Sermon 1, Worship...

Sermon 1,
Preached August 8, 2010
FUMC Wortham

Worship
Luke 12:32-40

This week we begin a series on Worship. We will look at worship from several angles but first let us ask, What is worship?
For some it is a service we come to, for others it is a chance to gather with others and make contact (maybe a business contact or a contact with other humanity as so many of us are shut-in in our homes for one reason or another), maybe it is a time of fellowship or a time to sit and learn a moral lesson or a time to hear something to help us through a time of crisis. All these are good things but if that is all our worship is we would be better off joining a country club or fraternal organization because we can get all that in other places. Our worship has to be so much more... it should be so much more.

Today we are simply going to spend a few moments looking at another aspect of worship. Jesus didn't spend much time talking about worship, instead he would talk about our life. He would talk about finances - the second most mentioned topic in the gospels. Jesus would talk about his prayer life. He would talk about caring for the needy. And, Jesus would talk about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the most often mentioned topic in the New Testament, being mentioned 86 times in the Gospels and 984 times in the New Testament.

We have talked about the Kingdom of God before - that it is not so much about an earthly kingdom as we think of but rather a relationship. The Davidic example of kingdom was based upon the relationship.. That David was one of the people who became a king, not a part of a ruling class that inherited the kingship. That is what this Kingdom is about... relationship.

So, what does all this talk about the Kingdom of God have to do with worship? Maybe it would be helpful to hear from another theologian about the Kingdom of God and what it is. Dr. Brian McClaren is a professor, author, theologian, and pastor who has studied this concept in detail and relates it to our Post-Modern culture.


http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00248&hittail_ok=1&fyi=secure_ssl_not_required

We recite the Lord's Prayer every week, yet do we really think about, do we really want God's will to be done here on earth as it is in Heaven?
Our very life, our job in this life, is to bring God's Kingdom to earth as ti is in heaven.
Our very life, our worship of, to, and for God is to reach this end...

Frederich Buechner says "Phrases like Worship Service or Service of Worship are tautologies. To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for him that he needs to have done – run errands for him, carry messages for him, fight on his side, feed his lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for him that you need to do – sing songs for him, create beautiful things for him, give things up for him, tell him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in him and make a fool of yourself for him the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.

A Quaker Meeting, a Pontifical High Mass, the Family Service at First Presbyterian, a Holy Roller Happening – unless there is an element of joy and foolishness in the proceedings, the time would be better spent doing something useful." (Buechner, Frederick. Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC. Frederick Buechner, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, p.122)

In other words, what we do, how we serve, the very life we live are our worship...
That worship is part and parcel to bringing God's Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.

And now for the "So What?" So what does this mean for us? So what difference does this make? It comes down to one questions that you have to answer. What can you do to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth? What can you do to bring your worship into the world around you?
Maybe it means for you that you carry a case of water in your car and give it to a hot worker that is in need of a cold drink. Maybe for you it is to buy a meal for a family in need. Maybe for you it is to work at the Food Pantry or the Christian Clothes Closet... and the list goes on...

Whatever it is, you have to decide and you have to do it.

Sermon 2, The Sacramental Nature of Corporate Worship

Sermon 2,
Preached August 15, 2010, 11:00
FUMC Wortham

Our Worship is Sacramental
Galatians 2:19-20

Last week we looked at how our worship is a life style, that it is not just for 1 hour a week but that we are to be worshiping God with our lives. Romans 12:1 tells us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, this is our spiritual act of worship.” In other words, a sacrifice is something that is placed on an altar before a god and given fully to that god. When we follow this verse we lay our bodies before God and give ourselves fully to God, not as a dead sacrifice that is given once but as a living sacrifice that continues to give and serve until we are taken from this earth. This is our spiritual worship.

But, lets not fool ourselves, when I say we are going to talk about worship the first thing that comes to our minds is what happens when you walk through those doors on Sunday morning from 11:00 – 12:00.

So, being mindful of that, we will be looking at the aspects of our Corporate Worship over the next three weeks and at the 5th Sunday Service to be held at Victory Church on August 29th.

