Effective Worship Series

Sermon-6/11/06-Effective Worship

Intro.-Teen came home from church bored, began to complain to his dad about the music.

“Dad I’m tired of singing only same old Psalms to outdated tunes, don’t you think that God might enjoy hearing something new from his children?”

This was not the first time his father had heard such complaints from his boy, but rather than argue with his son or come down on him for not appreciating the old psalms of the faith, his father challenged him and said “Why don’t you give us something better, young man!” so the young man took the challenge and before the evening service that night he had composed his first hymn, That was the first of over 600 hymns that Issac Watts went on to write in his lifetime including “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, O God, our Help in Ages Past”, and “Joy to the World”.

Effective worship-not a new struggle

-look @ what worship is

-brief history of Worship

-Some guiding principles from Col.

-Why we are trying to come to grips with this at this point in our church’s history

-finally, how we are trying to find ways that we can worship together as a congregation.

Pray

I. What is worship? Two meanings in OT & NT either bow down in reverence .

Schach (shaw-khaw)-to prostate oneself, to bow in homage, do reverence

Segid-Arabic-to do homage

Proskuneo-to kiss toward

to serve

Abad-to work, serve

Latreuo-service

The English word that we have for worship comes from the old English word “worthship”, literally to attribute worth. So as we come to worship God, we come in reverence, humbly before God to acknowledge Him because He alone is worthy of worship. Also worship through our service, this morning focus rather narrowly on worship as a body.

II. As we look back at the history of worship, it has continually been changing, ever since the beginning of time.

-Beginning see individuals offering sacrifices to God for different reasons

Cain & Able/Noah/Abraham

-Eventually we see God establish the sacrificial system and instruct the Israelites to construct the tabernacle.

-Hundreds of years After they had arrived in the promised land they constructed the temple a permanent place of worship.

-In the NT Jesus comes and shakes up the entire way that people were to worship God, He taught that no longer was worship going to be tied to a place (the temple) but that God was seeking those who would worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

-After Jesus ascension the HS came to dwell in believers and now that was where the presence of God dwelt, our bodies became the temple where the Spirit dwells.

-Romans 12:1-2-we are to live our entire lives as spiritual acts of worship. To worship we no longer have to go to a certain place, we are called to worship God with all we do.

-From the day of Pentecost down till today, the forms, styles, and ways that believers have worshiped have been continually changing and being impacted by culture from architecture (house church, basilica, cathedrals, building of today) to media (passed on orally, scrolls shared, only clergy had bibles, printing press, overheads/slide projectors, video projectors/computers/internet), to music.

Little instruction in the NT regarding how we are to worship God through music. 2 parallel passages that give us the a few of the specifics that we have are Eph. 5:19 & Col. 3:16.

IV. Guiding principles from Colossians 3.

In both of these passages we are instructed to worship God through the singing of psalms & hymns and spiritual songs.

Psalms-psalmos-Greek term for musical accompaniment, lit. twitching or striking of strings, probably referred to the Psalms of David and the rest of the psalter.

Hymns-humnos-songs of direct praise to God, hymns are about Him, songs sung to Him.

Spiritual songs-ode-this is the general greek word for a song. So spiritual songs would extend beyond the psalms, and hymns to all forms of song as long as they are spiritual.”

Read Col. 3:12-17

Few highlights from what Paul had to say there as I see them relating to where we are today as a church:

What does Paul tell us to “Put On”? The things that characterized the life of Christ. Tenderness, mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and most importantly love.

We are actually commanded to put on the qualities of Christ. These are the things that should characterize our lives and our interactions with others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

At vs. 14 he arrives at the main theme of the passage, the unity of the body.

Love binds us together in unity

As members of one body you are all called to live in peace.

The key to all of this is the person of Christ, we must put on His characteristics, his attributes, including His love that will bind us together.