Connecting the dots #1 Connecting through worship September 15, 2019

               

Connecting the dots #1

Connecting through worship

 We live in a connected world… connected refrigerators, smart TV’s, internet enabled thermostats and doorbells. When we are disconnected, as I was most of the time on vacation, I can’t tell you how many times I pulled my phone out to look something up and realized I couldn’t.  Some people get so worked up we have invented a name for it, “nomophobia,” as in “no-mobile- phobia”.

I don’t tell you to shut off your cell phones here because the church is in the business of making connections. I want you to connect to friends who aren’t here with a Facebook post telling them they are missed.  If we pray for someone, I want you to text them and say we are praying for you right now. I want you to be able to connect with the great and powerful google to see if I am right about some wild statistic I share in the sermon. I want to be a church connected to all of you who are watching on Facebook and YouTube. But more than all that, the church is a place to connect with God.

   A few months ago, the Church Council simplified our purpose to “CONNECTING PEOPLE WITH GOD.”

 In this new series, “connecting the dots,” we are going to use our new discipleship wheel. We developed the wheel to help us describe how we grow in discipleship. The top right quadrant, the blue section, represents our CONNECTION UP TO GOD. That is our purpose. But there are other connections.  Sometimes connecting people to God leads to these other connections… sometimes it is the result of these other connections,..

   Sometimes we connect people to God so they can connect IN to other people in the church, building Christian friendships. Sometimes it is the other way around; you bring a friend and the end up finding a connection to God. 

 Sometimes we connect people to God so they can go deeper in their own lives.  Sometimes as someone goes deeper into them self, they come to us seeking a connection with God.

 Finally, sometimes our connection to God leads us to mission and service in the world, and sometimes people who love to serve connect to God when they realize how important serving and changing lives is to the church.

As you might guess, this means that everyone is at different places on the target. Wherever you are, however, there is always one more step you can take closer to Jesus. That is what discipleship is all about.

 So, we will spend in spend two weeks in the blue quadrant talking about connecting up with God. Our primary means of connecting with God are worship and prayer.  We will start with worship today.

Let’s start with the premise that everyone worships. Worship is a wonderful combination of awe and wonder; and praise and thanksgiving that we offer to whatever is most important in our lives. Not everyone worships God. Some people worship money or things. Others worship success or popularity. Still others worship pleasure or even themselves.  Whatever our ultimate concern might be, we worship because we want to connect to it.

The good news is that God wants to connect with us as much as we want to connect to God. That is why we were created. God looked around creation and realized something was missing. So, God took a hand full of mud, breathed the spirit in it and made people--- he made people in what…” in his own image.” God made people not because God wanted to be entertained or because God needed us, but because God wanted to love and to be loved.

  The short version of the Westminster catechism, asks,

Q: What is the chief end of man? (sic)

A: Man's(sic) chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him (sic) forever. 

God wants to be connected to us and we need to be connected to God.

Worship is one way that we connect to God offering that wonderful combination of awe and wonder and praise and thanksgiving to God.

Let’s look at our story of the woman at the well and learn a couple of things about worship.  We are going to look at it as a worship experience for the woman because she ultimately came to worship Jesus.

               

 First… who starts that conversation. Jesus lived in Galilee and was traveling through Samaria. Most Jews went around Samaria, but Jesus went to Samaria on purpose and initiated this conversation with the Samaritan woman. 

Very simply… that is how worship works too.  We don’t start it. God comes to us. That’s what I mean when I say, “God was waiting for us before we got here.” Like a parent watching out the window for a child to come home from school, or a puppy waiting for the master to return from work, God is waiting for us to come home to our heavenly parent and worship.

Worship does not start with us. It starts with God. Notice the words:  awe, wonder, praise and thanksgiving are all responses to something. Awe is the response to something greater than us. Wonder is the response to something we cannot understand. Praise doesn’t start with us, it is our response to something that is worthy or praise.  Thanksgiving only makes sense in the context of having received a gift.

In order to connect with God in worship we must remember that God does not come because we are here. God does not come to be entertained by us.  We don’t have to conjure up God…  We come to worship because God first loved us. And God deserves our worship.

The second thing we see is that worship is part of everyday life. The woman is drawing water from a well. She could just as well have bene cooking, sewing, cleaning, bathing, or hanging out with her 6th husband to whom she was not really married. Worship is part of real everyday life. When you see a flower and say WOW that is a moment of worship for the glory of creation.  When we see our child for the first time, the wonder that fills us is a moment of worship.  When the test comes back negative, we experience relief or thanksgiving that is a moment of worship.