Our Corporate Worship is the times we gather together to hear God's Word proclaimed and to sing praises to God. Our corporate worship is the time that we as the Body of Christ are drawn closer together and closer to God.
Something that seems to bog down discussions of Corporate Worship is when the discussion turns to styles of worship – We argue over what type of music is to be heard, whether video and lights are to be a part of the worship, who should participate, should it be contemporary or traditional...
The truth is to get past this we need to look at how worship has changed ove the years
Think of the change from a sacrificial system – that goes all the way back to Cain and Able,
or the nomadic worship of the Israelites in the Tabernacle that traveled with them,
or the Temple Worship of the Years in Jerusalem
or the Synagogue worship that followed after the Temple was destroyed
or the House church worship of the 1st Centuries of Christianity
or the Monastic worship of the early Catholic church
or the Cathedral worship of the Dark Ages
or the early Protestant worship in Germany and Sweden
or the Stoic white-washed worship of the Puritans
or the Pioneer worship of the Wild West
or what we now call traditional worship, or High Church, or contemporary Worship, or Emerging Worship, or the New Monasticism...

Volumes are written about each of these and I think it best to steer clear of trying to say that one is better than the other.
Rather than that, we are going to look at aspects of our worship and what they mean. Over the next 4 sermons we will look at how Corporate Worship is:
Sacramental
Communal
Incarnational, and
looks toward a future hope in Christ.

This week our topic is that Corporate Worship is Sacramental.

So, What is a Sacrament?
The word sacrament is the Latin translation of the Greek word mysterion – i.e. Mysterious
Way back in around 400 AD, Augustine of Hippo said that a “Ssacrament is a visible sign of an invisible reality.”
The Book of Common Prayer says that a “Sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible Grace.”
Sacrament. It sounds so Catholic doesn't it? In fact where we have 2 Sacraments in the UMC, the Catholic church recognizes seven.
Penance (Confession)
Confirmation
Matrimony
Anointing of the Sick (Extreme Unction or Last Rites)
Holy Orders (what we would call Ordination)
and the last two that we recognize as well
Baptism and
Communion.

For sure each of these are Sacred Moments, times when God's grace is revealed to us in special ways, but as Methodists we recognize as Sacraments only the events that Jesus himself participated in directly, that is Baptism, as he was baptized by John the Baptizer, and Communion as Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper or Communion.
Each week our worship should point toward these sacraments but how so, maybe it would be helpful to look at each of these for just a moment to see what they mean to us and then how they are a part of each week of worship.

Baptism - it is the door through which we enter the church and become a part of the Body of Christ.
We don't just recognize Methodist Baptism but we recognize all baptisms that come through churches that proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord.
We baptize all ages.
Since the earliest times children and infants have been baptized into the church.
- A legend I have heard says that during the early years of the church in Jerusalem, the Christian church would adopt children that had been abandoned at Gehenna (the Trash Dump/Incinerator outside Jerusalem). These children would be brought into the community of faith and baptised as a representation of God's grace on their lives and their full acceptance and membership in the church.
- Also, the baptism of children signifies for us God's initiative in the process of Salvation
“John Wesley preached “prevenient grace,” the grace that works in our lives before we are aware of it, bringing us to faith. The baptism of children and their inclusion in the church before they can respond with their own confirmation of faith is a vivid and compelling witness to prevenient grace.” (UMC.org)
(http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.1697379/k.9027/Baptism_Overview.htm)
We believe that Baptism is forever... It doesn't need to be done again. That is because we believe that baptism is a God thing, not a human thing. By saying that we need to be baptized again we are saying that God messed up when we were baptized. To be sure, we can mess up. We can fall away. We may need to redo our part but God doesn't. To take care of that we have a liturgy that is a Sacred moment in our lives just like any other. We call it a Service to Remember our Baptism, or to Reaffirm our Baptismal Vows. We recall the promises we made when we received God's Prevenient grace in that special way at our Baptism.
Finally, we believe that Baptism is the beginning of a lifelong journey with God. While it doesn't “save us,” in fact baptism isn't even necessary for salvation – just ask the thief on the cross, instead, our baptism starts us on the path toward salvation. It's not a once and done thing, but instead it is a beginning of a process of growth as we commit our lives to God and each day, through God's mighty grace we grow closer and closer to the perfection that we are called to in Christ.
Each week when we gather in corporate worship we remember our vows before God and our commitment to Christ and the Body of Christ. When we gather together as believers in the faith, we remember that Jesus was Baptized in the Jordan River. We remember that the Disciples baptized believers in the early church as its numbers grew. We remember the grace that God poured upon us as we were baptized. We celebrate the sacrament together each week, or at least we should.
By the same token, we remember the sacrament of the Lord's Supper – Communion. In the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine we remember that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and that Christ will come again. Each week as we worship together our worship should point toward the Sacrifice of Christ – that Christ died for us, the sinners – remember, Romans 5:8, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
We didn't deserve the sacrifice. We didn't deserve what Christ did for us that Good Friday. We sure didn't deserve what Christ did for us that blessed Easter morning. Yet, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
As we come together for Corporate Worship each week our worship should point toward the sacramental nature of our life with and for God. And just as we stated last week, it can't just stop with what happens on Sunday morning. Our very lives should reflect our Baptism into the Body of Christ and our Communion with Christ and the believers of all times.

