When I simply come

Good morning Church!

Pastor Brad has been taking us through a series on the Nicene Creed, if you haven’t had a chance to listen or maybe you have missed a Sunday or two I encourage you to head back into January when we started and take a listen. Next week he will resume the final part in the series.

We have been taking in all kinds of information and knowledge, interesting facts and figures, and gaining insight on how we have come to ‘do’ church. We have been learning about the creed itself and what it says, about christian doctrine (why we believe what we believe), exploring church history (how we came to believe what we believe) and thinking through various aspects of theology (the study of God). What has been particularly exciting is hearing about the conversations that have been continuing in small groups and friend circles throughout the week, stemming from the sermons

For today, before we launch back into the series, I want us to sit in a pause. In the midst of everything we are learning, I want us to set aside some time to remember why all of this other information is important.

The Song that has been in my head these past three weeks has been Matt Redman’s song “the heart of worship”… if you haven’t heard it before or if you can’t quite remember the lyrics, they go like this.

When the music fades - All is stripped away - And I simply come Longin' just to bring - Something that's of worth - That will bless Your heart I'm comin' back to the heart of worship - And it's all about You - It's all about You, Jesus

In the pause today we are going to spend some time getting back to the heart of what it means to worship. It’s all about Jesus, and we simply come.

(PRAY)

WHO WE WORSHIP

As Christians, we worship the one true God. So what makes him worthy of our praise? A very large question for a very short period of time on a Sunday morning. So, I thought it would be helpful, in preparing us for getting back to the creed, I would answer it in credo style. But let me be clear, this is not an exhaustive list, just a good foundational start...

There is one God (Deut 6:4), revealed in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through whom all things were created. The core of who he is, is Holiness(Lev 19:2), a level of holiness that we are called to but cannot achieve on our own. He is love (John 3:16), eternal (Deut 33:27), omnipresent (Prov 15:3), gracious (Psalm 145:8), and merciful (2 Sam 24:14). He exists timelessly and yet possesses the fullness of life. God’s omnipotence (power) declares that he can do whatever is logically possible and consistent with his perfect nature (Gen 18:14). He is a God who does not change, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8); and therefore his faithfulness is unwavering(2 Tim 2:13). He is all knowing (Isaiah 46:9-10), and in Him is found all wisdom and knowledge (Rom 11:33). He is good (Psalm 34:8), and he is perfectly just (Deut 32:4); because of this his ways are not our ways, his plans are perfect. He is the King of the earth (Psalm 47:8-9), seated on his throne in majesty (1 Chron 29:11). He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Rev 22:13).

In his very being alone, God is worthy of our worship. Just because of who he is. There is not a creature on earth that can compare to our God. Yet because of who he is, he doesn’t not sit back and watch his creation from afar, instead he longs to be in relationship with us. He is a God of provision, supplying for all of our needs. He grants us peace that surpasses all understanding, and a place of refuge when we are afraid. He guides us and shepherds us, comforts us in times of trouble, hears our prayers and sees us in our experiences. He is grace-filled and patient, loving and kind, a place of rest and a source of strength. He meets us in our places of need andour brokenness and he brings healing where we need it most.

Our God is a God worthy of Worship.

It’s all about you, Jesus

Here’s the crazy thing though, who he is and what he gives doesn’t end there. He is a God who genuinely wants to be present with us and he wants to reveal himself to us. He is the God that restored what humanity broke through sin. He did this by entering into the broken world in his perfection, revealing himself to us through his son Jesus, not only to die in our place but to conquer death itself.

Colossians 1:15–20 NIV

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

This is why it’s all about Jesus, because without him we remain separated, without him we remain isolated, in the dark, and without him we remain a slave to sin.

When we worship God, it needs to be all about him.

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Worship by defintion is the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration to someone. I would further this definition by including that worship is a reflection of the things that have an effect on you.

