Why: Worship
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
There is a period not a question mark
It became easier for me to just show up
It became easier to say “no I don’t have time for that”
I think I need reminded of purpose reminded of what the thesis statement of the church is
reminded of not only what we do but a reminder and a call back to why we do that
I am the newest pastor at this church, and I remember the first conversation I had with the other pastors. And at the meeting Pastor Mike shared with me a story that many might be rolling their eyes at as I tell it. But, I know that it is important to remind myself and ourselves of our why.
He said we think that everyone wants to have a life of meaning and purpose. And we think through our experience and through the church tradition that a meaningful and purposeful life can be found only in following Jesus. So we have this gap between us and a meaningful life and that is the villain of the story the river of more. more stuff, more things, more time, more toys, more relationships, more healing. But we have found three distinct stepping stones that are just under the water
We want to clearly state our why.
Our why is often something that is familiar to us
The question isn’t what the stones look like, or where are they exactly
is the worship stone in person, is the worship stone online. If I step on the contemporary worship stone or the traditional worship stone is that better.
In moments where we are getting bogged down in those logistics we back up and we remind ourselves why we are crossing the river
Last week Angie talked about the priesthood of all believers that all people were responsible for worshiping and for bringing people to Jesus. Disciple making is not a particular vocation it is a facet of all of our vocations.
Priests are people who talk to God about people and who talk to people about God
The World as It Is
The World as It Is
We are talking about Worship and worship is different for us today
Just go through the motions of what we are about as the church. To just show up, and sometimes just showing up is all of the energy we have to give.
I don’t know about you but when all of my meetings moved to Zoom and all of my conferences moved to virtual means a couple of months ago, it became easier to disconnect.
What I need, and I think what we need is not flashier zoom meetings, is not just going back to worship in person in doors, it is not just being back together.
The reason we do any of that as worship teams is just to ensure that nothing would get in the way of worship
That nothing would hinder your ability to stand in awe of God
Worship
Going back to this specific place and these specific people might not actually solve the problem. Because our why is not that we find meaning and purpose in a building, our why as a church is not that we find meaning and purpose in our meetings, our why is that we find meaning and purpose in Jesus.
Our how has changed our why. has not
Scripture
Scripture
Apocalypse
told of a prophet’s dreams that revealed God’s vision for what was happening at the present moment
Deeply Symbolic
Prophecy
Word from God spoken through a prophet
connects with the other prophets
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,
5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,
6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
7 Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation
Meaning revealed
off in the future
This is a vision of Jesus entering and ruling over the world in victory
The End of the Story has been revealed to us
The End of the Story has been revealed to us
When you see a movie for the second or third time those plot points seem less jarring
When we see the end of the story we realize which plot were actually crucial and which ones were not really all that relevant
The end of our story is that God will come again
that God is the ruler of all things right now
There will come a day that God’s power and God’s majesty will be fully on display
When that moment happens our failures and our successes become Dimmer
“And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace” - Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place
Worship gives us perspective of who God is and who we are
It reframes that the things that I spend a lot of time caring about maybe don’t matter as much as I thought they would.
In the end all people will recognize who God is
There will be a time when Christ will come and rule over everything
And I mean everything
That God in God’s own self will be fully seen by all
and there will be nothing in which Jesus is not Lord of
We get perspective not just in the future but right now
Transitioning
When Christ comes again there is this vision of a God who is coming on the clouds that all people would be able to see God
We know the end of the story is that Christ comes to rule over all
To Lord over all
There is nothing that will not be in God’s dominion
He is coming on the clouds
The clouds are something that most people can see
That all spaces everywhere that the clouds are is an appropriate place to worship God
Christ comes to even “unholy” places
Christ comes to even “unholy” places
Every couple of weeks we have been sending out surveys that you all have filled out. And one of the things that we seem to miss most in being in the physical worship spaces of the church. After all for many of us these places are deeply meaningful.
A desire to be in a place that we think is holy
A desire to be with the people that were there with us when we perhaps first came to an understanding of who God is
A dream that one day all will worship God
And if all worship God than all places would be places of worship
If worship becomes for us a way of being a deep recognition of God in our midst then...
Worship is too big to fit on Sunday’s or Saturdays
Worship is too big to fit in three church buildings
“The Church has finally left the building”
As one commentator puts it We come to holy places to realize that all places are holy
Because what makes worship worship is not us it is who we are worshiping
Our why is all contingent on the very nature of God
This is our why: God deserves the glory
This is our why: God deserves the glory
Most of the words in our scripture today are just descriptions of God. Let me tell you about this God
Father
From him who was, who is, and who is to come
that is a call back to one of the titles of God “I am” tell them that “I am” has sent you
It is a God that was before not just our time but all time, a God that will live and reign not just after our life has passed but after all life has passed
the God who is and who was and who is to come
Later about this that God is the Alpha and the Omega
first and last letters of the greek alphabet in other
God is the almighty
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Son
Faithful Witness - Someone who accurately depict the person they are witnessing about
First born of the dead - we don’t fret about death
Is the ruler of the kings of the earth
We are freed from our sins from both our own personal sins, but also the systemic sin that happens out in the world
God has forgiven us as individuals, and God has free us as a society from the sins that we keep on my committing time and again
5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,
6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit goes out throughout the 7 churches. It is possible the seven churches in Revelation could have been meant to represent the whole church universal.
What we do know is that the Holy Spirit’s place is working within the church
Or in other words no church is complete without the Holy Spirit
No ministry is complete without the Holy Spirit
God is a part of everything we do as a church
Last week we talked about how
What we should do about that
What we should do about that
1 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
We hope that this would act as a reminder for you that when look up and see the clouds that you would know that the ultimate ending of all of our joys of all of our suffering is that God reigns. Is that God deserves our praise.
You would be reminded of the God who will one day come on the clouds
The God who freed us from our sin
The God who Holy Spirit lives and breathes through
And a God who is yet to come