What does that look like? How does that play out in our daily living?
What did Christ tell us that we as the Body of Christ are to do and be?
Matthew 25 reminds us that we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick
visit the lonely...
Matthew 28:19-20 reminds us to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey the thing that Jesus has taught us.

What do we do in our lives that look like that? Maybe it's the Food Pantry. Maybe it's the Christian Clothes Closet. Maybe it's going to the Nursing Home. Maybe it's going to the Hospital, or the Prison, or a mission trip...
I can't answer that for you, but this week, as we worship corporately and you go to worship with your life, I pray that you will find where and how it is that God is calling you to worship him as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

Sermon 3, The Communal Nature of Corporate Worship

Sermon 3, Preached Sunday August 22, 2010
FUMC Wortham

The Communal Nature of Worship
Acts 2:42-47

We have been looking at Worship... We have seen that worship isn't something that is simply an event we attend on Sunday; it is something that is connected with our life. Worship comes out of our mission and ministry in the world around us and thus results in us gathering together on Sunday Morning to corporately worship God. Last week we looked at the Sacramental Nature of our Corporate Worship. Next week we will see the Incarnational Nature of our Corporate Worship and the the fact that our Worship should point to a future hope in Christ. But, that future hope isn't something that is “pie in the sky by and by” No, it is something that starts right here, where we are in this community. Therefore, we are looking at the Communal Nature of our Corporate Worship today.

So, what is “Community”? According to Wikipedia, a community is a group of interacting species sharing an environment. From a more sociological standpoint, a "community" has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location.
Thus Wortham is a Community, Kirvin is a Community, even parts of towns are communities... I grew up in Lone Star,TX – a town of only 2500 people but with in the city limits we had editions – I lived in the Edgemont Edition – it was a community in and of itself. And, of course, our church is a community.
If we were to really go deep in to the linguistics of the word, "community" is derived from the Old French communité which is derived from the Latin communitas (cum, "with/together" + munus, "gift")... In other words, we are a gift to one another when we come together.

Now that we have the science behind the word I can branch out and share with you what I think the word sounds like it should mean – and from a Biblical standpoint I think it is a better definition. It seems to me that it is made up two parts too, Comm – like in communication, and unity – like in sticking together, being united. So, let's talk about that first part.

Comm.. as in communication. As a community we have to communicate with one another. When we stop communicating something else starts happening. The same thing goes on in relationships of all kinds: friendships, marriages, politics, business, you name it. Tell me if this doesn't sound like something you have experienced...
You have a bad day at work and a co-worker says something to you that you take as offensive. You haven't spoken much over the past few days and you think back to when you borrowed that coworkers book and hadn't yet returned it. “Well”, you think, “all he had to do was ask me to return the book, he didn't have to be so snotty about it.” and you go on. The Co-worker, who had forgotten he even loaned you the book, is having a bad day too – The boss had been on both of your cases and you didn't know it – He didn't realize he snapped at you but he did notice your response and that you treated him differently at the recent birthday social in the break room. “Well,” he thinks, “what's got her all upset?”
Still you two don't communicate and each of you begins to notice little things the other one did and then it starts – what we call in the the counseling field as “Stinking Thinking” That's a technical term for letting your mind run wild and stink up the relationship – thinking you know what the other one thinks when they say something and blowing it out of proportion.
Before you know it, You think he is after your job and he thinks you have it in for him and are in cahoots with the boss trying to get him fired. Each of you “triangulate” that is you get people on your side. Now it's not only a problem with two people in the office, suddenly it is affecting more. The others get so stressed about your “stinking thinking” that they go home and tell their spouses about it. One of the spouses works out at the YMCA with the Boss in the mornings and asks the Boss about it. Now the Boss is involved... Well, the Boss has been upset because profits have been declining for the last 6 weeks and now he thinks it's because of the conflict in the office. He sets up a meeting with the employees and now, someone is going to get fired.

