“PLANNED FOR GOD’S PLEASURE”
Sunday, May 2, 2004
We are unpacking God’s purposes for our lives. In order to get the most you can out of this series, I encourage you to read only one chapter a day. I know life is busy; I missed two times this week myself and I had to get caught up, but it is easier to digest the material. So often we just rush through when reading things and we don’t get out of it the things that we should. The best way to digest something is to just think of one chapter at a time each day.
What caught my attention this past week was the life metaphor. Our lives change and our priorities change when we shift our metaphors for life and how we see life. A lot of us see life as an hourglass- as time winding down. Scripture tells us it’s more like a temporary assignment or a test we must pass. I think if we have that metaphor, God’s metaphor for our lives, it changes our lives. It really brings meaning to our lives and changes how we live.
Last week we talked about how we were created for God’s purposes and I used the illustration of the mixer. We know how to get the most benefit out of a mixer because we know what it is created to do and we know what it is not created to do. Imagine, though, digging this up 2000 years from now, looking at it and trying to figure out what in the world they used this thing for; suppose reaching the conclusion that it must be a cement mixer, and trying to mix cement with it. What would happen to it? It would burn out. Why? Because they didn’t understand the purpose for which it was created and they lived outside of those purposes; I think the same thing happens in our own lives.
When we fail to understand the purpose for which we were created, we wind up living for other purposes for which we were not created and, as a result, our lives get burned out. We don’t experience the abundant life that God has intended for us, so it’s important for us to discover from our Creator our purposes over the next five weeks. We are going to look at each of those five purposes.
Today the first purpose we are going to cover is the purpose of worship. I have a new object lesson for you. I tried to get one but I couldn’t. It’s the object lesson of a piston. You know what a piston is, right? It goes in an engine. What happens when your pistons misfire? What happens if one of them gets stuck? What happens when two of the four, some of you have six and some of you have eight, pistons don’t function? What happens? It slows down. It doesn’t function well. It jitters; the same thing is true in our lives. If we don’t have all five purposes of God in our lives, not just one or two, but all five operating, we don’t experience the cruising effect of being in the center of God’s will. If some of them are gunked up or stuck or misfiring, we’ll experience this jitteriness of life and we won’t get the power of God in our lives as we had hoped. Therefore, we need all five purposes of God working in our life and, of course, none of it works unless you have a spark.
To let you know, you do not have this divine spark in you. It’s not there. It’s something you must acquire outside of yourselves. As we hook our lives or connect our lives to God, he then gives us his power which sparks your engines and brings us to life. Until you connect your life to God through faith in Jesus Christ, none of what I say today or during these 40 days of purpose will make any sense to you. So the first order of business is to plug ourselves into God, who is the battery for our lives, who sparks the engine, who makes everything run and flow so we experience the abundant life that he has intended for us. You may be sitting there saying I don’t buy into this. I don’t accept that.
Well, most people don’t in our culture, and our culture has been looking for answers in all different places. Last week I used the illustration of the keys. If you can’t find your keys in one particular room and you have been looking in the room endlessly, what do you do? You go to a different room. So I encourage you, if you are not finding satisfactory answers for your life, try a different approach. Try the room called “God,” look at God’s purposes for your life, and see what happens. That is what I hope for during these 40 days, that we will look at God’s purposes for our lives, and see what happens, see what God does in them.
What’s the first purpose of God? The first purpose is elicited in Mark 12:30. If you follow the outline, I am probably only going to get through point one of the outline. Because as I was unpacking it, I realized there is a lot of stuff here that could be said, and you know me, I like to say a lot. Mark 12:30 says this (Jesus responding to the question what is the most important commandment. If you don’t get anything else right, if you want to know what is most important in God’s heart, what’s most important for your life, remember this one thing): “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” This is the first and greatest commandment, meaning this is the first order of business. If you want to get the most out of your life, love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul.
Revelations 4:11 says it this way: “You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.” It’s for God’s pleasure. We were created for God’s pleasure. What brings God pleasure? Another way of saying God’s pleasure is worship. It’s in worship that we bring God pleasure. What’s worship? Well, worship can be a lot of things. Everything we do that puts a smile in God’s heart, that delights God, that pleases God, is worship. When I say God’s pleasure, I don’t mean it in the sense that God created us and looks upon us like some flea circus on earth and just enjoys watching us jump through hoops. I mean it in the sense that God takes pleasure in us as his children.
How many of you are parents or are going to be parents or like children? Don’t you take delight in watching your children and seeing them play, seeing them sleep at night quietly, finally? You take delight in them. Well God takes delight in us. What puts a smile on God’s face? Anything we do that pleases him. Hebrews 13:20-21 says: “May the God of peace…equip you with everything for doing His will and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him.” Worship is a response to God’s love.
