“Passionate Worship”

Scripture Lesson: Luke 4:14-21

Sermon Transcript for August 9, 2009
Second in a Series on Five Fruitful Practices

By Pastor Bob Coleman

            Please remember those words that we just sang (The Heart of Worship) as we look at the Scripture and the message for this morning.  We are in the 2nd part of a 5-part series.  Last week Pastor Andy shared about “Radical Hospitality”.  Next week it will be “Intentional Faith Development”, followed by “Risk Taking Mission and Service”, and the final week will be “Extravagant Generosity”.  All these are part of the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.  That book is the basis for this study and for this time of sharing.

            So today, the second part is “Passionate Worship”.  Maybe for some of you, as Pastor Andy shared last week, the words “radical” and “hospitality” just don’t seem to go together.  Maybe for some of you, the word “passionate” and “worship” do not go together.  But I hope by the end of this message you’ll see that what we have attempted to do and what we attempt to do every work is to prayerfully prepare for every part of the service to help you to gain and connect with God, to assist you in worship, not to do the worship for you. We are not here to perform; we are not here for your accolades and your applause.  Those prayerfully plan and fulfill their part are each one called to God to get out of the way so that you might see God.

            The Orthodox Church, particularly the Eastern, does a form of worship if you’ve ever participated or been in one that lends itself to the understanding of getting out of the way of God.  There is a screen and the priest will go behind it and perform certain things of worship. You may hear the sounds, you may smell the incense that’s used, but you don’t see the priest.  You focus on the mystery of worshiping God, the presence of God.

            The Bibles that you will find in the pew rack this morning are the new ones.  They may be the same color as the old ones, but the old ones, by the way, are on their way to Liberia where brothers and sisters in Christ will be able to use them.  But these are our new ones—the ones we’ve been asking your support by way of honor or memory of someone—they’re the New International version.  And what I want us to do today; we are going to continue to display on the screen the Scripture as we have become accustomed to.  But I want you to take your Bible out that’s in front of you, or if you’ve brought your own hold that one, and either turn to the passage that you see printed, which is Luke, Chapter 4, Versus 14-21 and prepare to either read from the book that you are holding or read from the screen.  It does not matter.  But I want you to think about this book.  We do not worship this book.  This book is valuable and I important to us because it is God’s Spirit that has inspired the writers to record His words and wisdom so that we might know--words that are 2,000 to 3,000 years old.  Think about it, as new as the books look, it has that ancient history and wisdom.  And it is the God who inspired it that we worship. 
So let us be prepared then to come together with the history of all those who have read this before. 

            The setting is that Jesus is going in to His place of worship, called the synagogue.  And that’s the setting for this day.  I’ll explain a little bit more later as to what happened just before.  But for the moment, He’s going to church.  And He goes in and participates in worship with God in this setting.  So let us now as it is projected or as you read from your Bible’s, let us read together, jointly, community, starting with Verse 14.  “Jesus returned to Galilee and the power of the Spirit and news about Him spread through the whole countryside.  He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised Him.  He went in to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went in to the synagogue as was His custom.  And He stood up to read it, the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’  Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him.  And He began by saying to them, ‘Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’”  The Word of God for the people of God, thanks be to God!

            Let us pray, “Lord each time we enter in to your presence may it be an opportunity to worship.  Let us be fully involved in this service today.  Let us passionately worship you. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.”

            I was fortunate in my childhood.  My parents took us all to church quite regularly.  I was used to going to, first of all, as Pastor Jenothy said, Sunday school. And I can’t remember what age it was, but then there was a time when I began to go to adult worship.  And I’ll have to share with you that wasn’t exactly the most thrilling moment in my life.  But there was something about it; I knew it was important.  I didn’t understand all of the words, it was solemn and it was quiet.  And particularly when I got a little bit older and had a paper route for the Indianapolis Star on Sunday morning, in the wintertime I would deliver that paper first in that cold and come to church.  And you know what happened?  It was a good place to rest and to sleep.  Would we call it passionate worship?  Well, maybe not, but maybe so in just a moment.