Whew. Sounds like the script for a evening sit-com, or maybe a crime drama... but you get my point. All this could have been alleviated if only the original two had communicated and worked it out. Neither one of them meant to hurt the other one but then “stinking thinking” got in the way of everything.

Even more important than that, when we fail to communicate within the community of faith, we affect our own worship as well as the worship of others. We affect our relationship with God and others. I could name a dozen or more people right now that have changed their attendance at church or church involvement because of conflict that hasn't been resolved. Some of the situations go back as far as 6 or 7 years. Their change in attendance has affected others and if it isn't resolved it could affect others for generations to come. Don't get me wrong, we are not a bad church. This happens in all churches and even all social groups – But that makes it neither right nor acceptable.

Communication is the first step in building unity within any community. Especially the community of faith.

So, let's look at that word, Unity. The root is unite, to come together for a common purpose. We as the Body of Christ unite under the banner of Christ. We come together to worship God. We gather to care for others as Christ taught us.
Dan Kimball, Author and pastor, says that we are to be “a gathering where the holy God who created the universe and everything in it will be worshiped. We are creating a time for the saints to gather and encourage one another, a gathering where unbelievers joining us will know without a doubt that God is among us.” (Emerging Worship, Dan Kimball, p. xvi)
Communication and Unity – now I know linguistically that is not the make up of the word community, but it sure works when you place it next to the Bible. In the passage we just read we see the disciples – those that followed Jesus, communicating with one another, gathering to worship in unity, and caring for one another. We see in this early formation of the church a model of what we are to be, what we should be, who we should be. The question is, “is that who we are?” Or is that who we say we are until you get to know us? Or is that who we want to be but haven't quite made it yet?
I know we aren't there yet – no place is. But my hope is that as we continue to become more and more like Christ we will become more and more like the image of the Church Christ has showed us. My prayer is that each day we are becoming more and more of a community than less of a community. To wrap this up I want to let you hear from a young man, a pastor, a graduate of Duke Divinity School, a leader of what is called an intentional Community of Faith called the Rutba House outside of Durham, N.C. Hear his words about his community and think about ours.
[Video – workofthepeople.com, v00752, “Christian Community”- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove]
{Read Acts 2:46-47} and close with prayer.

Sermon 4, The Incarnational Nature of Corporate Worship

Sermon 4, Preached Sunday August 29th, 11:00 AM
FUMC Wortham
The Incarnational Nature of Corporate Worship
John 1:1-14

Well, we come to our final two sermons on Worship. We remember that our Worship is who we are. It is how we live. Our worship is our life. Romans 12:1 tell sus that we “present our bodies to God as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is our spiritual act of Worship.”
We remember that our Corporate Worship, when we gather together on Sunday in what we call church, grows out of the life we lived during the week, the mission and ministry that we have done for Christ - the way we have treated our fellow men and women. It leads us to remember the sacrifices of Christ as we remember our Baptism and partake of Holy Communion.
And Last week we saw that our Corporate Worship is Communal, that we are a part of a community that communicates and builds unity to work together that others may come to Christ and be a part of the Body of Christ, that we may go out in ministry and mission to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely...
So today we look at the final two elements of our Corporate worship. Tonight we will look at the future hope that our worship looks toward but today we look at the Incarnational Nature of our Corporate Worship.

Now there's a big word for you... Incarnational.
This word comes to us as a religious word. Not just a Christian word but a religious word. Greek Mythology is repleat with gods coming to Earth and taking on human form. Hinduism calls their deity in human form an Avatar, the one that brings order and peace to the world. Budhism is based upon the concept that the soul is continually reincarnated, continually working toward perfection until all the evil is vanquished from the body and one becomes a Buddah – a god in human form that needs not be reincarnated. Other religions have this concept as well but only Christianity has the concept of incarnation in the form of Jesus.

