All right. Tonight we begin a four-part sermon series entitled, In Spirit and In
Truth, the Fundamentals of Biblical Worship. Haven't had a series in a while.
I certainly haven't done one in a while. And I'm happy to kind of get into this
topic. The first session we're going to examine, the nature of worship, which is
communication. My prayer is that the end result of this series will not simply be
that we have more information about worship, but that our own
experience of worship will be broadened, enhanced, hopefully changed, to the glory
of God, and to our own personal edification, as well as the building up
of the church. It's the one thing we all do together. So we have a youth group and
the golden agers go this way, and we have different activities,
but worship is the thing we do all together and we do it each week together.
And this is an attempt to kind of broaden that and give it more
perspective. Can anyone here remember where the last Olympic games were held?
Anybody? You're right. Rio de Janeiro. There were the last Olympic Games.
You ever wonder what the Olympics are about? When you cut through the hype
and the marketing, as well as the politics, the entire experience of the
Olympics is about competition. I mean the Olympic Games is motivated by
and lives off of the idea of competition. Countries compete for the chance to host
the best, the most elaborate show. And athletes sacrifice their lives to
compete with one another to become the best in the world in one moment of time,
at one particular sport. The idea of fostering brotherhood, openess,
friendship, these are all side items to the true spirit of the Olympics, which
is competition on a worldwide scale. That's what it's about.
So in a broad sense, you could say that the nature of sport is competition.
You play to win. Now, I'm saying this because in each area of endeavor there is an
essential nature or there's a core idea that explains and makes sense of the
activities that surround us or that surround it, rather. That's why in sports,
great coaches never forget that sport is about competition, not fame or money or
politics. They know the core issue: competition. And they never let their
players get away from this idea. I mean, little children, they can
play for fun or the love of the game or to build character,
but professionals, especially successful ones, know that it's about competition.
It's about winning. So knowing the essential nature of something is
important, if you are to be successful at it. That's my point.
For example, the essential nature of school is education. Education,
believe it or not. When I worked at Oklahoma Christian University as dean of
students, I witnessed so many people fail because they hadn't grasped this core
idea yet - that school was about education. I mean, they came to college, they joined
the social service clubs, they signed up for intramural sports, they rejoiced in
the fact that there were between 800 and 1,200 single males or single females
wandering around every day. They were happy about that. They dated, they played
video games in the dorms until 4:00 a.m. They hung out at the lounge and, oh yeah,
they went to class. That too. And then, all of a sudden, the five-week grades were
sent home to parents, and junior had two C's, one D, one F, and an incomplete grade because
his assignments weren't turned in. And that's when reality hit. This is when it
began to dawn on students that despite all the extracurricular activities
taking up their time, college was about getting a structured education. That was
the core idea. Nobody got a diploma for ping pong, no matter how good you were.
Those who succeeded at Oklahoma Christian were those who understood the
essential nature of that place and gave themselves over to it. And that was
getting an education. I mean, I could go on and on with other examples. The
essential nature of business is profit. No profit, no business. It's not about
titles or offices or networking or advertising or bookkeeping. All these
things are parts of business, they support the basic or core element of
business, which is profit. Sometimes I'm with someone and we see
some shabby looking store or restaurant and the person with me will say, man, why
are these people staying open? How come they're still open? I mean, what a
dump. And my answer is always the same: that
business is open because they're turning a profit, period. They're making money.
The only institution that stays open when it's not making money is the government.
So following this line of thinking, I suggest to you that the essential nature
of worship is communication. That's the point. Communication with God. From the
first elementary examples of people worshiping God in Genesis to the exalted
images given to us by John in the book of Revelation, worship has had one common
thread: the effort that man makes to communicate with God
in some way. This is evident from observing the actions and words used
when people in the Bible are worshipping.
Whether it was bowing down or offering sacrifice or expressing prayers or
playing instruments in the Old Testament or singing hymns in the New Testament,
eating the Passover or sharing the communion, people were not doing these
things for themselves or for other believers. The underlying reason for all
of these things and more was that God was listening. God was watching. Somehow,
God was receiving the message of faith and love and appreciation and repentance
and need, from those trying to communicate it to Him
here on earth. Now what's interesting about this is that communication with
God is the essential nature of every type of worship, not just Judeo-Christian
worship. The Muslim pilgrims going to Mecca, what do they want to do?
They want to communicate with Allah. The Hindus who wash in the Ganges River do
this, right, why? To connect with Brahma, the first god of the Hindu trinity and
creator of the universe. Native Americans use sweat lodges to
help them be more attuned to their spirits and to their gods.
