Sermon Tone Analysis

All right, it is good to be back with you or our summons summer sermon series.

Say that 10 times fast this summer.

We're focusing on the Gathering of God's people and why we do what we do when we gather this is.

We put a lot of effort into making sure that we have a gathering every week, and over the last two years that effort has been and we had to be very creative.

And the question is, why is that so important last week, we talked about the fact that we gather when we end end, the reason why we gather, we talked about the normal reasons that we give, which are, you know, where edified we're encouraged, were built stop.

We receive something.

When we come to church that equips us for the rest of the week, We also talked about the other reason we give for Gathering is to worship God to take a moment, to praise him to give attention and glory to him and recognize who he is.

And both of those are good and important parts of why we love what we do when we gather.

But they don't actually explain why we gather because we don't have to gather to do them.

We can do them without Gathering.

So the question is, why do we gather?

And what we do?

What I argued last week from scripture is that we gather to do work that there are we come not just to watch order to receive, but to do something as a congregation, that changes things.

That's what we're doing now, is we're going to go through the order of service and talk about a sermon on each item and talk about what we are doing in those times, and why we do these things every week.

Now, if you caught it, you may have noticed that I was not actually planning on preaching, on the call to worship Thursday afternoon.

I had everything up online to preach about singing.

I was, I would just normally I hit my sermons, usually done Thursday, right?

But as I was putting things online is actually when I prepared for the call to wife chose the verse for the call to worship.

I realized We need to talk about worship.

Because singing and worship are not the same thing.

Singing and worship were not the same thing.

So, if we talked about singing, we're missing the conversation about worship.

So Friday, I came in and wrote a new sermon to talk about the call to worship.

So that may surprise you to hear that, there's a difference between singing and worship after all worship teams, sing worship leaders, lead the singing, when we say worship, we typically mean singing.

So let me ask you, how many times does the New Testament use the word worship to refer to singing?

0.

Not one single time, does the word Worship in the New Testament refer to people singing?

I say New Testament?

Because I did not ask, I just didn't have the time to study the Old Testament, uses the word worship, a lot more.

I would anticipate that the same is true in the Old Testament.

Because the words behind worship the words we translate is worship.

Don't mean anything like singing.

Literally the word worse than words, for worship me and bowing down to a superior.

Which is why most of the time while she's probably out most of the time.

But outside of like the songs Incinerate is when it says, and when he uses these words, it normally translates them as bow down.

So for instance, the first time that the Hebrew word for worship, the most common word is used is in a story where Abraham receive some visitors.

He doesn't know much about them.

He seems to think they're prominent, but he receives them in the dignified way.

They are supposed to receive visitors at the time.

It says Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.

When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

Bowed, low is the word that we else or translate as worship.

He worships to the ground.

It's interesting that you start to notice this, especially the Old Testament.

You will see that, the word worship is paired with words that have to do with emotions, especially downward motion.

So, in our call to worship, it said, come, let us Bow Down and Worship.

Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.

There's a distance verse 6. Verse 1 says come let us sing versus 6s.

Come let us worship mean.

You let us bow down but it's Neil.

Now, she mean like lay flat on your face?

To the word worship, it has to do with gestures that community that you used to show that someone else has your Superior.

In fact, the interesting thing is, the part of our service, that is the closest to this word.

Is the fact that you stand for the call to worship.

That physical thing that you do to show respect, you may not even know why?

Or think about why we stand for certain parts of the service, that is the closest thing to the meaning of the word worship.

That is the biblically most worshipful thing that we do.

Now, this may sound odd to us because we are in a place and time that tends to.

We have labeled most gestures as religious and and or as as empty.

And we tend to not use them in in churches, know, there are some some some church services that are full of all kinds of motions and and things like that, we tend not to use them.

But the reality is that this is an a part of who we are.

The Bible talks about these physical gestures as showing worship because human beings communicate loyalty, love and respect through meaningful symbolic actions, we always have.

And we always will how do we communicate loyalty to our country?

You stand for the pledge of allegiance, The National Anthem, the presence of a judge, you put your hand over your heart.

Those are meaningful gesture.

There's no reason why you shouldn't need to put your hand on your chest while you're listening to that song Or saying those wave.

It's a it's a gesture that communicates loyalty Allegiance right?

Biblically that is a form of worship because the Bible also use people that also worship, they would bow down to their King as their King.

The problem is, if you bow down to your king as your God, We also use gestures for showing love, right.

Whether it's particular gifts that are meaningful on particular days or whether this particular gestures that you use, we so much of the way we communicate who we love is through symbolic gestures.

Right?

And if you if you're married, you probably have your own variation of that language your own particular things that communicate love without words.

Why when you meet a person for the first time?

Do you grab their hand and move it up and down?

Now there are historical theories about why that happens and why you use one hand or the other but we do it because it is a meaningful gesture.

To communicate respect.

We are anti and some cultures will bow to do the same thing.

There's no reason why you have to do these things except that they're the language we use to communicate respect because as human beings we always have and always will communicate loyalty love and respect through meaningful symbolic actions.

so for instance, there was a time when David is a warlord, he's not King yet but he's got his own Army and one of the this guy whose near him insults him And David is hot.

David is mad.

He is coming after that guy, but this guy's wife comes to David to try and save her husband and their and they're home.

So what did she do to stop him and to get him to listen to her?

When Abigail side David, she quickly got off a donkey and bow down before David with her face to the ground in immediately very quickly communicates respect.

If the opposite of the insult and it get David to pause and listen to her.

So these are, these are things that we do to communicate, and important feelings important aspects of our relationships in scripture.

The word for bow gets translated as worship because it begins to take on a broader meaning because throughout scripture more and more as as the God gives them the law and as their relationship with God deep in that language of gestures becomes broader.

There's more things that you can do rather than just bow in there, more things that we do to show love loyalty and respect to God until in the New Testament, it's completely blown wide, open to where this word for Bowing.

It comes to mean anything that you do, because in anything you do, you can do it in a way that shows love loyalty and respect to God.

So worship the word.

The way we use it, can refer to anything.

We do the demonstrate loyalty, love and respect to God.

Singing candy, one of the ways we do that but everything ultimately everything we do in our service ought to be worshipful and everything.

We do outside of the services individuals, ought to be worshipful, it ought always to be clear that we love and respect and are loyal to God.

This is what Paul means.

When he says, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a Living Sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship.

The proper way to show the right level of loyalty.

Love and respect to God is to give him your whole body all the time.

Not as a one-time gift.

What is a constant gift of everything that you do?

Which of course is easier said than done, but that is the journey that we are all on together to be living sacrifices.

But that leads us to the next question.