Together: Worship

Scripture

Ephesians 4:1–16 NIV

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.” 9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Word of God for you and me the people of God, thanks be to God.

Pray.

Introduction

What is worship?

I have been a part of many different expressions of worship:

grew up in a smallish more traditional church

came to Christ heavily influenced by contemporary expressive worship

high church in seminary

Eastern orthodox worship, divine liturgy

pentecostal, power signs and wonders

Across this campus we have diverse worship styles

If I were to ask you what worship is you might describe these modes of worship, or you might describe preferences, but that does not get to the heart of the content of worship.

Well it begins with understanding the narrative that we are living into....

Allen Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory:

God, sovereign and ever-living Lord. He is inconceivable and incomprehensible source of all existence; he is the invisible majesty who reigns on high. This God we claim to know is the one before whom thousands upon thousands of angels and archangels stand never ceasing to laud and praise him as the holy and glorious majesty. This Lord merely speaks, as he did at creation, and myriads of angels wait to carry out his will. He is completely unique, truly glorious and incomparably holy—there is no one like him, anywhere, at any time. And there is no measure of the magnificence and beauty of his holiness, for all his works are amazing, good, glorious.

And we say we know him!

Moreover, by his greatness and because of his grace, this God created us humans out of the dust of the ground and made us as his image, he made a Paradise for us and promised us immortality and everlasting joy in his presence. And even though we, his creation, treated him as worthless and relegated him to an insignificant place in our all-important lives, he still desired that we be with him and he with us. Therefore, he set about with his plan to bring us to glory. Such was his preoccupation with us, such was his love for us—who are but dust and ashes—that he prepared this plan in ages past, revealed it century by century, and then at just the right time in human history came into this little world in human form to die a humiliating death in our place so that our indifference to and rebellion against him could be forgiven and that we might still live with him forever. This incarnate Lord, the Jesus we talk about as if he were just another man, albeit extraordinary and exemplary, is the one who made all things. And he is the one who is the radiance of the glory of the Godhead, and the exact representation of the divine essence. It is he who bears the world along on its course by his powerful command. It is he who someday will come in great glory and power to judge the living and the dead. And it is he who will make all things new a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness and peace will reign undisturbed. There is no power in heaven, on earth, or under the earth that can change his plan, for all wisdom, knowledge, power, and dominion belong to him. Nothing occurs, or has occurred, or will occur, that he does not know perfectly well. And because of who he is and what he has done, there is nothing in all this universe that can compare with his unimaginable perfection, illimitable majesty, and incomprehensible glory. Our minds can scarcely begin to take it in.

And we say we know him!

This is our narrative! This is the narrative of worship. This morning I want us to look at Ephesians 4 for a vision of what Worship is and can be for our community. There are not perfect “Texts” for church and what worship is supposed to look like, but we get these hints as Scripture describes the community. 3 things we find here:

Worship is where we are brought into unity with God

Worship is where we are equipped

Worship is where we learn to live truth

Worship is where we are brought into unity with God

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which we read this morning, Paul begins by radically making the claim that the church, the community of God is in community with the triune, Father, son, and Spirit.

Let me read it again:

Ephesians 4:3–6 NIV

3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

He says one seven times, to even a cursory reading one can tell he is trying to make a point.

First there is one body:

There is one body because there is one spirit. We are one body…all of those in Christ, even bigger than Marvin, we all are one body, a temple of the Holy Spirit building us all together. This means:

• Jew and Gentile

• White, black, all ethnicities and races

• slave and free

• white collar, blue collar, no collar,

• Baptist, Methodist, Catholic....whether we agree on that or not

• Texans and Cowboys

We are all one. This is important because how could we imagine to all be one if God’s assembled people at FMC cannot be united.

There is one body

Second there is one hope:

This hope is our one faith, our one baptism, because there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.

There is no other salvation:

no baptism by works or merit…let me work really hard to be good or build the right kind of life

there is no baptism by success in life or career

there is no baptism by positive thinking

there is no baptism in any other god,

There is one lord Jesus Christ and we are all baptized in Him

Finally, there is one Christian family:

Because there is one God and Father who is above all and in all. We are all called into the family together.

Not the Table family, and the Traditional family, and the Student family, and the missions family.

John Stott:

We are now in a position to repeat the three affirmations, this time the other way round and in the order in which the Persons of the Trinity are normally mentioned. First, the one Father creates the one family. Secondly, the one Lord Jesus creates the one faith, hope and baptism. Thirdly, the one Spirit creates the one body

Stott, J. R. W. (1979). God’s new society: the message of Ephesians (p. 151). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

This means we must live, as pointed out by Paul, with humility, gentleness, patience, and love. The only hope for unity are in these moral qualities. And when we do, we are brought into the community of the triune God.

Liturgy

Song

Prayer

Sacraments

Worship is where we are equipped

We worship because this is where we are equipped. We are formed and shaped under the headship of Christ when we worship together. Our Lord has given us gifts, look again in verse 11....

Ephesians 4:11–13 NIV

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

apostles

prophets

evangelists

pastors

teachers

This list is not exhaustive, so the main idea is not the offices or titles themselves, the object in this text is the people. Back to the theology of the body of Christ from last week.

Do you think this list only refers to professional Christians, to the vocational ones, or is it also a calling for all of us?

If you are a gift to the body, then to not have you present is to not be whole.

Worship is where we learn truthing

My favorite part of this passage is the closing. So much so that I wrote my docotral thesis on Ephesians 4. There is a beautiful image here for what it looks like to be a faithful worshipping community.

You have heard me teach on this before, and you will again.

Ephesians 4:14–15 NIV

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

“Speaking the truth to one another in love” is one of the worst english translations I have come across because it falls woefully short of the greek meaning.

And we love this verse, chalking it up to be this thing we do when our friend steps into some sin....just go speak truth in love.

Nope, the greek is more rigidly “truth with one another.”

Paul is telling Ephesians to live truth with one another.

If we will live gospel truth with and next to one another then we will become Christ like. Worship is the place that we do that most centrally.

This is why it will be so important for us to encourage consistent attendance and calling folks into participation with what we are doing here.

Closing

How can we move from consumer to worshipper?

Think about what you say when you leave church:

I love that hymn

The prayer time was moving

The sermon gave me so much to think about

These type of things insinuate that we have a product and invited you to come and consume it, and thankfully, you might come back and consume it again.

This is the same thing you can say about a movie:

I love that scene when Marty McFly plays the guitar solo at the school dance so his parents would dance

It was so moving when Sam Wise Gamgee jumps in the water after Frodo

The ending when Woody and Buzz say goodbye and split ways was a crazy ending

This is consuming.

Worshippers:

God was magnified in song today

The presence of God was evident in prayer time

God is calling me to something new

Honestly, I don’t care much if you “like” what happens when we gather. That is secondary. What is primary? Are we being joined together to Christ and maturing into the one who is the head? Are the gifts of Christ being employed? Have we remembered, rehearsed, and retold the narrative of the triune God and our place there? Are we living the truth of the kingdom together?