It's great to be back home again. We had a great time while we were in Florida. The weather was alright, but not great as you might think.
While I was there I had the time to do some reading, just for the reading. While I was reading, I began to think on worship. We speak of the "Worship Service", or we say we worship God, but what is this think we call worship. Do we really know that much about it. Do we really know what real worship is in this day an age.
Webster says that worship is "reverence or devotion for a deity, a church service or other rite showing this, and intense love or admination". Is that what worship is. Can we really define our worship of God. Can you define God. We must face the fact that there are some things that are very difficult to define.
We must be careful that our definition is not so high a wall that we find ourselves in an intellectional and emotional prison. Good definitions must set limits, but they must also
leave room for expansion. It is all right to put up walls so long as you include a door and a few windows.
Evelyn Underhill has defined worship as "the total adoring response of man to the one Eternal God self-revealed in time." I like that phrase "Adoring response." It reminds me that worship is personal and passionate, not formal and cold; and that it is our response to the living God, voluntarily offered to Him as He has offered Himself to us.
In His conversation with the woman of Samaria, Jesus made it clear that there was both true worship and false worship, ignorant worship and intelligent worship. (John 4:19-24) What passes for worship in some of our churches may not be acceptable to God at all.
The Pharisees thought they were practicing exemplary worship, but Jesus thought otherwise: "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." (Matt. 15:8-9)
Let me share with you from the writings of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1942-1944). Here is his definition, I'll quote the entire paragraph from his book;
"Both for perplexity and for dulled conscience the remedy is the same; sincere and spiritual worship. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose--and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our
nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centerdness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Yes--worship in spirit and truth is the way to the solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin."
To Temple, worship is the response of all that man is to all that God is and does.
True worship has both its objective and subjective aspects, and we must maintain this balance. Jesus may have had this in mind when He said, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:24) Note the phrase "in spirit" is not capitalized. This refers to the subjective side of worship. "In truth" refers to the objective side.
The important thing is that we keep the right balance. There is today such an emphasis on Bible knowledge that we are in danger of ignoring, or even opposing, personal spiritual experience. While we must not base our theology on experience, neither must we debase our theology by divorcing it from experience. If true worship is the response of the whole person to God, then we dare not neglect the emotions. We permit people to express their
emotions at weddings, funerals, and athletic events, but not at a worship service. The important thing today seems to be that you mark your Bible and write outlines in your notebook, but whatever else you do, keep your emotions hidden!
This attitude, I am sure, is an overreaction to some of the extremes that Christians have seen in certain segments of the modern charismatic movement..
Christian worship is both individual and corporate, personal and congregational. Led by the Spirit, we have the right, even the responsibility, to express our praise to God in a manner that best reflects our individual personalities and cultures. If all of us would keep this in mind, it might encourage a deeper appreciation for one another's form of worship.
THE ELEMENT OF MYSTERY
Before we try to tie all of this together, one more aspect of worship must be mentioned; and that is the fear of the Lord. If we major only on our "adoring response", we may find ourselves out of balance. After all, God's love for us is a holy love; and we must bewareof trying to get chummy with God. A.W. Tozer was right, "No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God."
Phillips Brooks once said that familiarity breeds contempt only with contemptible people or contemptible things. There is an undue familiarity with God that only proves that the worshiper does not really know God at all. True worship must always involve mystery. There are many things we cannot explain but that we can experience.
There must be some mystery. But once you understand, at least within our limits worship, then we must look at the transformation that must take place.
If there is no transformation, then it is a Masquerade. Is it a Metamorphosis or a Masquerade.
You cannot come into the presence of God without that transformation, that Metamorphosis.
Romans 12:1-2 says; "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
To help you understand this a little better, I would like to use the Tabernacle as a picture of your approach to God. The Tabernacle was a rectangle, with a veil separating the people from the presence of God, represented by the Ark of the Covenent. As a person would enter the Tabernacle the first thing he would come to was the SACRIFICAL ALTER. You would offer your sacrifice on the alter before entering further.
This is the meaning of Romans 12:1. First God wants our bodies as living sacrifices. The Greek verb indicates that this is to be a once-for-all presentation, as I give my body to God to be used for His service. However that does not prevent me from reaffirming this dedication daily when I set aside time to worship the Lord. Israel had it "continual burnt offering," morning and evening, and this may be a good pattern for us to follow today.
The Body of the Christian is God's temple (1 Cor.6:19-20), and God's tool (Rom.6:13). God lives in the believer's body! God can use that body to accomplish His work and glorify His name.
Worship must not stop with a personal mystical experience. It must lead to a practical ministry experience, something we do with our bodies, that brings hep to others and honor to God.
The best public worship, wrote Bishop J.C. Ryle, is that which produces the best private Christianity.
THE SECOND GIFT GOD ASKS FOR IS OUR MIND.
Since we are made in the image of God, we have intelligence, emotion, and will. God asks for my body, my mind, and my will. For the most part, my mind controls my body, and my will controls my mind. I usually think about what I want to think about. Christianity is basically a religion centering on man's will, not man's feelings.
Christian love is not a feeling, it is an act of the will. God does not have 3 wills--one good, another acceptable, and yet another perfect--because a perfect God can only will for us that which is perfect.
God expects body, mind, and will to be yielded to Him and to be used by the Spirit as we worship Him. He also wants us to worship Him in love from a heart that is caught up in Him and His beauty. Now the transformation.
If we are truth to the Lord and are doing all the above, we have presented ourselves on the altar of sacrifice. Now we are ready to proceed to the next item. The altar of incense.
It is my feeling that many Christians do not want a transforming experience of worship. So when a transformed believer shows up among them, they are immediately threatened by his presence. And this can lead to some difficult situations in homes and churches. "Transformers" do not create problems, they reveal them.
Transformers are participants. Transformers wait patiently for the Spirit. Transformers quietyly resist "celebrityism". Transformers trust God to work as they worship, pray and sow the seed of the Word. Transformers have a different set of values. Transformers are not concerned with getting the approval of the world and being popular.
Transformers offer up their prayers and adorations before the Lord, and this is the incense offering rising up to God. Then and only then are you ready to enter the veil, into the presence of God and worship Him in spirit and in truth.
This sermon has probably raised more questions than it has answered. But folks, the worship of God must leave some room for the wonder of it all. It cannot all be explained away. Most preaching focuses on explaining something and neglects to admit the things that cannot be explained. Not everything has a pigeonhole to which you can assign it.
Jesus came to earth nearly 2,000 years ago for one purpose. That we might know God and worship Him. He has paid the price of the blood offering. Now it is up to us to accept Him as Savior, and Lord and God, and Wonderful, and Prince of Peace and all that He can be in our lives. We must present ourselves as "living sacrifices" holy, acceptable to the Lord, which is our reasonable service. Our body, mind and will. That we may move on to the altar of incence, offering up our prayers and adorations, that we might enter into His presence, that we might worship Him. Why. Because He is worthy.
