We have over the past few weeks prepared the property and looked at the blueprints for building this spiritual house, and now its time to get started on the most important part of any building, the foundation. No building can stand without a good foundation.
I am proposing that the foundation of your spiritual house and the church itself consists of prayer and worship, our part of the relationship with Jesus. Obviously without the blueprints, the Bible, you can’t even get started. That is the receptive mode, but now you actually have to respond and start building, so we come now to the actual outworking, the construction begins now.
The Bible is how God primarily speaks to us. Prayer and worship is now us speaking to and responding to Him. Of course prayer can also be receptive as well, but in essence it is our responding to God. Prayer and worship together form the foundation of our spiritual life as we respond to God’s word and creation remembering that without God’s word there is no foundation.
What is Prayer?
You know I had never looked up the original words for prayer before, and it was pretty interesting when I did for this sermon. Did you know that the most often used word for prayer in the New Testament is the same as the root word for worship? Literally to move toward or draw near to God. That is what we are doing when we pray, we are drawing near to the Lord.
To interrogate or make requests is another word used in the NT found mostly in the High Priestly prayer Jesus sends up in the book of John. Even Jesus pleads with the Father.
Why is Prayer important?
In New Mexico there is the biggest bank of satellite dishes in the world with the very creative name, “Very Large Array” or VLA. They can pick up the faintest radio waves from light years away. In fact the total energy of all radio waves ever recorded barely equals the force of a snowflake hitting the ground.
Well God has an even more sensitive array in heaven that hears everything the universe has ever transmitted, and this can only be because he wants to hear from us. God expects his children to talk to Him. Colossians 4:2, “Devote yourselves to prayer”; 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually”, which really means have a constant awareness of the presence of God. Be tuned into his frequency.
God doesn’t want a one way relationship. Would you stay in a relationship where you were completely committed to the other person, but they never spoke to you or never desired to give anything to you?
There’s another reason prayer is important and it relates to a passage we heard a few weeks ago toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds; and the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I like how Andrew Murray summarizes this passage, “This is the fixed eternal Law of the kingdom; if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and Spirit teach you to pray aright, but do not let go of the confidence He seeks to waken. Everyone who asks receives…. Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master’s word in all simplicity…. Let us beware of weakening the Word with our human wisdom.”
God has promised to answer our prayers when we pray for the things he wants to give us, and by the Spirit living in us.
Here’s yet another reason prayer is important. When were the only times Jesus demonstrated real anger? It was twice when he went into the temple and found people selling and ripping people off to make a profit, and what did he say? He said my Father’s house is to be called a house of prayer.
How was the church born? It wasn’t when people were singing, it wasn’t during a good sermon, it was when they were all just sitting there in prayer waiting on the Lord. That’s when the Holy Spirit was poured out and believers became the temple. So doesn’t it make sense that now we should be a house of prayer as individuals and as a church?
When God speaks to Ananias after Paul’s conversion and tells him to go to Paul, Ananias hesitates because he knew this Saul of Tarsus was bad news for Christians. But listen to what God says, “Go to him for behold, he is praying”. Probably for the first time in Saul’s super religious life, he is really praying from the heart and this is what now distinguished him as a true follower of Jesus.
Then that same Paul when he writes to encourage Timothy says, “First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people”. Not preaching, not putting the right programs into place, not making sure the music is professional quality, but simply prayer and supplication.
Do you know of a church where more than 10% of the congregation including the leadership shows up for prayer meetings? I easily hold our prayer meetings in my little office. By this, are we saying that we really don’t need God most of the time? “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer”.
My house shall be called a house of prayer, because if you really need me, you will come together and call out to me. Where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there. “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling”. Does it not look like God values prayer over all other religious activities?
But pastor, prayer is boring. I get uncomfortable sitting there for an hour with a group of people. What if nobody says anything, that would be awkward, because there’s no way I am going to pray in front of everyone. … It’s not about us.
Jim Cymbala pastor of the famous Brooklyn Tabernacle, which only came about because of intense corporate prayer, says this:
Prayer is the source of the Christian life, a Christian’s lifeline. Otherwise it’s like having a baby in your arms and dressing her up so cute – but she’s not breathing! Never mind the frilly clothes; stabilize the child’s vital signs. It does no good to talk to somebody in a comatose state. That’s why the emphasis on great teaching in today’s churches is producing such limited results. Teaching is good only where there’s life to be channelled. If the listeners are in a spiritual coma, what we’re telling them may be fine and orthodox, but unfortunately spiritual life cannot be taught.
Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, “We are not New Testament Christians if we don’t have a prayer life.” This conviction makes us squirm a little, but how else will there be a breakthrough with God?
