SERIES: “LESSONS FROM THE EARLY CHURCH”
TEXT: ACTS 20:7-12
TITLE: “UNDERSTANDING CORPORATE WORSHIP”
INTRODUCTION: A. Worship is important
1. Back during the days when people would travel by sailing ship, a young boy
was traveling with his father. The boy was amazed at all of the activity and work it
took to sail one of those ships.
He watched everything the sailors did and he noticed every night that the
captain of the ship would stand on the deck and point a funny-looking instrument
at the sky. He asked his father what the captain was doing. His father said, “That
funny-looking instrument is called a sextant. With it, the captain can ‘shoot the
stars’ and then he will be able to take our bearings. The captain can then see
where we are and find out if we are going in the right direction.”
2. Sometimes in life we become confused and we lose our way
--We need the checkpoint of worship to touch base with the Lord to see where we
are and find out if we’re going in the right direction.
3. This concept is vividly illustrated in Isaiah Chapt. 6
a. We see a description of a vision in which Isaiah is carried into the presence of
God on His throne
b. Isaiah is overwhelmed at the sound of the heavenly worship of the angels and
he’s profoundly confronted with his own unworthiness
c. He also dramatically comes into contact with God’s mercy and grace as Isaiah
sees his sinfulness made clean
d. During this scene of worship, God issues a call for those who would serve Him
--Isaiah gratefully responds to God’s call because of his encounter with God in
worship
4. J.J. Von Allmen, Worship: It’s Theology and Practice, “Christian worship is the
most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in
the human life.”
B. Last Sunday evening, we looked at idolatry, which is improper worship
--Idolatry is when the emphasis in our life and our faith is on the wrong thing
1. We learned our emphasis should be on Jesus Christ – with our eyes, mind, and
heart centered on Him.
2. When our emphasis is on anything else, our worship becomes idolatrous
3. Scripture teaches us that worship has two categories: personal worship and
corporate worship
a. Personal worship is when we worship God individually and privately.
--Include times of prayer, Scripture study, reflection, and singing
b. Although personal worship is extremely important in our spiritual growth, I want
to focus tonight on corporate worship – when the individual members of the
Body of Christ come together publicly to join together in worship
C. Acts 20:7-12 – On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul
spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking
until midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting.
Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep
sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from
the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young
man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive! Then he
went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left.
The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.
I. THE FORM OF CORPORATE WORSHIP
A. What is worship
1. The Hebrew of the Old Testament literally means “to bow down; to prostrate oneself”
2. The principal New Testament Greek word means “to kiss toward”
--referring to the hands or the feet; concept of subservience
3. Our word “worship” comes from the Old English “worthship”
--“to show worthiness, respect, and awe”
4. Ralph Martin, The Worship of God, sums up all these concepts with this definition: [Worship is] the
dramatic celebration of God in His supreme worth in such a manner that God’s worthiness becomes the
norm and the inspiration of human living.”
--Or as the sign in many church buildings says: “Enter to worship. Depart to serve.”
B. Many different styles of worship in churches across the world
--At its most extreme ends, these styles of worship range from
1. A very quiet and reverent liturgical style marked by
a. Strict adherence to a scripted order
b. Features responsive readings, printed unison prayers, and classical music
c. The preacher speaks in quiet, resonant, and reverent tones
2. The other end of the spectrum is a very jubilant and expressive congregational renewal style
a. Where the music is both heart-pumping and heart touching
b. Where the service flows with the expressions of those gathered
c. The preacher is usually very animated in his gestures and oftentimes shouts
d. The people respond by yelling, “Amen!” “Preach it!” “That’s right!” Hallelujah!”
C. Which one is correct?
1. Most people choose what is correct according to their own personal preference
2. Have you ever seen an athlete celebrate a victory in a very important athletic contest such as the
Olympics, NCAA Championship, the Super Bowl, or World Series?
--The expressions of victory are as varied as the athletes themselves
a. Some shake hands
b. Others embrace or hug teammates or friends tightly
c. Some weep and cry
d. Others laugh uproariously
e. Some shout and dance
f. Others sit in awed silence
3. All kinds of expression are appropriate in that kind of setting
4. How do we know what kind of expressions are correct in public worship?
--we need to let the Bible determine our boundaries
D. We find three basic types of worship in the Bible:
1. Vocal worship
a. Includes such things as singing, shouting, and speaking
b. Ps. 95:1 – “Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”
2. Audible worship
a. Worship through musical instruments or clapping hands
b. Ps. 47:1 – “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.”
c. Ps. 150:3-6 – “Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with tambourine and
dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the crash of cymbals, praise him with
resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.”