Zoroastrians, of ancient times, lit fires to honor their God Zoroaster.
Now, I'm not saying that all of these methods are effective and even
acceptable to the God of creation, the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. What I'm
saying, I'm simply saying, rather, that the essential nature of worship is
communication. Man trying to communicate in some manner with the divine.
This is the basic premise. This is the core idea that informs and gives meaning
to the other activities that surround worship. Thankfully we have the
revelation of God through Christ in His Word, to teach us about all things
including worship, and how we can truly communicate with God in spirit and in
truth. In Colossians chapter one, verses nine to 13, Paul writes, "For this reason also,
since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and
to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual
wisdom and understanding. So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
to please Him at all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power according to His glorious
might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously
giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance
of the saints in light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and
transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." So what is Paul saying
essentially? In Christ we gained the ability, the wisdom, and the knowledge to
not only live in a way that pleases God, but to worship or to communicate with
Him as well. This is part of the inheritance that we receive in Christ. Part of
the blessings. Part of the gifts that we receive in Christ is the ability to
communicate with the true and living God, a gift that others do not have. As
Marty said this morning, there are many brides, but not all the brides are the
brides of the King. They're not all brides of God. And I'm essentially saying
the same thing. Yeah, there's a lot of attempts at communication being made, but
it's only within Christ that
communication to God becomes successful. And that's what Paul, one of the things
he's saying here. That's one of the gifts that we receive as Christians, the
ability to communicate with the true God. Now, I spent a good portion of time
tonight setting up this basic premise that the essential nature of worship is
communication. Why is this so important? Well, it's important because not knowing
or forgetting or not prioritizing this core idea leads us into worship that is
not in spirit and that is not in truth. Like a coach who forgets about
the essence of competition, or business people who neglect the bottom line of
profitability, churches who ignore the fact that worship is basically about
communication, lose the benefit of worship, which is transcendence. And that
will be the topic of my last lesson in this series. Now churches, when it comes
to worship, make one of two basic mistakes, when it comes to public worship.
First of all, they make the means the end. In other words, the idea of communication
is lost or subverted by the methods of communication. For example, it's like
buying an expensive computer with lots of software, all kinds of gadgets, but not
bothering to hook it up to the internet. Yeah, it's great, we have an impressive
computer, but it cannot communicate with anyone except the owner. Churches do this
when so much attention and cost is focused on the place of worship, the
equipment to worship, the order of worship, the method of worship,
but no effort to examine if there is communication with God through
all of this. We think that if we get the method right, then communication takes
place. But having the right method is only part of what is required
to actually communicate with God. For example, it's like saying that to compete
in football you have to make sure every player has his name on his jersey and
knows and follows the rules of the game. Well, having the equipment and knowing
the rules enables you to play, but you need more than that if you're going to
win. In the same way, knowing the method and following the rules qualifies as
worship, but it doesn't guarantee that you actually communicate with God and
receive the true blessings as a result. I'll talk about some other things
necessary to actually worship in the next lesson, that's why it's a series. I
can't fit all of this information into a single lesson. So I'm kind of breaking it
up into four. So that's mistake number one, we make the means the end.
Mistake number two, we make up our own methods. In his book, Christianity's
Dangerous Idea, author Alister McGrath states that pentecostalism accounts for
most of the growth in Christianity in the last 50 years.
His research shows that the Pentecostal movement or the charismatic movement is
larger than all other evangelical groups put together, and that includes
restoration churches like ours. In worldwide Christianity, and I use the
term Christianity loosely here, in worldwide Christianity there's
Catholicism and then there's Pentecostalism and then there's
everybody else, that's how it breaks down. Now, what's really interesting in
McGrath's theory - he's a professor of historical theology at
Cambridge University in England - what's really interesting in his theory is why
this is so? Why the growth that they've had in this particular group. And he says
that unlike other groups who have religious framework to function within,
the Pentecostal churches don't have this.
In other words, Catholics, for example, have church history and church law and
the Cardinals vote and the Pope's encyclicals, as well as the Bible, to
guide and to restrict or to permit what they will or will not do, and that
includes in public worship. If they want to see, can I do this, can I do that? Well,
there are all kinds of references to guide them: what the Pope says, what the
Bible says, what the Cardinals say, what church history says. They look
at all of these things in making up their minds. We, in the churches of Christ,
as opposed to in the Catholic system, we only use the Bible and have a framework
of rules to guide our interpretation as well as widely accepted traditional
teachings that permit or restrict our actions. We have a reason we
don't use instruments in public worship. There's Bible teaching for that and
there's experience and history. We have something
to guide us when it comes to these things.