In John 1:14 we read that the Word, that is Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us. A completely different concept. In the other ideas of incarnation the god comes down to take a wife, the god comes down and is seperate from humanity, or the god (the person themself) is seeking to overcome humanity. Jesus becomes human.



So, what does this look like? How can we understand the concept of incarnation in todays life? Well, without giving away the plot, I want to share with you a little of a story of two men. Their intersecting lives are the subject of the best selling book that they co-authored with Lynn Vincent called, “Same Kind of Different as Me.” I know many of you have read it and if you haven't I highly suggest it to you.

But how does the story of Ron Hall and Denver Moore share what incarnation is like?
Well, you have to start with Deborah Hall, Ron's wife. Deborah was a Godly woman who loved her husband and coerced him into helping out at the Homless Shelter off Lancaster St. in Fort Worth one day a week. At that point in their marriage Ron figured anything he could do to keep her happy was good for him so he agreed. The problem for Ron was that Deborah had a dream of more than just serving a meal one day a week. She wanted to change lives for Christ.

Most people that came into the shelter for this purpose would come in once or twice a week and tell the homeless how they needed to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job. Good advice but not what they needed to hear or see. These others that came in were one of two types: either they were trying to make themselves feel better or they were trying to earn their spot in glory. In both cases it was about the big “I”.

Deborah was different. She came and served the meals, learned their names, came back to give birthday parties, took groups on trips to musicals and concerts, she came to them and got to know them. While she never “lived” at the shelter she became one of them. They loved her and accepted her because she truly loved them. Not for any personal gain but for the simple fact that God created them and loved them just as much as God had made and loved her. It was her presence among them that endeared her to them and them to her.

But one resident would truly test her patience. Denver was a large, angry, black man that had grown up in abject poverty as a share-cropper in Red River Parish Louisiana. Up till the late 1960's and 1970's black share-croppers were basically modern day slaves in that region – simply working for “the man” in order to have a place to lay their head and hopefully have a bite to eat.

This is where Deborah really put the screws to Ron. She wanted Ron to be friends with Denver. Ron obliged and once they finally got Denver to talk to them and open up to them Ron and Denver would go to Starbucks and Denny's and places like Del Frisco's and the Old Warsaw.
Gradually Denver left the shelter but continued ministering there. But it was Ron who was changed the most. Ron had come to make Denver a better person but as Denver came to dwell with Ron, Ron was changed.

It is a fascinating true story that goes on through tragedy and triumph but the point is that Ron thought he was coming to Denver because Denver needed his money and influence when in the end it was Ron who needed Denver's practical insight and spiritual guidance.

That is so much the way we are. We come to Christ, to the church, to church, because we think we are needed. We think we have something to give to God. Yet, when we actually get to know God and let God influence us we discover that it was God who came to us in the first place. We finally discover that it is we who need God.

That is what John 1:14 is all about...
The Word – the Logos – Jesus, the fulfillment of God came to us and became Sarx, flesh, human, and dwelt, tabernacled, pitched tent among us. What does all that mean?

In the Greek, John uses the term Logos that we have translated as Word. Translated, Logos means “word”, “speech”, “account,” or “reason” but about 500 years before Christ the Philosopher Heraclitus used the term for “the principle of order and knowledge.” Around the time of the Birth of Christ the Stoic philosophers used it as “the divine animating principle pervading the Universe.” So, when we say “The Word” we are saying much more than just another name for Jesus. John is telling us that Jesus was, is, and always will be. Through the use of the term Logos, John is telling us the one who orders all things and has all knowledge, that the one who is the creator of all the world came and became one of us.

Up to that point in History there had been stories of god's coming to earth but never of a god becoming fully human. The word John uses for flesh is Sarx. A word that means human flesh in all it frailty and weakness. No god would do that. The god's were too much above humans, better than humans. The god's wouldn't lower themselves to the weakness of humanity; but, that is just what Jesus did. Not only did he become flesh and blood, marrow and sinew, Jesus came to us in the most frail and fragile of human forms, a baby. Truly the Word became flesh, our Lord became one of us, and dwelt among us.

