Leading an Effective Life: Godliness and Love

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

 Sunday, October 7, 2007

This morning since we’re going to talk about worship, I thought I’d share an announcement that I came across. I don’t even know the church that ran this. In fact, I don’t even know if they really did run it but it seems appropriate and I’d like to share it with you. The title of the announcement is “No Excuse Sunday Dedicated to Missing Church Attendees.” It goes this way, “To make it possible for everyone to attend church this Sunday, we’re going to have a special No Excuse Sunday. That’s right. Cots will be placed in the foyer for those who say Sunday is my only day to sleep in. There will be a special section with lounge chairs for those who feel that the pews are just too hard. Eye drops will be available for those with tired eyes from watching T.V. late Saturday night. We’ll have steel helmets for those who say, ‘The roof will cave in if I walk inside a church.’ Blankets will be furnished for those who think the church is too cold, fans for those who think it’s too hot. Scorecards will be available for those who wish to keep track of all the hypocrites who are present. We’ll distribute ‘Stamp Out Stewardship’ buttons for all those who think the church just talks a little bit too much about money. One section will be devoted to trees and grass for those who like to seek God in nature. Doctors and nurses will be in attendance for those who plan to be sick on Sunday. And the sanctuary will be decorated with both Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies for those who have never seen the church without them. Hope to see you next week.”

Now I don’t know if the church actually ran the announcement but just for the sake of argument, let’s say that we do that. So next week, we take on a full-page ad in the Des Moines Register. We mail all of our membership and we do a mass mailing to the communities around us with just that announcement and next week, we’re ready for them. We have the trees and the grass over here. We have the cots lined up back there. We have steel helmets for anyone who needs them. And we just pack the place. I mean every service is packed. We have chairs lined up here, chairs lined up in the Family Life Center, they’re everywhere.

Now here’s the question I want you to ponder. If they all showed up and they all came in and they sat down here or they sat down in the Family Life Center, would you conclude that they have worshiped God? Alright, maybe they need to do a little bit more than just come and sit down. What if they stood at the proper times and they sat when they were supposed to? What if they bowed their head at the appropriate hour? What if they sang the songs and the hymns and they listened to the sermon? At that point, would you then say that they have all worshiped God?

You see, Jesus said, “A time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” What does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? As we look back at the early church and we see that it was a worshiping community and as we look at ourselves as a community of believers and if we want to be an effective church, a church that God uses to transform lives, then we want to worship as Jesus said in spirit and in truth but what does that mean to worship in spirit and truth?

Well, this morning from God’s word, we hope to find out. The first thing we find out from God’s word is to worship in spirit and in truth means that worship is all about God and it’s not about us. Worship is all about God and all about what God has done for us and we simply respond to what God has done for us. Worship is not about us. It’s about God. Now it seems to me we often get that sort of mixed up. We think that worship is about the things that we do, the activities we’re involved in, the places where we meet, the style of what we do, that it’s all about us. That’s what worship is about. Now don’t feel bad about yourselves because it dates back a couple of thousand years because that’s exactly what sort of led into the conversation of Jesus talking about worship.

A little bit of background here: We have Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman. Now the way He got there was He was traveling to Jerusalem with his disciples. They decide to stop off at a Samaritan village. That’s unusual in and of itself. Jews and Samaritans don’t like each other, don’t want to have anything to do with each other. But Jesus and His disciples stop. Jesus goes up to a well. He starts talking to a Samaritan woman, another big no-no. Jewish men did not talk to women and especially not Samaritan women. But then He took it a step further and He said, “Would you get me a drink of water from the well?” Well, this woman got lippy with Jesus and said, “Well, why should I do that? I’m a Samaritan woman. You’re a Jew and you’re asking me to get you some water?” Well, she probably shouldn’t have started that conversation because it kind of turned bad on her from there. Jesus says, “Well, why don’t you go get your husband?” She says, “I don’t have a husband.” He says, “You’re right, you don’t. You’ve had five and the guy you’re living with right now is not your husband.” Sensing the conversation is not going her way, she changes the subject and she says this, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain but you Jews claim the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Already back then she’s saying where is it we’re supposed to worship if you’re so smart? “You Jews say we have to worship in Jerusalem. We have to worship in the temple. We Samaritans say no, no, no. We’re going to worship here on Mount Gerizim. That’s where true worship happens.” There’s also a difference in style between the two. Samaritan worship was very enthusiastic. It was very joy-filled but it was a little bit shallow. Meanwhile, over in Jerusalem, it was very reverent and it was very sort of introspective but some might describe it as a little bit stale. And so she’s saying, “Where is it we’re supposed to worship?” She has reduced worship down to style and location. She’s reduced worship of God down to the actions and activities of people.

