"The Heart of Worship"
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8
Sermon Transcript for July 17, 2005
By Rev. Mike Beck
We are talking about worship. Worship is not really a noun; it’s primarily a verb. And it calls us to participate. Reverend Dan as he was calling his prayer, made mention of using these blue cards not only to let us know your needs, but to let us know answers to prayers. And the Holy Spirit at that point said to me, “You’ve got to go down there, you’ve got to get one of those blue cards, you’ve got to give thanks to God for the improvement that is taking place following the recent surgeries. So many people have been praying for you. Now it is your turn to give thanks to God.”
Last weekend and continuing today, we’ve been looking at what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth. We talked last week, if you think about a bicycle wheel or any wheel for that matter. In the life of the church, worship is at the center. It is the hub. The spokes represent all the other important ministries to which we are called, but they are anchored in the hub of worship. I heard a quote several years ago that I thought not only humorous but also true. The quote simply said, “Seven days without worship make one weak.” And it saddens me, and here I’m probably preaching to the choir, the lack of commitment to worship on the part of so many of God’s people where, “Where if we don’t have anything else on, we’ll come to worship.” Can you imagine as a parent how you would feel if your child lived in Johnson County and they said to you, “Oh, I think we can make it over for Christmas one year out of four.” You’d be pretty disappointed. And yet that is the attitude of so many of God’s people related to this important thing called worship.
The sermon title relates to a little chorus that I always find convicting of coming back to the heart of worship. And it’s all about you Lord, it’s all about You. Forgive me, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it. For it is all about You. Not about me, it’s all about You. For we can come to church and not really experience God. In fact, and I pray it isn’t true here at Grace, in a recent survey done, 50% of the regular church attendees indicated they did not feel they had truly experienced God at any time in worship during the last year. That’s tragic!
I want to use as our text this morning, these familiar words of the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 6, Versus 1-8. Would you stand for the hearing of God’s Word. The prophet Isaiah said, “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above Him were servants each with six wings; with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty: the whole earth is full of his glory.’ And at the sound of their voices, the doorposts and the threshold shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe is me’, I cried. ‘I am ruined; I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among the people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’ Then one of the seraphim’s flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for.’ And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, who will go for me?’ And Isaiah said, ‘Here I am; send me.’” This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God! You may be seated.
We looked last week at the first three points. Worship is about God. Beautiful music this morning, the singing, the message—yes it comes through individuals who have given of themselves, but it is not about us. It is about bringing glory to God. We talked last week about if we are to experience God in worship; we need to come with a sense of anticipation. We need to do an attitude adjustment when things don’t particularly go to our liking in worship when we experience God. And we talked about the importance of music and singing in our worship of God. I’m going to touch quickly on three other things this morning.
The fourth one is this: Our giving attention to words we say, and sing, and pray because words can just go in one ear and out the other. And it might as well never have even been spoken. Or words can have tremendous transformational power, again, if we truly listen. If we say, Lord, speak your word to me. In the 19th Psalm, there is a verse that you will often hear preachers pray before their message. It simply says, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation in my heart be pleasing in Thy sight, O Lord, my God and my Redeemer.” And I want you to focus there, the meditation of our heart. That’s focusing on the words we sing, we pray, we say. In fact, in the 14 years that I have struggled with the voice problem, because I really can’t sing anymore, please you don’t want to be sitting next to me if I try, I’ve learned to focus on the words of the songs in a way I never did before. In fact, I’d like for you to take out your hymnals and I want you to turn to hymn number 77 to the hymn we opened our worship with today. Now hopefully you sang that great hymn of the church as John Wesley said, “Not as if you were half dead but with fullness and joy.” But beyond the singing, did you focus on the words? O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. And when I think that God, His Son, not sparing, sent Him to die. It scarce can take it in. But on the cross, my burden gladly buried. He bled and died to take away my sin. When Christ shall come with shout of acclimation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! And I shall bow in humble adoration and there in heaven proclaim, my God, how great thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee. How great thou art! How great thou art!” Pay attention to the words we sing.