As we head into playoff season in hockey, there are people in this room that have a very deep investment into their favourite team, so much so that the outcome of games has an immediate effect on their life. There are others in the room who follow the lives of celebrities or reality tv and have a deep investment in the people involved, where the observers put aside time and effort to have lengthy conversations about what’s happening in the lives of the rich and famous. Maybe it’s the pursuit of wealth or prosperity, the lives of influencers, politics and freedom, climbing the corporate ladder or others. These can all be forms of worship… when we become so invested and so enamored with someone or something that the rhythms and movements of our life become affected. We participate in rituals and traditions, chants and conversations, investing time, money, and other resources, and studying whatever we can to learn more about the thing or person we hold so dear. We hold special space in our brains to memorize facts, figures, and statistics - sometimes to the point that we begin to forget things. Our lives are intimately shaped by the things we worship…

To be very clear, there are things and people that we can admire and enjoy, without them becoming an idol or commanding our worship. but the line is thin and crossing over often sneaks up on us. It’s something we need to be conscious of.

What people or things have an impact on how you live your life?

The same definition of worship applies to our relationship with God. How we encounter him and how much we invest into that relationship will have a substantial impact on how we live our life. When we encounter Jesus Christ, when we seek him out, when we read God’s word and discover the person that is Jesus, we cannot help but be impacted by him, that our response becomes one of worship.

Something wonderful and miraculous and life-changing takes place within the human soul when Jesus Christ is invited to take his rightful place - AW Tozer

Worship becomes a lens by which we plan our days, weeks, and months. It shifts not only how we see the world around us but how we interact with it, because we begin to see how God sees it. We set aside time daily to intentionally interact with God, we seek him out in prayer, we proclaim the truth of who he is in song, and we work with integrity not because it gets us the promotion but because we know it will honour him. We begin to surround ourselves with others who love and follow Jesus, and we begin to replace the things in our lives that distract us from him and with things that point us towards him. This is our worship.

Colossians 3:17 NIV

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

When is worship hard?

There are times when worship gets hard. Saying it like that makes it sound like it occurs every now and then but it probably occurs much more frequently then any of us would like to admit. When the hard comes it’s often because something (or shall I say someone) gets in the way of us leading a life of full worship… ourselves.

Humans are created and designed with a purpose, and that purpose is to worship their creator.​ We were created by God, in his image, to participate in his plan. Whether we know it or not our hearts ache to be in the presence of the Almighty because in him we find our purpose, who we are created to be. Apart from him - we feel incomplete. It’s why it is so common for those who don’t know Jesus to be searching in all sorts of places for answers to fill the God sized hole.

The enemy’s goal is not that we worship him… all he needs to do is get us to worship something else. To fixate on and serve our own emotions, our own priorities, creating our own security and wealth, not relying on God. He wants us to focus on fulfilling our immediate desires, cultivating our own importance, opinion, and saving our own repuation. To become distracted by the things that serve us in the here and now. If he can keep our eyes off of God and on the things of this world, then we are no longer operating in our strength, what we were designed to do. When the people of God do what they were designed to do, the kingdom of God is experienced.

When our eyes are fixed on ourselves, it affects our worship in two ways:

We Qualify our Worship

We Limit our Worship

Do we Qualify our worship?

How do we qualify our worship? Whether we worship or not is dependant on ________ (blank), and not dependant on who God is and what he has done. My relationships, my finances, my mood, my job, my circumstances… can all qualify our worship.

Do we need to feel a certain way

How many times have we refused to pray because we just don’t feel like it? Are we angry, sad, frustrated, or tired… I can’t pray/sing/or worship God today… I just don’t feel like it.

How many times have you had a bad day, and just gone “oh well, it’s already started going downhill, I might as well go all the way”. We give up fighting completely and instead we indulge in the things that you know aren’t good for you but they sure feel good in the moment. If worship is a response to who God is and what he has done, then our feelings or emotions cannot be the mediator that determines whether he is worthy or not. He is worthy. And sometimes, like David, we need to worship even in the midst of the feelings.

Do we need to see God act in order to worship

Lord you haven’t answered my other prayer yet, so you’re clearly not listening

Do we sometimes exchange praise for purpose?

God has not served us in the way we wanted, therefore I withhold my worship

God things have not gone my way, you have not brought my plan to fruition… do you even hear me

Our God is worthy of worship regardless of what’s going on

Do we limit our worship?

Comparison

We compare ourselves and how we worship with the people around us. I can’t pray as good as they do, they have a beautiful voice, that person is so gifted at hospitality - therefore I can’t or shouldn’t.

