It’s about time
Psalm 92:1-5
I was thinking this week and trying to decide the most stressful time on any given week for Christians. When I started narrowing it down, I decided that I would be a bit more specific. I decided to actually limit the scope to be “active” Christians.
When I say active, I mean Christians that consistently attend church.
I also decided that the most stressed group of active Christians would be families with school age children.
That said, I decided that the most stressful time for “Active Christian parents” is probably Sunday morning when we are getting ready for church.
Now, I know I am sharing only my opinion and some of it comes form my personal experience. But let me qualify my thoughts just a bit.
In the past I was around for the conflict that seems to occur related to getting up, the clothes that should be warn, how long it takes to bathe, dress and eat.
Getting everyone in the car on time is like herding cats.
By the time we got to the church parking lot lives were threatened, and attitudes would easily be considered poor.
Getting to church often caused an interesting change in our facial expression and tone of voice.
And no matter how bad all our preparation went at home and on the way to church we are going to smile and look happy by the time we hit the church door. RIGHT!
I wish that I really thought that that sudden change was some kind of changed caused by God. Unfortunately, I believe that it actually comes from peer pressure. What would our church family think of us if they knew we didn’t have it all together, if we arrived disorganized and angry.
So we put up a neat façade that hides the junk that we don’t want other to see,
Let me ask you this question, “Why are you here in this worship service? Why did you get up early on a Sunday morning, maybe the only day you can sleep in, and get dressed and come to church?”
Is it out of habit. You’re family has come to this church on Sunday morning ever since you were a child and it’s just always been something you’ve done. So since it’s Sunday, you’re here.
Perhaps you’re here because you feel pressured to be here. I heard Tony Evans, one of the pastors I hear on the radio, say that growing up he was in church because he had a drug problem…he was drug to church every Sunday morning, drug to church on Sunday night and maybe that’s you.
Maybe it’s your parents, or a spouse that has compelled you to come by force, threat, or guilt. And instead of fighting it every Sunday you’ve decided to just come to church to avoid problems in your family.
Or maybe you’re here for the fellowship. You’re friends are here and so this is a chance for you to catch up on the week’s events, a chance to greet one another with a hug or a hand shake, and a chance to speak to some of your best friends. Being with friends is a very powerful reason to be in church.
Maybe you’re here because you’re hurting. It has been a rough week, and things aren’t going as you think they should, so you’ve come hoping to hear a solution to your problem and find some sense of hope and healing. That is a great reason to be in church.
Or maybe you’re just here to be entertained and you’re hoping we’ll sing a song that will take you back to yesteryear, or that you’ll hear me tell a joke or story that you can tell to someone else later in the week.
- What ever your reason, I’m glad you’re here and I hope you find what you are looking for. The church should be a part of your regular weekly routine.
… but if you are a Christian and that’s your primary reason for being here…
Then you’re here for the wrong reason…
If you come to church for any reason other than pure worship they are secondary. Most of them are valid motivators and there is definitely a place for all of our spiritual needs.
However, the primary reason for attending a church service should be to worship God.
Psalm 92 opens with a specific description of Sabbath worship. It is the only Psalm with that designation. In the temple worship happened every day.
It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
It describes worshiping God with words and musical instruments. It describes a celebration of God’s love.
Worship is more than just singing a few songs, performing a few rituals and enduring a sermon.
We come to church to experience the presence of God, to acknowledge His authority in our lives and to worship Him as our Creator.
-- We come to hear his voice but, he has an expectation to hear from all of us as well.
Unfortunately, many people in church have a problem when they go to worship
Barna research group (a research company that studies trends in Christian life), found that among regular church going adults:
one third have said that they have never experienced God’s presence.
½ of Church members claimed that they had not experienced God in a worship service in the past year.
And sadly, the surveys found that the younger the adult, the more likely they are to say that God is a distant, and an impersonal reality for them.
Those statistics are pretty disturbing. If Christians feel that way about the presence of God, what is the point of attending worship?
It seems that it is not unusual for Christians to come to church for the wrong reasons.
-- They come to church with certain expectations of what they will get instead of what they are coming to offer.