God says I have everything you need, but I want you to come to me and pray for it, for “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer”. Remember what the 24 elders who fell down before the Lamb in Revelation 5 have in their hands? Golden bowls full of what? The prayers of the saints. Our prayers are so precious they are kept in golden bowls in heaven. And this leads us to the next thing:
What is Worship?
The Old Testament has numerous references to worship, much of it having to do with the outdated ancient sacrificial system that was done away with when Christ died. However, in the Psalms we have a great model of how we are to pray and worship God. There is music, praise, confessing, lamenting, and requesting. These are all ways to worship, and show the content of our prayer, but real worship is much more than this and is better explained in the New Testament.
The word most often used for worship in the New Testament comes from the root word meaning moving toward, but the full Greek word means literally to kiss (like a dog licking its master’s hand). And you know what, dogs are probably one of the best example’s of true worship, being the heartfelt expression of praise, loyalty and obedience to a master.
There’s also a different word that we find in Romans 12 when Paul says that giving your life to Jesus as a living sacrifice is your reasonable or acceptable spiritual worship. This word actually means to minister to God. It comes from the word that we get menial labour from.
So what is worship? It is not specifically anything we do on Sunday morning though we may call this a worship service. But it is also everything we do on Sunday morning. In fact one Sunday we may be worshipping God, another Sunday we do exactly the same things, but we are not necessarily worshipping. Why? Because worship is entirely based on the state of the heart.
That’s why we have to be careful when we read a passage like Paul’s in Romans 12, because it’s so easy to say that because I sang this song, or said this prayer, or raised my hands, or gave my offering, or listened to a sermon that I was worshipping. But the question is, was your heart? To be honest I think I have done much more real worshipping outside of church than I have ever done in church.
When we look at our lives as a living worship, we must look at the same things. Just because I attend church regularly, go to prayer meetings, sing on the worship team, read my Bible, does that mean I am worshipping? Well, if we take both our lives outside church and what we do inside church on Sundays, the question is not what we do, but when we are doing it are we moving toward God, are we ministering to Him with our hearts, are we taking the position of kneeling before him and kissing his hand, or planting ourselves face first at his feet?
That is worship. No matter what you’re doing, as you are doing it, is your heart like your dog’s when he sees you coming up the driveway. Is it your desire to minister to, essentially give to your God? When you’re at church on Sunday, are you giving your attention, your voice, your money, your love, your will, to Him and him alone? Imagine how awful going through the motions of worship must taste to God. Because he knows your heart.
Let’s look at a couple references from the Bible of what this worship might be like.
First, when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, Satan offered the whole world to Jesus if he would worship Satan. Jesus responds with a clip from Deuteronomy, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve”. Here we see very clearly that to Jesus, worship was equivalent to serving or following.
The world uses the word worship for many things. “I worship that singer, that athlete and so on”. What are we saying there? Is it not that we hang on their every word, follow the way they live, what they wear, give our praise to them, try to emulate them. My mom worshipped Elvis Presley when she was young, apparently to the point that she fainted when she saw an Elvis movie at the theatre. The heart of worship is in effect to be consumed by something, completely losing yourself in the process. The great king David danced publicly in his underwear worshipping God.
All through the Old Testament and Revelation we see that falling down, practically fainting, was often associated with worship of God. That word for fall has the notion of it being an involuntary falling. Our knees get weak and down we go.
Look at what the disciples do after they meet the resurrected Jesus. In Mt 28:9, Jesus says hello and they “came up, took hold of his feet and worshipped him”. Do you again see the idea of losing yourself?
Let’s look at John 4 that was read earlier, where Jesus is with the woman at the well.
Jesus said, “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus is making the point here that only true worshippers, those who truly believe in what Jesus has done, can worship in Spirit and in truth. He is referring to the Holy Spirit here the Spirit of Truth, and he is implying what we hear him say at another time, “unless a person is born from above, born of the Spirit, they cannot see the Kingdom of God” and therefore cannot worship the King truly.
In this context he is also saying that people will no longer worship in a place, or worship a thing. God is Spirit, he does not have a material makeup, and is not confined to anywhere in particular, even the Ark of the Covenant, so we must not worship any physical symbol, including the cross that was to come, only the living Spirit God.
Of course we must again use Jesus as our perfect model. How did he worship? Yes he did go to the synagogues, but primarily his worship was simply a life that was lived entirely for God. And we also know that he prayed constantly.
So why do I say that this is the foundation of our faith and spiritual house? Let me share a quote from A.W. Tozer, “If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week.” We can’t expect worship to flow from us one day a week and then be dammed up the rest of the time.
What was the sole purpose of Jesus? To glorify the Father right? What do we suppose the main purpose of the Holy Spirit is then? Wouldn’t it be exactly the same? The Spirit longs to worship and glorify God, so if the Spirit is in us we will worship in Spirit all the time because this Spirit will desire nothing else. If we are not worshipping pretty much continually it is because at those times we are living in the flesh not the Spirit.
