WORSHIP WAYS
10 April 2005

I. Introduction
-- if you have your Bibles with you, please turn over to Hebrews 12
28. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,
29. for our "God is a consuming fire."
-- a little boy attended church with his father one Sunday morning -- that night, as he kneeled by his bed to say his prayers, he prayed to God, "Dear God, we had a good time at church today, but I wish you had been there"
-- have you ever come to a worship service and left feeling just like this little boy? -- I think a lot of the time in our churches today -- even in this church -- we end up exchanging true worship with a man-made program that sometimes leaves us longing for a touch from God
-- we sometimes start to understand what God meant in Isaiah 29:13 when He said, "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."
-- as Rick Warren pointed out in the Purpose Driven Life, worship is one of the primary purposes for which God made us -- He made us to be in a relationship with Him and to worship Him and to bring Him pleasure -- but a lot of times the way we worship is more designed to please men than it is to please God
-- in the passage I opened with from Hebrews 12, the author told us that we need to worship God with reverence and awe -- to reverence God means that you lift Him up -- that you regard Him with respect -- that you find Him worthy of praise and honor
-- to show God awe means that you recognize that He is God and you are not -- that you recognize the mighty works that He has done and you know that you must approach Him with affection mingled with fear of His mighty power
-- I think we sometimes forget what it means to worship God with reverence and awe -- I remember as a child that when I entered a church, it felt like I was entering into the presence of the sacred -- there was a sense of place -- a sense of power -- a sense of mystery and sacredness -- very few people spoke in the santuary prior to the service -- and those that did speak did so with a whisper -- there was a sense of being in the presence of God, and everyone entered the sanctuary with reverence and awe
-- this morning I want to spend some time talking about what it means to worship and how worship should be conducted so that maybe we can recapture some of that reverence and awe that seems to be missing from a lot of services today

II. What is Worship?
-- so, let's start by asking the simple question, "what is worship?"
-- worship is nothing more than bringing pleasure to God -- giving glory to God -- giving praise and honor to God -- Rick Warren said that "we enjoy what God has done for us, and when we express that enjoyment to God, it not only brings Him joy, but it increases our joy"
-- anything that we do with God and for God is a means of worship and a means of strengthening our relationship with Him -- worship is more than just gathering on Sunday morning -- worship goes far beyond that
-- worship should be the daily recognition of God's presence in our lives and in all creation and the daily offering of praise and thanksgiving to God for His presence in our lives
-- worship should be a lifestyle -- where every moment of every day we bring glory to God by enjoying Him and expressing our enjoyment of Him -- by living our lives as He commanded -- and by giving Him all the honor and glory and praise for everything that goes on
-- when we get back to the heart of worship -- when we adopt a lifestyle of worship -- then we are truly starting to worship God with reverence and awe it says in Hebrews 12
-- now even though we know that worship should be a way of life for us -- I want to focus this morning on the times that we traditionally think of as worship services -- the times that we gather together corporately -- as the body of Christ -- to worship and to praise God for who He is and for what He has done in our lives
-- as we talk about our corporate worship services, we need to keep in mind that worship does not mean just singing songs of praise -- every part of a church service is an act of worship -- however, traditionally, we have experienced worship in our church services in three main ways -- through singing -- through prayer -- and through the proclamation and interpretation of scripture
-- if you would, turn over to 1 Corinthians 14 and let's see what the Apostle Paul had to say about worship
26. What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.
27. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.
28. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.
29. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.
30. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop.
31. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.
32. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.
33. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
-- in these verses you can see exactly what I just pointed out -- our early worship services had several elements or experiences of worship as Paul described here
-- I want to spend just a couple of minutes and talk about each of these briefly in regards to how we should worship

Singing -- Ephesians 5:19-20
19. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,
20. always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
-- these verses say that when we gather together for worship that we should sing and make music in our hearts to the Lord -- and that we should speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
-- last week I told you that we were at war and that our enemy would use anything to steal, kill, and destroy our hearts and our relationship with God -- well, the use of music in our churches today is one of the ways that Satan is trying to destroy and divide our churches today -- we even have a term for it -- we call it "worship wars"
-- a lot of people don't like the modern praise songs and the contemporary Christian music and feel like we should be singing only hymns in our worship services -- while a lot of our youth don't like the hymns and think we should be singing only contemporary music -- this has led to a lot of division in our churches
-- some churches have tried to fix this problem by having two worship services -- one contemporary with modern music and one traditional, with hymns -- I don't believe that this approach is biblical and I think it just perpetuates the problem of dividing the church -- if you look at what Paul wrote here, he tells us that we are to sing with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs -- in other words, there should be a place for all three types of music in our churches during the same service
-- even if you don't like the contemporary songs, you can appreciate the way they are trying to bring the focus of worship to a different level by singing directly to God instead of about God -- and even if you don't like the traditional hymns, you can appreciate the way great biblical truths and important doctrines are taught through the words of these songs
-- I feel the best biblical stance is to have a single service where both hymns and spiritual songs are sung

