I was gone for a week recently for a class. When I came home, I didn't even make it in the door before my kids were greeting me with hugs & kisses. Our youngest, Gabriel, is not quite 2 yet and when I opened the door he yelled, "Daddy!" as loud as he could as he ran to me with his arms reaching up for me to pick him up so he could give me a hug. That is an awesome feeling. That is the kind of response God deserves and desires. That is True Christian Worship, and Worship is what we are created to do. When God shows up His people reach up.
I am so blessed to gather with you and to have the privilege of sharing the message with you this evening. We are diving into some treacherous waters…When God Shows Up His People Reach Up. Tonight, I am teaching on True Christian Worship, and if I told you I wasn't a little nervous about broaching this topic I would be lying. So, I asked some friends, "What is True Christian Worship?" And I got a lot of safe answers, what I call "Sunday School answers." Maybe you are wondering what the big deal is, why is the chaplain so afraid of the topic of worship? Have you ever heard the term, worship wars? People leave churches over the topic, churches split over the topic. I have been told by very sincere people that if I allow drums in the sanctuary, they won't be back. I have also been told that if I require a gathering to participate in a responsive reading, or if I write out my prayers, then I am blocking the Holy Spirit. When I was in seminary we devoted a week of chapel services to the topic of traditional versus contemporary worship. This is a big deal. It should be a big deal. We are talking about rendering worship to the One, True God.
John chapter 4 records a worship debate between Jesus and a woman of questionable morals. First, the back-story; Jesus & His disciples are traveling & have turned back toward Galilee. The shortest route is through Samaria, which just happens to be full of Samaritans who are kinda like second cousins to the Jews. Jews & Samaritans don't like each other. As Jesus & the disciples are passing through a Samaritan town, the disciples go on ahead to find some food, while Jesus waits beside Jacob's Well where He has this encounter with the woman and tells her her life story. So let's pick up the story at John 4:19-26…[NEXT SLIDE] So, as you can see, debating about the details involved with True Christian Worship is not a new phenomenon. So, what is worship?
I hate to be negative, but sometimes when we try and define concepts as elusive as worship, it is helpful to start by listing some of the things it is not…
True Christian Worship is not:
• MUSIC: traditional "hymns" and/or contemporary worship songs are only 2 examples of using music. The Book of Psalms is the original praise and worship collection. What about the music of Beethoven, Mozart, Handle just to name a few? I read somewhere that all music is worship music, the problem is too much music focuses on subjects less than worthy of praise.
• STYLE: Closely related to music is the style of the worship service- the old traditional vs. contemporary debate. There are other "styles" as well—the Friends Gathering where the worshippers gather in near silence prayerfully waiting for the Holy Spirit to prompt some of them to share, an Orthodox vespers gathering on Saturday night to prayerfully prepare one's heart to celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday morning, a mega-church praise gathering with a professional band video clips theatre lighting and even fog machines, a house church gathering with one guitar to help accompany singing, a non-instrumental Church of Christ gathering, a charismatic service where many worshippers are manifesting some of the gifts of the Spirit like speaking in Tongues, Prophesy & healing. I could go on and on and on, but you get the picture. In the debate during chapel service at ATS, Dr. Demaray was chosen to speak on behalf of "traditional" worship. Long story short, he had nothing negative to say about either contemporary or traditional worship, but remarked that both words described style of worship, not worship. That both styles are merely different approaches to the same God. In response to the charge that traditional liturgy is just vain repetition; Dr. Demeray replied that if a liturgy seems dead the problem is not with the liturgy, but with the heart of the liturgist.
• A PLACE: This is what the woman at the well tried to debate with Jesus—we worship on this mountain, but you Jews worship in Jerusalem… The ancient Celts spoke about "thin places" where the boundary between the material & spiritual worlds are easier to pass through. Thousands of people go to the Holy Land each year and have profound spiritual experiences. Some places have spiritual significance for us, but we give them that significance. Remember, "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof…" I heard UM missionary to Israel, Alex Awad (a Palestinian) speak @ TWU about the tension in Jerusalem. He said we fight over dirt, but the Kingdom of God is not made of dirt, it is built in the heart of believers.
• A PERFORMANCE FOR THE CONGREGATION: Worship is not a spectator sport. Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian in the nineteenth century. He identified the problem with worship in his time and in our time as well. He indicated that in a worship service, we (humans) tend to consider that we are the audience, (2) God is the Prompter, and the worship leaders are the actors. Kierkegaard suggested that the true experience of worship is this: God is the Audience; the people in the congregation are the “actors,” who are responsible for engaging in the act of worship; and the worship leaders are the prompters.
