Having Trouble Worshiping? (pt. 1/3)

We come to church on Sunday morning or Wednesday night or whenever expecting to worship God.  We get up that morning, rush around to get ready, get our family together and hurry to the church.  We walk into the church greeting our friends, talking about our week, etc…  After all this, someone may read a verse or pray, but most likely just say welcome and then we are supposed to be ready to sing to the God of the universe.  For some, like me, this may be a tough transition to make.  I tend to lack focus when this happens.  This is not entirely the fault of the church or me.  However, the situation can be made better.  We all desire to be better focused worshipers.

There are many pieces of wisdom the Bible offers us to help this situation be improved.  I am going to look at three.  These three texts can help a person prepare their heart for worship and come ready to see Jesus and worship Him in a powerful way.

[1] Colossians 3:16-17 – ” 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.“

The First piece of wisdom from the Bible is the Word of God must be dwelling in you richly, abundantly and overflowing.

The “richly” here means overflowing and abundantly.  If the Word is overflowing in your heart, then worship will overflow from your heart easier.  So this means before you come to worship, you should be full of the Word of God.  This builds expectancy in your heart to worship and give glory to Christ.  So read a lot of the Word the night before and in the morning before worship.  God uses this and causes your heart to explode in worship to Him.

This is not just the case for corporate worship, but for everyday life.  This is shown in the second part of verse 16 where it states that we will be “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  The “teaching and admonishing” goes beyond corporate worship to your lifestyle.  The next verse (verse 17) states exactly this when it exhorts us to do everything we do for the name of Jesus.

Reading the Word

Some amazing things, that I’ve known for quite some time, have landed on me in a fresh way recently about the Bible.  The crux of the point is asking yourself this simple question,
“How do you read the Bible?”
OR
“What do you see the Bible as?”

A rule book?
A guide book?
A roadmap for life?

If so, then you will read it that way.  You will look for rules to follow, advice to consider, principles to live by, roads to turn and take … and that’s it.

But, is this how we are to read the Bible?  Is this what we are to look for when we read?  (rules and roads?)

OR, perhaps there is another way to read it … something else or (someone else) we are to look for.

I think this is a helpful question:
Do you read the Bible as the only way to most clearly see Christ and His glory?

Why would that matter?

If we look for Him instead of rules, guides, and advice, then HE is Who we see.  We should strive to see Christ on every page.  If we look for Him on every page, He will make Himself lovely to us.  When we see Christ’s beauty on every page, we treasure Him on every page.  Our heart will grow toward Him, our affections are stirred for Him (not rules guidelines or principles).  There are far too many people who don’t understand this.  They are religious, they love rules, they look moral, they do good things and they don’t love Jesus.  Matthew 23 should scare them.  The worst thing here, is many do not realize it.  Again, ask yourself, these two questions,
“How do you read the Bible?”
OR
“What do you see the Bible as?”

We must read the Bible, (every page, even the OT) to see Christ as the hero of the entire meta-narrative.

THE BEST thing about this is this:
When we read the Word to see Jesus, we will naturally keep His principles, rules, etc… No one needs to tell you how to act towards someone that you really love, you intuitively know this.

This is so important.  People usually try to do the reverse.  Meaning, they try to follow the rules, then they try to love Jesus.  BUT, being a Christian means, to love Jesus, which causes you to naturally obey Him.

Knowing how to obey becomes written on your heart.
No one had to tell me when I got married that I wasn’t supposed to commit adultery on my wife.  I knew this intuitively and DID NOT WANT TO, because I love her.
The same is true with Jesus; if you truly love Him, no one should tell you how to be faithful to Him, you want to be faithful to Him because you love Him.

So don’t read the Bible as a big application book, but read it as a way to see Jesus, fall in love with Jesus, treasure Jesus, prize Jesus, and cherish Jesus.  Read the pages to keep seeing more things about Jesus that will inflame your heart to fall in love with Him more.  Read the Bible to keep seeing Him as the hero of the entire book on every page.  Read the Word to see His glory.  When you truly SEE glory, no one needs to tell you how to apply that to your life.