3. Body language
a. Bowing down; being on our knees
--Ps. 95:6 – “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker…”
b. Raising of hands
--Ps. 63:4 – “I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.”
1). Some say that raising hands in worships is emotional nonsense
--However, when a small child lifts up his hands to his parents, that’s not emotional nonsense.
The child is saying, “Lift me up,” or “I need your help because you’re stronger than I am.”
2). It’s a body language statement that says, “I need your strength, comfort, and love.”
3). I’ve had some say, “Well, it may be in the Old Testament but it’s not in the New Testament!”
--(I love a challenge) 1 Tim. 2:8 – “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer…”
c. Dancing (yes, dancing!)
--Ps. 149:2-3 – “Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let
them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.”
1). Ps. 150 as mentioned above also talks about praising God with dancing
2). In 2 Sam. 6, we see the ark of the covenant returning to Jerusalem. David is in awe of God’s
power and majesty but he’s also overjoyed about the ark returning to its rightful place. David’s
leading the procession as the ark is marched through the city gates. Vs. 14 says that David
“danced before the LORD with all his might.”
d. Stillness and quiet
--Ps. 46:10 – “”Be still and know that I am God…”
e. Overall, the Bible teaches that there is a time in worship in which we’re to be jubilant and
expressive and a time to be reverent and quiet.
II. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF OUR CORPORATE WORSHIP
A. Primary time for corporate worship is on the first day of the week
--vs. 7a. Why?
1. Precedent of the first century church
a. All four Gospels tell us it is the day that Jesus was resurrected
b. Jn. 20:19 tells us that the disciples gathered together in the upper room on the first day of the week.
c. 1 Cor. 16:2 mentions gathering together on the first day of the week
2. Starts our week off with the right focus and gives us strength for the week
B. Includes the Lord’s Supper
--vs. 7b
1. Several references in the New Testament which show communion was included in the weekly
gathering on the first day of the wee
2. Every early church leader following the death of the apostles acknowledged weekly communion
3. The three primary influencers of most denominational groups (Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli) all agreed
that communion should be observed on a weekly basis
4. There are some that claim that partaking the Lord’s Supper on a weekly basis causes it to be taken for
granted and also causes it to lose its significance.
--I want to ask them several basic questions:
a. Do you sing hymns and songs of praise every week?
b. Does your preacher deliver a sermon every week (unless some other program takes that time
period)?
c. Do you receive an offering every week?
d. Why don’t you do those things only once a month, once a quarter, or once a year?
C. Involved preaching
--vs. 7c
1. 2 Tim. 4:2 – “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season: correct, rebuke, and
encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.”
2. Rom. 10:14- “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they
believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching
to them?”
D. Other fundamental of corporate worship mentioned in other passages of Scripture
1. Offering collected
--1 Cor. 16:2 – “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in
keeping with his income…”
2. Fellowship with one another highly important
a. Acts 2:42 makes a specific point about the fellowship among the believers in the congregation at
Jerusalem
b. Heb. 10:25 encourages believers not to forsake meeting with others for corporate worship
3. Prayer
a. Corporate prayer was a mainstay in the early church
b. Again, Acts 2:42 specifically points out the public prayers of the believers
c. Throughout the New Testament, both private and corporate prayer are emphasized as vital to the
spiritual growth of the individual and the entire body of Christ.
4. Singing and music
a. Eph. 5:19- “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music
in your heart to the Lord…”
b. In contemporary form that verse would say: “Talk to one another and God through singing the
formal and liturgical music as well as the traditional hymns and praise choruses. The real worship
music in not in the form but come from out of the heart and is dedicated to the Lord.”
III. THE FOCUS OF OUR WORSHIP
A. The focus of our worship should be quite evident from vs. 7 of our text
--It’s Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord
1. The Lord’s Supper – commemoration of the death of Jesus in our place and for our sins
2. The first day of the week – the day Jesus rose from the grave
a. The Jews worshipped on the Sabbath (7th day of the week) to commemorate the first creation
b. We worship on the first day of the week to celebrate the new creation
3. Preaching clue
--1 Cor. 1:23, Paul reminded the Corinthian congregation that his preaching was Christ-centered
preaching: “We preach Christ crucified…”
B. We gather for corporate worship not to focus on ourselves and what we get out of it but to focus on
Christ and what He has done and continues to do for us
1. Because of that, we set aside our desires and wishes, our hurts and our pains, and our calendars and
schedules.
