What is the Church? Gathered Worship

Illus: right tools matter--doctor vs carpenter

Illus: right tools matter--doctor vs carpenter

Illus: Mall?

Augustine “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Christian Worship is nothing less than an invitation to participate in the life of the triune God.

What is the Church? Gathered Worship

God is both the subject and the object of our worship; the whole point of everything we do.

MEANING: God is both the subject and the object of our worship; the whole point of everything we do.

Worship is not for me—it’s not primarily meant to be an experience that meets the felt needs I have, rather worship is about and for God.

To say that God is both subject and object is to emphasize that the triune God is both the audience and the agent of worship: it is to and for God, and God is active in worship in the Word and the sacraments.

We are not gathered here today because of abstract ideas or teachings or ideals, we are a people gathered to the historical person Jesus Christ. We are a people who worship God who broke into and inhabited time, who suffered under real leaders, and who rose again on the 3rd day.

The church is also a people oriented to the future. We are sojourners and strangers waiting for the return of our King who will make all things new and under whom every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is Lord.

The church is also a people shaped by and remembering the past. We are not just a CNN/Fox News Breaking News people who only focus on and contemplate the present. The gospel has been passed down to us and the redemption of God story goes all the way back to Adam an Eve in the Garden.

A. A Call to Worship

A. A Call to Worship—The Kingdom of Christ.

Illus: How did we get here? Arguing in the car, fighting with the kids to get up. Depleted from a long and tiresome week. The call of worship directs our attention away from all of the possible distractions and draws our heart to one. The One. Jesus Christ who is worthy of all praise.

Psalm 95:6–7 CSB

Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care. Today, if you hear his voice:

The word used most frequently in the New Testament for “church” is ekklēsia which literally means “called out.” This means we are not just a club like Sam’s Club, that we do not just meet together for companionship or because we have similar hobbies.

Rather, the church is a society of those who have been called, redeemed, justified, and are being sanctified by the blood of the Lamb until oneday we will b glorified in His presence.

ēsia

We are a gathered people. From different homes, different families, nationalities and cultures. From different financial backgrounds. Yet we are constitued as a new people united in Christ in order to praise and bring glory to Christ.

1 Peter 2:9 CSB

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Revelation 7:9–10 CSB

After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

As we looked at last week. To be human is to worship because we are created in the image of God. Therefore when we say “Good morning, lets stand and sing.” What is really being said is let’s and stand and be human. Let’s stand and do what we were created to do.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

Of course sin has wrecked us and so now our hearts long to worship something but our idols never satisfy. We lack wisdom and discernment to do what we were created for and instead bow before false gods.

Thus, a call to worship is a call back to the Lord in order to find renewal, restoration, and reordering. It is to find peace admits the chaos of our lives. To find our rest in Jesus.

G.K. Beale “You become what you worship either for ruin or for restoration.”

Matthew 11:28–30 CSB

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

B. Singing—Learning the vocabulary and language of the Kingdom

Illus: Love songs.

First—singing is a full-bodied action that activates the whole person. Stomach muscles, vocal chords, lungs, and tongues.

For some of us our feet, or our hands in clapping or raising…dare I say dancing.

Being created in the image of our Creator we are made to worship but also to create to be sub-creators.

Being created in the image of our Creator we are made to worship but also to create to be sub-creators.

Therefore we create music, poetry, drama…we paint and write, we build and mold, we train and reproduce.

Music is a way to shape or reshape or reorder our desires. There is always a tune that I am humming or a rythem I am tapping. Music gets inside of us and stay within us in ways that other forms of communication doesn’t.

Watch a movie without music—boring!

This is why Paul admonishes us in

Colossians 3:16 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.

It is through songs that we learn to speak the language of the kingdom. (Nothing but the Blood of Jesus—In Christ Alone my Hope is found—Oh Victory in Jesus my Savior forever).

What we sing matters. The content of our songs matter. The trend now a day is to focus on the experience of the song instead of the content of the song. Jesus is my boyfriend without theology from the Scriptures quickly produces Christians who are illiterate in the Bible and focused on themselves.

Quite frankly—some songs we claim as “Christian” can be sung by any religion or to any false god.

What we sing says something about who we are. And more importantly WHOSE we are.

Revelation 5:9 CSB

And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Revelation 14:3 CSB

They sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders, but no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

The practice of singing theological-Christ-centered songs where I begin to be reshaped and reordered into the image of Christ as I look forward to the coming of Christ and the full installment of his kingdom.

C. Scripture—Learning what my part and role in the Kingdom.

When some think of the Bible they think of a book filled with rules preventing them from having fun. Others see it just as a manual to reference every now and then. This could not be further from the truth. The Bible is where we see reality as it really is. We look in the world and see chaos and within us we know that something is wrong. In the Bible we have the story of reality and the story of Creation and Redemption.

Laws and rules then are not just guardrails to protect us…they are the means in which we flourish as a race made in the image of our Creator.

1 John 5:3 CSB

For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden,

The Bible tells me that the is an end to which I must be directed in order to live a blessed life.

Psalm 1:1–2 CSB

How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.

We flourish when we are rightly ordered to an end (telos) that is not of our own choosing but is rather stipulated by God.

