Worship Articles - 5

As we bring this series on worship to a close I wish to take time to remind us of a few of the things we have covered over the past weeks (You can find these articles in more detail on the church website or my blog, jayssermonthougts.blogspot.com):
1. Worship is not about you… It is about God.
2. Being focused on ourselves rather than God and others ruins worship.
3. Evangelism, Discipleship, Giving, and Praying all grow out of worship and then return to worship.
4. Scripture tells us how we are to worship and praise.
5. It isn’t someone else’s job to “make you worship.” Each of us has the choice to worship or not.
Finally, this week we will look at the fact that worship is a verb, an action word. It means we do something. More specifically worship is something we do, not something done to us.
I think back to Paul and Silas. As the Christian Rock group Petra told the story in “Let Everything that Has Breath,” Paul and Silas were thrown in jail
For preaching the gospel of Christ
Though in chains they praised His name singing songs in the night
I have heard other stories of people truly praising God and worshiping in the face of persecution and certain death. No matter how bad it gets we can still worship God.
While I truly feel we are blessed with pastoral leadership, great music leaders in Chris and Brett, great musicians in the band and Scott, and a great facility, none of these are necessary for us to worship. As you read this there are people worshiping under Marula trees in Africa and in the cramped space of a basement in China. With or without all the architecture and leadership we can still come together as the body of Christ, offer God our praises, and give an offering.
As Joe McKeever puts it in his article, “Our insistence on worshipful music, worship settings, and worshipful everything are all signs of our disgusting self-centeredness. It’s disgusting because I see it in myself, and do not like it.”
I leave the topic now with this final thought… Worship is life. While we need to gather together in corporate worship regularly, we also need to realize that our life is our worship. What we do daily in our goings and comings should be worship.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Romans 12:1, NLT
I’ll See You Sunday;
J

McKeever, Joe, “7Things We Regularly Get Wrong About Worship”, http://www.crosswalk.com/church/worship/7-things-we-regularly-get-wrong-about-worship.html, May 24, 2011