What do you think of when you hear…God created us for relationship.
God created us to be in relationship with Him and with one another.
Tragically, we broke that relationship
but we haven’t lost our genetic makeup which needs...
...must have that relationship with the Almighty.
The story of the Bible is the story of God
and humankind trying to rebuild our broken relationship.
We see this story played out from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
We see this story played out in all of human history.
We see this story played out in our daily lives.
It’s the story of a lost people and a loving God.
It’s the story of a very weak people,
and a very strong God.
(Pause)
It’s a story of a God who seeks us out, and a people
who, often, don’t want to be found
or don’t know that we have been found.
But, oh, when we realize we have been found...
and that God is the One Who sought us...
...and sought us with such love, in fact,
that He was willing to come and die in order to have relationship with us...
...oh, how wonderful it can be!!!
There is a story in the Gospel of Luke chapter 18:9-14 where
Jesus tells a parable about two men who go up to the temple to pray.
One of the men is very confident in his own righteousness,
and looks down on everyone else.
He is one of the religious leader’s of Jesus’ day—a Pharisee.
(Pause)
The other man is a hated tax collector.
The Pharisee probably thinks he is doing God
a great big favor by going to the temple at all.
And he prays to God about himself...
about how good he is...
... “God I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even this tax collector,” the Pharisee prays.
It’s a sad prayer is it not?
(Pause)
The man does not understand that he is not in relationship with God.
God is missing from his life, and he is not even aware of it!
Jesus would have said he was blind!
And this is what he was...
blind to his need for God...
...blind to his own sinfulness...
...blind to the love and grace of God.
But the other man who went up to pray,
the tax collector, he saw very well.
If the Pharisee was blind, the tax collector had 20-20 vision!!!
(Pause)
We are told that he was so aware of his need for God,
so aware of his sinfulness,
so aware of his lost state that he “stood at a distance.
He would not even look up to heaven,
but beat his breast and said,
‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’”
Jesus goes on to tell us that the second man,
the tax collector rather than the self-righteous
Pharisee went home saved or in right relationship with God that day!
(Pause)
Do we hear this in the lyrics of one of...
if not the most beloved Christian hymn contain the words:
“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see”?
Do you know the hymn?
How many folks have passionately worshipped God through the hymn “Amazing Grace”?
How many others, think of it as
one of their favorite songs,
but have no ability to relate to its meaning?
The tax collector worshipped God.
The Pharisee worshipped himself.
Who do we worship?
(Pause)
God uses worship to transform lives,
heal wounded souls, renew hope,
shape decisions, provoke change, inspire compassion and bind people to one another!
God through Jesus Christ actively seeks relationship with us through worship.
Just think what we are missing when we decide not to come and worship God!!!
From the earliest accounts of faith,
people gathered to pray, sing,
listen for God’s Word, and share in the common meal.
(Pause)
The word Synagogue means “to bring together,”
and the Greek word for church, ekklesia,
means “called out of the world.”
Worship was the reason given repeatedly for why
God liberated the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.
“Let my people go, so that they may worship me,” God declares in Exodus Chapter 8.
Worship is what defines us as God’s people.
It is only when we are born again or born of God through faith
in the saving work of Christ that we are able to truly worship God!!!
(Pause)
When we worship, we practice the highest command Jesus has taught us:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength,
and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Worship bends our hearts toward God
as it stretches our hands outward toward others.
(Pause)
From our reading of Psalm 84 for this morning,
the writer describes an eagerness for relationship with God in worship:
“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
We live in a world filled with people
whose hearts and even flesh are crying out for the living God.
(Pause Give some simple examples)
These people live next door to us.
They are our neighbors, our co-workers, our class-mates!
They may not even be conscious of their need for relationship with God.
Who is going to invite them to experience
what it means to have God “dwell” in their lives?
Where are they going to learn that people are most blessed
when people are “ever praising” God?
The psalmist writes to God: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you.”
Where do you find your strength?
“Blessed are those...who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.”
Christianity is a journey...not a destination.
We begin the journey when we make a commitment to Christ...
...the pilgrimage continues through our lives as we continually come together
and find strength upon strength through worshipping God in community!!!
Are our hearts on a pilgrimage with God?
Is our worship passionate, alive, authentic, fresh and engaging?
Are we honest before God and one another?
Do we come to worship God with an openness
to God’s presence, truth and will for our lives?
Many times we might unconsciously enter worship in the evaluative posture
of someone preparing to write a movie critique.
We rate the sermon, the prayers, and the music according to some internal scale.
But worship is a about a community of faith gat
to interact one with another and with God...
we aren’t to be like a bunch of strangers at a movie!
We are all a part of the worship experience!!!
(Pause)
I want to ask you some questions now to think about?
When you sang this morning did you make a joyful noise unto the Lord or did you lip-synch?
When it was time to pray, did you really, really pray or did you just drift off...
When the Scripture was being read, did you listen carefully or read along?
Our experience of worship begins with the attitude, the spiritual eagerness,
and passion we bring with us.
What kind of attitude and eagerness do we bring with us to worship?
(Pause)
The responsibility for the quality of spiritual life in our congregation
does not reside only with the pastor.
What each one of us bring to worship shapes the experience for everyone.
Passionate Worship begins with each one of us!!!
One way to deepen the experience of worship is for each one of us
to actively prepare our hearts and minds and souls
before walking through these doors.
Nothing reinforces corporate worship more than a relationship with God through Christ
which is lived out each and every day!!!
And nothing keeps that relationship fresh and exciting more than
a vibrant personal devotional life.
Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.”
(Pause)
Worship keeps us connected to our source of life and enables us to grow in Christ!
And just as in the early church,
God adds to our number day by day because
we as worshipers naturally invite those with whom
we have other things in common!
Everyone has a role in fostering Passionate Worship!!!
How am I doing in my role, how are you doing in your role?
An hour of Passionate Worship changes all the other hours of the week.
When we regularly and in community practice Passionate Worship
God gives us more and more of an interpretive lens
through which we are able to view the world with His eyes!
What better way is there to make disciples of Jesus Christ and transform the world?
The Bible is our story.
(Pause)
We, like so many who have lived before us,
are groping for relationship with God.
And there is no better place on earth to find and foster that relationship
than in the midst of God’s own people as they passionately worship Him!
God is calling everyone of us into Passionate Worship.
And in giving in to that call we will—
one day—find ourselves walking into the Promised Land!
(Pause)
For in the Bible, the Book of Revelation ends where Genesis begins...
in a garden where humankind is in perfect relationship
with our Creator and with one another.
I’m looking forward to that day, how about you?