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Refocus Church

Series 2

10. Churches grow stronger through WORSHIP
   

Underlying Theme:    How these things contribute to church growth

   

Focal Idea No.3:   Worship is an expression of our love for God. When we worship (genuinely) we become freshly aware of God's presence and open to His leading, which results in us being stronger in our minds (clear in commitment), and in our spirit (freshly empowered by His Spirit), and in our direction (led). When this happens, outsiders are convicted of His reality.

 

 

A. What is Worship

 

1. The Fact of Worship

 

Mt 4:8-10 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

•  Jesus reminded Satan that God alone is to be worshipped

 

Exo 34:5,8 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him …. 8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped

•  worship was a natural response of Moses to encountering the Lord
•  worship involved him bowing before God

 

2 Chron 20:18 Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem fell down in worship before the LORD.

•  The king and his people expressed worship by bowing before God.

 

2 Chron 29:28 The whole assembly bowed in worship , while the singers sang and the trumpeters played . All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed.

•  their worship was accompanied by music and sacrifice

 

Rom 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 .

•  Paul suggested that worship should involve everything about me

 

Psa 34:3 Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

•  this simple exhortation encapsulates worship: to glorify God and to exalt Him

 

Heb 12:28 since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.

• here are other aspects of worship – reverence and awe – in recognition of God's wonder

 

2. Worship Inferred

 

From these verses we can infer the following about worship:

•  it involves acknowledging the Lord's greatness
•  it can be expressed physically, often by bowing down
•  it can be helped by music
•  at its best it is a complete giving of ourselves to God
•  it glorifies and exalts God, expressing reverence and awe.

3. Catch the Context

•  The Great Commandment: To love God with all of our being and then to direct our love to those around us.
•  Worship is the expression of our love to God; a unique form of giving towards a Being who, although we can't see Him, we recognise to be the One and Only God.

4. Why bowing in worship?

•  It is an action that recognises we are in the Presence of the Almighty God – an act of humility and submission and in that submission there is an offering of ourselves to God.
•  It says that we recognise that we have done nothing to make us worthy to come into His Presence.
•  More than all this, it recognises Who God is – His great power, the fact that He knows everything there is to know about us and His incredible love for us.

 

 

B. What happens to us when we Worship

 

When we bow before the Lord, we find He moves and speaks back and this has a number of effects in us:

•  We encounter the Lord, we touch reality and are strengthened in spiritual awareness,
•  We receive His life and strength (remember No.2 of Series 1 – “Life”),
•  We receive words of affirmation and encouragement and are strengthened in who we are,
•  We receive words of guidance and direction and are strengthened in resolve,
•  We find He speaks to not-yet-believers who are convicted,
•  We find His presence has impact on not-yet-believers.

 

Perhaps the act and experience of worship has not been captured so clearly as in Kenneth Grahame's ‘ The Wind in the Willows'. Yes, it is in respect of animals, but catch something of the awe and ‘otherness' of the encounter:

 

"This is the place of my song-dream, the place music played to me," whispered the Rat, as if trance. "Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere surely we shall find Him!"

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror — indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy — but it was an awe that smote and held him-- and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend, and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest; the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.

"Rat!" he found breath to whisper, shaking. "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. "Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet – and yet – O, Mole, I am afraid!"

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.”

 

•  What happens when we worship and experience Him? We are never the same again!

 

C. The Outcomes of Worship

 

i) Us as individuals

•  Worship becomes an opportunity for me to encounter God in a unique way.
•  In that way I will express my love to Him and He may reach out and touch me and speak to me.
•  I am thus blessed through this encounter.

 

ii) The rest of the church

•  We collectively will realise a sense of unity and purpose
•  We will act as a body, each contributing something to the experience.
•  We will be blessed, encouraged and strengthened as the Holy Spirit moves among us in this corporate experience.

 

iii) Outsiders

•  When outsiders encounter the presence of God in worship they will be impacted, and convicted and touched.
•  Such worship will reveal the reality of God's presence together with a realisation of His love as perhaps never experienced anywhere else.

A Final Comment  

Real worship is a two-way interactive thing. It involves us coming before the One who is so unbelievably greater than we are, bowing our hearts (at least) before Him, and acknowledging in word or song or prayer or whatever other expression we are free enough to bring, His shear greatness and wonder. It also gives Him opportunity to express Himself among His people collectively that is not seen so clearly in any other 'church activity'.

For us as a church we tend to feel we have had a 'good morning' when there has been singing, preaching/teaching, corporate prayer, prophecy (guidance from heaven), personal prayer ministry during the worship (to allow the Lord opportunity to minister to individuals), and fellowship (before and after the main meeting). Within this we seek to bring ourselves before Him in reliance on Him, to bring that acknowledgement of His greatness, and to allow ourselves to be open to Him to allow Him to speak or move as He wishes. These are things we would now put under this umbrella we call 'worship'.