The Incarnation of Christ didn't happen like the incarnatin of the god's of Egypt, or Rome, or Greece. No, our God didn't live in a palace or cathederal. Some of your translations will say that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” other versions will say that the Word”lived” or “tabernacled” among us. In our language it means that our God, Jesus, pitched tent among us. Think about that idea for a moment. When you go camping, who is it that you want pitching a tent with you? Only the closest and dearest to you. Inherent in this idea of Jesus coming to us and living among us is a certain closeness, a certain intimacy, a certain nearness that hadn't been seen among the religions of the world.

God came to us not when we had cleaned up our act and deserved it. No, God became human while we were still sinners that we might learn how to live and love in the life God had given us. In essence, Jesus came to us that we might come to God.

That is what our worship is all about. We, the Body of Christ, gather together in churches across the Continents of the world to celebrate that God is with us. For some reason we only seem to sing about this at Christmas but the idea of Emmanuel, God with us, is the reason we are here. We celebrate it through song. We celebrate it through prayer. We celebrate it through creeds.

In addition to that we realize that when we come into Corporate worship we know that God is in our midst as we remember that where two or three are gathered in Jesus name, then Jesus is in the midst. We worship God with God. Then, when we leave our Corporate Worship, we take God out into the world. We, the Body and Christ redeemed by his Blood, go out into the world to be the very presence of God in a world that needs God so desperately.

Deborah Hall saw that. She may have been wealthy and privileged but she saw that she was a part of the Body of Christ and could and should do the work of Christ in the world. Because of her vision her husband Ron, and Denver were never the same. Today because of her work at the shelter and Ron and Denver's work in the world, lives are being changed.

That is what heppens when God becomes one of us. That is what happens when we take God into the world around us. That is what happens when we become the hands and feet of Christ.
Now we are the incarnation of Christ for the world. Go then and represent Christ for the world.

Sermon 5, A Hope to Come

Sermon 5 – Community 5th Sunday Service
Preached August 29th, 6:00PM at Victory Full Gospel Church

A Hope to Come
Matthew 8:23-26

This is the fifth and final sermon in a series on worship. To catch up the rest of our Community of Faith gathered here today, we have looked at how our worship is not simply something we do, an event we come to see on Sunday mornings. Our worship is a part of who we are. Our worship is a part of our daily lives that we live, beyond the walls of our church. Our worship is our life. Paul urges us in Romans 12:1, “in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” Our Corporate Worship arises from this life of worship we have lived through the week. While we live our worship daily, we gather together as the Body of Christ to Corporately praise God for who God is and what God has done. We come together Sacramentally, in other words when we gather in worship our time together should point toward our Baptism into Christ and our rememberance of the Sacrifice of Christ. We gather as a community of faith that works toward unity that the world may be drawn to Christ through His Body – us. And as we gather as believers we recognize the Incarnation Of Christ – that God become one of us, a human, in all our frailty and weakness. As we recognize this, we then go back out into the world as the Body of Christ, the embodiment of Christ in the world around us as we minister to and reach out to the least, the last, and the lost.
Finally as we come to this the final sermon in our series, we are to see that our Corporate Worship points to a hope that is to come. We gather to worship a God that is greater than anything we can imagine.

Open your Bibles with me today and let's look at a passage from Matthew 14:22-33...

I love warning labels. Don't you? Those labels like the one on a hair dryer that said, “Not to be used while showering.”
Well, Ted Frank is an attorney and the president and founder of The Center for Class Action Fairness and he has compiled a list of his favorite wacky warning labels. Here are a few of his favorites:
A warning on a wood router says: “This product not intended for use as a dental drill”
A five inch fishing lure with the caution: “Harmful if swallowed”
A warning on a baby stroller that warns: “Remove baby before folding.”
How about the portable toilet seat called the “Off-Road Commode”. It seems you insert it into your trailer hitch receiver for use while camping or off in the woods. The warning: “Not for use when vehicle is in motion.”
Or I think my favorite is the label on a small tractor that warns: “Danger! Avoid Death.”

We are surrounded by warning signs aren't we. Labels on products, chemicals, and medicines warn of dangers to our life but more than that we are surrounded by warning signs of the end of our days on this earth as we know it. We read the gospels and see that the signs of the end of times are:
Wars – we have plenty of those don't we.
Earthquakes – According to the USGS Website, this past month we have seen over 700 earthquakes greater then a 2.5 magniture with the most significant being a 7.1 in Ecuador.
Famines – The fires in Russia and the Floods in Pakistan are just two areas across the world where famine is being seen. Add Africa, South America, the Far East and other such places and we see that there are desperate needs around the globe due to famine.

