Brining Faith Into Focus Series

Bringing your Faith into Focus

July 16, 2006

Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the one thing that allows us to live, breathe and enjoy a wonderful relationship with Him.

Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, [2] through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

This scripture among others, attest to the power of this saving faith. We are first of all justified because we have faith in Christ’s atoning work.

Secondly, we gain access to His continual grace by that same faith. Because of that, we have peace, hope and joy.

When our faith in Christ for our daily journey waivers, the signs of this are that our peace, hope, and joy begin to diminish and become faint. This is caused when we lose focus on our faith.

Our focus is lost because we simply quit looking at Jesus and begin to cast our gaze on other things.

Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)

You will keep in perfect peace

him whose mind is steadfast,

because he trusts in you.

So the question is, how do we maintain our focus on our faith? This is the purpose for worship. Worship is something we do as a love response to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, however it also serves the purpose of keeping our faith focused on God.

True worship is a daily activity rather than just a weekly activity. Most Christians don’t recognize or acknowledge this fact. They are deceived in thinking that attending a worship service on Sunday is the sum total worship requirement that must be fulfilled for the week.

Worship is a life style of surrender and focus upon God.

John 4:24 (NIV)

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The type of worship God desires is continual worship in spirit and in truth.

We must regard our weekly worship services is in three ways;

• It is a model of the worship lifestyle we must live daily.

• It is the corporate expression of how the whole body of believers lives out their lives on a daily basis.

• It is a time of refocusing on our faith in the one who saves us and sustains us.

With these 3 things in mind let’s look at it this way. If you decided to get started in archery this week and your goal is to be accurate at 50 feet how would begin? You would start by:

• Obtaining all the proper equipment,

• Learning all the proper techniques,

• Practicing at short ranges.

The goal of corporate worship is:

• To give you the proper equipment through the preaching, teaching and singing of the word.

• To help you learn the proper techniques by approaching the master in prayer, presence, and attitude.

• To practice loving God and loving others at a short distance before you are accurate at a greater distance.

Each week as we come together to practice the skill of worship, we leave with the intention to utilize that skill throughout our lives "in the real world".

A weekly worship service is not the end in itself, it is just the point of refocus so that our faith is sharpened and honed for the continued journey.

We often loose focus!

Often we loose the true focus of our faith in Christ and the reason for worshiping Him. Our focus becomes lost over concerns, worries and preoccupations. Our worship focus also becomes lost over a myriad of misconceptions, opinions and preferences.

Because of this, we confuse the vehicle of our worship for worship itself.

The vehicles for worship are those elements we employ in a worship service that are designed to lead us into true spiritual worship. These things are; music, scriptures, prayer, preaching, receiving offering, communion, and a host of other creative methods. All of these things are essential and required. However, the purposes of these things are to lead us into spiritual worship not to be worshipped. All of these things are simply practices that lead us to focus on the presence and the throne of God.

Because we live in such a fast paced and quickly changing culture, we are seeing these vehicles to worship keeping us from true worship. It is time for us to refocus our faith on where it truly needs to be focused. We need to bring the true purpose of our weekly corporate worship back.