Made To Worship

We're going through a small group study on purpose.   Trying to answer that age old question, "what is our purpose"?  "Why are we here"?

To that end, we're going through Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life and looking at it in the micro, trying to find out God's unique design for each of our lives.  This depends on so many factors, like our individual bent in life.  Our passions, our experiences, our circumstances.

But I love the approach the book gives to the macro.  

Why do we as a human species exist?  Why were we creating as just one other group of animals on this planet?  What do we offer that others cannot?  In those terms, our purpose becomes much clearer in the micro.

We as human beings are made for one primary purpose - to worship God.

"The Lord is pleased only with those who worship him and trust his love."

Psalm 147:11

I think we inherently understand this as believers.  We have that hard wired desire to worship something.  We will devote all our attention and effort to something.  That something might be ourselves and our pleasure.  It might be our family.  Our parents and pleasing them.  Our spouse and living for them.  Our children and providing everything for them.  It might be our jobs and our success.  It might be a prized possession, making an idol of our car, our home, our boat.  

Yes, we all worship something.  

When it comes to understanding the worship of God, we may have to adjust our definition of what worship is and what it isn't.  Cause we don't think of it in these terms of devotion.  We think of what we know and experience.

Worship isn't music.  It isn't a particular style of music or a particular period of music.  You don't worship first and then have preaching.  Worship, in fact predates music, as Adam worshipped God and music isn't mention until a couple of chapters later with Jubal in Genesis 4.  

Worship has nothing to do with a particular location.  It has nothing to do with being in the building on Sunday morning. It does not need a pastor. It does not need a worship leader/music minister/song leader/whatever you want to call them. It does not need other people around you.

Worship isn't even about us.  It's not about what we feel or what we get out of it.  It's not about what we learn or what we take away.  It's not about how we feel.

True worship is radically different.

Worship is whatever is pleasing to God.

Worship can include music, but it also includes all parts of a religious service.  It's prayer, it's preaching, it's teaching.  It's serving others.

Worship is everywhere.  It's where two or more are gathered.  It's being struck by the beauty of God's creation.  It's singing along to your favorite song of praise in the car.  It's showing mercy to others at your work.

Worship is for and about God.  It's lifting high and glorifying his name.

In short, worship is a way of life.  It's something you should be doing every day.  Every hour, every second.  It's doing whatever we do as if for the Lord.

It's why Stonepoint always ended with "Have a Great Week of Worship."  It was a recognition that what happened on Sunday morning was only a brief blip in the worship of a believer.

Our danger lies in half-hearted worship.  In going through the motions.  While it is true, we sometimes must rest on ritual and wait for our feelings, our spirit to catch up, we must be careful not to repeatedly offer stale prayers that we don't expect to be answered, empty words, man-made ritual without even thinking of the meaning.  God does not care for any of this.  "I've come for mercy, not sacrifice."  Jesus explicitly said to the most "religious" of his day, the high "worshipers" that he did not care for their sacrifices if their hearts didn't match.

This is also exactly what God complains of in Isaiah 29.  His heart is not touched by the Israelites tradition in worship, but is looking for their passion and commitment.  "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."  Oh, that this not apply to the American church today.  I fear it does far too often.  Think of how much chatter there is when the order of worship is changed.

The challenge, then, is to be fully committed to worship.  For our every activity to be done for the praise, glory, and pleasure of God.  To be transformed into our act of worship.  That way, it is so ingrained in our lives that we can't help but worship.  

We know that is what the rest of creation does.  What it was made for.  So, it's our turn to join in that chorus and shout at the top of our voice:

So will I

"All we are
And all we have
Is all a gift from God that we receive
Brought to life
We open up our eyes
To see the majesty and glory of the King

He has filled our hearts with wonder
So that we always remember

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free
When you and I embrace surrender
When you and I choose to believe
Then you and I will see who we were meant to be"

Made to Worship, Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Stephan Sharp, 2006

It's Not About Me

With yesterday's post getting so much attention, I thought it appropriate to discuss why understanding worship, why viewing it in the appropriate context is so appropriate. 

Why we have to move past thinking of it as something we go to.  Move past viewing it an hour or so long appointment on Sunday mornings (and maybe Sunday and Wednesday evenings).