We can also compare ourselves to a previous season… “I used to be able to spend 30 minutes reading my Bible, I will never get back there again”

The problem with comparison is that limits us in how we meet with God now. We assume that the only way to meet with God is through a certain skillset like someone else, or a certain approach that we used to do. When we don’t acknowledge the season that we are in, we hold back from giving God our all with what we currently have.

Sometimes our qualification of being able to worship is based on our lack…

‌lack of time: “Lord I don’t have time today”

lack of feeling: “I can’t muster up today Lord, I just don’t feel like it”

lack of resources: “I don’t have the right bible study, or I’m not smart enough”

lack of recognition: “No one has told be I’m good at this, or I’m not a leader so I don’t have the ability to do this”

Limit based on Capacity

Lord there is too much going on right now, too much spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally… I just don’t have the capacity to worship you right now

Limit based on Fear We can also limit our worship because we restrict the areas of life we give to God. We hold on too tightly to the things that

I can’t give this to you Lord, because I’m afraid of what life will look like without it.

I SIMPLY COME

If Worship is all about Jesus and if we get out of our own way… all that is left to do is “simply come”

Just as we are, in the mental space we are in, in the emotional space we are in, in the physical… just come and be with God in the moment.

We don’t need to dress it up, we don’t need to qualify it, it doesn’t need to look a certain way, it’s just you seeking to worship and honour God just as you are with exactly what you have.

To help us out a bit I wrote down four touchpoints to ‘simply come”

Worship as a Response

Your worship is a response to Who God is and what he has done. It is us declaring how he is worthy of our worship,

Worship is a full body experience: heart, soul, mind and strength (physical). It is using what we have and giving what we can, and as Paul says in Romans 12:1 that is our true and proper worship. Letting the person of Jesus Christ impact our lives Sunday through Saturday, Sun up to Sun down. When we are by ourselves or with others.

Romans 12:1 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Worship as an Encounter

When we Worship, we see it as an opportunity to encounter - not just an event where we go through the motions

if we approach worship as an event, it will need to look, act, feel, smell a certain way

It would also need a date and time / all events have that

Because it’s not a particular event it also means there are many methods and approaches that can be taken.

Acts 4:31 NIV

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Worship as Submission

Worship is an act of vulnerability, of placing ourselves at the feet of Jesus (as Mary did) to listen, to learn, to be shaped by his words and his way - not our own.

It means we need to lay down the things that we place our hope and security in that aren’t him

Sometimes he asks us for all we

Mark 12:42–44 NIV

But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

Worship leads to Intimacy

God never tells us “don’t come any closer” like he did in the OT with Moses (Exo 3:5). God doesn’t restrict our access to him, in fact we are in a beautiful new covenant where not only CAN we get closer to God but he calls us closer.

Matthew 19:14 NIV

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

What I love about this passage is that kids aren’t concerned with ‘looking proper’ or ‘doing it right’ when it comes to being with their parents. They just want be with their parents. I can picture it now, all of these adults holding the kids back and at a word from Jesus they are released… bounding towards him with smiles and laughter… just to be near him

those kids who are unqualified, who don’t have all the rules straight, who don’t always “know” how to act… Jesus CALLS them to come to him

This is the heart posture that leads to intimacy, running to the Lord just to be with him.

We underestimate the power of simply being with God. Sometimes without words or song or even reading something, but what would it look like to sit with God and just be in his presence. To think about his wonder and his grace.

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

LET US WORSHIP

The Heart of Worship is a posture…

‌If the posture of the heart does not change then the reality of the practice will not change

Communion

As we come to a close of the message, we begin a moment of individual and collective response.

We take a moment in our service, in our regular gathering today and we take part in a tradition that was started by Jesus himself, on the night he was betrayed. At a gathering of his close friends, gathered around a table.

We continue to practice this not because it’s tradition… but because it’s an act of worship.

A response to what the Lord Jesus Christ has called us to do.

An Encounter with God and his Grace as we intentionally create space to let his sacrifice hit us a new

It’s a moment of submission, a place of vulnerability as we offer all we have because he offered all of himself.

A place of intimacy with God, and with each other as the body of Christ, encountering God together.

It is now that I invite us as followers of Jesus

It is why Paul tell sus that we need to settle offenses prior to stepping up to the table, because this act is not something we take lightly.