The Word on Worship
Notes
Transcript
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.
Worship flows from what fills you.
Worship flows from what fills you.
The question isn’t IF you worship. The question is WHAT. What fills you up enough to overflow.
When the word of Christ fills you, worship flows toward God
But if something else fills you (sports, career, money, status, comfort, entertainment) then worship will flow toward that instead.
Most don’t make the conscience decision to worship their job or something else. It just happens when those things are what is filling the tank.
Paul says to “Let the word of Christ dwell richly” in you
Paul isn’t just talking about a quick visit - dwell mean to take up residence, to inhabit. Paul is talking about something that moves in and fills every room.
The word of Christ isn’t meant to be just a Sunday guest. It is meant to be a permanent resident that shapes everything.
Our worship cannot start at 11AM on Sunday morning. If worship is an overflow, then what we fill ourselves with during the week determines what flows out on Sunday.
Worship didn’t begin when the music started. It began Monday morning when you opened your Bible - or didn’t. It began Wednesday night when you spent time in prayer - or didn’t.
By the time we walk through these doors on Sunday, the tank is either full or it’t empty. No amount of good music or good preaching can completely fill a tank that we’ve left dry all week.
The only thing that fills the tank is time in the word and time in prayer. There's no shortcut.
There is a widely used quote that says, “The word of God is the fuel for worship. You cannot worship what you do not know.” (author unknown).
R.C. Sproul said it this way, “No one can worship or know God in a way that is not determined and regulated by Scripture.”
To truly know God, we need to spend time in His word and let Him reveal Himself to us through it.
It is through His word that we encounter the living God and the more we encounter Him, the more we will be driven to worship - it will overflow.
So, if we let the word of Christ fill us and we gather together, what should it look like?
What fills us, forms us.
What fills us, forms us.
The Word doesn’t just fill us, it shapes us, it changes how we think, how we speak, how we treat one another, and how we worship when we gather.
Paul tells us that the word produces two things when it takes up residence: teaching and admonishing.
Teaching: is instruction - helping people understand what the Bible says.
Admonishing: is warning - helping people apply it, correct course, stay on track.
Both are necessary: The word form us into people who know the truth and people who live the truth.
Worship is not a solo act - yes, you can worship God when you are alone, but notice Paul says, “teaching and admonishing one another”
This phrase shows up twice in 2 verses. You can’t do “one another” by yourself.
The Bible doesn’t just command us to worship, it commands us to gather Hebrews 10:25 “25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
God designed worship to be corporate because we need each other.
There is something that happens when the gathered body worships together that doesn’t happen when we worship alone.
(Illustrate using the keyboard and a worship song - song TBD)
When the body gathers and the word is being taught, sung, prayed and lived out together, that’s when worship reaches its full expression.
Hopefully we have established that worship isn’t just about singing. It begins in the Word and flows into our prayer, giving, fellowship and yes singing.
I’m not jumping into a style war - some connect deeper with the hymns they have been singing since they were kids and some connect deeper with the modern hymns.
The point is not HOW we sing (style) - it is WHAT we sing.
The songs we sing are doing one of two things: they are helping to form and inform you or they are doing nothing at all.
We need to be singing songs that teach us about God, about the gospel, and about who we are in Christ.
This may be hard to hear but if the only thing we remember about a song is how it made us feel then the word of Christ may not be dwelling in it. Feelings are good, but feelings without truth are just noise.
But feelings WITH truth, that’s when worship becomes transformative.
So the word fills us, it forms us when we gather, but what happens when we leave?
What fills us, follows us.
What fills us, follows us.
Paul takes our worship a step further than just when we gather - “whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”
Pastor and author Warren Wiersbe defines worship as, “Worship is the believers response of all that they are: mind, emotions, will, body, to what God is and says and does.”
Every area of our lives should be lived as a testimony of worship before Almighty God.
How you treat your spouse, how you handle conflict at work, how you raise your kids, how you respond when things don’t go your way - all serve as acts of worship.
We are representatives of Jesus and that is what Paul means by “in the name of the Lord Jesus”
When the word of Christ fills and forms us, it doesn’t stay in the church - it follows us.
Every conversation, every decision, every interaction is an opportunity to reflect the One who fills us.
We will worship in private - in those quiet moments alone with God in His word and in prayer, or in moments of great joy and in moments of deep sorrow - I love jumping on the lawn mower, cranking up the praise and worship music and just enjoying a time of personal worship.
We will worship corporately - this is when the body gathers and together we respond to all that God is- this is powerful.
We will worship in public - Corporate worship is when the body gathers together. Public worship is when the body scatters and takes worship into the world becoming a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As we are filled with the word we are formed into His image and it follows us into every aspect of our lives - what flows out… gratitude.
Our response is not duty, or obligation but gratitude because we have been given what we could never earn. We worship because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