That comes from remembering who worship is for.

Remembering that it's not really about us.

Worship is not about that feeling I get from singing songs in a group setting.

It's not about that feeling of conviction or exhortation we get from a message.

It's not about that joy of communal fellowship.

It's not about something labeled a "worship service."

It's not about the leadership of the church.

It's not about the other members of the church.

It's not about us.

It's not about me.

Worship exists for one purpose - to glorify God.

Worship is about God above, and God alone.

Sure, worship can encompass all the things above.  It can involve singing, it can involve the preaching of the word.  It can involve hearing a message.  It can involve fellowship.  It can be in a building, it can be in a formal structure, it can be just how you have experienced it.

But that's not all that it is.  That barely scratches the surface of worship.

Worship can be being moved by God's creation.  Worship can be an act of simple gratitude.  An act of kindness.  An act of mercy.  Worship can be loud and noisy.  It can also be still and quiet.  It can be out among the multitudes, as in the largest evangelism crusades that Billy Graham ever had.  It can happen all alone, in a quiet corner, of a quiet room.  It can happen on the battlefield.  It can happen at work.  Yes, it can even still happen in our schools today.

It can happen physically and it can be sent out and shared virtually.

It is, quite literally, what we were made for.

You and I are created to worship.  If we do not do it, the very rocks will cry out.  Further, I guarantee that you are worshipping something, even if you would claim no belief.  Everyone worships something.  Money, status, self, their spouse, their kids, leisure.  Something.

While we have a responsibility in the process in Christian worship, while we are involved, it's not about us.  The focus should never be on us.

To misunderstand this can bring us closer to worshipping the wrong things.  Closer to idolatry than we would like to imagine.  It can make us enforcers of form over substance.  Bring us close to worshipping our style of worship, the building we attend, our ministers performing the service over the one true God who has called us to worship.

This was the problem of the Pharisees.  According to Jewish tradition, they were the best worshippers.  They followed every religious custom.  They prayed the right prayers, worshipped the right way, they met the requirements that we would identify as worship.  They went to the temple, they gathered like they were supposed to do, attended all the right meetings, and to the Jewish people of the day, they appeared the most pious.

But Jesus had to remind them that their focus on form over substance, on their focus on tradition instead of actual worship, was worthless.

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works that they do.  For they preach, but they do not practice.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their little finger.  They do all their deeds to be seen by others.  For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.  By you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.  The greatest among you shall be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.  For you neither neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves...'"

Matthew 23:1-15

Jesus continues on through all of his seven woes, but I think the point is made.  The Pharisees were so focused on their ways of worship, the way that the conceived of worship, that they missed the opportunity to worship the Messiah when He was right there before them.  He was calling them out of their familiar, to experience true worship, and they completely missed it.

A great example of this can also be found in the story of the woman at the well.  After all the initial questions are dispensed with.  After Jesus has revealed just how well He knows her, the question turns to where to worship.

"The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.'  

Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.'"

John 4:19-24

The Samaritans and the Jews had always disagreed about how to worship.  About where worship was to occur.  And here in this conversation with a Samaritan, Jesus reveals that they have both been missing the point.  Worship is not about a location.  It's about a spirit.  Worship is about glorifying God and we must do that in spirit and in truth.  Those are the requirements.  

That's why being out of our buildings should not phase the church.  It's why the church can't be re-opened, because the Church was never closed.  We who make up the Body of Christ, the great universal Church, have been open and active in this time.

There was an opportunity in this time for our worship to have increased.  I have seen it happen and I pray it has happened for you.  That is what we should take away from this.  What we should carry with us long beyond this crisis is over.  To move our worship beyond a building, beyond our previous ideas of what worship entails into spirit and truth.

Let's focus on that and not a temporary interruption of our meeting together.

Our Family Mission Statement

For the past couple of months, we've started having a "regular" family meeting.  I say "regular" because the time and place have moved around a bit, veering from our plan of a scheduled, repeating event, but one thing we are definitely learning in this season is flexibility.  For a lot of our meetings, we've been having them on the road.  It's been a good place to have the entire family together, and provides a lot of good time to talk.

