It’s hard to believe but here we are in our last week. Next week will be our celebration Sunday and we will share testimonies, stories of what God has been doing during our 40 Days of Community. How has God blessed you or your small group? How has God challenged you? How have you grown? What God experiences have you had being in community, serving others in our church, reaching out to our Springvale township community? Please come next week ready to share, it will be helpful to write down your experience first.
During our 40 Days of Community we have learned that God has placed us on this earth for a very simple purpose, and that purpose is summarized in one word, love. God made you to love you. The most important thing you can do in your life is to love Him back. Jesus said it like this in Matthew 22 (v. 37-38) "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." There is absolutely nothing more important in your life than learning to love God AND love other people. If you do these two things you will have fulfilled your primary purpose in life, you will succeed in doing what God placed you here on this earth to do. If you miss this part of your life, your life is a failure, because you’ve missed the very reason that God created you and put you on earth -- to love and be loved.
There’s a term the Bible uses for expressing love to God. That term is called "worship". We tend to think of worship as a ritual or routine you do on Sunday morning at church. But worship simply means expressing love, appreciation, thankfulness to God. It includes Sunday morning service, but it goes beyond that. Any time you’re expressing love or devotion to God, you’re worshipping him, whether you’re by yourself, in a small group, in a large crowd, or wherever.
While we can worship God wherever we are, God is very clear in our key verse this morning that one of the ways he desires us to worship him is by coming together one day out of the week. In fact he even commands it. Lev. 23:3 You may work for six days each week, but on the seventh day all work must come to a complete stop. It is the LORD’s Sabbath day of complete rest, a holy day to assemble for worship. It must be observed wherever you live (NLT). God expects his people to gather on one day out of every week to worship him. Not once a month, not whenever I can make it, or when it’s convenient for me, but every week. I hear people say to me, "Why do I need to go to church on Sunday?" "I don’t think God really cares how I worship him, as long as I do," or "I don’t really get anything out of worship." Here’s the deal, if we love God, it’s not really about us, what we want, or what we get out of worship. It’s about God, what he wants, and God is saying to us, "This is how I want to be worshipped. This is how I want you to demonstrate your love to me, by gathering together weekly with other believers and offering yourselves to me." Are we worshipping God the way he wants to be worshipped? Or is the focus of worship ourselves? Because God wants us to worship him together.
Why is it so important for God that we gather together to worship him, to demonstrate our love for him? The Bible gives us a few reasons:
1) We Worship Better Together
We can express our love to God anywhere, on our own, but we are better when we worship together. Let me go through a few reasons why we are better together:
a) We Each Have Gifts and Abilities to Share
God has created us uniquely so we each have contributions to give. The Apostle Paul was giving the church instructions on worship, and he said in 1 Cor. 14:26
"When you meet [for worship], one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in an unknown language, while another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must be useful to all and build them up in the Lord."
What Paul is saying here is that God has given us gifts to use so we can worship him together. Worship is not meant to be a one person show, where the pastor gets up to do everything. It is something we do together. Some have the gift of teaching God’s word, some are able to sing and play instruments, some know how to use technology, some have the gift of welcoming and hospitality, others have the gift of counting and keeping track of money. All these gifts are important when we use them to honor God, so that when we come together our worship is enhanced, the experience is better for everyone, and most importantly it brings pleasure to God because he loves it when we use our gifts to serve him.
Worship isn’t a spectator sport, where we sit in the stands and watch others play for us or on our behalf. Worship is a full contact sport, full participation. Worship is not about what we receive but about what we have to give to God. Look at what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1:
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship."
The key word here is "offer," our worship is offering ourselves freely to God. When I come to worship I should come to offer God my gifts, my voice, my hands, my attention, my money... my all. When you come on Sunday morning, do you come primarily to give to God, or to receive? Do you come primarily to be fed or to offer yourself to God? Before coming to service do you find yourself thinking, "I hope the music is good today. I hope the pastor’s message doesn’t put me to sleep this week. I hope this is worth my time." It’s not bad to desire to receive from God, but we primarily need to come with an attitude of giving. The blessing is when we give, God gives more and we receive, but the question goes to our motive for worship. God looks at our heart.
Giving is the first test of the sincerity of our love to God. Giving can come in different forms also, giving our gifts and abilities, giving a word of encouragement to someone who is down, making a sacrifice of praise with our singing, giving our attention to God, giving our money. What did you come to offer God this morning? Did you do it out of obligation or willingly, freely out of love for God and others?
b) We Can Pool Our Resources for Greater Kingdom Impact
On the theme of giving, we learned something about giving this past week. We worship better together because we can pool our resources for Greater Kingdom Impact. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 16:2:
"On every Lord’s Day, each of you should put aside some amount of money in relation to what you have earned and save it for this offering."