            My experience of worship in scouting was out in the natural, beautifully-created world that God provides for us.  They were usually shorter services and they were not as good music.  Scouts, particularly leaders, seem never to be able to carry a tune.  Was that passionate worship?  No, maybe yes.  Let’s think about it.

            I used to go to gospel quartets, the concerts that they would have.  And we did so because I was in a gospel quartet and we sort of mimicked and tried to pattern ourselves after these very passionately filled musicians with wonderful testimonies, wonderful performances clearly.  Yes, these gospel quartet singers would present their music.  It was passionate, yes.  But was it worship for me?  Not necessarily.

            In seminary we studied worship.  We dissected it; we analyzed it as to the form and function to understand those aspects.  What I learned from that is the message that worship is something to be constructed carefully, done right and accurately, done so for the purpose of presenting the perfect worship whether or not the Spirit ever showed up or any passion was involved.  Form, by the way, is the style of music, it’s the liturgy, it’s the words that are written—even the words of God.  Function, that’s the sacrament of baptism, communion, the actual service in prayer.  We sing, we pray, we give, we seek God through His word, and we share the Lord’s Prayer—those are the functions.  Form and function together, by themselves, fulfill at least their intended purpose of worshiping God. 

           But passionate worship is more than form and function.  There are multiple, varied styles of worship.  We have three somewhat different styles in this church.  Some of you come only to this, some come only to the 11:00 a.m., and some only to the 5:30 p.m.  There’s no way for any one church, though, to offer all styles and forms and functions of worship, to help everyone to be passionate in their worship.  It’s just not possible.  But at least we have stretched enough to offer those three ways.  The style and type of worship that is most natural for a given congregation usually tends to lead for people to be more engaged and involved in their worship.  The forms themselves matter little and pale in comparison to the importance of worshiping God.  And here is where the passion rests, worshiping God in Spirit and in truth, using, yes, our heads, but also our hearts and all of who we are, our total beings, and our Spirits to ascribe worth to God first and foremost in ways that are authentic, meaningful, not fake ritual. 

           Maybe the first passionate worship experience where I really felt engaged and involved in a deep and meaningful way was an African-American worship service.  And later in a different style and different way in countries in Africa that I visited to see their mission work and to visit brothers and sisters in Christ and worship with them in their setting.  Now there is passion!  There was passion because you brought little else but yourself to worship.

           This type of worship and the worship recorded in Luke, is there any comparison?  Almost none.  Think about it.  There was no prayer in this passage; there was no music.  It was reading of the Scripture; that was basically it.  It had a short, very short message that this is fulfilled in your presence this day.  Think of that, is that worship for you?  Can you be passionately involved in that kind of a setting?  When we strip away all of these things that are worship, we get back to the heart of it, as we just sang.  Jesus came in to his church to read the scripture, to proclaim the word of God with no music, no call to worship, no children’s story, nothing like that. 

           But was it passionate worship?  Yes!  For Jesus had just come from the wilderness; he had just come from the temptations given to him by Satan.  And do you remember what they were?  One of them was to bow down and to kneel before Satan and to worship him.  You know Jesus’ response in Matthew 4:10, Jesus said to him, “Away from me Satan for it is written:  Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.”  Don’t forget both parts of that.  Not just to worship the Lord, your God, but to serve Him only.  Jesus also completed that when he said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

           Passionate worship is based on our worship of God and God only and hearing God speak in and through worship.  In Hebrews 12:38 the writer records, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.”  How much more passionate of a description of God can you get than a fire that consumes you?  Think of what it means to become so fully involved in a gathering of worship, be it in this sanctuary or in a scout gathering, or in a solemn and quite service where I fell asleep, or even a gospel quartet concert.  Worship is available when we enter in to the presence of God and that can be almost anywhere.  The passion of worship was up to Jesus.  Were the others present involved in such a way?  Not necessarily.

           I remember when I first, after that form and function training that I had in seminary, went to serve my first appointment.  And I walked in to the pulpit and I noticed that some pastor prior had taken the time to take a simple message, a simple message quoted from Scripture, “We would see Jesus.”  And I realized that was his inspiration and a statement for the pastor to first see Jesus and then to help everyone else to see Jesus that we know as God present among us.  That is our goal as the worship team here.  It is our hope that when you come here to worship, whatever we do doesn’t get in the way of your worship but enables you to truly worship God, to see God in Jesus.  We do all that we can and all that is available to us to give our best to God in our worship as leaders.  But we can’t do it for you.  You are the ones who are here to worship.  If you do not worship God in spirit and truth, there likely will be little passion in your experience. 

