First Things: Seeker-Sensitive Worship

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Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
​If you could improve one thing in your life right now to make your life so much better what would it be? I think for many this time of year, the answer to that question is health related. If we could just lose weight, moving and pain would be eased. Or maybe it is financially related. If only I could make/save more money live would be easier. But even if we do those things it only does that, makes life a little easier. It doesn't make it a life worth living. What makes life worth living? 

Have you ever resolved to become a better worshiper in the new year? I'm not talking about being busier at religious things, reading more chapters, attending more small groups, adding Sunday Night, per se. I am talking becoming better at worship. How does one do that? In order to answer that question, we have to remind ourselves what worship actually is, a question we will explore in a moment. 

I know I mentioned to many of you that my plan was to start preaching through the book of James in the New Year, and that is still the plan. I'm actually treating this as something of an introduction to James. James is a book that has a lot of practical things to say about how the ethical Christian life is lived: watch what you say, take care of orphans and widows, don't just be hearers of the word, don't show partiality. And before we get to all of those things, I want to cover the first things of how we become the doers that James wants us to be. We have to be worshipers first. It must begin here. If it doesn't start with worship, the Christian life will be one of constant burdensome activity that you never quite do right and in your most honest moments wonder if it is all really worth it. 

So let's take the next several weeks together (I have in mind 7 sermons including this one) where I want to look at each aspect of our worship on Sunday morning and show why it is that we do it, and as you will see in the coming weeks, it is God centered and Word based. 

So let's begin with our first point: God desires worship. 

You may have noticed I have titled this sermon "seeker-sensitive worship" as a bit of a in joke. For those unfamiliar, over the last fifty years or so, there has been a movement called the "seeker-sensitive" movement. It came about by pastors looking around at their churches and wondering why they were so small and empty. The conclusion that many came to was that the church didn't have sufficient draw for your average person. The solution was to reformat the church to make it a more attractive place, which over time ended up becoming a more entertaining place. 

While the motivation of trying to attract people to Jesus was well-meaning in some places, it was born out of a misunderstanding about who worship is for: God. There is only one seeker of worship, and we see Him in our text in John 4:23-24. 

God seeks His people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We have seen that desire throughout the Scripture. As we see in Genesis, He creates humanity in a beautiful garden, but because of their sin, they are cast out. But humanity isn't cast out permanently. God provides ways for humanity to have fellowship with Him. When God's people was one mobile family, they built an altar. When God's people was one mobile nation, God had them build a Tabernacle. When they were permanently established, God had them build an established Temple. He desired His people to fellowship with Him, to worship Him.

Side note: Interestingly, as Ross points out, God's constructions of the Tabernacle and Temple echo creation language of "finished." When the Tabernacle was "finished" Moses reports that they did everything God said to do, and His indwelling of the Tabernacle indicates that it was good. The Temple was finished in the seventh year of construction, and king Solomon called it "finished." Then when the curtain is torn several centuries later, opening access of full worship to Jews and Gentiles Jesus says "it is finished." Finally, in Revelation, when there is no need for a temple anymore because God Himself is the temple face to face, He says, "It is done, I am the alpha and omega." God has been recreating ever since the Fall, and it has always been for the purposes of worship. 

We are in that third section of history. There is no specific place that we have to gather to worship God. It is no longer on this mountain or that mountain, but the requirement to be a worshiper is to worship in sprit and truth. In short, we have to worship having had our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit, worshiping according to the truth revealed to us in Christ. 

You don't even have to be a scholar like Ross to know that God cares about worship. You just need to be familiar with the 10 Commandments. When He gave the 10 Commandments, the first four commands are all about worship. No other gods are to be worshiped. No idols are to be used in worship, even ones supposedly meant to represent the true God. God's name is to be spoken reverently, and an entire day is to be set aside as holy to God for the purposes of worship. God really cares about worship.  

Now, I've been talking about worship for nearly half of this sermon and I have yet to define it. Worship is something that God is constantly providing for and often judging breaches of that, so we should know what it is. In short, the word "worship" that Jesus uses seven times in our chapter, means "bow." To bow to someone back then means pretty much the same thing as it would mean to bow down to someone today. It is an indication of submission, of deep respect. It something that has changed in form over the years. Back in the Renaissance, it was about diagonal angles, and grand gestures with your arm. Today, it is a head drop down if you don't know someone and a head pop up if you do. 

But worship is more than a gesture of the body. It isn't even just a respect of the heart. There is a sense of slightly fearful awe, yet grateful celebration. It's a complicated emotion. 

Imagine if I were to tell you that I can take everyone on a trip to see the surface of the sun. Assuming that the transport to the sun was all figured out (we can come and go all in the same day), what questions would you have? I imagine that there would be a lot of questions about your safety: "How will you keep us from going blind or burning up?" If I didn't have a plan for that, you would rightly turn down the opportunity to see the sun's surface. But imagine if I could correctly tell you that provisions have been made for you to stand on the sun. You won't burn; you won't go blind. You can stand on its surface and watch the explosions of gas and light radiate thousands of miles above your head. You will be able to hear the sun "sing" as all the movement and magnetic fields clash to create waves that can be converted to sound. Would that not be awe-inspiring? Oh you would cling to your safety suits. There would be a little bit of nervous energy because, you're standing on the surface of the sun! Humans weren't designed to bear that kind of heat and light, and yet here you are! Nervous celebration, eh? 

Now imagine that I invite you to meet with the Creator of the sun. In fact, better, the Creator of the sun has invited you to meet with Him. Of course, in your natural state of sin, you could not survive such an encounter. Our God is a more consuming fire than our sun ever could be. It is not safe to worship God. As we saw in our study of the feasts, they would tie a rope around the ankle of the High Priest when he went into the Holy of Holies. Because if you went into the Holy of Holies presumptuously, with sin unsacrificed for, you would die. 

You can't approach God on your own, and it is the height of arrogance to assume otherwise. That is why God's Son is so important. He is the One who has made a relationship with God possible. He takes away our sin. With our sin taken care of, we can approach God in worship. We have been made acceptable because of Christ. His righteousness covers us, so when God the Father sees us, He sees His Son and throws His arms open and says, "Welcome Home." We aren't consumed by His righteousness, because in Christ we are just as righteous. The Father is the object of our worship. The Son makes it possible. And The Holy Spirit is the one who changes your heart to desire to worship God rather than yourself in the first place. 

That is what is happening here on Sunday. You are entering a spiritual experience of encountering God the Father in a unique way made even possible by the atoning death of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit such that you want to worship and are further shaped by it. 

So our takeaway today is that God desires worship, and has always done so. That is Who this worship service is for. We saw that worship in a word is bowing, but in a deeper way is an awe-struck wonder at a God who would allow us entrance into His presence. 

So how are we supposed to channel that particular sense of awe? Can we offer up anything? That is what we will talk about next time.