Better Late than never! The Sunday before Last we had one of our elders, Mike Higgs, pitch hit for vacation Pastor T. Here is that sermon.
Read Romans 12:1-2 - Pray
“Homily”
My message this morning is entitled “Tipping Over Worship,” and I think it’s relevant to tell you what that title means, and, how I came up with it.
We are living in a seson of improbabilities - Allistair Petrie cow illust.
My background as “worship leader”
So, when Tim asked me to speak and said that the theme for the summer was Tipping Points, worship was what immediately came to mind as I prayed about what to share. But, my definition of worship might not be what you expect. Worship is one of those spiritually loaded words that, if we’re not carefully, can become a religiously loaded word. What do I mean by a religiously loaded word? There are a number of words that we in the church use today that we may really not know the definition of, and those who did not group up in the church (like me), or are relatively new Christians, may be confused by.
Gospel Justification
Salvation Evangelism/evangelical
Righteousness Hypostatic Union
Sanctification
So how does one define worship? Wikipedia offers the following definition:
Worship usually refers to specific acts of HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion"religious praise, honor, or HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotion"devotion, typically directed to a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural"supernatural being such as God, a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God"god or HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess"goddess. It is the informal term in English for what HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_religion"sociologists of religion call HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_%28religion%29"cultus, the body of practices and traditions that correspond to HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology"theology.
Religious worship may be performed individually, in informally organized groups, or as part of an organized service with a designated leader (as in a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church"church, HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synagogue"synagogue, HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple"temple, or HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque"mosque). In its older sense in the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language"English language of worthiness or respect (Anglo-Saxon worthscripe), worship may sometimes refer to actions directed at members of higher social classes (such as HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord"lords or HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch"monarchs) or to particularly esteemed persons.
That’s Wikipedia’s take on worship. Let’s look at how worship is defined and used in Scripture.
The word and its derivatives is found a few hundred times in Scripture. The English word “worship” actually represents four or five different Hebrew words in the OT and a similar number of Greek words in the NT. Each has a different nuance
(example: English word “love”)
To summarize, three distinct nuances:
1. To physically bow down or prostrate ones self before someone or something in a demonstration of honor and respect.
Ex. 4:29-31 -Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.
2. To be devout or God-fearing.
Acts 18:7 - Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.
3. To serve and/or minister before someone or something.
Acts 13:2 - While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Definition: “worship is an active response to God whereby we declare His worth”
Four different people over the past month caused me to re-think and significantly adjust this definition: Davey, Louie, Larry, Terri
Davey (David Crowder) –
“I think we’ve elevated music to a place where it can’t bear the weight of what we’ve asked it to. It has wound up being the sum total of what we experience and think of worship as. It will fold under the weight. It’s a brilliant, beautiful thing to use music, and I think it’s maybe even why music exists. Yet it can really do damage if that’s the sum of what our understanding of worship is.”
Worship certainly includes music, but it’s so much more than that
Louie –
Worship is our response to what we value most. That’s why worship is that thing we all do. It’s what we’re all about on any given day. Because worship is about saying, ‘This person, this thing, this experience, this whatever, is what matters most to me; it’s the thing I put first in my life.’
That “thing” might be a relationship. A dream. Friends. Status. Stuff. A name. Some kind of pleasure. Whatever name you put on it, this thing or person is what you’ve concluded in your heart is worth most to you. And whatever is worth most to you is – you guessed it – what you worship.
Worship tells us what we value most. As a result, worship determines our actions, becoming the driving force for all we do.
Some of us attend the church on the corner, professing to worship the Living God above all. Others who rarely step inside the church doors would say worship isn’t a part of their lives because they aren’t ‘religious.’ But everybody has an altar. And every altar has a throne.
So how do you know where and what you worship?
It’s easy. You simply follow the trail of your time, your affection, your energy, your money, and your loyalty. At the end of that trail you’ll find a throne; and whatever, or whomever, is on that throne is what’s of highest value to you. On that throne is what you worship.
Sure, not many of us walk around saying, ‘I worship my stuff. I worship my Xbox. I worship my job. I worship this pleasure. I worship her. I worship my body. I worship me!’
But the trail never lies. We may say we value this thing or that thing more than any other, but the volume of our actions speaks louder than our words.
In the end, our worship is more about what we do than what we say.
Larry - pastor of church we were visiting
Terri – Ex. 20:4-6; 23:25-26
So here is my revised definition of worship:
“Worship is a active response of reverence to God whereby we declare His worth through our words and actions; by what we say AND what we do; by what we communicate both verbally AND by how we live our lives.”
Romans 12, the passage we are looking at this morning, strongly supports this definition of worship. Look at the passage with me:
Therefore
In light of all the amazing truths covered in the first 11 chapters
I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy
Which is one of the major themes of those first 11 chapters
*Define mercy (coach)
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.
*all in
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
Romans 1:18-25
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 8 - “spirit” used 22 times
2 Cor. 3:17-18 Spirit
As Louie said, We all worship.
The questions are:
1. What, or who, do we worship?
2. If we claim to worship God, are we going to dabble at it, or are we all in?
Last part of definition from Wikipedia:
Worship as a Christian is also defined as how you live your life, since worship is honor to a supernatural being and the Bible talks about always honoring God. If you live your life honoring God then you are worshiping.
I’d like to suggest a new definition of “worship service”
pray
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