I was talking with somebody about church one day. They sighed a little and said, “Y’know,
I would come to church but I just don’t get anything out of worship… I mean it’s kind of boring.”
I don’t think they were expressing just their own feelings. I believe there
are a lot of folk out there that might say something similar. Maybe you
are one of them.
But … congratulations.
You are a daring soul. Here you are ready to brave another boring worship service! Let me ask you something… What can
I do to change your focus? How can I help you see that whatever else it may be, true worship is just about as far from being
boring as Beckley is from the planet Magarathea in the distant galaxy of Zob.
1. Worship is not a Movie.
Worship is not the TV
or DVD. It comes without Tivo. There is no fast-forward or rewind. Couches are not provided… and whilst we do offer
cookies in the parlor from time to time nobody is going to serve us any Fast Food.
I love that remote control.
In our house we call it a ‘doofur’. I flick through the channels and they go “Doofur doofur doofur.”
Drives my wife crazy! She’ll say in frustration, “Let’s just watch something… anything!” Me? I have the attention span of a gnat.
So an hour or so long worship service is always a challenge. It is a big leap from couch potato to active participating worshipper. But I want to help you make that leap.
So it is good to remind
ourselves that worship is not a movie to be watched. Worship is not an entertainment sport. Worship is not a production by
the local dramatic society designed to make us smile or even to make us think. It’s not a concert or a performance. Worship is not an event that we observe.
Worship is an activity.
Worship is an activity of the heart. Worship is a happening. And what can make it happen for us is when we actively throw
ourselves heart and soul into being all the worshipper that we can be. You’ve seen that ad on the T.V for the Army -
“Be all that you can be.” Well the same applies to those who are enrolled in God’s Army.
It’s all about attitude.
Paul writes in Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,
by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God; this is your spiritual
worship.”
Now that’s an image to play with right
there. Think about it. If you are going somewhere to be ‘the sacrifice’, then that’s a totally different
mind set than if going to a cozy evening at the Dollar theatre. There’s a cure for boredom right there. A sacrificial animal was taken to the altar, laid upon it and they gave their
life upon the altar.
You see what Paul is getting
at? Worship isn’t about us showing up to see what blessings God may have in store for us. Worship, true, holy, spiritual
Worship is about us coming before God and laying our lives on the altar for God to do with us whatever God may please.
Jesus said all those things
about how in order to find ourselves, we have to lose ourselves. Paul spoke about how to really experience the kind of life
God wants us to have, we have to die to ourselves and come alive to Jesus Christ! What we get out of worship is directly related
to what we put in! If we don’t put our whole selves into worship then there is a high probability we may not get a lot
out of worship.
An energizing Sunday service
of worship is something that begins long, long, long, long, long, before we enter a church building on a Sunday. Worship is
an offering of our life to God. It begins in an act of surrender. It begins on
our knees… in that place Jesus spoke of when He said that when we pray we should go somewhere alone, shut the door,
and pour out our hearts to God, seeking God’s direction and guidance. Worship begins with the words… “Lord, not my will, but thy will be done.”
Until such an attitude
of surrender and sacrifice is present in our lives we may find worship boring for the simple reason that we are not worshipping.
Worse still we may have fallen into a very subtle form of idolatry that makes us the most important thing in the universe
and makes what we want the focus of what
really matters instead of God.
So to crystallize all
of that into a sentence…If you don’t want a boring worship service, don’t be a boring worshipper! Which
brings me to a second observation about what can make worship an exhilarating experience.
2. Expectation is related to inspiration!
Psalm 100: verse 4 tells us: “Enter His gates with
thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him, bless His name!”
Can we not hear and feel
the expectation in that verse? That Psalmist is heading into a worship time with an aim and a purpose in mind. They have an
aim to praise. And they are rejoicing that there is a time and a place when they can do so. There is a bounce in their step
and a sense of gratitude oozing out of them. They’re not dragging in there like it was some kind of burden to get out
of bed on a Sunday morning.
What expectations did
we have when we walked through the door? How have we prepared for this time? Are we ready? Are we itching to hear a Word from
God? Are we prepared to give it all?
Anybody here ever been
parachuting? Not me. But I have seen movies of folks about to do a parachute jump. They are all huddled together in the plane.
