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Wangaratta Wesleyan Methodist Church Sunday 11th September 2016

40 Days of CommunityNo 6 Worshiping Together

Wrap up:

Do a wrap up of the topics covered:

  • What matters most: Loving each other
  • Reaching out together
  • Belonging together
  • Growing together
  • Serving together
  • Worshiping together

Intro: What is worship?

To worship is to come humbly before a holy God

Psalm 99:5 says, ‘Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.’

Verse 9 says, ‘Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.’

To worship God is to recognise who God is and to place him in the right place. Often this is a question of, ‘where does God fit in my list of priorities?’ He is God; he is mighty he is powerful and he is holy therefore he is to be exalted above and before anything else.

Firstly, worship is…

1)Expressing our love to God

When Gracie askes me for something I often say to her, ‘Tell daddy something he loves tohear.’ She then tells me how much she loves me and gives me a big hug. It makes my day.

I reckon it makes God’s day when his children express their love for him.

Worship…

  1. Is better together

Now you have heard me say before that I love being alone in the mountains with God as it helps me to really connect with him and seek him. You may have a place where you do the same. But imagine if that was the only way that we could express our worship to God; by being solo somewhere. And imagine if our understanding and experience of God was so different to each other’s experience that we found we couldn’t worship together because of this. It would be a lonely exercise and therefore devoid of much meaning.

Fortunately, that is not the case. Our expression of worship is better when we are with other people. Nothing beats being together in a body of believers worshiping God. I’m so pleased to be able to sing praises back to God. I’m sure this is the very reason God made us with this ability to sing so we could worship him.

Now I’m not the world’s greatest singer so when I’m in a body of people singing I’m pretending that I sound as good as those around me and it is awesome.

Of course worship is not just an intellectual experience, far from it. It involves the physical and spiritual dimensions of our being. When we are with others our spirit is also caught up in the act of worship. Expand.

Worship…

  1. Breaks down barriers

What I love about God is that his Spirit is no respecter of age, sex, language or even spiritual maturity, God will pour out his Spirit on anyone. When we come to worship God we can all experience God in a similar way regardless of who we are and how long we have been a Christian.

It is a bit like going to the footy. When you go through those turnstiles you are all on the same team and you barrack together. I suppose the one difference is the footy has levels or boxes according to how much you paid.

A few years ago when we were in Thailand…. Explain. There were many natural barriers like language, culture and economic status but when it came to worshiping God we were all one together.

Worship is…

  1. Communication with God

Christianity is totally unique among religions because we worship a living God, one that is able to communicate back to us. Worshiping God is not a monologuerather a two-way communication. What may God say to us?

Maybe a question we should ask God is, ‘What level of worship causes you to be pleased with me?’ Or, ‘What do you require of me Lord?’ The bible tells us we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind.

Maybe another way of thinking about it is, ‘does our worship reflect the level of commitment and love God has given us?’ Well, God has demonstrated an all-encompassing, totally extravagant,unconditional love toward us so I wonder in our lifestyle and worship back to God do we reflect this in some way?

I’m not sure if I really want to ask God what my worship is like. What if my attitude in worship is half-hearted, luke-warm and apathetic towards God? If so, what are we communicating to God and to others when this happens? Are we saying, ‘Look Lord I know you are important but seriously I can get by without you and so here is my token act of worship.’

I find this a challenge and I suspect that you do also.

To worship is quite a broad concept. In the 40 Days of Community Rick Warren makes a strong link between giving and worship. Possibly some of you found that a little hard to digest as he talked about financial giving also as worship. I want to unpack this a little more this morning for I do believe there are some vital concepts to understand here.

I would like to suggest that worship is giving our best to God. Our best in praise, adoration, time, finance, energy and generosity. Let me expand on this.

Worship is…

2)Being generous to others

Jesus said all the laws are summed up in just two laws, loving God and loving others. Loving others or being generous to others is…

  1. A privilege to do

It is an honour to help others. Over the past month I’ve been helping out at Loaves and Fishes Christian Caring one morning a week as a chaplain. It is a great organisation representing the churches in Wangaratta but what blows me away is the attitude of the many volunteers who help out there. They love it and they count it a privilege to support people through emergency relief.

Talk about Koffee Bean Café. The owner loves to help homeless people.

In 2 Corinthians Ch 8 Paul wants to encourage the Corinthian church to be generoustowards the church in Jerusalem and he begins by explaining how generous the Macedonian churches have been to the same cause.

Look at what verses 2-3 reveal:

  • In the middle of a severe trial they gave…
  • In their extreme poverty they gave…
  • They gave with overflowing joy (in the gospel of the Lord)…
  • They gave as much as they were able…
  • They gave even beyond their ability…

We could think of many reasons why they shouldn’t have given to this cause. Expand.

Did they count it a privilege?