2. We then focus on Jesus’ glory, majesty, power, holiness, mercy, grace, and love
3. Only after we’ve focused on Jesus can we then leave corporate worship ready to face our hurts and
our pain, our calendars and schedules, and even our desires and wishes because we have looked at
Christ and found Him worthy
IV. THE FALSENESS OF OUR WORSHIP
A. Have you ever heard someone say, “I just didn’t get anything out of church today”?
1. There’s a reason: you’ve placed what you should receive over what you should give away
a. God cannot fill you up when you come full of yourself
b. Or has been traditionally said: “You didn’t get anything out of it because you didn’t put anything
into it.”
2. We have a faulty concept of worship
a. We see the preacher as the performer, God sort of acting as the prompter, and the congregation as
the audience.
b. Instead, the congregation are the performers, the preacher serves as the prompter and God is the
audience
--The performance is for Him!
B. We tend to worship the wrong things
--Instead of Christ, we worship:
1. A certain type of music
2. A certain method of doing things
3. A certain saint who has gone on before
a. We should respect that saint’s efforts and recognize their faithfulness
b. We should never idolize their personalities or programs
4. Tradition is the living faith of those who have died. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.
C. Methods change
1. Some are afraid that change means things will be non-scriptural
2. Realize that the way we “do church” is very different from the way the first century church did
“church”
a. First century Christians wouldn’t understand: pews, steeples, pulpits, pianos and organs, or even
church boards!
--those things are “non-scriptural” in that they’re never mentioned in the Bible
b. But they’ve all been used to glorify God and reach out to a lost and dying world
c. Whose to say what the church will be able to use as we journey on in a new millenium to reach a
lost and dying world?
3. Earlier, we talked about “the form of our worship”
a. Some people worship the form and forget the focus
b. Remember the form is not as important as the focus
V. THE FUNCTION OF OUR CORPORATE WORSHIP
A. You thought you’ve heard long-winded preachers
1. Heard one preacher tell that he, his wife, and his seven-year-old daughter were driving to visit
with grandparents over Christmas. The daughter was on her best behavior for most of the trip.
However, the long drive finally got to her. She asked the inevitable question: “Are we almost
there?”
The father said, “Honey, it’s about three more hours.” The daughter didn’t say anything for a few
minutes as she tried to comprehend the length of three hours. She leaned forward as far as she could
in her seat and said, “Mommy, is that as long as one of Daddy’s sermons?”
2. At first, Paul spoke until midnight.
a. Eutychus fell asleep while sitting in a third floor window, fell to the ground and died
b. You do know how to remember this young fellow’s name, don’t you?
--“You’d a cussed” too, if you fell out of the window and hit the ground.
3. Chuck Swindoll says that in his preaching career, he’s seen plenty of things happen when people
have dozed off during one of his sermons. He’s seen people bump their heads on the pew in front of
them. He’s seen people drool on their Bibles. He’s seen them remain seated when everybody else
stands. He’s seen and heard them drop hymnals.
And of course, he’s seen and heard them snore. One particular time, one of his elders started to
snore and when the elder’s wife nudged him, he stood up and gave the benediction right in the
middle of the sermon.
B. There is a lesson here for our age: There are many who are spiritually asleep.
--They need to be careful. They will fall and they will die.
1. The function of worship is to take those who are spiritually asleep and wake them up
2. The function of worship is to also resurrect the spiritually dead
a. We all need God’s resurrection power in our lives
b. Real and vibrant corporate worship will get rid of those dead things in our lives and replace them
with the things that produce eternal life.
CONCLUSION: A. Gordon Dahl: “Most Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and
play at their worship.”
1. Which one of those is most important to you?
2. Lk. 10:38-42 – Jesus is at the house of Mary and Martha. While Marthat is worrid and
fussing over the work that need to get done because they had guests, Mary sat at the
feet of Jesus. When Martha complained to Jesus about the situation, Jesus said in vss.
41-42 – “Martha, Martha…you are worried and upset about many things, but only one
thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from
her.”
--Mary’s focus was on Jesus; on adoring and worshipping Him.
B. I read about a family that put together jigsaw puzzles. They started with fairly simple
puzzles and moved to the more complicated ones. One night, the father brought home the
first thousand-piece puzzle for them to try. The family immediately tried to tackle it.
After an hour, however, they were all frustrated. No matter how hard they tried, they
couldn’t even get the puzzle started. The father then discovered that he had accidentally
switched the box top with the top from another puzzle. The picture they were looking at
wasn’t the puzzle they were working on.
1. What is the focus of your life?
--Is it Jesus Christ?
2. If you’re looking at anything else other than Jesus the puzzle of your life is not going
to come together either.
