Spiritual Disciplines-Worship & Disciple-Making (Habits - Week 4)
Habits • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNotes
Transcript
leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
The New International Version. (2011). (Jn 4:28–30). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.WORSHIP
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
Whatever Happened to Worship?: A Call to True Worship Chapter 1: Worship in the Christian Church
Jean-Paul Sartre describes his turning to philosophy and hopelessness as a turning away from a secularistic church? He says, “I did not recognize in the fashionable God who was taught me, Him who was waiting for my soul. I needed a Creator; I was given a big businessman!”
I believe that we are not created and called into a relationship with God to behave in better ways.
I believe that we are simply, and yet profoundly, created to worship.
Worship is about singing but it is much more than that.
Worship Definition
Worship is an encounter with the living and holy God
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Worship is reserved for God alone
Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
In worship, we ascribe to the Lord the glory due him
Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
We can worship because of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.’ ” First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
We should worship with reverence for God
Since we are receiving our rights to an unshakeable kingdom we should be extremely thankful and offer God the purest worship that delights his heart as we lay down our lives in absolute surrender, filled with awe.
When we draw near to God, he draws near to us
Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.
Whatever Happened to Worship?: A Call to True Worship Chapter 1: Worship in the Christian Church
I wish that we might get back to worship again. Then when people come into the church they will instantly sense that they have come among holy people, God’s people. They can testify, “Of a truth God is in this place.”
Whatever Happened to Worship?: A Call to True Worship Chapter 1: Worship in the Christian Church
I wish that we might get back to worship again. Then when people come into the church they will instantly sense that they have come among holy people, God’s people. They can testify, “Of a truth God is in this place.
Which leads us to the final Spiritual Discipline we are considering...
EVANGELISM/DISCIPLE-MAKING
EVANGELISM/DISCIPLE-MAKING
I believe that the most powerful mission followers of Jesus engage in happens when we worship in spirit and in truth .
When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman He led here through a journey that was basically about who “owned” her heart.
There was much discuission about the where and the why of belief and expression, but ultimately the woman’s desperate need was summed up in these words:
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
As the woman realises who she is speaking with - the promised Messiah - her life is radically and eternally changed and she becomes an “evangelsit” as...
Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
