Engage Part Four: Engage in Worship

Engage Part Four: Engage in Worship 1. Worship is any expression of reverence and adoration to God. 2. True worship is expressed in how you live your life, not your church attendance. 3. The first church worshipped by a. sharing their lives with each other b. listening to the apostles teaching c. celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus in communion d. praying together 4. Singing has been a medium to express praise to God for centuries. 5. Consider how you might fully engage in worshipping God. Going Deeper: Use the following questions for personal reflection and/or to discuss with family, friends and small group. 1. What comes to mind when you hear the word, worship? 2. What does worship look like in your life? 3. How is true worship described in 1 Samuel 15:22, Matthew 5:23,24, James 1:26,27, and Isaiah 58:1-7? 4. Read Acts 2:42-47. What were some aspects of worship in the early church? Are these components in your life? 5. Read 2 Chronicles 20:1-25. What application is there for you from this story? 6. How might you further engage in worship in a Sunday service? 7. How can you further engage in worship in the decisions you make every day? Message This is the last in a series of four messages in this Engage series. If you are new to Cedarbrook today, I ve used these past three weeks to introduce some of our values to newcomers to Cedarbrook and re-introduce our long time members to who we are. We ve looked at three things so far. I ve talked about the value of being engaged in a church community beyond Sunday, the value of being engaged in reading the Bible, (btw, next week we start the new series on the book of James), and the value of being engaged in serving others. Today I want to look at the value of engaging in worship through corporate worship. To start, I need to define the term, worship. The word, worship means a lot of different things to different people. For many people, worship means going to church on Sunday. For others, worship is when we sing in church. The dictionary says that worship is any expression of reverence and adoration to God. 22

That s a very broad definition, but I like that because everyone expresses their worship to God in different ways. If we narrow worship to just church on Sunday or singing, and you don t happen to attend a Sunday meeting, or you don t to like to sing, does that mean that you aren t a worshipper? Of course not. And the opposite is also true. Just because you are in church every Sunday and love to sing, that doesn t mean you are necessarily worshipping God. In fact, human beings do an excellent job of acting spiritual even when their hearts are far from God. We see this in the Bible all the time. In the Old Testament God spoke through the prophet Samuel confronting people about their abundance of sacrifices but lack of obedience: Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22 In the New Testament, Jesus said something similar:...if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23,24 James said: Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:26,27 So, just to be clear, true worship is expressed in how you live your life, not by your church attendance, or by how much you like to sing. Worship is expressed with every decision you make, every word you speak. That might include singing and a Sunday service, but not necessarily. But, having said that, I do want to talk about the value of gathering together on Sunday for corporate worship. Many of you have gone to a Sunday service all your life and you may never think about why you do it. It s just the right thing to do! But a lot of people grow up today never attending a church service. The idea of leaving their home on a day off to gather with strangers, to sing unfamiliar songs, and listen to someone talk about the Bible seems totally foreign. I mean, if I want to know about God, I ll just google it. Right? I don t need a group of strangers to broker God for me. At least, that s how some people might think. So in order to help us better understand the value of gathering on Sunday, let me circle back to a story about the first century church that I used three weeks ago. 23

There is a book in the New Testament that tells the story of the early church. After Jesus left the earth, it tells us that Jesus sent his Spirit to live inside of his followers and that changed everything. The book described the life of that first church: They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-27 Now, this isn t a prescription for all churches. That means we don t have to do everything they did. But...it s helpful to see what the Spirit of God prompted them to do because God s Spirit probably wants to do something similar in us. So let s see what we can learn. The first thing I notice is that the followers of Jesus worshipped God by simply engaging with one another. It mentions a lot of things here, but the overarching observation I have is that the followers of Jesus weren't doing life on their own. Notice the word together is used three times in the text. It was a shared life. That s actually what the word fellowship means. To share your life. They sacrificed to help each other. Some people like to say that they don t need to join others on Sunday because their church is walking in the woods or fishing on a lake. That can definitely be one aspect of worship...being quiet before God and enjoying his creation. But we are God s family and he wants us to come together. We worship God whenever we choose to engage in family gatherings. For example, if one of my kids chose to ignore our annual reunion, they d still be my child, but it would hurt because there is a special joy in all of us being together. I think God feels the same way. I believe he enjoys seeing us come together and gives us a special blessing when we do. The next thing I see here is that people worshipped God by listening to the apostles teaching. I can t tell you how important this is for a life of worship. So many people have told me how helpful the teachings have been here. Last week someone wrote me and said they hadn t been in church for months, But they finally returned, and the message directly answered a big question they had for their life. They were so thankful. They felt like God spoke to them directly from the message. And then just today, someone gave me a rock that I handed out on Good Friday. The rock represented anger and unforgiveness. I told people to either offer the rock up to God as a sign of forgiving someone, or hold onto until they could forgive. Someone just gave me the 24

