or the society that we happen to be living in. Sometimes the complaint says, well, the way that we approach things seems rigid, old fashioned, stuffy.

It's not in the spirit of the times. I've heard some brethren say to me, , we need to relax, we need to we kind of get casual, get laid back a little bit more, stop being so uptight about this whole thing. That seems to be the argument many times. And then on the other side, we have another opposing or I hate to use the word opposing, but another mindset I think, argument made by, let's call them traditionalists for sake of a better term, traditionalist, not a negative thing, but traditionalist who argue that the way that we do things is holy. Not what we do, but the way that we do them is holy, and it shouldn't be tampered with under any circumstances.

And what I mean by that is, that we have a song leader here in front leading the assembly in unison singing, that is the only way that we, that way is the holy way to do. And there's a lot of argument, a lot of debate on this idea and they hold to this concept. Any other way, somehow desecrates, somehow transgresses the law of godly, the law of scripture. And then in the middle, you see those you have kind of extremes, then in the middle what you've got is the believer. And I believe the majority of us, majority of people, in the middle, young and old, unmarried people, married people, single moms and dads, older folks, younger folks, all in the middle there, Who the only thing they really want when it comes to worship is to do something that is pleasing before God.

Who only wants to say to God, God, I love you, God. I just love you. You're a terrific God. You're an amazing person, God. They just want to find a way to express how much they love God.

And tell them how great he is and to do all of this with other people of like mind to be able to say it with a joyful spirit and a clear conscience. And that gets kind of tricky, with all these opposing voices going back and forth. So tonight I want to talk to that middle group. I'm not here to kind of debate the extremes, the 10% at each end. I'm here to talk to the bulge in the middle because I belong to that middle bulge there.

Like, all I wanna do is tell you, God, that I love you and that you're great. And I wanna do with a clear mind and an open heart, and I want to walk away and I don't want to argue with my brethren over it. We can argue about a lot of other things. Please let's not argue on how we tell God that He is wonderful. To this believer, to this bulge person, to this middle of the rotor, I've got 3 things that I want to mention tonight about worship itself that will hopefully put this thing into some kind of perspective.

So that when you are worshiping, whether we do it Sunday morning, when everybody's got their ties on and their shine shoes and we're all for Sunday morning, when everybody's got their ties on and their shine shoes and we're all kind of no matter what context, when we're worshiping God, there's a couple things I want you to remember. First of all, I want you to remember that what we do when we worship God is not of this world. What we do when we worship god, this thing called worship, this exercise is not of this world. Politics, art, philosophy, business, war, marriage, and all other human endeavors are part of the things that belong uniquely to this world. But what we do when we worship God in chapel at OC, or here on Sunday or Wednesday, or in devotional, what we do in those instances is not of this world.

It's not a human thing. It's a spiritual thing. And do you know why? Because the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a spiritual thing. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and all of what it has accomplished was conceived in the mind of God, was powered by the Holy Spirit and was accomplished by the Lord himself.

It had nothing to do with man. It had everything to do with God. Now you might say, what's the point here? The point is that all of worship that we do, no matter where we do it, is based on the idea that this death, burial, and resurrection occurred. Without the death, burial, and resurrection, there's no resurrection of Jesus Christ, there's no need for any of us to come here tonight.

I mean, if without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we'd look awfully silly, 600 people sitting there eating little crackers and a tiny little cup of grape juice. I mean, you know how silly we would look without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? That's a spiritual thing. It happened here on earth, but it's a spiritual thing. And all the activities that we do to commemorate it, to praise it, to sing about it, to tell God how thankful we are for it, to recognize the Lord because of it.

All the things that we do because of that spiritual thing are spiritual in themselves. Worship is spirit motivated, not flesh motivated. Brothers and sisters and friends, the flesh is not interested in worshiping Jesus Christ. The flesh is interested in watching TV. The flesh is interested in gardening.

The flesh is interested in buying a new car. The flesh is interested in sex. The flesh is interested in working and building. The flesh is not interested in telling an invisible being how wonderful that invisible being is. That activity is relegated to the spirit.