Last week we talked about the reason God created us. It is because he loves us. He created us out of love, and worship is our way of loving God back. 1 John 4:19: “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Now when I say worship though, what do you tend to think of the most? When I say we worship God, what do you think of? Yes, right here, the worship service. The worship service, however, is simply one facet, one way in which we worship God, but it is an important way; it is not an optional way. What is unique in corporate worship, is that we experience all five of God’s purposes simultaneously. That is why it is so powerful in people’s lives. We learn and we experience all five purposes, and one of those purposes is worship or praise. It’s interesting in Scripture that “praise” is the most common verb in the entire Bible. It is more common than “believe,” “saved,” “salvation” and other words. It is the most common verb in all of Scripture, which means that it is pretty important to us.
What kind of worship is pleasing to God? (There are a lot of verses on that: John 4:23 and Mark 12:20 which we could unpack but the book does that very well so I am only going to cover what the book doesn’t cover.) I would say if we simply take the first words in Mark 12:30 - Love the Lord your God - we get an answer. What is a loving way of worshiping and praising God? What is not a loving way of worshiping God? How do we, in worship, please God? What is loving to him?
I like to take my son shopping when it is near to his sisters’ birthdays. In fact, when he sees us shopping for birthday presents, he wants to get whoever’s birthday it is a present as well. He assumes everything in my wallet is his, and of course children do that. He believes he has all this wealth of money and he goes through the store picking out things that he believes his sisters or his mom would love.
It has taken me a while, but I have noticed a pattern over time. Alan picks out things that he enjoys, that he likes. He claims that his sisters are just going to love this G.I. Joe, and they are going to love this gun that shoots out 14 bullets and bounces off of people. He just loves play-doh and whoopee cushions. He loves whoopee cushions. I don’t know why. In reality, he is really buying for himself. He’s buying what he likes. I am afraid that sometimes (or often) our worship is like that, reflecting more of what we like and less of what God really wants. Our focus is really more on self a lot of times. I get the sense of that by how we talk about worship. For instance, how we rate worship.
God had this issue with Israel as well. He said in Hosea 6:6 this was an issue with them as well. They lacked focus on God. He said, I don’t want your sacrifices, I want your love. I don’t want your offering; I want you to acknowledge me. Notice the object of every worship statement, love God. He is the object. Praise be to God. He is the object. Offer to God. God is the object and focus of our worship. Hebrews 12:2 says: “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” But so often, the way we talk about worship reflects more of a selfish or a self-centered attitude.
How do we rate worship? When is worship good for us? When does it speak to us? When does it say something to us? When do we feel closer to God as a result of the worship experience? Is that the purpose of worship, that we feel closer to God, that God speaks to us, or we get something out of worship? No. Worship, first and foremost, is our giving back to God. It’s a response to his love; we are returning that love back to him. It is not about what we get out of worship. Worship is not for us. It is not for our benefit.
Now you will benefit from it because it says in giving you receive. Give and it shall be given to you, good measure, press down, shake it together, running over, what God gives and men give into your bosom, so we will receive; but we will never receive if our focus is to get something rather than to give something.
I get a sense of self-focus in worship as how we define worship. Some people define worship by music or, in particular, an upbeat style of music. I remember after one praise service, a contemporary service, someone came up and wrote a note after the service asking what’s wrong with the praise team? They were so down today. What we had planned was to end the service in a more solemn tone and it shook someone up. That is not worship. Worship isn’t ending in a solemn tone. They wouldn’t like this service. Again, the definition of worship is it has to be upbeat music or it’s not worship. That is not true. That may be what you like but that is not true.
Some of us define worship as a good sermon. You know what? Every part of the worship service is worship. The call to worship is worship. It centers our focus upon God. Singing is also worship.
I have noticed something about singing. I notice there are a lot of people and, in particular, I notice there are a lot of men who don’t sing. When I’ve asked you about it I get this response, but I sing like a frog and everyone around me will hear me. Well, you are not singing to everyone around you. That is not the purpose for hymn singing or contemporary songs. You are singing, and we are singing, to God and he says, if you can just make a noise and it’s a little bit joyful, I’m fine with it. So stop thinking about yourself or about your neighbor. They may care, but God does not.
Confession and prayers are a part of worship. It is not a commercial break. It is not a time to zone out. It’s a time to lift our confession to God, confessing our sins, praying to God, asking him to show us what he wants to say to us, praying for each other’s needs and our own needs. The offering is not a time where we give according to what the churches needs are or according to a church budget. An offering is in praise of God for what he has done in our lives and, in response we are giving back to him a part of what he has already given to us. A sermon is not simply someone up here going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, though sometimes we feel that way. It really is a time where we listen to what God has to say. We are not listening to what Richard Pfeil has to say. We are not listening to a human being. We are listening to what God has to say.