There are other warning signs too but I think that is enough to remind us that our days are numbered. But, it is also important that we remember that these signs have existed since soon after Jesus warned us about them. Now some are going to tell us that we are seeing more famine, wars, and earthquakes today than ever before – the truth is, we are seeing the same numbers as always, they are just being reported globally today. I was able to obtain the information about all the earthquakes in 5 minutes by logging on to the USGS website and counting. Not something our prior generations could have done. The perception is that there are more and that must mean that Jesus is coming back tomorrow. The reality is that these signs have existed for 2000 years and the only thing we can say with certainty is that today we are one day closer to the end of days than we were yesterday.

What's my point? When I was growing up evangelism was based upon scaring the Hell out of everyone, literally. We hoped that we could scare a non-believer enough with images and movies of the end of times, the Tribulation, and what Hell was like that they would come to church and get saved so they wouldn't go to Hell, then join the church, begin tithing, and become a committee member. We would ask them, “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” The point, to scare them – by the way it's the same tactic I was taught to sell Death Insurance – well most of us call it Life Insurance but what you are insuring against is the financial implications of death. We try to scare people by thinking about death and to a point it worked. The problem is that when you are simply saved from Hell and death is the focus you still don't understand the Hope of Heaven and the joy of the abundant life Jesus promised.

Our Corporate Worship should not point toward the the pain of Hell or the dangers that the “Left Behind Series” points toward but rather a Hope of something greater and better than anything we could imagine. In our passage today we see the disciples gathered in the boat, some of which are seasoned sailors, yet they are battling against the waves for the the wind was against them... Do you ever feel that way, “the wind is against you and you are battling the waves of life?”
You haven't found that job you've been looking for.
You are struggling with the pain of the divorce
You are dealing with the injury that will not heal
The winds are against you and you are battling the waves as they lap over the bow of your boat.
Well, take heart, because that is not the end of the story.

So, what was so fearful about the water? It was thought to be the abode of the demons. When Jesus cast the demons from the man in the cemetery they went into the swine, & where did they go? Into the sea – they went home. So as the disciples battled the tempest and saw a ghost walking on the water, surly they thought their days were through. The demons were rising form the water to get them but instead it was Jesus, the embodiment of God, the Word become flesh, that walked on the water to meet them. After Peter's swimming lesson and test of faith, Jesus gets in the boat and the storm ceases.
When those tempests of life come against you, let Jesus in your boat, only he can calm the storms. And then... Worship him.

That is what the disciples did. Max Lucado wrote in, “In the Eye of the Storm” that
"After the storm, [the disciples] worshiped him. They had never, as a group, done that before. Never. Check it out. Open your Bible. Search for a time when the disciples coporately praised him.
You won't find it.
You won't find them worshiping when he heals the leper. Forgives the adulteress. Preaches to the masses. They were willing to follow. Willing to leave family. Willing to cast out demons. Willing to be in the army.
But only after the incident on the sea did they worship him. Why?
Simple. This time they were the ones who were saved."

We worship God, privately with our lives and Corporately as the Body because we are the ones that are saved. Now I don't mean saved from Hell, or the Tribulation, or anything like that, that's a given. No, I mean we are the ones that are saved from ourselves. We are the ones saved from our sin. We are the ones that are saved from the things that separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is because we are saved that we can have the abundant life that Jesus promised; both today and tomorrow.

We have a future hope. A hope to come that points us toward heaven. We have a hope that endures the test of time and guides our steps today. We have a hope that doesn't end with us but continues with a life that has been offered to us and we must pass on to others.

When we gather in Corporate Worship we point toward a hope that can only be found in Christ and can only be offered through the life changing sacrifice of the Cross. We look toward a hope that guides every aspect of our life, from the joy of new life to the grief of a life that has passed. We look toward a hope that is to be offered to others. A hope that is offered right now to any who choose to believe.

Worship Sermon Series

The preceding 5 sermons were preached in Wortham, TX as a series on Worship. I hope God will bless the readers as much as I was blessed in the writing.
Thank you and may God's richest blessing be upon you.
Jay