• A SERMON: I believe that proclaiming God's Word through a sermon is very important (if I didn't, I wouldn't be in this line of work!), but a sermon is not the sum total of worship.
• RITUAL AND LITURGY: Ritual and liturgy apart from the Holy Spirit are useless at best and idolatry at worst. Like my professor said, the power of liturgy lies in the hearts of liturgists. I appreciate both liturgical & non-liturgical forms of worship. When I am leading or participating in liturgical worship, I imagine all the other worshippers around the world and throughout the history of the Church who use the same liturgy and I feel connected. Whenever we say "Jesus is Lord!" we are reciting the very first creed.
Richard Foster in his book Streams of Living Water says; "All of us are liturgical. That is to say, we all use material and human 'forms' to express our worship of God...We all have a choice of liturgy, but we do not have a choice of whether to use liturgy. As long as we are finite human beings, we must use liturgy; we must express ourselves through forms of worship. Liturgy, liturgia, simply means 'the people's work.' Our task in liturgy is to glorify God in the various aspects of our worship life. We are to let the reality of God shine through the human or physical forms. This is true whether we are singing hymns or burning candles, dancing in ecstatic praise or bowing in speechless adoration."
Regardless of our personal worship style, our goal needs to be magnifying God with all our heart.
• EMOTIONALISM: There are times when the result of true Christian worship is powerful and emotional. There are times when we come to the well of worship completely dry and God fills us to overflowing. However, whether or not you have an emotional response is not the measure of worship authenticity. God is no less active when we don't "feel" it. When we experience these times it is good to ask why. Perhaps it is a time of growth. If so, praise God that He not only trusts you to survive this "dry time," but wants to help you thrive because of it.
• RAISING YOUR HANDS: There is no one, correct posture for worship. As long as we focus on exalting God whether our hands are raised or we lie flat on the floor or anywhere in between is the correct posture if it is where the Spirit is leading you. I am guilty of feeling prompted by the Holy Spirit to lift my hands and choosing not to because I didn't want to be embarrassed. We must guard against trying to prescribe one particular posture for worship as the posture because God doesn't work that way. The posture is not what is important, it is the worship. It is the inclination of your heart reaching up to God. We must also guard against worrying what other people think, because most of the time… they aren't…
• ABOUT YOU: Everything else I just said is an attempt to make this point abundantly clear.
All of these are means to the end of True Christian Worship. True Christian worship means we ascribe ultimate value to God and behave accordingly. God, and only God, is worthy of our worship. After fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus is tempted by Satan. Jesus met each temptation with God's Holy Word. On the third & final attempt, Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms on the earth if Jesus will only bow down & worship Satan. Jesus replies, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him'" (Matthew 4:10).
Someone once said, "Corporate worship is meaningless if not powerless unless proceeded by six days of private worship." I have to confess, I am tired of hearing how this or that worship service didn't feed somebody. I know it happens, but as I said before, if you don't get anything out of a worship service, you should ask why. I already mentioned God trusting you to grow in the midst of His perceived absence, but there are other possibilities. Using their metaphor against them I want to ask, "when was the last time you ate?" If we consistently go for six days without food and water, one meal every seventh day cannot provide all the nutrients our bodies need. The same is true for soul nourishment. Perhaps we don't feel fed because we are so spiritually mal-nourished. We need to take time daily with God, period. But we also need to gather with other Christians for complete spiritual fitness. The what's in it for me, consumerist attitude that is more concerned with what the individual gets out of a worship service is disappointing, but it is a reality. Those of us who have been at this Christian thing for a while should be prepared to worship when we gather. This is not always possible because life happens, but that is the ideal we strive for—being spiritually prepared to render authentic worship to God because worship is our lifestyle. As we become more and more successful at this. As we arrive at our gatherings full of the blessings of God instead of spiritually starved, those just outside the faith who visit our worship gatherings will have better opportunity to experience the risen Christ in and through us. Hebrews 10:19-25 describes the importance of gathering for worship; [NEXT SLIDE] Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Worship is a heart matter, which is what the praise song, "The Heart of Worship" is all about. The pastor of the church where the song writer, Matt Redmund, lead worship realized that they had become prideful about their worship music program, so he said no Matt Redmund & no praise band until we get back to the heart of worship—Jesus.
Jesus promised in Matthew 18:20—Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. Reaching up means focusing all we have & all we are on glorifying & blessing the God who so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…God showed up 2000 years ago in Jesus, God is present in Jesus now whenever Christians gather in His name. God is here. Reach up and bless His Holy Name. Amen.