rock from six months ago. They were able to forgive someone who deeply hurt them. But that process got started in a sermon. And that s true in my own life too, there are countless times that a sermon has totally redirected my path and helped me to understand God better. Devoting yourself to biblical teaching is an act of worship because you show God that you want to learn who he is and how you can honor him with your life. The only way to get that knowledge is from the Bible. You might say, well, okay, I agree that I need to be taught, but why can t I just stream a sermon online? You can, and that s better than nothing, but there s value in hearing a teaching with others so you can talk about it. It s a shared experience, and as a community, we can continue the discussion throughout the week. We learn together. I have a few tips to help make the teaching more meaningful each week: 1. You might want to read the outline in advance just to prepare your heart. We post the outline every Thursday at http://www.cedarbrookchurch.net/notes. 2. Ask God to speak to you through the message and speak to others. 3. Take notes. There s lots of research showing that notes will increase your retention. 4. Take time to review the notes and the questions, and discuss with others. 5. Look for ways to put into practice what you learned. So, the second way we worship corporately is by coming together to receive teaching. A third way we worship together is to break bread together. This is in reference to communion. Jesus only gave us two rituals to perform. Baptism and communion. They both remind us of Jesus death and resurrection. We celebrate communion here on the first Sunday of the month, so, next week. The ritual of communion is meant to be a community experience. The death and resurrection of Jesus reconciled us to God but it also reconciled us to each other. Communion reminds us that we are all one in Christ. We are all broken people in need of God s forgiveness. The final way the early church worshipped together was in prayer. Probably the best place for us to pray together is in our circles. So I hope all of you meeting in some kind of small group are praying together. But we pray together on Sundays as well. There s a great example of the church praying together in the book of Acts: Now, Lord,...enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Acts 4:29-31 Imagine if we had the whole church praying this prayer for a month! 25

FYI, there is a small group that meets specifically to pray for the ministry of Cedarbrook for an hour on the second Saturday of the month at 9:00 am. If you are interested in that I d love to have you join us. Now interestingly, in all of the description in Acts 2, it never once mentions music or singing. Isn t that interesting? It mentions that they were praising God but it doesn t sound like that was a formality. It was just something that happened as they met with each other. So, for those of you here who aren t crazy about singing or our music, that s okay. There s no shame. So why do we commit so much time to singing? Well, even though singing wasn t mentioned here in Acts, the Old Testament is filled with references to music and singing being a part of worship. Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song...come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; Psalm 95:1,2,6 In the book of Psalms it mentions singing praises to God 23 times. And Psalm 150 mentions how we praise God with instruments: Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. Psalm 150:3-6 And even though singing and music wasn t mentioned in the book of Acts, I think it wasn t mentioned because it was assumed. I think that singing was such a natural practice that Luke didn t think to mention it. Paul said this in his letter to an early church group:...be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 3:19,20 The most impressive story in the Bible, that convinces me of the value of public singing, is found in the Old Testament. It was about the year 850 B.C. when Jehosophat was the King of Judah, and Judah came under attack. They were surrounded by a huge army. God spoke through a prophet saying: Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God s.... You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you. 1 Chronicles 17:16,17 26