How often do we fall into that trap of reducing worship down to our actions and activities? As long as we’re at the right place at the right time and do the right things, then we conclude we have worshiped God. You can tell by some of the complaints maybe that come in when you feel it wasn’t a really good worship. Usually, when somebody wants to describe for me a service that just didn’t go well, it just wasn’t very worshipful, some of the things they like to tell me about are, “That song was un-singable. The music was way too loud. Where did that melody come from that last hymn? I’ve never heard that one before. The screens were all messed up. The sermon was too long. The sermon was too short.” No, I never hear that one. Never hear that one. “The sanctuary’s too cold. The sanctuary’s too hot.” It’s all centered around our actions and our activities. Now don’t get me wrong. I think the music should be excellent every single week. I think the message needs to be on target week end and week out. I think the screens should be perfect every worship service but we cannot describe worship in terms of what we do. It’s as if as long as we show up, sit down, be quiet, get up and leave, we have worshiped. Worship is not about us. Worship is about God. It’s all about God.

The very term worship, if you trace it back, it’s an old English word and it’s made up of two words called “worth” and then “ship.” That is, if something is worth something, if it has value, so in this case, in old English, royalty would come by, they were worthy of homage. They were worthy of special honor. So when they translated the Hebrew from the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament into English, they chose this word “worship.” In other words, God is worthy. He is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our honor. He is worthy of our service. You see, it’s all about God and His worthiness. The original Hebrew word that we translate into worship actually means to lay down or to lay prostrate in front of God. The Greek word that we translate to worship means bended knee. In other words, God is worthy of our praise, of our honor, of our service, our homage. He’s worthy because of all the things He has done for us. Worship then is our response to God. It’s our response to what God has done for us and we do that as the body of believers, as a congregation, as the church if you will, the church that is believers in Jesus Christ, for all that Christ has done for us, then we offer Him our worship.

Ephesians 5 describes for us pretty succinctly what Christ has done for the church, “Just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of the water through the Word and to present her to Himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless.” Just as Christ loved the church, that’s you and me, believers in Him, and gave Himself up for her, cleansing her by the washing of the water and the Word, that’s baptism when God claims you to be His own, when He brought you into His kingdom, to present her to Himself as holy and blameless, that’s forgiveness. That’s salvation. What has Christ done for the church? What has God done for the church? Well, the Father willingly gave up His Son for the church. The Son came and lived among us and though He was innocent, He took on all of our guilt for the church. He died upon a cross and He spilled His blood for forgiveness of the church so we could stand before God holy and blameless. He secured a place in heaven for us so we’ll spend an eternity in paradise. That’s what God has done for the church.

So our worship says God is worthy. He is worthy of our praise and honor. He’s worthy of more than what we could offer to Him so our worship service is like a beautiful dance where God comes to us and we respond back to God. We come to God as He invites us into His presence and we respond with songs of praise and adoration. God comes to us through His Word and through the message and we respond back to God with our offerings saying, “God, everything we have comes from you and we offer a portion of it back to you in thanksgiving and praise.” God comes to us in the sacrament where He says, “This is my body and blood and it’s given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” and we respond back to God with songs of thanksgiving and praise. God comes to us. We respond back to God. Worship is all about God. It’s not about us. Worship is our response to what God has given to us.

We worship God out of desire, not by decree. We don’t worship God because He’s commanded us to worship Him. We worship God out of a desire, a desire to praise Him, a desire to give Him honor. If we’re worshiping God out of decree, it’s merely an obligation, how is that a response back to what God has done for us?

This reminds me of a person who was in my vicarage congregation. His name was Howard. Actually, that’s not his name but I want to protect the guilty so I’m using a pseudonym. Howard was part of my vicarage congregation. A vicarage congregation is where you do a one-year internship when you’re studying to be a pastor. So my internship congregation, I was there for a year. Everyone knew Howard. If you had a worship service, Howard would be there. It didn’t matter when it was, it didn’t matter what the weather was like, Howard was always there. Howard always came into worship, he sat down, Howard went to sleep, the service got over, Howard woke up and he went home. Always the same, Howard came, he slept, he left. Except he had an uncanny ability to know when to stand up. He’d be asleep and when it was appropriate to stand up, Howard would stand up, even after the sermon. Now in this congregation, it was sort of the tradition that at the end of the sermon, the pastor ended with “Amen” and immediately the whole congregation stood up. Didn’t have to motion for them to do that, didn’t have to ask them to do that, they just stood up. Howard had been snoozing for 20 minutes. The pastor would say “Amen,” Howard would stand up. So one Sunday, I’m out in the congregation, I’m not out front and wouldn’t you know it, Howard sits down in front of me and Howard does his usual thing through all of worship. We get about ten minutes into the sermon. I lean forward and in my best pastor voice, I say, “Amen.” Yep, Howard shot straight up. Luckily, he didn’t start singing. Even more fortunate from that, my supervisor never found out.