The spirit is what wants to do that, not the flesh. Therefore, we need to stop comparing worship to other events and to other feelings, because there is nothing on this earth to compare it to. There's nothing on the earth to compare to worship. There is no like thing. It's unique.

It's a spirit thing. The worship experience is of the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom of the earth. Unfortunately, what happens is that we keep trying to make it feel like something here on earth, and it doesn't work. It's a spiritual thing. It's not supposed to feel like anything here on earth.

Secondly, when we think about worship, this second point is very much like the first. We need to understand that every element that composes worship, that comprises of worship, worship is made up of several different elements. There is singing. That's what I talked about this morning. The element of singing in the overall idea of worship, the element of singing and praying and being together.

I'm making a side here. A lot of times we shortchange the idea of fellowship. Wanna make sure we we get in an hour's worth of singing and praying, boy. What? Let's get another 2 songs in there.

We haven't sucked up all our time singing and praying. In Acts 2:42, what does it say? And they devoted themselves to what? To to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship. They didn't make fellowship like a second class thing.

Fellowship is as important. It is part of the worship experience, fellowship, Being together with those in whose eyes you can see the very image of Christ. I'm not ashamed. I can stand in front of 300 people here and say, praise the Lord Jesus Christ for He is coming. And I will hear, amen.

If I were to go down to the Blazers game and say that, I might get punched out. There is something edifying about fellowship, being with like minded people. Another element, of worship is praying, and the teaching that goes on, and the sharing of the Lord's supper, and the giving. All these things are all elements of worship. Now here's the point.

When we think about the elements individually or corporately together as worship, we need to remember that these elements must reflect the fact that what we do here is of the spirit, not of the flesh. The flesh is the container for the spirit. It is the spirit that is working here. It is the spirit that is praising God. Don't be confused.

Worship is supposed to be different than other experiences. We get upset because it doesn't resemble enough other experiences. It's not supposed to. I remember when I became a Christian. I mean, my taste in music, for example, let's give you this example.

I might taste in music. I like I like jazz. That's my favorite music form if you wish. I really enjoy jazz and I got records and I go and I listen to all that kind of stuff. And when I became a Christian, boy, was it ever hard for me because the music, music used in worship didn't sound like jazz.

It didn't have that. It didn't have that beat. There weren't diminished 7th minors. There weren't, it didn't have that. It didn't have that melancholy, do do do.

It didn't have that it had, "what a friend we had in Jesus." I didn't I couldn't relate because I was trying so hard to say, why don't they they jazz it up? What was I doing? I was trying to connect the fleshly experience with the spiritual experience. I didn't see the point.

Worship is an acquired taste. We're fleshly. We're grinding and grubbing around in the dirt. Most of our lives, our eyes are pointed downward. And barely, if we if we hear the gospel and believe and start growing, God kinda raises our chin to start looking upwards instead of downwards, and then we begin to acquire the taste for worship.

And when we do, we realize it doesn't taste like what it tastes like in the world. Don't be confused. Worship is not like a business meeting. It's not like a concert. It's not like a rally, and it's not trying to be like any one of these things.

Worship is communion with God, communication with a being who is a spirit, not a human. Remember, Jesus Christ is God made man, not man made God. We're humans trying to communicate with a spirit being. We're not the humans trying to communicate with a human being. If we were worshiping a human being, we could use jazz because another human being could relate.

We're trying to communicate to God. So when we come together each week to worship God, let's remember that what we're trying to do here is not just trying to get out on time. Are we making it? Are we out on time? That's not the point here.

What we're trying to do is to create with our actions an environment that transcends the moment and the style of this world, and create an environment that transports us through song and through prayer into the presence of the King. Transports us through song and through prayer into the presence of the King of Kings. That's what we're trying to do. We were singing and, Pat was leading it. Have I got it?

Pat was leading us. And for a few moments there, we almost had lift off. You know what I'm talking about, right? We almost had lift off. People were almost after a couple of songs, they were getting warmed up there.