That s pretty cool. God said, you don t have to fight this battle. Take your position, but don t lift a finger to defend yourself. Just watch what happens. Now, look what Jehosophat did: Jehoshaphat stood and said, Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful. After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever. As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. 1 Chronicles 17:20-22 Can you imagine going into battle with nothing but a choir leading? That wouldn t breed a lot of confidence. God wanted them to realize that HE was their shield. HE was their strength. If they focused on praising God and putting Him first in their lives, God would fight their battles for them. That s true today too. When we gather to sing and praise God for who he is, he is fighting our battles for us. He is doing things for us that we could never accomplish on our own. If you stay home on Sunday morning because you have too many problems to deal with, you are missing a powerful time of God working in your life. God wants to fight your battles for you while you focus on praising his name. I ve got some tips here for us about singing: First of all, if you are a believer and a part of this community, engage in singing. Don t be a spectator. Let me backup. If you aren t a believer and/or you are only visiting here, then don t feel any pressure to engage. If you don t believe in God, it doesn t make sense. And if you are just visiting, you might not feel comfortable. That s all fine. But if you are a believer and Cedarbrook is your church, you will get more out of it, and so will others, if you participate. There s something powerful about listening to a room full of people singing with passion. And the opposite is true too: there is something defeating listening to a room full of people that choose to not engage. Parents, I want to encourage you to set a good example for you kids by engaging. Second, feel free to sit or stand. I know that standing can be very uncomfortable for some of you. Do what s least distracting and will enable you to focus on God the most. I often sit because my back hurts or, in the winter, I suffer from fatigue. Third, read the words and think about their meaning for your life. 27

And fourth, engage your hands, if you can. It s easy to put them in your pockets. Or fold them across your chest. I catch myself doing that all the time. But that s not a posture of engagement. It s reserved. You can do a few things with your hands. You can clap. I m a clapper and that s often what I m doing. You can raise your hands in the air. I know that might sound CRAZY...maybe it makes you feel uncomfortable to even see others do it. But it s just a way to focus on God. In the Old Testament it tells us to bless the Lord. The word for bless means to throw. So the Jews would raise their hands to throw their praises to God. That s where the practice of raising one's hands first came from. If that s a little too wild for you, you can simply hold your hands out and open (waist high). That way no one will even see you doing it but it is better than hands in the pocket. It s a way of visually showing God that you are open and want him to fill your life with whatever we are singing about. If you just don't know what to do with your hands, simply keep them at your side or hold the seat in front of you. But do your best to keep them out of your pockets or your arms crossed. Now, each week I ve been reading some feedback I ve gotten from people who have engaged here at Cedarbrook. I want to close out today, and close out this series, by reading a few more. Beginning our week at Cedarbrook sets my focus for the week. The worship helps me to let go of the past week, and turn my mind and heart towards God. The message challenges me, opens my mind and heart, and pushes me to keep weaving Christ into EVERY aspect of my life. Sunday worship, the greatest way to start the new week! Honestly, the only day of the week, in our household, that nobody complains about having to get up and get ready. I ve been coming to Cedarbrook for about 6 months and this is the first time in my 38 years of life that I ve found a church I look forward to going to and feel like it s helping me to become a better person so thank you for that! My whole family enjoys Cedarbrook more than one knows and we WANT to attend church now. We WANT to connect, grow, and serve. We WANT to attend every Sunday worship, and when we cannot, the sermon is watched online. I serve one Sunday a month as a greeter with my daughter. It is great to...expose my daughter to God, the church, and helping others by serving. I hope to instill in my daughter the good qualities of helping others and serving along with learning about God and Jesus. If it was up to 28

her she would serve every Sunday as a greeter. :o) I am not sure who is more disappointed when we are unable to attend church, our daughter, my husband, or me. Since attending Cedarbrook we have grown as a family with trying to be more consistent by praying before meals and knowing God s ways and will. God is more on our mind and we have and are coming to know God more. Our daughter loves the children s ministry and staff....cedarbrook has been a great fit for our family. We have all grown spiritually. In the short time my husband and I have attended Cedarbrook we have learned more in that time than our years in CCD or Sunday school....i am sorry we did not find this sooner. My final word is to simply encourage you to engage in this church community. If not this one, find one where you can engage. I don t expect Cedarbrook to be the best church for everyone. My goal isn t to get everyone to attend here. My goal is to see every believer fully engaged SOMEwhere, for their sake, and the sake of the church. 29