What is the Church? Worship

Illus: Baseball formation.

Worship—everyone worships.

Harold Best

Harold Best “At this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is boing down and serving something or someone—an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit, or God through Christ.”

“At this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is boing down and serving something or someone—an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit, or God through Christ.”

Separated ideas of secular and religious.

Information vs Formation.

More than just a Christian worldview is needed (information) our hearts must desire the kingdom of God (formation).

The World is trying to make disciples…they evangelize what the good life is…and they have forming habits that they teach s in order to pursue what our hearts wants.

Illus: of Apple and Nike and other companies that create a cult like following. They studied religions.

Philippians 1:10 CSB

so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ,

1. What you love you Exalt.

We are creatures made to worship…it is who we are.

Illus: Cocoa—made to bark and wag his tail.

He desires food---affects everything he does.

2. What you love you Emulate.

Exodus

Isaiah 44:13–20 CSB

The woodworker stretches out a measuring line, he outlines it with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He makes it according to a human form, like a beautiful person, to dwell in a temple. He cuts down cedars for his use, or he takes a cypress or an oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow. A person can use it for fuel. He takes some of it and warms himself; also he kindles a fire and bakes bread; he even makes it into a god and worships it; he makes an idol from it and bows down to it. He burns half of it in a fire, and he roasts meat on that half. He eats the roast and is satisfied. He warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I see the blaze.” He makes a god or his idol with the rest of it. He bows down to it and worships; he prays to it, “Save me, for you are my god.” Such people do not comprehend and cannot understand, for he has shut their eyes so they cannot see, and their minds so they cannot understand. No one comes to his senses; no one has the perception or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and ate. Should I make something detestable with the rest of it? Should I bow down to a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes. His deceived mind has led him astray, and he cannot rescue himself, or say, “Isn’t there a lie in my right hand?”

G.K. Beale

“We become what we worship either for ruin or for restoration.”

If you worship an idol you become like that idol. If you worship the living God than you are transformed into His image.

For the church, worship is participation in Jesus's own worship of the Father by the power of the Spirit. It is initiated by the Spirit's prompting, made possible by the Son's work, and all about the Trinity's glory. we are invited in as participants and witnesses to that glory, and it is a glory that transforms us.

2 Corinthians 3:18 CSB

We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Colossians 3:16–17 CSB

Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

3. What you love you Evangelize.

Matthew 6:19–24 CSB

“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:33 CSB

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

Matthew 6:33–34 CSB

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew