The Purpose of Worship

Lots has been written about worship and the purpose of it.  Our understanding of the purpose of worship has a tremendous impact on what we include in our services and what we do.  I certainly don’t mean to suggest that I know better than anyone else, but let me throw this out there:

The purpose of worship is to know God.

I was reading Psalm 100 today which says this:

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

² Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

³Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

I realized that there’s an interesting parallel between Ps 100 and 1 Kings 18:39:

³⁹When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate^e and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Psalm 100 has always been associated with worship, but little more than a call to worship.  What is often over looked is that Ps 100 not issues a call to worship but also presents us with the purpose of our worship: to know God.  Logically, the worship service should be designed and structured so that people come to know God through the service.  1 Kings 18 backs that idea up by giving us a picture of “the people” proclaiming “The Lord – he is God!  The Lord – he is God!”

This is encouraging for church planters who strive to make their worship both educational and evangelistic, and possibly corrective for many other congregations.  We talk so often about the worship services being a time to “proclaim worth” to God when we should be simply proclaiming God as king.  We have the ability to make a decision every Sunday as to whether or not we’re going to attend church; when we do so, we are choosing an “alternative lifestyle” of living according to God’s decrees, not to remind God how awesome he is.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Planting, Worship

The Practice of Prayer (Luke 11:1-13)

This morning we’re moving into the part of our series on discipleship in which we begin talking about discipleship practices.  For the past three weeks, we’ve been taking an overview of what this spiritual journey we’re on looks like.  And depending on where you are on that journey, things will look slightly different.  Perhaps you’re still wrestling with who exactly Jesus is.  Or maybe you’re still trying to wrap your head around this religion known as Christianity.  Maybe you recently made a decision to follow Jesus, making him your Lord and savior.  Or maybe you’re an “old pro,” with 20, 30, or more years of church under your belt.  Where ever you may be, there’s always room to grow.

And I hope that you’ve had the opportunity over the past three weeks to start to narrow down where you land on that journey.

The next part of this series is going to focus on several practices – or habits or rhythms – that help us progress along this journey.  To be a disciple means more than just going to church once a week and calling yourself a Christian.  A few weeks back I defined disciple as a student, one who is learning a certain way of life.  And so there’s a sense that, no matter how long we’ve been doing something, discipleship never ends.

If growing and progressing along this spiritual path is something you’re interested in doing, then these next few weeks will make you salivate.  But I warn you, growth won’t happen if all you do is show up every week and listen to a compelling sermon from Pastor Henry or Amy and a mediocre sermon from me; you have to be willing to be challenged and shaped, to take some initiative on your own outside of church…

Lucky for us the first practice we’re looking at, our topic for today, is prayer.

Let’s start by reading our text…

READ 11:1-13

I think it’s safe to say that prayer is something that virtually everyone in America – perhaps even the world – is familiar with.  Granted, not everyone has the same understanding of prayer, but we’re all familiar with the concept.

Speaking for myself, I have a tendency to think of prayer as a bit like wishful thinking.  That’s not Biblical, but that’s how I often treat it.  I’m praying that I pass my finals next week, or that Mishaela will relent and allow us to go out for lunch after church today.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Faith, Ministry, Preaching, Sermon, Theology, Worship , Prayer

Wealth = Blessing

Well, okay…maybe not quite.  But this is something I learned this week while writing my most recent sermon (which has not been posted because I’m really not happy with the way the manuscrit turned out – but the sermon itself went well).

The sermon was on Matthew 6:19-21 and centered around the theme of focusing our hearts on “treasures in heaven.”  As part of my broader contextual study of the passage, I spent a bit of time looking at the Sermon on the Mount as a whole.  One of the things I came across is that in this sermon, Jesus is repeatedly “attacking” Jewish thought of the day.  One of the major beliefs taught by rabbinic Judaism of the first century is was that material wealth represented God’s blessing.  In other words the more wealth a person possessed, the more it was assumed that God was blessing that person (and by extension, the more “spiritual” that person was).  Negatively stated, the poorer you were (or the harder life was for you), the assumption was that God was cursing you.

With that in mind, all of a sudden, a whole slew of other Bible stories and passages came to mind that that little tidbit of information helps to shed light on.  Here are some examples:

Any OT passage that makes a point of mentioning a person’s wealth.  I’ve always wondered why the number of donkeys, camels, servants, and wives was so important.  Especially when you’re reading about someone like Solomon for example, whose “goodness” can be easily proven by the things he did.  It was all in an effort to show the reader (or hearer of the original oral tradition) just how blessed and favored that person was by God.  I suspect there’s a tie-in here to the the Jewish belief that good things happen to good people, while bad things happen to bad people.

The story of Job.  It’s clear at the beginning that Job’s wealth is connected to his being blessed.  And at the end of the story, the author again proves Job favor with God by listing off his many possessions.  Likewise, Job’s friends and wife all urge him to curse God because of the “obvious” wrong God is doing to Job.  They reason that Job must have sinned (although the text asures us he hasn’t) otherwise God would not be afflicting him in the manner that he is.  This thinking is rebuked, and yet the Jews still continued to link wealth and blessing.

The widow who gives only a single coin.  To those who witnessed the deed, there was no doubt in their mind that this woman was cursed.  Otherwise she would have been rich.  Because she was cursed, the offering she gave was questionable.  But Jesus applauds her humilty and generosity over those who are wealthy and give only a few coins.

The story of the rich young man.  First off, it’s ironic that he would have come to ask Jesus about gaining eternal life in the first place.  Afterall, he was already rich – therefore blessed by God – and really didn’t have anything to worry about.  But when Jesus tells him to sell everything he owns and follow him, the young man goes away discouraged.  We typically think that he went away because he loved his money too much.  Is it possible that he was discouraged because he thought Jesus was telling him that he had no hope/chance of getting saved?

The man born blind.  When Jesus and his disciples come across a man born blind, the disciples immediately ask Jesus who had sinned.  The assumption is that the man was blind because of God’s cursing/wrath.  But Jesus answers by saying that no one sinned – there is no curse.  Rather, the man was born blind so that God’s grace, mercy, and glory would be revealed to the people around.  Again, wealth/health assumed to be a sign of God’s blessing.

The Sermon on the Mount.  According to Matthew, Jesus began the Sermon with the beatitudes.  The people who Jesus pronouned blessed are the very people who Jews assumed to be cursed.  And then look at the final verses of the Sermon: the people were amazed at the authority with which Jesus taught.  I would suggest that the authority is that Jesus was bold enough to stand in a public area and over and over again criticized long-standing Jewish convictions (you can bet, the rabbis and priests didn’t like a word he said – Jesus was teaching “heresy”).  Verses 6:19-21 are just one example of the “authority” with which he spoke.

The thing is, we still do the same thing today.  We tend to look at the people in our churches and think that God is blessing them more than us because they have more stuff.  And not blessing the poor because they have less.  Jesus is trying to change that way of thinking; God didn’t care about how much stuff you could acquire, he cares about your heart – about your worship.  He may bless certain people with greater wealth, but that doesn’t mean that he cares more for them than anyone else.  The lesson here is in verse 21: “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.“

Filed under: Bible Study, Theology, Worship

Summer Reading

Here’s my summer reading list so far.  Click on an image to be directed to the website for the book and see a description…

Filed under: Apologetics, Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Planting, Culture, Evangelism, Humor, Leadership, Ministry, Philosophy, Theology, Worship

Learning to be Flexible

As a future church leader, I’ve been a bit paranoid about my ability to make adjustments on the fly.  Leadership has not been a strong point of mine; actually, historically, I’ve just downright sucked as a leader in times of crisis.  But today I had a break through.  Today I learned how to be flexible in a church service…

I was filling the pulpit today since our interim/intern pastor was in Ontario, Canada for his sister’s wedding.  This is the third time I’ve preached at our church, but I’ve yet to preach under normal circumstances (service number was nearly canceled because of a snow storm; service #2 was filling in with 24-hours notice because our pastor suddenly got the flu).  When I arrived at church I was handed a new microphone.  We had been using a relatively standard lapel mic (one that clips to your shirt/tie/lapel).  But today the church started using one of them “fancy” mics that hang from you ear and sits closer to your mouth (I prefer that style anyways).

Shortly after getting “wired,” a church member come to me worried about a stranger who’s been sitting in his car in the parking lot for the last hour.  Really, this was no big deal – but when you attend an all-white, middle-class church that is on the verge of closing its doors and a lower-class, African-American man wearing tattered pants and a t-shirt shows, people start to panic – especially when he’s been sitting in his car in the parking lot for the last hour.  In other words, this church member who pointed the visitor out to wasn’t just worried, he was on the verge of a panic attack trying to get me to do something drastic to ensure the church didn’t burn down or we’d all be left behind following a certainly fast-approaching rapture (by the way, we’re Reformed and the rapture doesn’t fit into our theology very well – making the above statement a joke). 

Filed under: Christian Living, Church, Leadership, Ministry, Preaching, Sermon, Worship