Pentecostals, on the other hand, have none of these. Their teachings are fluid and
take into consideration the needs and circumstances of the moment, especially
when it comes to public worship, because I'm keeping my comments
focused on public worship. Now, I mention this because they are an excellent
example of the ones who make up their own methods and rules about worship. They
are the polar opposites of those whose worship is all about rules, like us.
So, for Pentecostals, whatever it takes to make the worship dynamic, emotional,
meaningful, entertaining, spiritual, it's all okay, because nothing is holding them
back as far as method is concerned. The problem, of course, is that they define
communication with God based on their methods, not on the results authenticated
by the Bible. They're not worried about that and they're not looking in the
Bible to see is this or if we do that, is that okay? If we
bring in a drama group and they dance and they jump around, is that okay?
No, no, no. They're looking, does it work? Does it bring people through the doors?
Do people leave excited, pumped up, saying, that was great!
It's like a hockey team judging their success by the color of their uniforms and the
quality of the pregame show and not the final score. Their mistake, I believe, in my
humble opinion, is that they judge the effectiveness of worship by the way that
they feel about the worship itself, rather than how the worship affects how
they feel about God. In the churches of Christ, there is in some quarters a
desire to go this route and justify the means for the end as well. A lot of
congregations in our brotherhood, sensing that they are not getting the benefits
of worship, not accomplishing the core goal of worship, which is communication,
are beginning to tinker with the methods or the rules, thinking that this is going
to make a difference. So they add instruments or they add drama groups or
they add audio visual aids or worship teams or they include women in
the leadership roles or they experiment with charismatic ideas like clapping or
tongue speaking, even mimicking the lingo of prophecy and special visions.
And it's normal that this is what they would try since they believe that the
method produces the result. So, why not change the method if we want to change
the result? Of course, others react to these changes, especially unbiblical
changes, and the debate centers on the methods, while nothing really changes
except more division and less communication among ourselves and God as well.
So we debate and debate and debate over the methods, but that doesn't
improve our communication with God. So we're going to talk more about rules
and methods in my next lesson, but for now let's review the divine
requirements for communication with God. If you want to succeed in communicating
with God, what must you do if you want to do that. Number one, you have to realize
that communication with God must exist personally before it can exist
corporately. Jesus trained His apostles in private prayer for three years before
they began actually worshiping corporately as a church after His
resurrection. If a congregation's worship is not effective, it's usually because
the individuals in the church do not know how to worship God privately. And if
the leaders in the church do not have an active effective ongoing private
communication with God, there's not much chance that the church will too. Worship
in spirit and truth doesn't begin with new song books. I've seen that. We're
going to improve our worship, we're going to buy new song books. Really? That's
method. We think that the method is going to solve it. Worship, in spirit and truth,
doesn't begin with new song books, it begins with the patient teaching of
every single member to have a new and open heart to God in personal worship.
I love the focus on the family idea, because it returns worship to where it
begins. It begins in the family. That's where it begins. It begins with the
father leading his family in worship.
This is why Peter, in Acts chapter six, refused to relinquish his ministry of
prayer for the work of food distribution. It was important. We, kind of, calculated
just for a ballpark figure, how many widows were in that church? Well,
if you calculate, we calculated how many widows and widowers are here in
our congregation and we kind of extrapolated for the numbers that they
had there and we figured there may have been around fifteen hundred widows. And
Acts says in the daily distribution of food. Do you know what kind of benevolence
program that is? The daily distribution of food to over a thousand widows. That
was an important work. And yet, Peter said, I'm not giving up my task as a leader, my
task of prayer and teaching God's Word, in order to serve tables. And he wasn't
denigrating serving tables, he was saying, that's not the ministry I've been given.
And then of course, you know the story, they seek out spiritually
minded men and they give them this task. As a true leader, Peter was keeping his
eye on the core element of an effective church, and that is worship and teaching
of God's Word. So communication with God, improved worship with God means that
everyone understands that their worship begins at home and if we don't have a
sense of worship and communication with God at home,
just because we get 300 people who don't do that at home, it doesn't guarantee
they'll be you able to do that if we put them all in the same room. I don't know
how to play Canasta. Well if you take 300 of me and go to a competition of Canasta,
I'm not going to be any better at Canasta. Communication with God also
requires the recognition of God's presence in worship. People who are bored
at worship, fail to see God's presence. People who check their
text messages, daydream, visit with their neighbors, or are otherwise distracted,
fail to sing, fail to say amen, fail to follow along, do all of these things
because their faith in His true presence is weak. Because if they were absolutely
convinced that the Spirit of God was with us here, who would be checking their
text messages? Obviously we've got to take care of - children fuss, I
get that. God realizes that the singing may be subpar and the preacher a
little monotonous and the babies are fussing. After all, He sees and hears what
we see in here, but He is present in Christ because the church has gathered
in His name. We should at least give the same attention to the proceedings that
He does. He is present not based on our performance of worship, but rather on His
promise to be with us whenever two or three are gathered in His name, Matthew 18 verse 20.
