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June 8 – Core Values 2 - The Strange Things We Do - Dennis Mullen
Last week: In a healthy church, every generation serves:
Today the message is called The Strange Things We Do, because the core values we’ll talk about today are ones that set us apart, make us different from normal people. If we weren’t in the Bible belt, they would really seem like strange practices, and if we take them as seriously as the Bible says we should, they’ll seem strange even in the Bible belt. The first of these strange things we do is WORSHIP…
1. God deserves the best worship we can offer Him. Worship is strange. It’s unlike anything else people do, right? To gather in a room and sing out compliments to someone, to tell them how great they are…people don’t do that anywhere but church, right?
If you think that, you haven’t seen Hillary or Obama speak! It amazes me how much devotion and wild zeal politicians can stir up when they’re campaigning. People act like politics is boring and that they don’t have much faith in the system, but a significant number of folks put a lot of energy into those rallies and the result is something resembling what we do in worship.
Or what about football games? In years past, I’ve spent a lot of emotion on the Vols. Nowadays I prefer to watch them from the couch, but there is something to be said about going to the stadium and being part of the roar when they run through the T or when they win, and the experience isn’t all that different from what we call worship. In fact, when Promise Keepers was big in the mid-90s, people said that it was like going to a football game, except that the focus was God.
There is something in the way God made us that wants to be part of a crowd and wants to lift up something larger than ourselves. We’re looking for a person or a team or a political movement or our nation to be for us something bigger and nobler and more beautiful than anything else. But I believe that this is a need within us that only God can fill. We long to worship, and only God deserves worship.
Even though football games and political rallies are similar to worship, I still call worship one of the STRANGE things we do. After all, you can’t see God, nor can you hear Him (not the way we normally mean “see” and “hear”). And worship is something that we do together on the weekend when you could sleep in instead or do something fun. And people keep coming to worship for 50, 60, or 80 years, Sunday after Sunday. No politician inspires devotion for that long. So why do we do this strange thing?
We do it because God deserves it. And that, BTW, makes worship a strange practice because no one else deserves worship and nothing else deserves worship. God alone. If that sounds like crazy talk to an unbeliever, at least they understand what we believe. God alone deserves our worship and he deserves the best we can offer him.
In Psalm 89:5-8, by a guy named Ethan, it says:
PS 89:5 The
heavens praise your wonders, O LORD,
your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones.
PS 89:6 For
who in the skies above can compare with the LORD?
Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings?
PS 89:7 In
the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared;
he is more awesome than all who surround him.
PS 89:8 O
LORD God Almighty, who is like you?
You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you.
Who is LIKE you, he asks? The answer is that no one is like our God, and therefore we worship – that is, we declare his worth and we rejoice in it.
There was a time in the ministry of Jesus (Matthew 22:36-39) when an expert in the Law asked him 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Loving God with heart and soul and mind…that’s what worship is all about. Now of course that love has to extend well beyond the worship service. But it begins here and it is here that we can lift up God and set our hearts and minds right at the very start of the week.
Our core value says that God deserves the best worship we can offer Him. I grew up in a church where things were very different. If we had had a core value about worship it would have said: We ought to have a church service every Sunday. And we did. But as far as the praise time was concerned, the piano player and organist would sit on the front pew between Sunday School and church, and pick out exactly four songs and they’d post the numbers of those songs on the board so people could find them in the book (early digital projection) and then they would find someone, occasionally me, to lead the singing. Then we would go through the motions of singing our songs, have communion and listen to a sermon. The thing that was missing was any passion that could be linked to our love for God, or any wonder like the Psalmist expressed when he says “Who is like the Lord!?”
At MHCC we prepare for worship differently. The musicians and the AV volunteers work for hours to be ready to lead you in worship, and the people who give the meditation put a lot of thought into it because they know that communion is the center, the focal point of our worship. And all of this is because worship is among the most important things we do together, and our obligation to God goes well beyond having church every Sunday… God deserves the best worship we can offer Him.
All the preparation in the world, and all the prayer for worship cannot force you to really put yourself into worship. Sometimes as I look across the pews, I hear you singing these powerful songs of God’s great love for us and ours for him, and the total lack of apparent emotion is either laughable or scary. It may be that before we come in here we need to intentionally brush off the dust of the world and decide to put our hearts into praise for these few minutes in order to break the spell of apathy that seems to hover over us. Or it may be as simple as the old joke: “Dennis, are you happy? Why yes, I am happy.” “Then tell your face!”