Prayer -- the next major way we experience worship corporately is through prayer -- through the times when we attempt to draw close to God by speaking directly to Him -- by giving Him praise and honor and thanksgiving with our words and with our heart -- and by asking for His presence in our lives and in the lives of those around us through sharing our needs and our intercessions
-- traditionally, prayer in a worship service is both corporate and private -- there should be times where we come together as one and where we listen to and actively affirm the prayers of a leader -- whether that is me as the pastor or someone else who may lead a prayer
-- but, there should also be times for private prayer as well -- some churches have a moment of silent prayer before corporate prayer -- while others, like us, allow a time for private prayer and response to the word at the end of the service

Scripture -- the final way that we traditionally experience corporate worship is through the proclamation and interpretation of Scripture -- 1 Tim 4:13 says "devote yourself to public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching"
-- all the way back to the early days of the first church, there has always been a time for the proclamation of God's word and the interpretation of God's word -- in the earliest days, the pastor was not the only person who did this -- the Bible tells us that others would stand and speak of their interpretations of Scripture or their experiences with God -- sort of like we do when we have praises or testimonies shared in the church
-- the sharing and interpretation of scripture was an important part of the worship service -- but it was only a part -- a complete worship service had to also include singing and praying

III. Hindrances to Worship
-- so, what are some of our hindrances to authentic worship -- to worshiping with reverence and awe
-- the main hindrance has to do with our focus -- we need to keep in mind Who we are gathered to worship -- are we focusing our attention on God or are we distracted?
-- this past week at Echols County revival I was sitting in the service -- I was doing the right things -- I was singing the songs -- I was listening as the preachers prayed -- I was listening as the sermons were preached -- but my mind and my heart were elsewhere -- I was distracted and I was not honoring God with my worship and praise
-- it's easy to get distracted in a service -- especially in a service with people outside your normal crowd -- we can get distracted by paying too much attention to others in the congregation -- whether that is children or the person behind us singing off-key or the person who keeps shouting "Amen" during a sermon
-- we can get distracted by worrying too much about what others are thinking -- if I raise my hand, are they going to think I'm a fanatic? -- what if I sing off-key -- what will they think? -- what if I close my eyes to focus on the song -- will they think I'm asleep?
-- we can get distracted by thinking about things outside of the worship service -- what we're going to have for lunch -- where's the race at today? -- why did she wear that dress? -- did anyone notice I got a new car? -- what am I going to do at work today?
-- all of these distractions are thrown at us by Satan because he is trying to keep us from focusing our attention on God and giving God the honor and glory that He deserves
-- what distracts us isn't nearly as important as what it distracts us from -- when we enter into worship -- we are to leave all life's distractions -- big and little -- and give Him our undivided attention
-- we are to be fully engaged -- both emotionally and intellectually -- our whole personality is to be involved in the worship experience
-- Samaritan woman at the well -- worship in spirit and truth -- worship with our heart and our mind -- focusing on Him with our whole being
-- Crawford Loritts said that worship that comes from a divided, distracted heart isn't true worship at all -- when we do that, we are worshiping with our lips but our hearts are far from Him
-- in this passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul says here that our worship services must be orderly -- not to set up rules about what we can and can't do when we worship God -- but to help prevent outside distractions -- our worship services should be orderly to help usher us into the presence of God
-- distractions in worship was a big problem in the church at Corinth
-- most of the members of the church in Corinth were Gentiles and came from a pagan background -- when they were pagans, they did not approach worship in the same way that the Christian church approached worship -- pagan worship was ecstatic -- it was emotional -- it was basically out-of-control -- a lot of the times it involved sacrifices and the ritualistic cutting of one's body and sexual orgies as the pagans would allow themselves to be filled and controlled by mind-altering drugs and evil spirits -- -- pagan worship was disorderly and distracting -- it was reckless abandon -- not worshiping with their heart and mind
-- a great example of a pagan worship experience can be found in Exodus 32 -- story of Aaron and the golden calf -- Bible says they were eating and drinking and dancing and indulging in revelry -- they were in total abandonment in front of an idol -- and God almost destroyed the nation of Israel as a result
-- but Paul is reminding them here that the worship of God was not to be like that -- it was to be orderly and not out-of-control, because God is a God of order and not disorder -- he points out here that everything that is done in a worship service should be done to help build up and strengthen the church -- in other words, our services should be orderly so we do not cause distractions or division or disunity among the members
-- the rules of orderly worship that Paul was giving us in this passage were not to tell us step by step how to worship, but to help keep us focused on worshiping God with our heart and our mind
-- Bible tells us we are to fully enter into worship -- David dancing before ark of covenant -- he fully gave himself over to worshiping God with heart and mind -- he was not distracted by what others thought about him or by outside things
-- his wife Michal complained about the worship of David -- which does bring up a good point -- we need to always consider the context of our worship services -- what is acceptable expressions of worship in one place may not be acceptable expressions in another place
-- this is one reason why we have different denominations -- worship differently -- Methodists vs. Baptists vs. Pentecostals
-- all are acceptable and pleasing expressions of worship to God, provided they are done with the right focus and the right purposes -- to worship God with reverence and awe and to worship Him with all our heart and our mind and our strength
-- however, when we are worshiping with believers outside our local body, we should be mindful of these differences in worship experiences and conform to their method of worshiping -- in other words, we should not do things that would distract from the service -- Paul says that we should be mindful of our weaker brothers and that we should not do things that would cause them to stumble
Crawford Lorritts -- worship is a privilege -- one we should take very seriously -- let's approach worship with a pure and undistracted heart
-- let's pray