We cannot truly communicate with God unless we first acknowledge and
respect the fact that He is really with us, according to His promise. And then,
communication with God also requires a sense of ourselves. I know that worship
is supposed to be focused on God, but nothing really focuses our minds on God
like getting a true sense of ourselves first.
Paul the apostle's most fervent cry, his sincerest prayer, his clearest vision and
communication with God is when he declared in Romans 7:24, "O wretched man
that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord." And in Romans 8:1, "There's now, therefore, no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Here is a man who's really in
touch with himself. Here's a man who really knows who he is.
Every man who comes face to face with God, the ultimate communication, the
ultimate worship, has experienced this sense of self.
For example, Isaiah who was eloquent in words and counselor to kings was only
aware of his unclean and unworthy lips and words when he was caught up in the
spirit before God. Isaiah, what's the first thing he says when he comes before
God in his vision? Oh, wow, isn't this wonderful?
I sure am glad I'm here. No. I mean, what did he say? Oh no. He was
exposed for what he was: a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. And
John, the faithful apostle who had seen Jesus resurrected, he still fell to the
ground as a dead man when he faced the Lord in his heavenly state. You see the
more we see ourselves for who and what we are, the more the Lord opens our eyes
to His own glory and the chasm of righteousness and glory that lies
between us. This enables us to experience awe, and thanksgiving, and relief, and joy,
because then we can see and value the gift that God has given us through the
cross of Christ. I mean, when I get a really good look at what I really am, I
become so thankful for what I have been given, because I understand how unworthy
I am of it. And that's - I'm not saying this out of false modesty. Please. Only
love, only divine love could give to me what has been given to me.
This was the problem with the Pharisees, they were so full of their own
self-righteousness that they couldn't see the true condition and need, and
therefore they could not see, they could not communicate with Jesus and what
He said and what He did. Nothing improves our worship, our communication,
nothing improves our worship with God like a sober and ruthless
self-examination. This reveals our need and our need opens the eyes of our
hearts. Finally, in order to communicate with God, not an exhaustive list, but I
tried to think of the most important things. If we want to communicate with
God, we need to know the language of communication. Everything and every
endeavor has a language peculiar to itself. Sports, for example, a hat trick.
What's a hat trick? Three goals in hockey, right? Or a touchdown. In business, profit
and loss statements. Computers, software, hardware. There's a
lingo we have to learn. Worship has its own language as well. And it's not
cultural. It's not English or French. It's a spiritual language. The spiritual
language of worship includes the following types of communication with
God: again, this is not an exhaustive list, but it's a good sampling that we find in
Nehemiah's prayer. So if you're following in your Bible, I have the verse here.
Nehemiah prays to God. I'm going to read his prayer and I want you to as I'm reading
it, as you're looking at it, try to grasp the different languages of prayer
that he uses in just one prayer. Okay? So it says, "When I heard these words I sat
down." Of course, the words, I should set it up. Nehemiah hears the news that
Jerusalem, the city from where he comes from, the walls are
broken down and the city is in disrepair and is vulnerable to attack.
And so he hears this and he goes to God in prayer. This is his prayer, "When I
heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days and I was fasting
and praying before the God of heaven." What was he doing?
