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A Deeper Look at Worship

Sermon by Mr. Jeff Faux — August 17, 2008
 

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Introduction
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide watched the dramatic opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing one week ago. It was an impressive show. The world witnessed the debut of a brand new stadium, some amazing fireworks and choreography, and the stirring parade of athletes from all the nations. But the real purpose of the opening ceremony of an Olympiad is not the ceremony itself. It is intended to set the stage for all of the sporting events that follow. The opening builds a sense of expectancy and excitement. It focuses our attention on the real heroes, the Olympians.

There is something in human nature that needs to be properly prepared for an important event. And that is true for the worship of Almighty God.

The text of the scripture we are about to read together is one of the many hymns in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament which were used to prepare the people of God for the experience of worship. The crowd of worshipers would gather just outside the massive gates of the Temple in Jerusalem. They would sing together from the bottom of their lungs this Psalm, to prepare their hearts for entering into the presence of the Lord. After the Psalm was sung the massive gates would swing open and they would joyfully proceed in for worship.

Praise the LORD.
 
Praise God in His sanctuary;
      praise Him in His mighty heavens.
Praise Him for his acts of power;
      praise Him for His surpassing greatness.
Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet,
      praise Him with the harp and lyre,
Praise Him with tambourine and dancing,
      praise Him with the string and flute,
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 (NIV)

“Missing the Game”
Take a moment now to consider your personal answer to this question: When you walked in the door this morning, what did you hope would happen in worship today? Perhaps your response was something like one of these:

• I hope we get to sing a hymn I know.
• I come to church to get my batteries recharged.
• I hope I get something out of the message.
• Worship is when I feel God’s presence all around me.
• It’s not really worship unless we say the Lord’s Prayer.
• It’s hard for me to worship when the hymns are played so slowly.

There are a lot of things we hope will happen in our worship services. There’s really nothing wrong with any of the above statements. Singing one’s favorite hymn can bring more richness to the worship experience. We may leave a service feeling our batteries have been recharged, or that we have really felt the presence of God. These are all possible outcomes of worship, but none of these things really defines what worship is.

I would like to explore the possibility that we come to worship anticipating the result of worship, without really being ready or even knowing what it means to worship; that perhaps we are so focused on the byproducts of worship, we may not actually worship.

When I was reviewing this sermon idea with Pastor Doug about a month ago he related this story to me, which I think is a great illustration of what I would like us to think about today.

Doug and Jeanne were invited to attend a Pittsburgh Steelers game in one of those fancy luxury boxes. If you’ve ever seen a game from one of those boxes, you know that there are about three rows of seats at the very front of the box with a great view of the game on the field. Behind those seats is a more plush area with televisions, and food and beverages to enjoy, but that area does not give much of a view of the game. Doug commented that there were a number of people in his box who were in attendance at the game, but spent all of their time eating from the buffet and talking with friends.

It turns out there was a really good game being played on the field. Now Doug and Jeanne could go home and say they went to the Steelers game. The other people in the box could also go home and say they went to the Steelers game, but they both had very different experiences. Doug and Jeanne saw a football game and were engaged in the game itself. I’m sure they had a few snacks and beverages and had some nice conversations with some of the people around them. After all, that’s what sometimes happens at a football game.

Others in the box, however, saw very little of the game. They were there to network, to enjoy the food, and to be a part of the atmosphere, without getting involved in the game on the field. They missed the actual purpose of the game — although, for them, that may have been their purpose for attending. Fair enough … but I can tell you with certainty that the teams on the field and everyone responsible for organizing the game would feel differently.

Imagine this scenario: In the middle of the first quarter of the game, all of the snack vendors run out of corn dogs. An announcement is made over the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have run out of corn dogs. We must cancel the game. We ask that you please leave in an orderly fashion.” Of course, this would be absurd. The game is not being played so the stadium can serve corn dogs; that’s just one of the things that sometimes happens at a football game.

I fear we may approach worship this way. We want what we want from worship. If we get it, we say it was a great worship service; if we don’t, we say something was missing. All the while, we may be the ones missing worship — we’re “missing the game.”

What is Worship?
What is worship? What is it we are trying to accomplish in this hour every week? One dictionary defines worship as “expressing love for God.” Another dictionary says: “Active devotion to God, as through good works or prayer.” Worship is a verb! It is active. Even more important, worship comes from us. We may be so preoccupied with receiving something from worship that we fail to actually worship. God did not receive anything from us. Meanwhile, we were busy evaluating our worship experience by how much we received.

In Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life, he speaks a good deal about worship. He notes that when someone says they didn’t get much out of worship that day, his response is: “It wasn’t for us! It’s all about God!” Again, we can be blessed in worship. I believe we can have all the things we may need from worship, but these are the results of worship, not the goal.

P E E R
Allow me to suggest something that may be helpful in approaching worship, so that we can be focused on expressing our love for God. The word “PEER” is an acrostic I’ve created that can help us remember what we need to do to keep our worship about God and not for us.

To “peer” means to look intently. The word in and of itself is a good reminder about how to approach worship. It does not take much effort to see. Open your eyes and you see. But to peer takes careful study and effort. We are intently focused on our subject and put much more effort into our looking than we would otherwise. That idea already is a good start: to be much more intentional about worship than we are naturally inclined to be.

P = Prepare
Whenever I paint a room, it takes a great deal of time and effort to prepare the room for painting. Moving the furniture, covering the floor, and taping around the windows and molding are all important steps to take when preparing to paint a room. With that done, the actual task of painting is much easier and I do a better job when, because of my preparations, I can really focus on carefully painting.

I believe preparing for worship can reap similar benefits. It is all too easy to allow the hustle and bustle of getting ourselves ready for worship in the morning get in the way of getting our spirits ready for worship. We choose our clothes, brush our teeth and hair, and pick out matching shoes (hopefully). Some of our preparations may even begin the night before, when we make sure the clothes we want to wear are pressed and ready. Imagine taking that much time and effort to prepare our spirit for worship.

We can take some time the night before to review our week and really see how God has been with us. Take time to remind yourself of the blessings you have received this week. Be honest with God about what is weighing you down. Remember the challenges you are facing. Bringing these things to mind will make you more likely to engage in worship more deeply.

The Psalms are a great way to prepare for worship. Read any one of the psalms the night before, or when you wake up, or even when you first sit down in the sanctuary. If you are feeling under attack, try Psalm 86. If you are feeling the need to repent, read Psalm 51. If you are feeling especially blest read Psalm 111. When in doubt, read any of the psalms! They are wonderful tools for getting your mind focused on God.

Maybe your preparation for worship just needs to be a little more practical. Get up a few minutes earlier so that you’re not rushing into the sanctuary at the last minute, having rushed the entire way to get here. It can be tough enough with all of the obstacles we face getting here. The traffic, parking, finding a seat … all of these take our minds further from being ready to express our love for God.

E = Empty
Take a moment to “empty yourself” before God. In the book of Romans, Paul spends eleven chapters carefully outlining the meaning of God’s grace, and then says this: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1).

The key word here is “offer.” Give yourself over to God; surrender all the things that have welled up in your spirit and empty yourself before God. Emptying yourself means saying to God, For the trials I’ve experienced this week, for the difficulties I’ve endured, I give you thanks. I thank you for using these things to remind me to rely on you. For the joy I’ve experienced, I give you thanks, for all good things come from you. This is the opposite of self-centeredness. It is acknowledging to God and reminding oneself that our lives are not our own; we are “slaves” in Christ. It’s an important step in putting God above self, a necessary step for true worship to happen. Paul says when you do this, when you empty yourself, it is “your spiritual act of worship.”

This is not an easy thing to do. It means giving up all the insecurities, the “secrets” no one else knows about, and asking God to continue to have His way in your life. God knows all of your secrets and insecurities already, but, according to Romans 6:13, He wants you to “not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” Your whole body — all of you — can be given over to the glory of God. Even where we’ve failed and fallen short of the glory of God, those things can be used for the glory of God.

We have an excellent time each Sunday to do this. Right after our announcements there is time given to prepare our hearts for worship. This is a wonderful time to empty ourselves before God. Lay it all out there and ask him to “use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.”

I believe if we can do this, we start to get out of our own way in worship. In emptying ourselves and fully surrendering, we make room for God’s Spirit to fill us with good things. We are more able to hear God speaking to us in worship. It’s much like a lake. A stagnant lake is one that has no water flowing through it. The water is undrinkable and it chokes out the life that is in it. A lake that has a stream that feeds it and a place where water leaves it is healthy and able to sustain all kinds of life. Sometimes we can revive a stagnant lake by building a dam. We allow water to build up in the lake. At the right time we open the dam and release some of the water to lower the level in the lake.

The idea of emptying is like releasing some of that water, so there is more room for what God can pour in. I think we will experience that same refreshment of spirit if we can empty ourselves before God, and make room for His fresh Spirit.

E = Engage
Be deliberately involved in the activities of worship. Do not be a bystander; one who just watches. You must intentionally connect to what is happening to be a part of it. Don’t be one who stands on the sidelines and watches the game played; get in the game! Participate. Get your hands dirty. Pay attention! Don’t let your mind wander! Sing! All this is easier said than done, but putting effort into really engaging in the service will result in a more meaningful worship time and you will find many more opportunities to offer your praise to and love for God in the service.

A few of you, I notice, don’t sing the hymns, and that’s okay. First, I would encourage you to sing, even if it is not a strength of yours. This is a wonderful way to really engage in the service. The quality of your voice is not the point; the point is that your heart and soul are more engaged when you are participating.

But even if you choose to not sing, you can still engage by reading and reflecting on the poetry of the hymns. In fact, those of us who sing the hymns need to be reminded to reflect on the words we are singing. Our hymnbook is a rich resource of spiritual writing. There are phrases I have a hard time singing because they have so much meaning to me. For example, the last phrase of Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Robert Robinson) comes to mind:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O, take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.

Those words of commitment can go by unnoticed and our hearts remain unmoved if we just sing without understanding. First Corinthians 14:15 says, “I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.”

The responsive readings, the scripture and the message are areas where it is all too easy to stand by and watch it happen, rather than really engage your mind in what is going on. The way we have set up our churches has made this difficult to fully grasp. If someone who has never been to church before were to walk in here, they would observe all of you sitting in what would appear to them as your basic auditorium and they might, therefore, conclude that on this stage is a performance; you are the audience and God is just checking in every once in a while to see if we’re all behaving! When we sit in these “audience” seats each week, it’s no wonder we start to think that worship is for our benefit … because in the rest of our culture, that’s exactly what is intended. The performance on stage is being done for the benefit of those in the audience seats.

Let’s take this dramatic performance metaphor and look at it a little differently in the context of worship. There is an audience in this performance, and it is God. He is the one we are trying to please — the “paying customer,” if you will. The actors in this drama are all of you. God is looking to you in this drama of worship. He is not focused on the worship leaders. The worship leaders are the equivalent of prompters off-stage, directing the action and moving the worship drama forward. Our job is not to lead worship; our job is to facilitate your worship. The reality is that the lights should all be shining out onto you during worship.

Thinking of yourselves as the main player in this worship drama, and God as the audience — the One we want to please through our worship — will help to keep your mind and heart fully engaged. You cannot be on the sidelines of a game and say you played the game. You cannot be on the stage of this worship drama and not deliver your lines, or stand idly by. You cannot stand on the sidelines of worship, going through the motions, waiting to be blessed, and then say, “I worshiped God.”

R= Respond
I believe that once you have prepared yourself for worship, emptied and surrendered yourself before God, and fully engaged in the activities of worship, then you will truly sense the Spirit of God around you in worship. Some of those byproducts of worship start to become very real to us. Instead of leaning over to your spouse and commenting on the anthem or the message, talk to God first. Tell Him: God, I needed to hear that today; thank you… or, God, I, too, proclaim you as the choir just did. I add my “amen” to their voices … or, God, in this area of my life I know I need to change; I commit to working on that part of my life. Keep a constant dialogue with God throughout the worship service.

Worship is not about your response to worship; worship is your response to God. Worship is not about what you get from it, but what you bring to it. Worship is active … not a time and a place as much as it is our gift to God. All that happens in this room is not a reflection of who we are as the First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs. What we do here is a reflection of who we believe God to be and how fully we love Him. If you’ve had the chance to tell God how much you love Him today, then this was a great worship service.

Just the Beginning
Remember Romans 12:1. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship." Our response to God in this one-hour act of corporate worship is not the end of worship, but the beginning. We have the opportunity to keep on worshiping Him through the next seven days, to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” as we live for Him and serve Him and honor Him in all we say and do. If we can do this, it will come full circle. We will be even more excited and prepared to come back here again next Sunday morning and reunite as His people for another joyful hour in corporate worship, where, once again, we proclaim our love for God.