Uncomfortable Function

Uncomfortable  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  40:32
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Worship and Witness

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Intro

Why are we here? What were you created for? Why does ABC exist and why are you a part of it?
PRAYER
God our father in heaven we praise you for allowing us to gather here today and we ask that you would clarify in our minds what is the function of our call as christians and collectively the body of believers known as the church. Help us we pray not only to have clarity but conviction culminating into action as we do that which we are called to as your church.
Amen!

Message

His worship is our joy.
Psalm 95:1–2 ESV
1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
“That is how Christianity conquered the ancient world. It was this amazing joy of these people. Even when you threw them into prison, or even to death, it did not matter, they went on rejoicing; rejoicing in tribulation.” - Martyn Lloyd Jones
Worship Defined
How do you define worship? What does worship look like to you?
nowhere in scripture is it fully defined… bending / serving / honoring… praise / read scripture / prayer / sermon
Worship is not something we GIVE to God… Worship is what we OWE Him, it is our right response to Him
Worship of God is His command to us!!
Psalm 148 ESV
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 2 Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! 3 Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! 4 Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! 5 Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created. 6 And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. 7 Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, 8 fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! 9 Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! 10 Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! 11 Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 12 Young men and maidens together, old men and children! 13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven. 14 He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the Lord!
Romans 1:21 ESV
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Worship is where the rubber meets the road in one’s willingness to endure the discomfort of local church life.
Believers are so conditioned by comfort-idolatry and personal-preference individualism that is the twenty-first-century air they breathe, worship can be a struggle. Each person has a preferred style of music, prayer, communion, liturgy, tithing, and so on, and it can be quite uncomfortable to sit through a worship service that is outside of your preferred mode.
The Struggle is Real
Culture and background… personal experience… powerful emotions

we have both narrowed what worship means in a church setting (basically singing) and also widened it to the point of meaninglessness outside of church (e.g., “I worship by doing Pilates

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV
8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
Who needs a building or a club card?
Who needs to participate when we can watch?
Why do we care more about what genre of music we have, or the quality of musicians, more than the glory of God we sing to?
The Opportunity is Ready
What would happen, what would it look like if we just sang our hearts out!?

if Christians only ever worshiped when their hearts were “in it” fully, worship would rarely happen. Sometimes “going through the motions” is precisely what we must do. The bodily motions of worship—singing, raising your hands, kneeling, closing your eyes—shape us significantly, even when we don’t feel like they are.

Where is the worship through pain, in pain?
Lament - 59 | Praise - 41 | Hymn - 17 | Royal - 10 | Wisdom - 9 | Thanksgiving - 8 | Trust - 6
Whore-ship or Worship
Israel - Whored after false gods
Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community (10 Uncomfortable Worship)
The vitality of a church’s worship depends on members of the body submitting their autonomous freedom and opinionated preferences to the larger community, and ultimately to the Lord. This doesn’t mean there is no room for discussion and disagreement and compromise when opinions on songs or eucharistic liturgy clash. But it does mean that in these conflicts we abide by Paul’s
Worship Is… Focusing on and Responding to God.
Just as an indescribable sunset or a breathtaking mountaintop vista evokes a spontaneous response, so we cannot encounter the worthiness of God without the response of worship. If you could see God at this moment, you would so utterly understand how worthy He is of worship that you would instinctively fall on your face and worship Him.
Worship Is… Done in Spirit and Truth.
To worship God in spirit is to worship from the inside out. It means to be sincere in our acts of worship. No matter how spiritual the song you are singing, no matter how poetic the prayer you are praying, if it isn’t sincere then it isn’t worship, it’s hypocrisy.
The balance to worshiping in spirit is to worship in truth. We are to worship according to the truth of Scripture. We worship God as He is revealed in the Bible, not as we might want Him to be.
Worship Is… Expected both Publicly and Privately.
The quality of your private devotional life doesn’t exempt you from worshiping with other believers. You may have the devotional life of a George Müller, but you need corporate worship as much as he and the Hebrews did. There’s an element of worship and Christianity that cannot be experienced in private worship or by watching worship.
On the other hand, no matter how fulfilling or sufficient our regular public worship celebration seems, there are experiences with God that He gives only in our private worship. Jesus participated faithfully in the public worship of God at the synagogue each Sabbath and at the stated assemblies of Israel at the Temple in Jerusalem. In addition to that, however, Luke observed that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (5:16). As the familiar Puritan commentator, Matthew Henry, put it, “Public worship will not excuse us from secret worship.”
Worship Is… a Spiritual Discipline to be Cultivated.
To worship God throughout a lifetime requires discipline. Without discipline, our worship of God will be thin and inconsistent.
Think of worship as a Discipline, a Discipline that must be cultivated just as all relationships must be to remain healthy and grow.
This kind of worship is difficult… This kind of worship is sometimes uncomfortable… BUT… His worship is our Joy!!
His witness is our goal.
Matthew 28:19–20 ESV
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
“When will the concept of unreached peoples become intolerable to the church? What will it take to wake us up to the dearth of the gospel among the peoples of the world?” - David Platt
Witness Includes Holy Living.
We are often far more excited about mission “out there” than they do about their own personal holiness
mission and morality are not two separate categories
If we do not practice what we preach why should anyone listen to what we teach
Witness Includes All of Creation.
Rom 8.19 “19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
Col 1.20 “20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