Creation is created for something for a particular end envisioned by the Creator.

Reading the Bible during our worship service represents a significant challenge to desires of our own flesh to build up the kingdom of me and instead calls us to take up our cross and follow Christ and in doing so we see reality as it really is we see the story of the world as it really is and we flourish as we obey.

D. Prayer—Learning the Language of the Kingdom

Hebrews 4:14–16 CSB

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 CSB

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Part of learning the language of the Kingdom is learning that there is more going on that what meets the eye. Prayer is a visual reminder of that as we speak to Jesus with whom the world would say is not present.

Matthew 18:20 CSB

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”

Matthew 28:20 CSB

teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We pray for one another; for healing and comfort and we also pray for forgiveness and reconciliation, we pray for illumination from God’s Word and for Him to be pleased and welcomed among us.

Prayer teaches us to be other focused. “Your will be done, your kingdom come.” We forgive and we have been forgiven.”

Philippians 2:4 CSB

Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Prayer teaches us to be missional and to pray for our community for our neighbors and those who do not know Jesus that God would be merciful in opening their eyes to see the truth.

Prayer reminds us of our need for a Savior, for each other, and it humbles us as we lift our request to our Heavenly Father.

E. Fellowship—Hospitality, Community, and Grace: Life in the Kingdom

Worship is not just something we think it is something we do. Having been called to worship, we are now welcomed. God is a relational deity. He is one God in three persons and worship is an invitation into that fellowship. We are made to be relational beings. When our relationship with the Lord is right and when our relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters are right then their is a flourishing that takes place.

In other words, during the welcome and greeting time we come face to face with the reality that we are people of depence.

The world has told us all week long that we can be self-sufficient. (have it your way, just do it, get yourself a Christmas present). But here is a few moments we are graciously reminded that we need each other.

1 John 4:9 CSB

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

1 John 4:19 CSB

We love because he first loved us.

During the greeting we extend greeting because God has greeted us. We show hospitality because God has welcomed us. We therefore mimic our Father who has shown much grace and mercy to us by extending grace to others.

Worship is not just a private affair. We are a gathered people and just as together we are dependent on our redeeming Lord so we are dependent on one another.

F. Tithing—Kingdom Economics of Gratitude

________________________________________________

***Ended at point E. Recap and finish points F-I.

F. Tithing—Kingdom Economics of Gratitude

Connecting what we do from Monday-Friday. Against a physical act and reminder that everything that i have comes from the Lord and that He has not held back. He sent His Son who died a criminals death that I deserved in order to pay the debt of my sins.

This is not like buying a ticket to the theater where I am grateful for the services provided.

This is not like paying a bill for services recieved.

The offering is an expression of gratitude. This is not a contract that we have entered into a, it is a covenant.

It is a reminder that the Kingdom of God embodies a new economy because it is fill with those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

In other words, how you view and how you participate in the offering is indicative on how you view the gospel and the kingdom of God.

If you give every now and then, just some change in the plate, you are indicating that the Kingdom of God is not as important as some other things are in your life.

During the offering we are reminding ourselves that we have been redeemed and that we our a redeemed people.

In a world that tells us to consume and to hoard, and that values greed above all us, the weekly offering is a calling back to see our lives as being crucified with Christ. It is a calling to give not consume, to spread, not to hoard, and it is a calling to sacrifice not to be greedy.

Isaiah 55:1–2 CSB

“Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost! Why do you spend silver on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.

G. Preaching—Renarrating the World through the Kingdom

2 Timothy 3:16 CSB

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

The Bible functions as the script of the worshipping community, the story that narrates the identity of the people of God. We are story telling people who need to be re-narrated into the true story of the Kingdom of God. Our worship is deeply shape by the story we find in the Bible.

The Bible functions as the script of the worshipping community, the story that narrates the identity of the people of God. We are story telling people who need to be re-narrated into the true story of the Kingdom of God. Our worship is deeply shape by the story we find in the Bible.

The goal of my sermon is always to articulate the story of creation and redemption into your imaginations or hearts because this is the story that we truly find ourselves apart of. Thus absorbing this story is crucial in order for you to know what you are supposed to do.

Over time as you sit under biblical preaching and read the Bible for yourselves the Bible become a moral compass that navigates you toward what we were created for—the kingdom and rule of God in our lives.

This is why the Bible is so vital in the service. It is the critical point where what you think is the good life and what God says is the good life in confronted. When we believe the Bible we are then reoriented in our desires and they begin to be for the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of me.

The Bible tells us what kind of people we are called to be in God’s Kingdom.

H. Responding—Responding to the Kingdom

We do no measure up. Because of our sin we fall short and we need Jesus. This time of response is a time to repent and to turn away from the advancement of the kingdom of me, myself, and I and instead to turn to the Kingdom of Christ.

We confess that we have not be faithful to the very purpose that we were created and we embrace God’s Word for our lives.

We take up our cross and follow Christ.

I. Sending—Advancing the Kingdom

We come to to consume but to be equipped to go and we worship the Lord in everything that we do and make disciples and teach them to observe all things in the power and presence of Christ going into all nations.