Worship is not limited to an hour on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Worship has a way of breaking in to our lives at the most unexpected moments. A glimpse of the milky way in the night sky might bring a moment of awe. Being selected for the job might bring a moment of thanksgiving.  Worship should not be set apart as something unique that can only be done at certain times in certain places.  Worship can break out at any moment, anywhere, for any reason. 

If we really want to connect to God through worship, we need to remember that Sunday is only the appetizer, intended to prepare us for a whole week of feasting on awe, wonder, praise and thanksgiving.  Worship is not an event it is a lifestyle.

 The third lesson about worship we find in John 4 is that worship is not about us. Do you remember why the Jews and Samaritans hated each other?  There were three things that separated them. First, during the Babylonian exile the Samaritans intermarried with the Babylonians. They were no longer pure.  Second, the Samaritans did not recognize any of the Hebrew Bible except the first 5 books.  You can see why that would be hard. Most importantly, however, the Samaritans thought God wanted them to worship on Mount Nebo instead of the temple on Mount Zion. They forgot worship is about God, not them or their building.

Both the Jews and Samaritans were stuck on the unimportant stuff.  Wouldn’t you agree that the important thing is that God is worshipped, and it a little silly to fight about on which mountain worship is held?

Let me tell you, Churches and denominations have split over less. What is your mountain that you will defend to your dying breath saying this is the way it has to be? Is it sitting in a particular pew every week? Ooo… I got some of you with that one didn’t I. I am not trying to be mean… just point out that in worship God is the only thing that is important… neither our pew, or whether it is padded or even if it is a chair really matters because worship is not about us, it is about God.  How we receive communion is not what really matters because worship is not about our preferences but about God. Whether we sing to piano and organ, or guitar and drums, out of the hymnal or the faith we sing, or a contemporary song on a video doesn’t matter because worship is not about our favorite anything, it is about God and God alone. Whether worship is on Saturday or Sunday, 8, 10 or 2 pm doesn’t matter because our convenience is not the most important thing. God is the only important thing.  If you want to connect with God in worship, stop majoring in the minors (as they say). Focus on the one true God and God alone.

 Finally, we see Jesus interacting with this Samaritan… and even worse a Samaritan woman… and even worse an adulteress Samaritan woman.

Jesus, however, is not in the judging business… and neither are we.

When we come to worship, we don’t come to judge the people around us. We don’t come to be better than someone else. We don’t come to be the best dressed, we don’t come to be with our friends and neighbors.  We come to be the kingdom of God on earth.

I occasionally hear someone refer to the hypocrites at the church, my response is, “Yes there are hypocrites in the church …that’s why people like you and I fit in so well.”

Which brings us to our growing point for today.  What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth.?  Jesus says we will worship in spirit and truth.

Let’s think about the great commandment for a moment, Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  Mtt. 22:37

 When we first start to worship it might be all heart.  It might be all feel good and fill me up. And we ATTEND when it is handy, and it is mostly for us.

 But as you grow deeper you start to understand worship is not about you, but it is about God. We come a little more regularly

 As we grow a little deeper, we begin to understand what worship is an offering, or as the great thanksgiving prayer says, it is a holy and living sacrifice. Maybe we have moved from heart to soul. And we come to participate.

 As worship continues to grow in us and we become rooted and grounded in worship as a lifestyle 24/7,  365 days a year.  And we not only come to worship but we live our worship and we may begin taking leadership in worship.

Have you ever tried to purchase as a gift for the person who has everything? Perhaps you have faced that dilemma and walked with frustration through stores hoping to find a special gift that communicates your love and meets a need in the life of the one receiving the gift.

Now think about worship as an offering God the gift He desires. God knows all things and possesses all the treasures of heaven and earth. He does not need anything. But there is one commodity that God longs to receive from each and every one of us.  God desires for His children to freely, boldly, and passionately worship Him in spirit and truth.

Notice the angel host of Revelation, never ceasing to say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Never do they stop. Day and night, they proclaim Him as central in all Creation. Without pause they are constantly affirming His infinite worth.

And you know what’s really wild? This massive God, who has never known any shortage of worship. This amazing God who is the source of all love. The perfect all-powerful creator of all that is including you…, wants to be worshiped…by you. Right now.

 Take a step deeper in discipleship by taking a step deeper in worship.