Communicating. Trying to communicate. "I said, "I beseech You, O Lord God of
heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and
loving-kindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, let Your ear
now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I
am praying before you now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your
servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against
You; I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You
and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which
You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember the word which You commanded
Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the
peoples; but if you return to Me and keep My Commandments and do them though those
of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I
will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have
chosen to cause My name to dwell. They are Your servants and Your people whom
You redeem by Your great power and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I beseech You,
may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your
servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today
and grant him compassion before this man.' Now I was the cup bearer to the king." And
being successful towards this man, he was praying to God to help him approach the
king and to a request the king's favor to help him rebuild the walls. Now,
have you noticed the languages of prayer? Let's examine Nehemiah's prayer as we
close out this first session, to see the types of
language that he uses. He begins with praise in verses four and five, a short
review of some of the good things of God. Then the prayer or the language of
supplication, in verse six a. Making specific requests on behalf of someone
else. The prayer of confession, verses six b
and seven, acknowledgement, review, rejection, and mourning for sins that
have committed. Have you ever had phase two, repentance.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Phase two repentance and phase three
repentance. You think about a sin that you've done, let's say, a
long time ago, let's say you stole a car. Let's just - something easy okay. You stole
a car. And then you became a Christian and you said, man, I'm
swearing off, obviously, I'm not going to do that anymore on it steal
cars Thank you. I'm baptized, my sins are forgiven, I'm not a car thief
anymore in God's eyes. And so several years go by and all of a sudden one day
you're in prayer and you realize the trouble that you caused because of your
stealing that car. The anxiety and the worry and the stress for the person who
lost the vehicle. The embarrassment and the angst of your parents, and the shame
of your family having go to court with you; the money that your dad had to pay a
lawyer. And you repent all over again - stage two repentance.
Have you ever done that?
That's what happens when you're communicating with God. The spirit
opens these things up, cleans them out. I'm not saying you have to repent
over again to be forgiven, you're totally forgiven, but you grow in empathy and
understanding when you see how and what you have done, how it's hurt other people.
And so, here he's confessing, not only were our ancestors guilty, I'm
guilty, our ancestors were guilty. We did terrible things of God. And then the
language of confirmation. Reviewing and claiming for oneself God's promises and
blessings. In other words, Lord, you said that You'd give this if I did that and
I'm doing this and I'm claiming it.
People are feeling guilty all the time. They've repented, they've
confessed Christ, they've been immersed - and I've
studied with people - I still feel guilty. I still feel guilty. And I bring them
back to Acts 2:38. And I make them read what it says. Repent, be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.
Is that true, I tell them. Well, yeah. Well then believe it. Believe it. Claim it.
Go before God and say, Lord, you told me if I confess to Your Son's name and was
immersed in His name you would forgive me not only the fact that I stole the
car, but that I shamed my parents and I caused all kinds of trouble,
things that I did, that I can no longer - I couldn't go back and fix it. Claim it.
It's yours. He's giving it to you. This is what Nehemiah
was doing. God, you said if we're scattered all over the world,
but if we return to You, You said that no matter where we were, You'd bring us all
back together. I'm claiming that promise now. That's the language of
communication, the language of heaven. And then, protection and mercy, and verse 11, a
request for personal help and protection and mercy in the face of difficult
situations or danger. So there you have five different types of prayer, five
languages, if you wish, in ten verses. Now, the thing I want you to note is this,
this is God's language of communication. God's language of
communication is not long flowery words or even the quoting of scripture.
I mean, that's all good. This is the language of prayer, the language of
worship. Communication with God is praise and mercy, supplication, requests,
confession, confirmation, remembrance. This is what God hears. This is what He
answers. Not bands or big crowds or little crowds. Not just men praying, but
men praying and communicating with Him in the language of worship. I mean, I've
seen some men pray that ought to just sit down and be quiet. I'm just saying.
I never thought I'd say, I'm just saying, in a sermon, but I'm saying it.
So the essence of worship is communication. And God has shown us in
His revealed word that there is a particular language that He hears and
that He responds to. And so, if our worship has not been satisfying
spiritually, it just may be that we're not trying to communicate, we're just
trying to be here and go through the motions or we may not be using the right
language to communicate with Him. All right, as I said, I've broken this up into
a couple of pieces here, because I've got too much material for just a 30 minute
lesson. So the next time we get together, Lord willing, we're going to talk about
the practice of biblical worship. And the practice of biblical worship is not
learning new songs. I mean, learning new songs is fine.
I'm not undermining that, but that's not the way we practice communicating
with God. The practice to improve our communication is through submission.
And we're going to talk about that next week. So, as is our custom, if anyone has a
need, of course, for one of our elders to communicate with God on their behalf, if
you have a need for a prayer of repentance or a prayer of renewal or a
prayer of help or a prayer of mercy, our elders are here to lay hands on you, to
pray for you in the way you need to be prayed for, but you need to let them know
what your need is. And so, whether you come forward or put it in a blue card,
whatever the need is, the elders are here, the church is here to witness as well.
And the Lord is present also to continue ministering to
His church. So if you have any needs, we encourage you to come forward now as we
stand and sing. And I encourage you to participate in the rest of these lessons.
I think they'll be edifying for you. God bless you.