They were almost letting go of their book and getting into it. We kind of threw them a curve tonight. We didn't do 2 songs and the sermon. We did 2 songs and a prayer, and then another 2 songs.

It was like, I could feel the wings starting to lift. We were transcending the moment we were getting into and getting a glimpse of the kingdom there for just, just a flickering moment. So let's stop worrying about the fact that what we do and the way we do it doesn't look or feel like anything in this world. It's not supposed to. We are proclaiming the kingdom of God, not the latest trend in music or style or culture.

And most arguments in this area are over culture that have nothing to do with the spirit of God. And then finally, I want you to remember this, when we think about worship, praise without love is vain. Praise without love is vain. I'll give you some examples of this idea. Cain, go back to Genesis.

Cain, Cain's offering was rejected. Why was Cain's offering rejected? Because he offered produce from the land versus a lamb? Because he offered vegetables and fruit, he was a farmer, rather than offering an animal? Is that why Cain was rejected?

No. Cain's offering was rejected because Cain was harboring a jealous and envious heart towards his brother. And when he came before the Lord to worship him, God called him on it, said, your heart is not right. I don't accept your offering, not because the fruit's rotten, I don't accept your offering because your heart is rotten. And instead of dealing with that, Cain killed his brother.

Another example, Jesus tells us the parable of the Pharisee and the publican in Luke chapter, 18. I want to read this one here very quick, quickly, gives us an idea. Chapter 18 verse 9, it says, And he also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. 2 men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, God, I thank thee that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax gatherer.

I fast twice a week, I pay tithes of all that I get. But the tax gatherer standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breath saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. Notice that the Pharisees' worship was rejected.

Why? Because his liturgical manner was not correct? If anyone knew about liturgy, it was the Pharisees. Boy, they wouldn't use an instrument of music. They were acapella.

You can make sure that everything was correct, every dot was dotted and every T was crossed in their worship experience, they followed the book. So what was the problem here? The problem was this man despised the social status of the other worshiper that was next to him. And for that reason, God rejected his worship. Praise without love is vain.

Paul reminds all Christians to carefully consider themselves and each other, the body, before taking communion when they are worshiping. I Corinthians 11:27, he says, Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body correctly. You have to examine your conscience in light of your actions every day, yes.

But you also have to examine your conscience and your conduct in light of 1 another, for your praise and your worship to be valid before God. In verse 33 he says, but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord. Excuse me. So then my verse 33 says, so then my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. The context here is that it seemed that some of the richer brethren were getting together.

They were eating, gorging themselves, not bothering about the poor ones. Praise without love is vain. And then finally, John, the apostle John, reminds us of this basic principle in Christianity which undergirds all that we do, including our worship. In I John 4:20, he says, if someone says, I love God and hate his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Main, developing more creative worship or maintaining the status quo whichever side you lean on and you lean on one of the other sides. Whether you're for creativity or maintaining the status quo, you kind of lean one way or the other, whichever true. But true.

But, if the manner in which you implement your ideas violates the basic rule of love for others, it will invalidate the worship, because as I said, praise without love for one another is vain. And these times, when there seems to be so much conflict over how we ought to offer our praise to God in worship, let us remember, biblical worship is spiritual by its very nature and should not be compared to earthly experiences and practices in order to judge its effectiveness. See, we compare it to earthly things to figure out if it's really worthwhile to God or not. Wrong. And secondly, the quality and effectiveness of our offering of praise to God never rises above the level of love we have for one another.

Rather have bad voices and a big heart than good voices and be mean spirited towards one another. Loving each other, that's what pleases God. The Lord is interested in our sacrifice of praise, so let us be enthusiastic and creative within what is permitted scripturally, but never at the expense of mercy and justice towards one another. Let us therefore sing and pray and praise God with enthusiasm, with reverence, with knowledge, with humility, but especially with an abiding love one for another. Now let's continue in our songs and in our prayers tonight and give God all the glory with our hearts and our voice.