           A passionate worship at its basic and vital foundation is up to you.  And that means then it doesn’t matter the leaders.  It does not matter!  And so you can worship passionately in a little country church where the choir isn’t so hot and the leader, the pastor, is the one I can think of in my history and memory had a speech impediment and it was difficult to understand him.  But they had passionate worship.  Not because of the quality of leadership, but because of the spirit and what the people anticipated for when they came to worship.

           Passionate worship is something that happens whether or not you are personally involved in it because the person next to you may well be and you don’t get a thing out of it.  But if you come to worship me, and hold on that sometimes happens, the vocalist, or by all means any part of the leadership worship team, than I want to share with you that the human leaders of worship are frail and imperfect.  We will sometime in the present or the future or have in the past, disappoint you.  We’ll do something that doesn’t connect with you.  And even more so, we will fail you to be frank and honest.  You will be disappointed in us, we who are up here. 

           But that’s not the purpose for us to please you.  It is not the purpose for us to connect with you and make you feel warm and fuzzy.  The purpose of worship is to come in to God’s presence regardless of who’s leading up here.  Early on in the church, when it came to dispensing of sacraments, they found frail pastors and priests.  And they finally decided that the sacristy themselves were holy only to themselves and no one could take that away.  Even the person who administers them was broken as a human being.

           Foundational reason for being here in worship service this morning is not for anyone up here.  It’s that we come to worship the true God, the creator of the universe, maker of men and women in God’s on image, the Savior of the world through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit present and available to touch your spirit, heal your winds, strengthen your will and prepare you for the living of this next week.  That’s why we come to worship.

           Now that may be a tall order. Not necessarily all of you every week feel that deeply passionate about service.  But it’s the hope, it’s the anticipation that when we show up for worship, God will already be there.  Each time you come in to the presence of the most high and holy God, passionate worship is intentionally a possibility.  Does passion mean high energy and emotion?  For some, yes, it can, but not a necessary requirement.  Does it mean that you have a surface experience without high energy?  It can be that and you leave empty nonetheless. 

           There’s importance that there is a foundational shift in change when you come before God in worship.  Passion comes from deep down inside of one’s soul.  Passion is the spirit’s outcry of pain, sorrow, joy, hope, gratitude.  Whatever it is that’s the makeup of what you are experiencing when you come to worship.  And God recognizes that.  God’s spirit is at the base of worship.  Passionate worship at its base is spiritual because God is spiritual.  And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.  Passionate worship is recognizing and giving praise to the all mighty One above all and for no other reason.

           There really is no where in the New Testament, by the way, where we find the forms of worship fully and completely listed out.  Maybe there is a reason why Jesus’ own personal handwriting was never found nor was there any description from Jesus, “Now this is how you must worship and you must have this style of worship and this style of music and this style of liturgy.”  I think there is good reason because God is keeping it as open and flexible as possible to meet all, each one of multiple-created images of God that we find in human beings.  God gives us the what-to-dos, not necessarily the functions of worship.  The forms, the how-to’s, fall mostly into divine science.  It’s where we meet God whether it is the music style, whether it is the type of preaching, whatever it may be.  It’s where we meet God that makes worship passionate. 

           Passionate worship is based on our worship of God and God only and hearing God speak in worship.  Anything else is a deterrent and gets in the way.  Passionate worship is more than form and function.  And passionate worship at its base is spiritual because God has spirit and those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  So remember, Jesus said to Satan, “When the invitation is given, come and worship me.  Jesus said, ‘No, we are to worship only the Lord our God and to serve Him only.’” So worship doesn’t stop when you leave; it is not one hour a week.  It is the service important to see both.  Jesus said, “Worship the Lord your God.”  And that would be at any time, any place and any moment of your life you could be in worship with God when you encounter the one true God.  But it also means you are to be in action and to serve God only in your daily life in your living, your waking, even your sleeping.