We've assigned everyone roles and have just been looking to have regular check-ins with everyone.  A lot like you would have in a business.  But a lot more chaotic (or maybe not) with a two year old and a five year old.  We're still learning the ropes and we know they will level off as the kids get older, but there has been many good things that have come from them.

One of the first things we tackled is a family mission statement.  Again, a lot like you would develop for any other organization, but a question that is not often contemplated in the family setting.  I think we even do better in this area as individuals than we do as families.  Truly sitting down to figure out the purpose of our individual family.  What was our family put together to accomplish?  What is the good that only we can do in the world?

It's a bit harder than you think.  It's easy to come up with the answers that apply generally to the family, the purpose for family.  But to drill down to your specific family and give it reason, give it purpose is challenging.

I think we've come up with a good one for us.  The goal will be to get this on a plaque to hang close to the door, so all that enter our home know what we strive for.

"To all who come to this happy home, welcome.  It is our hope that while you are in this house, you are one of us.  And in this house, we are lifelong disciples of Christ. We seek adventure, not tourism.  We build bigger tables, not higher fences.  We love our neighbors.  We build up, not tear down; we are creators, not consumers.  Here, education is a journey, not a destination, and time is not a guaranteed allotment.  We spend it wisely, knowing the best way to spend it is together." 

The verbiage is still being worked on, but the sentiment, the values are all there.

It's what we hope and strive for.  It's what we'll fight for.  And hopefully, what we'll be known for.

If I was to ask you a similar question, what is your family's purpose?  Your mission statement?

God, You're So Good

God, You're so good,

God, You're so good,

God, You're so good,

You're so good to me

If you've been in church as long as I have, you probably recognize this tune. You might even be humming it to yourself as you read.  It's a little variation on the typical words "God is so good", but still very recognizable.

The tune is traditionally an African hymn, translated by Paul Makai and then translated again by Marilyn Foulkes again into English.  The simple tune carries throughout the song, with many variations on the lyrics.  He answers prayer, I love Him so, I praise His name, etc.  And often, there may even be church specific variations.  It makes a great introductory song for children because of the repetitive words and simple melody.  I know Avalyn has picked it up quickly and sings along now as well*.

We've added the Passion version of this song to worship at Stonepoint, and have sang it the past two Sundays.  This version adds new verses and a bridge to this simple chorus.  The bridge is endlessly singable, and powerful in lyrics.  It reminds us of the blessings we have as children of God.

I am blessed, I am called,

I am healed, I am whole,

I am saved in Jesus' name.

Highly favored, anointed

Filled with Your power

For the Glory of Jesus' name.

Those first lines, while very empowering, can become a little to close to a "prosperity gospel" if they are the sole focus.  They can center us in what God does for us - the slot machine prayer style god.  A trap in which we can easily fall into.  The last line is what solidifies the whole bridge.  It is the reminder of why all these things happen.  Why we are set apart - for the glory of His name alone.   

We are created to glorify God and bring the glory to His name.  Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  1 Corinthians 10:31.  We are called, healed, made whole and restored, saved, blessed, anointed, and filled with His power, so that His name may be lifted high and His purpose accomplished.  We are instruments and vessels, used by the Master.  

The last verse also serves as a great reminder that this purposes exists in the good times and the rough times in our lives.  We are to glorify His name in all times and to use whatever our circumstances to bring Him glory.  

And should this life bring suffering

Lord, I will remember

What Calvary has bought for me

Both now and forever.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  2 Corinthians 12:9  God can use the worst of our circumstances, us at our lowest, to bring glory to His name.  When we share stories of these struggles, we can encourage others, caution them, console them, empathize with them, and remind each other that we exist in this shared space together.  When we reveal our weakness, we show His strength.  And we can truly claim, God, You're so good, You're so good to me.

*My favorite story from Sundy - In our second service, Jamie was working with the 3-4 year olds and observed Avalyn .  When Avalyn heard this song start, she said "It's God You're So Good" and started singing along.  Another little girl in the class tried to talk to her in this time, and she said "Shhh, listen" and kept singing. We'll have another little singer in the family.

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Words and music by Brett Younker/Kristian Stanfil/Brooke Ligertwood/Scott Ligertwood