Good
morning! It is such a pleasure to greet you this morning in the name of our
Lord, Jesus Christ. I am Tim Roberts, the pastor here at Sunrise Church. I pray
that you feel right at home and will receive a special blessing from God for
being with us. Please pray with me.
[Prayer]
I
would like to thank Jayne Koeslin for filling in for me last Sunday as I was
coming back from vacation. I know that her sermon was one that was heart-felt
and blended perfectly with the series in which we have been focusing over the
last many weeks. This morning, we are continuing with this series, Our Heart
and Soul, in which we are looking in finer detail at out Mission, Vision,
and Value Statement that we prayerfully constructed during our "God Into
Focus" session last Fall. As we have for several weeks, we are looking in
depth at our Values, which we consider as those non-negotiable principles of
which without, Sunrise would not be who we are or the church that God longs for
us to be.
The
value that we are taking to heart this morning is: Spirit-filled worship. Please read it
with me:
We participate in Spirit-filled
worship - worship is active and never passive.
Now, I would like to
take just a moment to do what I seem to have become accustomed to doing with
you and that is to define our terms. The reason I like to do this is simply to
make sure that we are all working with the same understanding of the various
expressions that we sometimes use.
So, with that in mind,
allow me to ask, what exactly is "worship"? Of course, many of us may
look around and say, "Well, it's this - what we are doing here." You
are right, but here is an understanding from which I would like for us to work:
The reverent love and devotion
accorded for God, through the ceremonies, prayers, and other religious forms by
which this love is expressed.
So
worship is, in essence, our love and devotion lived out in a visible way.
But
our Value is not just that we appreciate worship, but that we highly cherish,
"Spirit-Filled Worship." That means we long for a form of worship
that connects our soul, our innermost being, with that of God's.
To
be honest though, some people may be a bit wary of that qualifier, "Spirit-filled."
Many of us know people who are charismatic worshippers, who engage in speaking
in tongues, and are highly emotional. Some may also say that spirit-filled
worship should be spontaneous. These are elements that can be a part of Spirit-filled
worship, but I do not believe they should be used as a litmus test to determine
if worship really happened though. I believe there are a myriad of avenues of
how God's spirit meets with ours so that Spirit-filled worship may be highly
expressive and highly energetic, but it can also be quite, peaceful and
reserved.
So, by now, you may
be asking yourself, "How will we know if our worship is spirit-filled?"
Over the course of my seventeen years of ministry, I have come to discern it
this way: Is worship:
Active or Passive?
Active Worship is
marked or involves direct participation or energetic activity, while Passive
Worship is receiving or
subjected to an action without responding or initiating an action in return.
It has become my
belief that God desires a "dialogue of emotions" or an interchange of
hearts. Thus, for worship to be spirit-filled, we, the worshippers, actively
seek to warm God's heart and the Spirit warms ours. So worship is active, never
passive. Sadly, that is not always the case in many churches or with the understanding
of many worshippers.
Several years ago, I
was told a story that as
a young preacher was leaving his church one day, he noticed a shiny, new motor
home parked along the curb of the road.
Having dreamt about owning such a vehicle for some while, he began
walking around it admiring the sheer beauty of it and dreaming where such a thing
could take him and his family. Suddenly
his daydreaming was interrupted when the owner approached him. The preacher told the gent that he was just
admiring such a fabulous vehicle and the asked him, “How many does it sleep?” The owner proudly announced that it would
comfortably sleep eight.” After a few
more exchanges about the motor home, the owner turned his gaze over at the
church and made some remarks about the beauty of the small church. He asked the preacher, “Well, tell me, how
many can your church hold?” The preacher just sheepishly replied, “Oh, it sleeps
a hundred.”
We are blessed that
Sunrise is not known to put any of its worshippers to sleep, at least not on a
regular basis anyway. I also believe we are blessed with Spirit-filled worship
to help spread it out to our sister churches throughout the region as our part
of a new Great Awakening.
Some time ago, a
reporter asked the great evangelist, Billy Graham, if he thought that
Christianity was dying or did he have hope for a new revival. Rev. Graham
replied that God is not giving up on our country nor on our generation. He
believed that a new spiritual awakening is at hand. Then he issued a remarkable
prediction, a challenge for us, as he said, "...and I believe it will
begin with United Methodists." I wish I knew the basis for his assertion,
yet deep within my soul, I know that he could be right. The revival of our
nation and world to the love and mercy of Jesus Christ can begin, even right
here at Sunrise United Methodist Church.
Now some may be questioning, "What's all this talk about revival? I believe in Jesus, isn't that enough?"
Back thirty year or
so ago, I thought I had some of the best friends a guy could ever have, my high
school buddies. But one day, I graduated...and I began to lose touch with them.
Several years later, I was stationed with a few people whom became like my
second family. I trusted my life with them and they trusted theirs with me. We
were so close. But one day, I was transferred to a different station...and I would
only see them occasionally. Over the years, I have managed to reconnect with
many of them and we talk from time-to-time...over Facebook.
Brothers and sisters,
the same can happen with our relationship with God. We are always just one move
away from severing our deep intimacy with the One who knows us best and loves
us the most. Do you believe that what our spirits want?
That's why
Spirit-filled worship is a non-negotiable principle for this church and must be
for each of us, individually. But for this to happen, we may need to alter our
understanding of the design of worship too.
A popular view of
worship looks something like this:
Band or Choir are
seen as The Performers
The Pastor and
Worship Leader are The Conductors
and the Congregation
is The Audience.
With this model, the
Band, Choir, Pastor, and Worship Leaders are engaging in some act for the
enjoyment and benefit of the Congregation, who are the direct recipients of the
performance and no involvement is required of them. But, you know,
theologically, there is something seriously wrong with this concept.
Who is being left out
of the picture?
[Allow response]
Right! God.
So, now let me offer
you a shift in this paradigm, to what I call the Correct View of Worship
Here, the Pastor and
Worship Leader are still The Conductors,
but the Band and the Choir are also folded into the role, conducting the
Congregation as The Performers, and
with God as The Audience. Friends,
this is active worship! This is Spirit-Filled Worship.
This model of worship
allows that "holy and spiritual dialogue" of which I was referring earlier.
If anyone has ever had a part in a play or some type of performance, then you
can attest to the fact that when you take it serious, you pour your heart and
soul into it and the audience sense that...and are often moved to tears. That's
when you know you've made the connection.
So, what move God to
tears, that is, tears of joy? It is the honest, and heart-felt action of
worshippers. It is our recognition that worship is not about what pleases us,
but is all about what pleases God. It is about humbling ourselves and
acknowledging that we are not God. We are God's people, created to love and
praise our Creator.
A 19th century
English pastor, named Alexander MacLaren, made this statement many years ago,
"Worship begins before it begins." Now, let that rattle around in
your head for a moment, "Worship
begins before it begins."
It all beings with
our attitude - that's it's not about us, what we want, but about what God
wants, what pleases God.
Our scripture for
today comes from Paul's second letter to the Church of Corinth as he describes
what happens as a result of our spirit-filled worship of God.
2 Cor. 3.18
(CEB)
All of us are
looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a
mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory
to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
When we pour out our
heart into actively pleasing that which we worship, we become more like him, or
as this passage puts it, "...transformed into that same image from one
degree of glory to the next degree of glory."
That's why, my dear
friends at Sunrise, we hold as a Value, Spirit-filled worship, active worship,
and never passive.
Amen.