And then I want you to turn back to page 30 to what I think is one of the great prayers of the church. We normally use some liturgy before we receive Holy Communion. That liturgy can be done just routine or, if we truly focus on the words, it can become something very special. See that “Prayer of Humble Access” there on page 30. It talks about the attitude in which we are to come to the Lord’s table. I think it is one of the greatest prayers ever written. “We do not presume to come to this table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness. But in my manifold and great mercies, we aren’t worthy so as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But though art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore gracious Lord so to partake of this sacrament of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, that we may walk in newness of life and grow into Thy likeness and may ever more dwell in Him and He in us.”
Or those words we just sang or are they words we focus on and make them the prayer of our heart? And we just said together the Lord’s Prayer. It’s so easy to let those words just become words we say each week. But think about what you said, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Not my will! “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread”, which we seldom even pause to think about. And then we say, “Forgive us our trespasses”. Oh, we like to say that. But then we can gloss over the next part, “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” In fact, when screens began to appear in sanctuaries, there was a little knee-jerk reaction to that. But I imagine many of you have had the experience that I’ve had. You’ve gone to a church someplace else, you look up and you’re disappointed if there is no screen. You are use to seeing the words there. The words of scripture have so much more power if we not only hear them, but if we see them. In fact, Mike Slaughter, over at Ginghamsburg, one of the pioneer pastors in using media as part of worship, made this statement and I think he was right on: “The projection screen is the stain glass window of the twenty-first century.” Stain glass windows were beautiful but that was not there primary purpose. Their primary purpose was in a culture where people were illiterate. They could look at the stain glass windows and learn the stories of scripture. We live in a visual age. The screen is a part of God’s communicating in a way that is appropriate to the day and age which we live which is a visual focus on the words that we say, we sing, and we pray.
Secondly this morning, preaching. Now it is very important that you understand we don’t have to have a sermon to worship. Although I fully recognize that about 25 percent of any congregation, if there hasn’t been a sermon, they don’t feel like they’ve worshiped. But the Children’s Musical, the sermon can be preached through them. The sermon can be preached through the liturgy of Holy Communion. But acknowledging that, the proclamation of the word of God is an important part of experiencing God in worship. And there is a very real sense that following the Protestant reformation; the pulpit in Protestant churches began to be given an equal attention to the altar. Because what had happened to the Catholic church, how quick can we get through the words? How quick can we take the mass and get on our way? Nothing transformational happens. People like Martin Luther began to say, “Lives are transformed when the word of God encounters given.” And it is amazing to me how that happens especially when it’s done, often, so poorly.
I Corinthians 1:21, I want to read it to you, the Message translation: “God in His wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb preaching! Preaching of all things to bring those who trust Him to the way of salvation.” Hear these words of Paul from Romans 10, Versus 13-15. He writes, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how then can they call on the One if they not believe Him? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” Again, I don’t understand how it works. But the greatest compliment a preacher could hear and often times you hear it after what you think has been a very mediocre sermon, somebody says, “Reverend Mike or Reverend Dan, God was talking directly to me through your words.” Now it wasn’t our words, it was the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s the power of God being brought to bear upon a persons’ life when their heart comes with an attitude, “Lord, I want to listen. What do you have to say to me today.” and then listening to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.
Good preaching takes on many forms. There is a very close connection between preaching and teaching. In fact, three of my favorite preachers, Chuck Swindoll, James McDonald, and David Jeremiah, they are primarily teachers. Sometimes we preach in a series of sermons and nothing blesses a preacher’s heart more than a person who comes in on the second week of a series and says, “We had planned to be out of town, but you know, we got so caught up in what you were talking about last week we didn’t want to miss part two so we rearranged our schedule so we could come to the Saturday night service.” Sometimes preaching is expository where we take a book or a couple of chapters and we work through it verse by verse much like Bible study. Sometimes preaching is prophetic where we relate the Bible and God’s word to the society around us. This fall series, “Confronting the Controversy”, will be that kind of preaching. Sometimes it is illustrative, where the message is primarily a series of stories where Jesus, like Jesus preached with a parable. But always preaching should be centered on God lifting up the good news of God’s love made known in Jesus Christ.