The question I have for you is did Howard worship? If you talked to the people who knew Howard, they’d say, “Oh, boy, ol’ Howard, faithful ol’ Howard. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, he’s going to be here. It doesn’t matter when the service is offered, he’s going to be here.” Yep, he was. He came, he slept, he left. Would you say that Howard worshiped? Howard was there because his father before him was always there. And his father before him was always there because his father had always been there. Howard was there out of obligation. “This is what you do. I am a member of this church. It is Sunday. There is worship. This is what I do. I come and I sit and I sleep and I leave.” I dare say that Howard did not worship.

I’ll go further to say if you are here out of obligation, that the only reason you came this morning is because this is the thing to do, it’s Sunday morning so we go to church, I would challenge you to look inside your heart and to do some introspection. We do not worship out of obligation. We worship out of desire. Jesus said, “A time is coming when you will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” In truth. That means in sincerity. It doesn’t mean that we just come and we go through the motions and somehow we feel when we leave, we have worshiped God because we stood at the right time, we sang when we were supposed to, we listened when it was appropriate and then we left. Worship isn’t just going through the motions. We worship in truth. That’s means in sincerity, out of a desire that all God has done for us and the church and we want to worship Him.

You know, there are many places around the world where it is illegal to be a Christian. It is unlawful to gather together for worship and I would dare say in each one of those countries, you have underground churches where Christians come together to worship. They’re not there by obligation. They’re not there by decree. They’re there out of desire, that the body must come together and that the church must respond back to God and all He’s done for them. Worship is given by desire, not decree.

And worship is supposed to be reverent and joyful. It’s not an either or. Worship is reverent but worship is joyful. For some reason, we want to pit the two against each other and it’s not a new controversy. Again, back to the woman in Samaria, the Samaritan worship was very exuberant. It was very joyful. It was also very shallow. On the other hand, you had the worship at Jerusalem that some might call somber, call it reverent, in awe of God but some might call it stale. And it’s supposed to be one against the other but it’s not true. And yet the worship wars continue as we want to try to nail it down to style or location or the things we do.

I have a habit of doing something. You’ll probably think it’s kind of weird, that’s okay. I like to read sermons. I do it for my own edification and because I want to get better at what I do. So on a regular basis, I read anybody’s sermon. I go online and I find books and I read sermons. Well, not really preparing for this message, in the last couple of weeks, I read two sermons on worship of all things, very different sermons on worship. The first one, the guy started out in the very first paragraph. He said, “I want you all to know that there will be no happy, clappy worship here. We take worship seriously.” I can’t wait to go to that guy’s church. The second one, the guy started just ripping on his childhood church, talking about all those funeral dirges they used to sing and the organ blaring in the background and all these songs about what God has done instead of what God is doing. “You won’t find that here. We’re going to have joy-filled, spirit-filled worship in this place.” Does that mean we can’t sing “Holy, holy, holy?” Does that mean we can’t be in awe of what God has done for us? It’s not either or. It’s both and.

Jesus said you will worship in spirit and truth. In spirit, because God is spirit so you must worship in spirit. In other words, at the depth of who you are, down to your very soul, that’s where worship comes from. It goes beyond the physical. It goes beyond the location. It goes beyond the style. It’s all about reaching down deep inside of you and from the depths of your soul, you will worship Him in spirit. You see, it’s not whether it’s the organ or whether it’s the drums and the guitar. It’s about the content. It’s about a worship that is both and. It’s about worship that is reverent because we should be in awe. If we’re going to come into the presence of God, we should stand in awe. Isaiah 6, the prophet comes into the presence of God. He hides his face and he says, “Woe am I because I am a sinful human being,” and immediately God comes and removes his sin from him so he can stand in the presence of God. Do we not do the same thing every worship service? We begin with a time of confession and absolution because we’re coming into the presence of God. And if we’re going to be in the presence of a holy God, we want our sins removed so we can stand in awe of Him, in reverence of who He is.

Yes, there should be reverence. There should be awe in worship but there should be joy. How can there not be joy? How can there not be excitement? He has snatched you out of the hands of the devil. He’s secured a place in heaven for you. We need to celebrate what God has done for us. Look through the scriptures. All you have to do is page through the Psalms to find time and time again about the joy and the excitement of worship. Psalm 95, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.” Psalm 96, “Sing to the Lord a new song.” How about Psalm 100, “Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.” How about Psalm 150, “Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet. Praise Him with the tambourine and with dancing. Praise Him with strings and with the flute. Praise Him with the clash of symbols. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” How could we contain it in ourselves for all God has done for us? How could we not praise the Lord and have joy and excitement in worship? It’s both, my friends. It’s reverence and it’s joy. That’s what it is to worship in spirit and in truth. It’s a worship that’s all about God in response to what He’s done for us. It’s a worship that we desire to give to Him and it’s a worship that’s filled with reverence but it’s filled with joy. Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church