Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

“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!!

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

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.

“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.”