worship

The Practical Side of Worship – VOTD.09.19.16

Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Psalm 150:2

Most of us know Ps 46:10. It’s quoted often. It tells us, “Be still and know that I am God.” And we revel in the stillness and quietness of personally encountering Jesus with awestruck wonder.

But the in the context of today’s verse, the Bible also describes drums, cymbals, leaping and dancing, praising God with all our might, and shouting unto the Lord. This is not cacophony of confusion but joy-filled, overflowing worship—getting enthusiastic over WHO God is “His surpassing greatness” and WHAT He’s done—“His mighty acts of power”.

So which is it? Quiet meditation or outrageous, over the top, exuberance over God? Well, it’s both. There are times of the excitement of joy-filled, overflowing worship. And there are times to be quiet before the Lord in total awe at His character, amazing wonders, etc.

I was reading a list last week of ways we are called in the Bible to view God—to worship Him. It contained a whole lexicon of words like enthralled and exhilarated by God. Excited, astonished, amazed, and awed by God; ravished by Him, consumed, thrilled, obsessed, overwhelmed, enrapt, astounded, and absorbed, obsessed and eagerly preoccupied with God… (more…)

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Worship and Our Experience with God – VOTD.09.13.16

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God… For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.  Romans 11:33, 36

Where there’s a problem with worship there’s a problem with our experience of Jesus and the good news He conceived. That is why our worship is often hollow: our experience of Jesus has become hollow. As the eyes of our hearts are lowered from the greatness of God to our own failures, accomplishments and problems our worship quickly follows.

A robust experience of Jesus, however, is like pouring gas on the fire of worship. The more powerful our experience Jesus, the more we adore Him for who He is and for what He has done for us. This is because all worship, in the end, is personal worship—it’s about what happening to you. It’s about what happening to me.

Then, together, we can adore Him in a collective setting; where groups of other worshipers come together to proclaim God’s glory together. And in that setting worship is like a wild-fire consuming the hearts of others who are adding their personal worship to the group experience. (more…)

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Lighting the Fire of Worship – VOTD.09.12.16

When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.” 2 Chronicles 7:2
Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28-29

Metaphorically, worship is often likened to fire, biblically and traditionally. We’ve seen that the spirit of worship is fire within us, and the fuel that causes the fire to burn is our wonder and awe of Jesus. The more fuel, the hotter the fire. The more we seek God—the more we focus relentlessly on Jesus, the hotter our worship.

Problem is, it’s sometimes hard to get that fire started. For some Christians it’s just about impossible (without the Holy Spirit working in us). So how do we seek God? Today we’ll look at 3 ways we see in the Bible: (more…)

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Worshiping in Spirit – VOTD.09.05.16

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly give thanks his name.  Hebrews 13:15

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.  John 4:24

Jesus taught that true worship involves both spirit and truth. In these two ingredients lie the center of what God desires for us in what we call ‘worship’. Today I want to look at worshiping in spirit. What’s that?

We have to assume that when Jesus said these words, at least two people understood what He meant: First, the woman He was speaking to understood Him; Second, Jesus’ disciple John, who wrote down this quote, understood Him. The woman immediately associated His words with the coming of the Messiah. Exactly how she made that leap we can only guess.

But we don’t have to guess about what John made of Jesus’ words because He wrote a whole Gospel from which we can gather his thinking. He uses the same word “spirit” to refer to feelings and emotions. He says in John 13:21: “After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.” Clearly an emotional response to the fact that He would be arrested, tried and convicted that night. (more…)

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Eagerly Seeking God – VOTD.09.06.16

Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done.  1 Chronicles 16:10-12

Last time we finished with a question: How do we eagerly seek God? Today’s verse gives us a good list of things to do to prime the pumps of our praise:

“Glory in His holy name” Repeat His name often; repeat it over and over. Jesus is the name above all names (Phil 2:9,10). And there is power in His name. Even power to bring us into adoration. It’s in His name that every knee bows—even our overwhelmed hearts bow to His name.

