ReThink Church: Pt 2.4 Worship from the heart…

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1

Paul says there is holy and acceptable worship, which means there is unholy and unacceptable worship.  What makes worship unacceptable?

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, (2) “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” (3) He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? (4) For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ (5) But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” (6) he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (7) You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: (8) “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; (9) in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”   Matthew 15:1-9

We can be so casual and limited in the scope of our worship. 

Jesus informs these religious men that keeping spiritual man made traditions at the expense of His commands is unacceptable worship.  He accuses them of being hypocrites because they say they are honoring God with what they do when their hearts are far from Him.  You can do religious things for God and it not be worship.  Jesus was saying the acceptable worship would have been to love and honor their parent instead of the religious acts they performed to appear spiritual.

How many times have we gone through the religious motions.  Any offering not from the heart is not acceptable.  From styles of singing to liturgy (the work of the people), if any of  it was taken away and we only complain about missing is the tradition, then it ain’t worship – yes I said “ain’t!”  Anything we do to worship that is not all about God’s presence to us and through us is not acceptable worship.  It must come from the heart.  A heart for Him, not the tradition.

Jesus did not rebuke the traditions.  He rebuked men who would not follow their heart in worship.  Truth – they worshipped the tradition, though they said they worshipped God.

What if you showed up at your next church gathering and the minister said we are not going to sing or we’re going to change Sunday School, or meet in home groups, or what ever you are used to.  Would you object?  Why?  Would it be because you were going to miss God’s presence or because you would miss the man made tradition?  Get honest.

Worship must be from the heart!

ReThink Church: Pt 2.3 Worship is “Giving All”…

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”   Romans 12:1

In our relationship with Jesus, He gave us all and it cost God everything.  To Him, relationship with us was worth it.  In His presence I become aware of my need for His grace and He holds nothing back.  He lavishes His love and grace on me.  I can’t help but respond with worship.  It causes me to fall before Him.  What else can I do but give my all to the One who gave all for me.  It reminds me of a Rita Springer song ” Worth it all”.  Click and listen.

Paul says our only response to God is giving the thing that houses all we are, our body.  It’s worth it to worship Him with all we are and have.

Are you holding out on God?

The only acceptable thing is “ALL !”

ReThink Church: Pt 2.2 Grace and Worship…

“And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (6)  Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. (7) And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (8) And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”    Isaiah 6:5-8

When we encounter the presence of God, certain thing become very clear.  We are aware of God’s Righteousness and our unrighteousness.  However, God shows us His incredible love, mercy, and grace.  His acceptance and forgiveness is overwhelming and leaves us with only one acceptable response – WORSHIP.  When we are enveloped by God’s grace, it causes a wellspring of gratitude and joy.  “Yes Lord”, becomes our only reasonable service of worship. (Romans 12:1-2)

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”    Romans 5:1-2

Through faith we should enjoy living in a constant state and awareness of God’s grace.  Living in God’s grace produces a life of worship.

Are you aware of His Grace?

ReThink Church: Pt 2 – What is Worship?

I am currently teaching a series called ReThink Church which I am recapping on this blog with a few extra  thoughts.  This second teaching will be broken into several parts so the post won’t be so long and allowing me not to rush through it.  If you haven’t read Pt.I, take the time to read it first.  It lays the foundation that informs all the rest of this series.

Having looked at what the church is, we find a living organism, not an inanimate building.  If you grew up “in Church”, you probably thought of the building you gathered in and everything you understood to be the Church was defined by the building, it’s location, it’s programs and the forms of worship that took place there.  My attempt is to decentralize the church as it is commonly defined by the building and all that goes on there and see the glory of the Church that is not the building.  If we can do this church will take on a whole new life a much larger and satisfying life. 

I will start by asking this question: “If the church is living and not a building and the living church belongs to God and it is distinguished by His presence and is to be the full reflection of His image in the earth; THEN, how does this change our understanding of worship?”

“When worship is our response to the One who alone is worthy of it – Jesus Christ – then our lives are on their way to being turned inside out.  Every dimension of self-centered living becomes endangered as we come to share God’s self-giving heart.”  Mark Labberton – The Dangerous Act of Worship (pg. 1, ¶.2)

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”   Romans 12:1 (ESV)

The first principle: “Worship is about unbroken intimate Relationship.”

There are people who will debate over worships being for God and not for us or about getting into His presence or bringing His presence.  I want to say it is both.  From the above passage we find that worship is presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.  Why sacrifice? Because it’s all about relationships.

In Genesis 1-3 we find the story of God creating man and woman and their subsequent sin and dismissal from the Garden of Eden.  The word’s Garden of Eden mean “the garden of His (God’s) delight.”  Man enjoyed unbroken intimate relationship with God.  This was His plan.  However, man sinned and this relationship was broken.  God had to separate Himself from man.

God sacrificedan animal and made skin coverings to replace the fig leaf coverings man made.  In Genesis 4 Cain and Abel bring offerings to God. Abel made a sacrifice of the firstfruit of his flock.  His offering was acceptable, Cain’s was not.  Cain got angry and killed Abel.

In Genesis 8 Noah comes off the ark and first builds an altar and makes sacrifice to God.  Abraham was instructed by God in Exodus 25 to take the son of promise, Isaac, and sacrifice him on an altar he built.  From the beginning, God instituted a way back to relationship with Him.  The altar has always been a place built for God’s presence.  The sacrifice has always make a way for God to come to man and man to be in His presence.  God created a way to have moments of unbroken intimate relationship with Him through sacrifice.

Now we know Jesus became for us the final, once and for all time, eternal sacrifice, so we can have a relationship with the Father.  (Hebrews 10)  God’s plan has always been to make a way for us to experience the fullness of unbroken intimate relationship with Him.  Worship is both a need on our part and a desire on God’s for us to connect with Him.  The greatest honor and worth we could extol on God is to pursue and live in the presence the He so desires for us to experience.  We should sacrifice everything so we can come unhindered into the presence of the one who has pursued us from before time. 

We have been made worthy to enter into God’s presence by Jesus’ sacrifice.  We can now simply come to Him.  Anything we do because of His presence is worship.  If I stand for justice, because of His presence, that’s worship.  If I sing because of Him, it’s worship.  If I love because of Him, it’s worship.  If I work hard because of His presence, it’s worship.  If I rest, give, study, pray, share, invest, gather with others, recieve persecution, or go green because of His presence, it’s extoling Him and giving worth to Him.

Worship is about unbroken intimate relationship with the One who loved us first.

It is not about the religious forms of worship, but rather giving our life to the God who offers relationship to us.

In the next part we will look at Worship and the experience Grace.