All too often we come to church and the façade is up to hide our junk and at the same time that simple curtain or closet door is a barrier that keeps God from entering our messed up lives. It protects us and keeps us from being changed.
If you come to church for the wrong reasons can you expect to experience the presence of God? If you come to church because this is the only place that you are willing to even willing to come close to God then we have a deeper problem.
We want God to be our servant. We want God to be there when we call and to be hidden away when we have it all under control. If we live like that then we don’t understand who and what we are in comparison to God.
I believe that noticing the presence of God in a worship service is normally a very personal thing. Something clicks and your eyes are opened. I think that it happens when we lower our defenses when we open our cluttered life and suddenly He is there and you forget about the mess.
In our presentation this morning, did it make you at least a little uncomfortable? How do you treat your relationship with Jesus during the week?
I think that the theology of the play was just right on.
Did you notice how Jesus was always with her, always paying attention to her? Did you notice how she failed to see him until she took just a moment of her busy day and found his presence?
Her need, her guilt her limits.
We wonder why people fail to feel the presence of God in worship?
I think there are a number of reasons .
The first is that we don’t understand worship.
A young man wrote to his girl describing his feeling for her, “I would climb the highest mountain for you, I would swim the widest river for you, I would crawl across the burning sands of the desert for you.” Then he put a P.S. to the letter: “If it doesn’t rain Wednesday night I will be over to see you.”
There is a whole lot of worship that is like that today.
Oh, we know what we like……We know what we expect……
We know what we will do…..
-- We tend to be vocal about what we don’t like.
But I think that we all fail to worry about what God wants and expects.
So what exactly is worship? Well, the English word worship means to ascribe the highest worth to.
So when we worship we should be saying, God you’re number one in my life. You come before anything and anyone else.”
Mark 12:30 tells how Jesus said we should feel, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
So, as a Christian nothing is supposed to be more important to you and me than God.
When we worship, we take our focus off of everything else and place it solely on God. The holiness of God, The righteousness of God. The love of God.
How well are you doing with that?
Putting aside the stuff in your life? I don’t know about you but it is not that easy for me sometimes.
We spend our week dealing with the busyness of the world and our problems. The news is totally depressing and then there are problems with family and health.
Man it is hard to come back to Sunday and suddenly change our focus back to God and Holy things. It is so hard to suddenly change directions and take the time to celebrate God.
But I guess we all know that that is what God expects right?
We know that we are expected to worship God and a couple of hours a week is probably not really too much for God to ask?
The psalm continues, “For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands. How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts!
God is bigger than me, God is more loving than me, God is smarter than me.
God is to big to be worshiped in an hour in a Sunday service.
-- Church, Worship is not just a one hour thing; it’s a way of life.
If we are to love God with our heart, soul mind and strength then our worship on Sunday is only a snapshot of the worship we do the other 167 hours in the week.
Church, worship is all about time! Time with God.
So, when we understand that we are to worship God as a way of life, and the worship service on Sunday is the reflection of what we’ve experienced and done throughout the week.
Sunday worship is the time when we bring our solitary worship experience into the church building and share what God has done and is doing for us.
When you come to worship is it out of duty and obligation, is it to keep peace or is it to celebrate what God has done for you?
People that have never felt the presence of God can’t really be Christians can they?
I am not their judge so I can’t know the answer. But it seems that faith can only come when we are touched by God. When we recognize that something Holy and righteous came to us. When the “story of Jesus Christ” become a reality in our hearts and we know it is true.
You need to recognize something; you will never notice the presence of God in your life if you only spend only an hour or two getting ready for worship.
You need to remember that when you think about worship It’s really about time.
It starts with taking time to recognize God for who He is and all he has done. Take the time to recognize how short we have fallen from perfection. Time to repent and listen and respond. Time to speak, sing and share our thanks and praise.
It’s about having time for God in your life.
All Glory be to God
Let’s close our service with number 79 in the dark blue hymnal, “To God be the Glory.”
But, you need to sing it like it means something.
Sing it like you really want to praise the Lord.
Our alter is always open and if God touches you come and join him at his Alter and leave your burdens and junk open to Him.