The abuse of God’s creation should grieve Christians and spur us to action, not for selfish reasons or tree-hugging reasons, but out of love for the Creator and obedience to his Genesis commands to take good care of the earth, his property.

concern for the protection of nature is “incompatible” with the justification of abortion or indifference about human trafficking,4 and he suggests that a healthy respect for the created world includes a respect for the complementarity of male-female gender that is part of that creation. A robust Christian ethic of creation care is not just about combating climate change or reducing carbon footprints; it is also about defending the preciousness of life, marriage, and family as good gifts of God’s created order.

This is not just a “liberal” issue !! … it is a Genesis, delegated authority mandate of stewardship issue
Romans 1:25 “25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
Witness Requires Service as well as Speech.
our gospel witness involves both word and deed, proclamation and demonstration
Social Justice | Sinners Justification
Social gospel is no gospel… but the gospel without acts of love is a distortion of Christ
2 Thessalonians 3:10–12 “10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.”
James 2:14–17 “14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. . . . If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward . . . how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? - Penn Jillette
our faith is worth sharing in the first place. It is not just good news; it’s the best news!
1 Cor 2.3-5 “3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Charles Spurgeon “If Jesus is precious to you, you will not be able to keep your good news to yourself. . . . It cannot be that there is a high appreciation of Jesus and a totally silent tongue about him.”
Witness is Costly.

One of the most uncomfortable aspects and yet crucial signs of healthy mission is the presence of hard goodbyes. God is a sending God. He sent Jesus to earth. Jesus sent out his disciples. Disciples send out other disciples. Churches are always sending, multiplying, and planting. This keeps the gospel moving and expanding, but it comes with a cost.

Family
Finance
Fun…
Future…
Witness is Mundane.
Why is it easier for us to go to the other side of the world than it is to go across the street to talk to our neighbors about Jesus?
If we don’t approach our day-to-day lives, neighborhoods, workplaces, and relationships through the lens of mission, we’re doing it wrong. Mission isn’t just something made possible by a passport or a seminary degree. It’s a paradigm that should inform everything we do.
Sometimes the most effective missionary is the sixty-seven-year-old retired mechanic who served his congregation in rural North Dakota for forty years, behind the scenes without ever having started a blog, writing a book, or speaking at a conference; the thirty-nine-year-old insurance salesman who only has sixty-two Twitter followers but has led three children and two coworkers to the Lord; the stay-at-home mom who volunteers at a battered women’s shelter three days a week and organizes meals for the needy families in the congregation; the fourteen-year-old girl who resists the cattiness of junior high cliques by seeking out and getting to know the unpopular kids.

Kevin DeYoung says,

In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. . . . Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s not that we should lower our expectations or squelch the ambitious visionaries in our midst. It’s just that sometimes the most effective mission is the patient, quiet, unheralded.
This kind of witness is often uncomfortable… BUT… His witness is our Joy!!

Close

This is who the church is and therefore what the church does.
Revelation 19:7 ESV
7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready;
“The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.” - Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“How rare is it to meet with a man that smarts or bleeds with the Church’s wounds, or sensibly takes them to heart as his own.” - Richard Baxter
Have We Become Board?
Going through the motions of relationship / church
have we forgotten why we fell in love with christ in the first place?
do we take off our ring in public?
We are the beloved of Christ!!… Covenant Relationship with Him!!
embarrassed of our spiritual spouse?
Seeker Friendly or Seeker Finding
Comfortable christianity is not what Christ calls us to and it will not change your life
Comfortable Church is not making dents in the world
Uncomfortable church is the one that challenges you to grow
​

Christians should embrace rather than be embarrassed by their abnormal status and strange practices; not for the sake of being weird, but for the sake of the world.