“…let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice” Pursue joyfulness. “For the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10). Our culture pursues disgruntlement with all its heart. It values taking offense at everything. It’s hard to worship Jesus when we’re restless and dissatisfied. We need to instead, focus on God’s goodness to us. His love for us. His watchfulness. That’s how we cultivate joyfulness. (more…)

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Uniting Teaching and Worship – VOTD.08.30.16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and advising one another in all wisdom and singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  Colossians 3:16

Today’s verse comes right in the middle of Paul describing what it looks like to follow Jesus in the midst of a non-Christian society. So the entire passage is important to understanding how to get through each day. But, interestingly, right in the middle of it, he mentions two keys: teaching and worship. And while there’s many ways to express our love and awe to our God, the specific form of worship he talks about here is “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”.

Paul does something similar in Ephesians 5 where he uses singing out our thanksgiving as an introduction to his teaching on marriage and family relationships. In today’s church culture, where worship and teaching are firmly separate activities (with announcements and offering in between <grin>), why would Paul see teaching our Christian faith and worshiping our awesome God in such an integrated way?

Why is worship so important? For that matter, with all the ways we might worship God, why is singing our worship so important to Him? Why would God give music and song such a prominent place, not only in official “worship services”, but in all of life? (more…)

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Ooooh… Aaaah…Woooww! – VOTD.08.29.16

To this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away… But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 2 Corinthians 3:14-16

This summer I had the opportunity to spend significant time hiking in the spectacular Southern Cascade Mountains. The vistas were the “Ooooh… Aaaah…Woooww!” kind. During that time, we saw many. For view-junkies like my family, it was perfect.

Our final days were spent hiking in and around Mt. Hood. Its signature pointed peak is one of the most beautiful in the Cascade Range. The views on our first day were gorgeous, though clouds rolled in in the afternoon and obscured the peak at times. The next day provided a few good views but most of the time the peak was in the clouds.

As we gained elevation the third day we found ourselves literally in the clouds, themselves. So much so that we could barely see twenty meters in front of us; just thick, gray, soupy fog. We had reached McNeil Point, the place of spectacular vistas. They were right in front of us. We knew about beauty. We could imagine the grandeur, but…we couldn’t see it for ourselves. No “Oooohing and Aaaahing and Wowing!” for us that day. (more…)

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Lifestyle Glory – VOTD.08.09.16

Be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:17-21

Last time we were looking at what being filled with the Spirit looks like: First of all, it looks like worship, Public Worship, Private Worship, Experiential (thankful) Worship and Lifestyle Worship.

We saw that lifestyle worship is treating our brothers and sisters in Christ as if they were Jesus. If we are involved with sins against our brothers and sisters in Christ and we have not made things right with them the Holy Spirit’s filling is still available but we won’t experience it.

How do I know that? In introducing the passage in Eph 5 that we are looking at, Paul says “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Eph. 4:30,31) (more…)

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Resulting Glory – VOTD.08.08.16

Understand what the Lord’s will is: Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5:17-21

The result of the continual presence of God in our lives (what we’ve been calling Remaining Glory) is that it makes us different people. It is not the other way around. I want to look at a few areas in which the growing presence of God in our lives changes us as believers: Here are 3 areas we will look at; as the presence of God fills us day by day:
1) God is worshipped
2) The Word of God is revered
3) The characteristics of God are manifested in our lives (more…)

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Fading Glory Examples – VOTD.07.26.16

The sweet, satisfying companionship of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him, and He will show them His covenant and reveal to them its [deep, inner] meaning. Psalm 25:14

Last time we saw some common circumstances when God draws us near and His presence becomes overwhelming. Today we’ll look at some common results of this type of experiencing God?

1) The first result of the presence of God is that He increases and we decrease. When you and I come into contact with God our focus is on Him not on ourselves. The more clearly we see Him the more we are so overcome with the glory of Christ we don’t think we’re big, we know we’re small. When someone testifies to an experience with God, listen for who is getting the glory. That’s how you can know how real this experience is. When you and I experience God for real, we don’t walk away with a bloated idea of our own importance. We are seriously humbled. (more…)

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