  • Verse 4 says they pleaded for the privilege of sharing in this service. Wow!
  • No wonder the bible tells us it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Being generous is not only a privilege it is…

  1. A blessing to others

Rhonda and I have been on the receiving end of generosity a number of times. I can tell you it is such a blessing.

  • A year ago Rhonda and I travelled to England to see Jemimah totally through the generosity of others. Expand. You have no idea what a blessing it was to us and to Jemimah.

I believe that one of the greatest challenges facing Western Christians is the trap of materialism and how it affects our giving and our faith. It could be said that the more we have the less we rely on God. Do you think that is true? We have insurance, superannuation, medicare, pensions, life insurance, good doctors and good law and order. We have so much to rely on that we can get by without relying on God. So as an antidote to this we need to carefully consider how we are…

3)Giving back to God

It is for good reason that Jesus spoke about money many times in the gospels. He knew that our materialism or our reliance on money is in direct opposition to the things of the kingdom. We cannot serve both God and money.

Our motivation for worship, for generosity, for giving comes out of the place…

  1. Where our heart is

Our hearts will follow the things that are most important to us. If your car is the most important thing to you that is where your heart will be. You will dream about your car, you will spend your best time with your car, you will spend your spare money on your car and you will possibly worship your car. You will do all that for your car simply because that is your treasure and where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What is your treasure? What is most important to you? Is it your job, house, next holiday, hobby, sport…

We are to seek first the kingdom of God before anything else. That is to be our treasure.

  • How do we test if a material thing is more important than it should be? Ask yourself, ‘Can I give it away?’

Giving back to God…

  1. Is a blessing to us!

In God’s economy when we give we are blessed but the giving must come first. This is the bit we find hard. We have to give in faith not knowing where or how our needs will be supplied. Yet the bible is clear, ‘Give and it will be given to you’, it says in Luke 6:38, ‘A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’

There is a principle of giving to God where God pours out his blessing upon us that cannot be proved until we step out and give sacrificially and in faith. If we have the attitude that I will give to God what is left over after I’ve paid all my bills then I don’t believe we are stepping out in faith in our giving.

From UCB Word for Today 8th September…

‘Generosity isn’t just about money. Lots of people say, ‘As soon as I get rich I’ll become more generous.’ But the greatest givers often have the least money. Grandmothers on meagre pensions are sending a few pounds each month to help build orphanages. People barely making ends meet are giving to feed the hungry. Retired employees are mentoring younger workers. Single people with limited resources are spending their evenings working with the homeless or families in need. No matter where you are financially, you can begin a lifestyle of giving.’

One of the arguments that I’ve heard against tithing is that people claim it is not relevant in the New Testament because it was part of the Old Testament law. So they say, don’t tell me to tithe it is being legalistic, we are now under the freedom of grace not legalistic requirements.

Two things to note: Firstly, giving as an act of worship began well before Moses was given the law and secondly Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it or to perfect it.

I said earlier that worship is giving our best to God so I want to finish with this thought. What is…

  1. The best we have to offer

Way back in Gen chapter 4 God had placed in the heart of his created beings the desire to give back to God. Here we see Cain bringing some of his produce to the Lord and also Abel brought an offering to the Lord. Notice what happens…

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.3In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offeringto theLord.4And Abel also brought an offering—fat portionsfrom some of the firstborn of his flock.TheLordlooked with favour on Abel and his offering,5but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

Cain’s was careless and thoughtless but Abel’s was choice and generous.

Abel gave his first and best to God and God was pleased. Remember God looks on the heart and knew that Abel’s attitude was right and honouring to the Lord.

In Gen 22 Abraham was asked to give the first and the best to the Lord. Of course this was his one and only son. It is interesting that in verse 5 it says, ‘Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Presenting a sacrifice of the first and the best to the Lord was an act of worship.

Why did God test Abraham? He wanted to know if Abraham trusted him, he wanted to know the character, the heart and the attitude of this man of faith. You see well before the law was given God was asking his servants to give their very best to God.

Then God sent Jesus to demonstrate the more perfect way of honouring God and the more perfect way of giving, loving and being generous. What did he do? God gave his very best to us, his firstborn and his best as a sacrifice for us. God did not hold back from giving to us, he gave us his very best.

I wonder what should our attitude be as we give to God. What does it mean for us to give God our first and our very best? I believe it means that we become extravagant in our giving back to God. May we do as Paul encouraged the Corinthians, ‘to excel in this grace of giving.’

May we see giving and generosity as a ministry before the Lord, may we give with such faith and commitment that we surprise ourselvesand conclude that it must be only by the grace of God that we can do this. And may we see this grace of giving as an absolute privilege before the Lord.

Conclusion:Murray & Meg exceled in the grace of giving.

  • Describe them
  • The blessing they were to us
  • Time
  • Encouragement
  • Finances
  • Faith
  • Prayer
  • Their giving was a ministry, a testimony, an example of God’s grace and power

Message by Pastor David Lloyd