Countercultural Comfort of the Uncomfortable Christianity
Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-11) … Jesus outlines the countercultural “comfort” that characterizes his kingdom:
In a “God Within” world where self-sufficiency reigns and depravity is downplayed, Jesus says
Matt 5.3 “3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
we must recognize our spiritual neediness in order to enter the kingdom
In a world that avoids any type of unpleasantness and prefers celebrating human potential, Jesus says
Matt 5.4 “4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
True comfort comes by mourning sin
In a survival-of-the-fittest world that promises mansions to the ambitious winners who look out for themselves and push their way to the top, Jesus says
Matt 5.5 “5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Jesus promises a greater inheritance to those who put off self
In a consumerist world that promises satisfaction on the other side of desire, Jesus says
Matt 5.6 “6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Satisfaction is for those who desire obedience to God’s will
In a bitter world where we are constantly offended, judged, and wronged both by our friends and our enemies, Jesus says
Matt 5.7 “7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
We are free to forgive because we have already been forgiven by him
In a world that says you can only see your true self by breaking free of the restrictive, patriarchal apparatus of a religious regime, Jesus says
Matt 5.8 “8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
You will see God by being purified by his blood and seeking him with an undivided heart
In a dog-eat-dog world of war and terrorism and scandal and grievance, where ideologies and identities are constantly doing battle, Jesus says
Matt 5.9 “9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
those who enter the fray for the sake of cultivating peace will be in his family
And in a world that privileges self-preservation and autonomy above transcendent truth and costly obedience, Jesus says
Matt 5.10 “10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
the kingdom belongs to those who suffer for their godly living and Christlike convictions
The Church is a Kingdom with an Uncomfortable Function
Salt & Light
loss of taste = worthless
light is contrast to darkness

But if the church is to thrive in the twenty-first century, she must recover the jarring and profound paradoxes of what Christ calls her to embody: a kingdom where last is first, giving is receiving, dying is living, losing is finding, least is greatest, poor is rich, weakness is strength, serving is ruling.

~ Brett McCracken
This is how we worship… His Worship is our Joy… This is how we witness…His Witness is our Goal… This is who His church is and therefore what it does! … This is the uncomfortable function of the church!!
PRAYER
God our father in heaven, we are so thankful that you have called us to be your beloved. The deepest desire of our hearts is to worship you well, to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We desire that though your Spirit in us we would be a witness for you that all may know what is the surpassing worth of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ!
Amen
​

Group Questions

Describe what it means to “worship God in vain.” (See Matthew 15:8–9.)
What does John 4:23–24 reveal about how God desires His people to worship?
What do the following passages reveal about worship: John 20:28; Revelation 4:8, 5:12–13?
What is the difference between worshiping God as He is revealed in the Bible and worshiping Him as you might want Him to be?
When you don’t have the “feelings of worship,” does that mean you should stop engaging in forms of worship? Why, or why not?
Can you identify with the quote: “He worships his work, works at his play, and plays at his worship”? If so, which part(s) do you identify with? Be honest. How might your view of worship be improved?
What steps can you take this week to improve your private worship? Your public worship?
What images do the words evangelism and witness bring to mind?
What do the following verses reveal about evangelism and us being His witnesses? Lk 24.27; Jhn 20.21.
According to Jhn 9 what is striking to you about his words ot the pharisees?
According to Jhn 9 when should we witness?
Researcher George Barna says that most Christians who witness to others come away feeling like failures. So, since they don’t like to fail, they redirect their efforts into spiritual activities in which they are more likely to be satisfied and successful. Have you found this to be true? Why, or why not?
Have you ever been afraid to share Christ? If so, when? Why were you afraid?
With which evangelistic approach(es) are you most comfortable? Which ones intimidate you? Be honest.
Write down the names of two people with whom you want to share Christ soon, perhaps even this week. What loving, sensitive steps are you willing to take in order to seek ways of intentionally sharing Christ with them? A lunch meeting? A home meeting? Other?
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