But then, and this leads to my last point, calling person’s to be a Christ-follower in some deeper way. It’s the final thing I’m going to talk about—our response to worship. For Jesus in His preaching over and over again said these simple words, “Follow me”. And when people followed Him, their lives were changed. They were made different. No greater example of that than the first person Jesus appeared to following His resurrection—Mary Magdalene who became a Christ follower and her life took on a whole new meaning. For you see, worship that doesn’t challenge you to do something about what you’ve heard ends up having a very hollow ring about it. Here is where, as a leader of worship, we struggle with finding that important word—balance. In relation to this point let me have you hear a couple of scripture. First of all from James, Chapter 1, starting at Verse 22: “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. For anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what it looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect love gets freedom and continues to do this not forgetting what he’s learned, but doing it, he will be blessed in all that he does.”
I had a chance to be at the first part of the National Conference of United Methodist Men. Karen, your husband’s having a great time. The first night we heard, I believe his name is James Moore, Pastor of Christ United Methodist Church down in Houston. You know, you are not supposed to covet. I had to walk out at the end of the sermon asking your forgiveness and saying, “Oh, Lord, if I could preach like that guy.” And he basically told one story after another. But there’s a story that fits this scripture that he told. He said there was an aspiring minor league baseball player. At the end of the season he got called up to the Majors. He thought he was a great hitter. In fact, he eventually became a great hitter. He sat the bench for the first four or five games and then in the ninth inning the first batter got a single and the coach hollered out his name and said, “You’re up to the plate.” And boy was he ready! He was going to hit one out of the park. And he gets to the plate and he looks down to the third base coach. And the third base coach gives him the signal to bunt. He says to himself, “I’m this great hitter. It’s my first chance in the major leagues. Bunt!” He gets three fastballs. He swings at all of them. He misses them all. Needless to say he had to look down at his coach meeting him at the dugout. And then the coach said, “Didn’t you see the bunt sign?” And he said, “Yeah, I saw it, but I didn’t think you meant it.”
And isn’t that what we often do in worship? We hear the word, then we go out like a person who saw himself in the mirror and then forgets. In fact the Old Testament prophet, Amos, put it in even harsher terms. Amos, Chapter 5, beginning at Verse 21. The prophet says, speaking for God, “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won’t accept them; though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I’ll have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs.” But here is what God wants, “Let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.” It’s not enough just to hear the word, we’ve got to be called to respond.
I was listening this week to the latest leadership tape sent out by Bill Humbles, Pastor at Willow Creek. (Lost some of transcript due to switching sides of tape)…. where people would take their boats. They would drive to the dock. They would dock their boat and then the preacher and the music leader would lead a worship service from the shore and from the dock. Do you have that picture in your mind? Now do this, see us at Grace Church as we sit in the pews as kind of having the boats of our lives tied up here in the harbor of this sanctuary. Oh, it’s a beautiful scene. It’s a tranquil scene. And there is nothing wrong with that scene at all. But with that scene in your mind, listen to these words of Bill Humbles.
“When we started the question was, ‘Will this be a harbor kind of church?’ Just a safe little traditional church with an inward focus trying to keep sheep in the pen or is this going to be an open water church? Is this going to be a church where we try to reach every non-churched person within a reasonable driving radius of our church? Do we want to make a difference in this community? Do we want to speak into poverty and speak into racism? Do we want to relieve depression and suffering? What are we going to be—a harbor church or an open water church? And by God’s grace, the vision of this church was to be an open water church not a harbor church. I am so glad! Now, I don’t know what it is inside of you or me as leaders that makes us restless at docks, I just know that for a church to reach its redemptive potential, it must be led by leaders who yearn for open water. We are the ones gifted by God to take the comfortable and make them nervous, to take people who are really quite satisfied where they are and to make them dissatisfied enough to move up to where God does His best work. And God does not do His best work at a dock! His best work is revealed on an open water.”
That’s why at times in worship we will take time to highlight some ministry that will help you leave the harbor and get out there in open water where God best does his transformation work. We’ll encourage you to be a part of Disciple Bible Study or Christian Believer, to go on the Women’s’ Retreat. If you are married, to take some time to invest in improving and making your communication better. To have you be involved in mission. And, yes, even to trust God with your finances. Because where we grow is not really here in the harbor, it’s when we move out into the open water. Yes, worship is at the center of the life of the church, yet Jesus in His final word, did you notice He did not say, “Go and worship.” Now implied is that we would do that, but rather Jesus’ final command was, “Go make disciples,” which is why at the heart of worship is our response. So in that light, let the words of our closing hymn speak to you about that. “Lord, take my life, let it be; consecrate it Lord to Thee.”
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