Then they make their way to the open door. Then they jump and it’s just them, the air, and a big piece of cloth in a
knapsack.
Imagine how different
worship would be if we entered the doors of our churches with that kind of expectation of exhilaration that is in the heart
of a parachutist before they jump out of the airplane door.
We have come into this
place seeking to encounter God! God… the Almighty, the all wonderful, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, the
One who made us and sent His Son Jesus Christ to save us, and sends His Holy Spirit to make our useless little lives overflow
with eternal purpose.
The Old English word for
worship was “Weorth-Scipe” and it meant to ‘ascribe worth’. It communicates the idea that when we
enter into a time of worship, there should be a song of praise on our hearts, singing in wonder and awesomely whispering “Thou
art Worthy, Thou Art worthy, Oh Lord, to receive all honor and all power and glory… thou art worthy, Oh Lord.”
Expectation, Expectation, Expectation. Where does that expectation come from?
Again it’s down to the time you spend preparing to worship. If you have been down on your knees praying
that the Pastor will bring an anointed Word from God, praying that the Lay Reader will lift up the liturgy and scripture in
a way that touches people’s spirits, praying that the Children’s time leader will connect with the hearts of the
little ones, praying that the sound person will be enabled to get everybody to hear, praying that the Choir or soloists and
musicians will have hearts so full of praise that they can’t help but draw us in to their celebration, praying that
God’s anointing and blessing will be over all that takes place … then … just maybe you will be entering
into the gates with an expectant attitude of thanksgiving and a heart ready to lay itself down on the altar.
People of God… I
challenge you… has our worship become boring because in the matter of our prayers we have become obese, ungrateful,
and lazy? Has our worship become something less than communication from God because we have not been communicating with God?
Have we become so dead in our sin that we just expect to turn up and somehow God is going to be impressed?
Because if that’s
how we feel about God, then I’m not surprised our worship is boring. God has blessed us mightily. The mere fact we live here in this nation, one of the richest on the earth, should cause us to overflow
in thankfulness. We are not wondering if today is the day our child will die of malnutrition. We don’t have to get our
water from a polluted well on the other side of town that is in danger of drying up. We are not likely to die from a curable
disease because we have medical services. Our kids get to go to school because we have schools. We are not wondering if tonight
is the night our home is going to be bombed by enemy forces. That is not the case for a huge proportion of this world’s
population.
I’m not saying we
don’t have problems and tragedies and things to deal with. I’m just saying to put it into a bigger perspective…
God is the God of all the world and cares for all the world and on a worldwide scale we are mightily blessed. The great tragedy
is that rather than allowing that abundance to create in our hearts an overflowing of thanksgiving, we have become complacent
and take it for granted and have allowed materialism to deaden us to our need for a relationship with God, our need to be
saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ! “Enter His gates with thanksgiving,
and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him, bless His name!”
And this morning I’m
just going to leave it there. I am suggesting to you that if we find a time of worship becoming a bore, maybe it’s because
there is something wrong with us, not something wrong with worship. Maybe that something is related to the fact that we live
in a culture that just wants to be entertained rather than one that seeks to be engaged. Going to worship is not going to
the movies. It’s not about us, it’s about God.
Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, this is your spiritual worship.”
As worship is all about God, then maybe our problems
relating to worship are because of a problem we have relating to God. How can we rejoice in our salvation if we are not sure
what we are saved from? How can we thank God for His Word if it’s not a
word we are constantly applying to our lives? If we haven’t been walking with God throughout the week, then should we
be surprised if we feel disconnected when for that one time of the week we try and make a connection? Doesn’t that all seem a little strange?
Again we’re back
with the thought that what we get out is directly related to what we give. It all starts in the heart. It all starts with being prepared to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God.
And now you know that…
you never have to be part of another boring worship time in your life!
Take the Psalmists advice.
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to
Him, bless His name!” Ultimately it’s not about styles of worship or lengths of sermons or whether a church
has big screens or fancy bulletins. If you prepare your heart to meet with God, then God will meet you, be it in the loftiest
cathedral, the most humble of country chapels, in the midst of a noisy contemporary celebration, or in the glory of a time
of guided meditation.
Preparation and Expectation
turn worship times from something to be endured to precious moments of exhilarating communion with the God who knit together
every fiber of our being.
AMEN!