Now I’m not saying we should never accomplish anything in this world because we are so busy doing these so-called acts of worship, but that as we live more and more by the Spirit, we will find ourselves more and more aware of God in all our circumstances. We will find joy in things that never gave us joy before, because our whole life and everything we do becomes something where we see God, sense him, and therefore experience Him in everything, even the bad times.
True worship brings joy. I’m sure most of you have had the experience where you’ve been really worshipping God, aware of him and it has just out of nowhere brought you to tears of joy and awe, and gratitude. Because when you really worship, your heart explodes. These experiences may be few and far between, but they sure do renew our walk with him.
If you are a Spirit filled Christian, which is the only kind by the way, you will want to worship Him, in fact you won’t be able to hold it back. When we seem unable to worship it is usually because we are blocking or quenching the Spirit, or the Spirit simply does not live in us.
The same goes with prayer. The Spirit will have an intense desire to commune with God in this way. So what am I saying here? I am saying that the foundation of our house is the Holy Spirit. If you have not been born again of the Spirit of God, if He doesn’t live in you as is promised for all who truly believe, you can’t build a spiritual house that will stand. He is the foundation, and the way you know that he lives in you is that you will desire to worship God, obey God, and pray to God. You will desire that reunion with Him more than anything.
As I thought about this God directed me straight to Matthew 16 verses 17 and 18. Listen very carefully after Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: “And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Most interpreters will agree that even though Jesus gives Peter the name which sounds like rock, it is not Peter he is calling the rock here. Peter’s name actually means pebble. Jesus is calling the Spirit of God who revealed this to Peter, the rock that he will build his church on. Of course this only makes sense, because the church was not built on Peter and if it was Peter, why would he say that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it, rather than against you.
All the Catholic teaching aside, this passage is clearly not calling Peter the rock, and Peter clearly never took it that way either. He was just one voice in the council of the Jerusalem church, but the day the church really began was when? Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent to fill all believers.
It is not flesh and blood that truly prays and worships God, it is the Spirit living in our hearts who knows he is away from God with whom he has been eternally joined. Prayer and worship are as natural as breathing to the Spirit who longs to be reunited in oneness again.
When we are born again he is in us and we are in him. Now just as Jesus had to walk for a time apart from the Father, so the Spirit does now, so if it dwells in us, it wants to be home with God and we will have that desire in us.
I know this is hard stuff to understand, but today if you just walk away with the idea that without the Holy Spirit living in us there is no foundation to build our spiritual house on, we have done well. He is the power that filled Christ, that powered the early church and every saint that has ever done anything for the Kingdom. The church is weak and Christians are weak because we lack the power of the Holy Spirit, not because of God, but because of ourselves. Apparently we don’t want it, we’re comfortable the way we are.
So let me just close with this. Because the Spirit is the foundation, prayer and worship are the foundation, not as duties or tasks that we mechanically do from our flesh, but as powerful outworkings of the Spirit of God who lives in us when we come to truly believe and are born again in the Spirit. If you want to understand it better take a journey through Romans again.
Prayer and worship are things that if we are truly born again Christians, will be desires that we can’t hold back without great effort and often discomfort. So today we ask ourselves this very important question, is my prayer and worship mostly mechanical, a duty, or something that I know in my head is something that a Christian is supposed to do. Or is it something that comes from the heart and really can’t be contained? We are meant to be born again spiritual beings living in a material world.
Has you’re life become so busy with other stuff that any prayer and worship or Bible reading are merely scraps that are rushed through so you can get to the other stuff in your life? If so, don’t wonder why your life isn’t working well, why you feel spiritually dry, why your church is not having any impact, or why you are not receiving any blessings.
You want to know why I became a pastor, how I experienced the call? It was because I never wanted Sunday mornings to end. I would leave church depressed. I wanted to be constantly in the Word, in prayer, in worship, and the only way I knew I could do that was to devote my life to working for Him. Even now when I let myself get bogged down in the administrative, and other menial tasks of being a pastor and neglect those core things, I start to feel lousy. And when I finally look at why, it’s like duh, you’ve neglected in depth time with ME. Do you feel something missing when you miss church?
If the answer for you is that it has all become a mechanical duty that I have to will myself to do when I feel like I should really be doing other things, then I would say the property has not been well enough prepared, and the blueprints haven’t been given enough attention. Go back to repentance, seeing the true state of your spiritual property that this Holy Spirit is supposed to live in, and get to know God more through his word and crying out to him in prayer. Then you can start pouring that foundation and understanding the mystery that Paul said in Colossians is, “Christ in you, the hope of Glory”.
Benediction from Heb 4:14-16