The offering Paul was referring to in his letter to the Corinthians was for the Christians in Jerusalem who were experiencing a famine and extreme poverty. Corinth on the other hand was a fairly wealthy city at that time and experiencing blessing. He told them to take up a collection every Sunday and to put a percentage of their income in the plate so that when he eventually arrived he could take the money with him and share with those in need. Because they pooled their resources on a weekly basis, over time it built up so they were able to make an impact in the world. Isn’t that what we are doing here? When we take an offering, we are pooling our resources to support God’s work, missions, to help our community. [Talk about the offering for Miracle Sunday, one person who talked about how they could only afford to put in a little, but together we make an impact]. We make a greater impact for caring for God’s people.
I realize we don’t have to be together to gather money, we could all send a check in the mail, but there is something that happens in the act of giving together. Something happens in putting in the offering in the plate. I remember Amy and I attending an African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the time for the offering came, and I was a bit confused at first because there were no ushers. Instead I began to see people going up and placing their offering in the plate in the front of the church. Most of us would probably be uncomfortable with that, but talk about a sense of accountability, everyone can see who put money into the plate.
c) The Power of Praying Together
The third reason we are better when we worship together is we experience the power of praying together. I can’t explain how this works, but when Christians are together, worshipping, praying, God’s Spirit is here in power, and God responds more than when we pray alone. There are examples of this all through the book of Acts. But you’ve heard the passage from Matthew 18:19-20:
"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
There’s two things here, 1) Jesus’ presence and 2) the Father’s answer to prayer. If two or more are gathered, Jesus says he is with us. I don’t know why, but the more believers who are filled with the Spirit are together, the more powerful the Spirit is present. I explain it like coals in a fire, they burn hotter when they are together, the more there are, the hotter they burn. And because Jesus’ presence, his Spirit, is here, and we are seeking his face, so when we agree with him, and agree together in prayer, the Father says, ’yes, I will answer that prayer, I will do that for them.’ Not because God is some cosmic genie granting requests, but because he loves us.
Jesus said, "my house will be called a house of prayer." If you are not seeing answers to your prayers, are you praying together with other Christians? I don’t just mean on the prayer chain, I mean together in worship, together in small groups or Bible studies, together in prayer meetings. Make prayer a priority among our small groups not just something which is tacked on to the end if we have time.
2) We Are Practicing For What We Will Be Doing For Eternity.
Why does God want us to worship together? Because we are practicing for what we will be doing for eternity. In Revelation 4 & 5 the Apostle John is allowed to get a glimpse of heaven and in it he sees a throne room, and at the center of the throne is God, as who read this take a look at who is there, and what they are doing.
Rev. 5:11-13 (NLT)
Then I looked again, and I heard the singing of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and the living beings and the elders. [12] And they sang in a mighty chorus:
"The Lamb is worthy--the Lamb who was killed. He is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."
[13] And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They also sang:"Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever."
Who is there? Everyone is there, together? And what are they doing? Singing, they are worshipping God forever and ever. For some of you, this may sound rather disappointing. You were hoping heaven was about golfing or fishing or hunting or doing whatever your favorite activity is for all eternity. But the picture of heaven in the Bible is worship, loving God for eternity. Expressing our devotion to God for who he is and what he has done for us. I want you to listen to me very carefully, if this idea of heaven really turns you off, you need to take a really close look at your relationship with God and ask yourself do I really love God? Because Jesus said, it is the most important thing we can do in our life. You may believe in God and Jesus, you may respect God, you may follow God’s commandments and try your best to be a really good person, but do you love God? If worshipping God is not a priority in your life now or certainly not for eternity, your relationship with God is not where God intends for it to be. You’re going through the motions of worship, but without the inner desire, without the love. Because our desire to worship God is a litmus test on our relationship with God and how much we love God. I’m not just talking about showing up on Sunday mornings because God says so, or because my family does, or because I get to see my friends, or because it’s just what you are supposed to do on Sunday morning, I’m talking about an inner desire to express your devotion to God.
Friends, we will be worshipping God together for eternity, is your relationship with God at a place where you come to worship him because you love him? You come to offer him your gifts, abilities, resources? Or does God need to change your heart?