Paul, in Thessalonians, applauds his church in that he says we thank God continually for you. Why? Because when you receive the word of God, you accept it not as the word of men, but as it actually is the word of God. So when you nod out in church, you are not nodding out on me, it doesn’t bother me at all, and I know sometimes you get tired and I have been there too. But we are nodding out on God. When we check our watch – what’s it like? I will tell you what it is like (and I have done it too). I am just as much at fault as everyone else here. Have you ever been in a conversation with your best friend …how would you feel about your best friend, if in the middle of the conversation, when you are sharing your heart or sharing your hurt or sharing something really important to you, the person’s always glancing off at the clock? They are always looking over your shoulder. They are always looking away. What does that say to you about that friend? How do you experience that friend? Are they really a friend? Do they really love you? Do they really care about you? I have a sense that we do that to God, we insult God. He is trying to talk to us all the time and we are looking away and being distracted. Is that a loving way of responding to God? The sermon is not a time for passing notes, either; it’s a time for listening to God. If you want to get the most out of a sermon, don’t ask what is Richard saying today. Ask yourself what is God trying to say to me? You can have the worst speaker and still get a lot out of what they say if your focus is on what God trying to say!
I get a sense of this self-centeredness of worship in what we are willing to do in worship. In the average Presbyterian Church there seems to be only one emotion in worship - the emotion of solemnity. Is that the only emotion of worship? The only action of worship in the average Presbyterian Church usually is this, or this, but is that the only action of worship? Worship isn’t up and down. Worship isn’t looking at a book. Worship’s focus is God. When we sing, we sometimes sing into a book when we should be singing to God. As Presbyterians, I find that we are kind of monotone when it comes to worship. I have discovered in Scripture that God is surround sound. God loves a lot of action and a lot of emotion. In original Presbyterianism there was a lot of action and a lot of emotion. When I look in the Book of Order, the first chapter of the foundation of principles of Presbyterianism, here is how it describes Presbyterians. Now I am going to ask you, when was the last time you ever described a Presbyterian like this: “As Presbyterians we are bound to the Christ authority and thus free to live in the lively and joyous reality of the grace of God.” Now when have you ever experienced in worship, Presbyterians as being free, as being lively, and as being joyous? Do those adjectives and adverbs describe the average Presbyterian? Does it describe you?
What is the language of worship? In the directory of worship, chapter 1, paragraph 2, called “language of worship,” it defines the language of Presbyterian worship, the language of response to God’s love (that is how we defined it this morning), like this: in worship “we call God by name; we invoke God’s presence. We beseech God in prayer. We stand before him in silence. We contemplate him” [Well, so far so good]. “We bow. We lift our hands and voices in praise. We sing. We make music. We dance” [holy mackerel, I have never seen that!]. “With heart, mind and soul we join in the pageantry of worship.” Is worship in the average Presbyterian Church a pageantry of worship? It reminds me of the Danish theologian _______ _______ who describes worship as this: Worship is a drama where we are the actors. The pastors, the musicians, the worship leader, they are the actors and God is the audience.”
This morning we join in the “pageantry of worship” and we are the actors. It is we who worship God. Do we worship that way? Is that our focus? Worship that is pleasing to God in John 4:23 has two qualities. It’s worship “in spirit,” meaning it is heartfelt, it is sincere, it is coming from the very heart and soul; and it is “in truth,” which means it is according to the Word of God.
So if you find a style of worship, an act of worship, an emotion of worship in scripture, then it is how God wants to be worshipped. It is what is pleasing to God. It is what is loving to God. When we look, and as churches, rediscover the actions, the attitudes, and the emotions of worship as written in the Bible, this pleases God. Now ,some of these forms you may not be pleased with, you may not be happy with, but God is. Our focus should be on God, not ourselves.
I know some people think the only instrument in worship is the organ. They don’t like the piano, or the drums, or the guitars, and they don’t like the flute, or the violin and, if worship was about us, sure, you pick the instrument that you want, but it is not about us. What instruments does God enjoy? Well, if you read Psalm 150, he enjoys them all. He lifts every one that has ever been made in every category that ever was. You may not like it, but God does. Our focus for worship is not ourselves, not our likes, not our dislikes, but what is pleasing to him. There are some tunes and styles of music that we don’t like, but God likes them. Why, in the book of Psalms (which is called the book of hymns in the church) are there no notes? Why? Because worship isn’t a style, it isn’t a musical preference, it is heart and soul. It is the lyrics, and it is the words that make a Christian song sacred; not a tune. God can be worshipped in any tune and any style as long as it honors Him.
I get the sense of self-centeredness in worship in our response to worship time changes, in that there are people who no longer come to church because it is not their time or it is not their style. Again, if worship was about us, you have an argument, but it is not about us. What is most important is that we worship God, and if it is not your style, worship him anyway, and if it is not your time, worship him anyway. Because it is not about us, it’s about Him, and He is our focus.
[Let’s pray.]