Sufficiency Redefined

Congregations in church have become enormous.  Some churches have had to go to multiple services to accommodate all the people that come.  The church I pastor  has one service on Sunday morning.  When I see churches growing, I get excited and get nervous at the same time.  The excitement I feel is because of the possibility that people are coming to Christ and growing in their faith.
However, I get nervous too.  I think about the verse in Matthew 7:14 that says, “the way is hard that leads to life, and those that find it are few.”  And so I ask this question to myself,

“If Matthew 7:14 is true, then why and how are so many churches growing?”

If it is because the lost are coming to an authentic relationship with Christ, then PRAISE GOD!  But, if it is because the message is being altered in some way, then, are those attending these growing churches truly regenerate?  The answer is clearly “yes” some are regenerate and “no” some are not regenerate.  But, what can we do?

This troubles me, because I don’t ever want to be responsible for false conversions.  I understand that we have to leave the results to God and be faithful.  But I do not believe this erases and excuses the responsibility to not get the message right.

We do not need to preach about things that are self-help exclusively.  (meaning topical sermons).  The White Horse Inn made a statement one time that I find extremely helpful.  They said that a question you should ask yourself when you are listening to sermons is,

“Did Jesus have to die for that to be true?”

Meaning, if the content of the sermon is just leadership principles (or any other topic), but Jesus didn’t have to die for them to be true, then the sermon wasn’t about Jesus, and the pastor missed the point.  Or, if the content of the sermon is about husbands or wives, but the pastor never mentioned Jesus, then the sermon, (while I’m sure it can be helpful around the house) is insufficient.

The issue at stake here is sufficiency.  Meaning the Bible is sufficient, within itself, to save sinners and teach us how to live for Jesus.  Most conservative pastors will affirm inerrancy, infallibility and even sufficiency; however, pragmatically, when it comes to ministry, many do not actually practice the sufficiency of Scripture.  The bulk of their sermons throughout the year are topical.  This can be problematic.
Besides a blatant disregard of 2 Timothy 4:2 (“preach the Word”), what occurs are people who do see some level of life change (and this is the tricky part), but are either (1) not truly justified and have changed their life out of sheer will power, thus they are still going to hell, but now they just sin less or (2) justified, but not actively involved in sanctification and they remain spiritual babies.

What is the answer?
Expository Preaching.

That answer scares some pastors and some congregations.  That is because they think expository preaching equals boring.  Sometimes it does.  But sometimes topical preaching equals boring.  (I’ve heard my fair share)  PREACHERS MUST NOT BE BORING!  They must draw in the interest of their listeners.  They must never preach over their heads.  They can’t just tell stories all the time. (But tell some)  They can’t just tell jokes all the time, though humor is ok sometimes, I believe.  They can’t just be charismatic and not teach the Word either.  They should point people to Jesus, preach the Word, be interesting, exciting to listen to, and be passionate.

Now, the best possibility for high levels of REAL life-change to happen can only come most assuredly by expository preaching.  This is how God has ordained it to be.  The Word is what changes people.  The Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  (Hebrews 4:12).  The Word is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.  (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  The Bible does not say it is the pastor with the Word, (though I believe God has ordained preaching) but it is the Word that does these things.  So, pastors, preach the Word and see life change happen.  Do not preach self-help and short-cut the system.  That is the essence of sufficiency being redefined.

What is better?

A question I have been thinking about for a while is…

What is better, the state Adam was in before the fall (when he was sinless, enjoying perfect communion with God) or the state that a person will be in when they are in heaven (enjoying the same perfect communion with God) ?

What’s the difference?
Well, both have been created, one has been redeemed.  Both have been made in the image of God, one has had their body glorified into the image of Christ.

It seems God’s plan from the beginning was to redeem man, and His plans are always best.  So, it seems redeemed man is a better state than Adam’s state.

Why does this matter?
Worship.  Well, we all live in a state of sin now.  However, when someone trusts Christ, their love for Christ should increase as should their worship.  It seems being redeemed causes us to worship in a way that Adam did not know.  He had never sinned, and had not felt the weight of sin and in turn he had never been forgiven and felt the emotion of being thankfulness of no longer having sin destroying you.  This thankfulness is worship.  That is why it matters.

So, know your sin, but only in a way that does not dwell in it too long or become defeated, but in a way that feels the weight of being unforgiven, but then comprehends Christ’s forgiveness and then explodes in worship to Him for being forgiven.

What is better?…being forgiven by Christ, knowing the forgiveness of Christ, worshipping Christ who died for our sins and bore the wrath of God intended for us.