God deserves the best worship we can offer Him. He is our God, he has poured out his love to us and he deserves the best we have to give him. So we will continue to pursue the best we can offer him, in the spirit of Hebrews 12:28-29 - 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our "God is a consuming fire."
2. Life-change happens best in small groups. The first time I heard of small groups, my Mom was talking about them – she called them “cell groups” and it was an idea that had come out of California and it seemed crazy, for a bunch of adults to get together and talk about the personal details of their lives. But over time, I realized that I had never been in a church that DIDN’T have small groups as part of its ministry. The most common groups are called Sunday School classes, or Wednesday night Bible study, and Bible fellowship in homes is pretty common too. And while we need to come together and give God the best worship we can, we also believe that if your experience of church stops when worship ends, you’re missing out on the power that makes discipleship possible, because growth or Life-change happens best in small groups.
This is one of our strange practices too. What if you saw 8-9 adults showing up every Tuesday night at a house on your street and you didn’t know why – you just knew it had nothing to do with church. What are they doing? Something immoral? Plotting the overthrow of the government? Pampered Chef?
Yet the small group is vital to the Christian life. We praise God together in the larger worship service and we (hopefully) learn something to help us live our lives. But it is in the class, the home Bible study, or the smaller group on Wednesday night that we gradually get to know other people and learn to share our own weaknesses, our prayer needs, and help others carry their burdens too.
Our best model for this is the way Jesus trained his apostles. Hundreds, even thousands followed him from time to time and large multitudes heard him preach. But he spent three years investing in 12 men, and of those twelve he put special effort into three – Peter, James and John. Life-change happens best in small groups.
There is a picture of this in Acts 2:40-47, Pentecost, the day the church began. Peter preached his sermon and many responded, and this passage shows the balance between the large group and the small.
AC 2:40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
AC 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
We say that Life-change happens best in small groups because most all of us make progress in life when a few other people come to know us by name, know the things we need to work on , pray for us and root for us, and sometimes hold us accountable to change. That’s why we’re working hard (DP) training new leaders for small groups and starting new small groups and classes. In the meantime, if you aren’t in one, check out the list of classes on your insert today. And see me afterward for help in finding one of these. Life-change happens best in small groups.
3. Prayer connects us to God’s power and plans. If we were smarter – if I were smarter – the only verse we’d need to drive us to prayer would be Luke 5:16 - But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. If Jesus needed that, who do I think I am, and who do you think you are to run this life on our own? And this verse comes NOT during a time of great trouble for Jesus, but at the height of his success. It says in the previous verse: LK 5:15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. The Son of God, the man we call God-in-the-Flesh, the one who had the ability for the CLOSEST walk with the Father – saw prayer as a necessity, a life-line. How can I have the audacity to do otherwise?
But there are a few other Scriptures that invite me to prayer: PHIL 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Notice that the much beloved promise of “peace that transcends all understanding” is linked to the practice of prayer (grateful prayer). I often pray with someone for them to have the peace that surpasses understanding, but I know that the answer to that prayer depends somewhat on that person turning to God in prayer themselves and aligning their heart with his.
Listen to Paul in Colossians 4:2 - 2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Devote yourself is pretty strong language. What if I asked you to list the three things you’re most devoted to, things you make it a priority to get done, even if you have to sacrifice for it? It might be work or school, though you can do these and not be devoted to them. Maybe it’s exercise or healthy eating that absorbs much of your discretionary time and energy. It could be fishing or golf or friends that you’re devoted to. I’m not asking you to give those up. Just compare them to prayer. Are you devoted to prayer in anything like the same way? Paul asks the Colossians to pray in order to help him on the mission field: 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should… 12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.
Prayer connects us to God’s power and plans. That’s a core value here at MHCC. Jesus said that apart from him, his disciples could do nothing, so it follows that anything we do without him is nothing. If we want to walk in God’s power, prayer makes the connection. If we hope to find where God is working so we can join him there, prayer makes the connection. Without prayer, we are walking our own path under our own power. Prayer connects us to God’s power and plans.
Maybe you didn’t give him the best you could during the praise time. So let’s close with a responsive reading of the 150th Psalm where you can do it now (I’ll say the red, you say the black).
PS 150:1 Praise the LORD.
Praise
God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
PS 150:2 Praise
him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
PS 150:3 Praise
him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
PS 150:4 praise
him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
PS 150:5 praise
him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
PS 150:6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.
Morrison
Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E.
Race St.
Kingston, TN 37763 (865) 376-5205
