HOW CAN I WORSHIP EFFECTIVELY?

Religion

Psalm 84
This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, July 8, 2012 by Pastor Paul Mims.

A Sunday School teacher once asked her students to talk about how they felt about their church. The young people responded in the usual ways: some said something silly to get the rest of the class to laugh, while others tried to be more serious.
One of the girls was new to the class, and she felt uncomfortable about entering into the discussion, so she did not raise her hand or volunteer an answer. But when she was asked, she said, “Coming to church is like walking into the heart of God.”

Oh, that our worship could be like that today. But according to national studies, if Cornerstone is a typical congregation, seventy two percent of us will go away feeling that we have not encountered God. Is it any wonder, then, that surveys that George Barna has done indicate that worship attendance has dropped ten percent in the last few years?

It is our prayer that each worship service will be vital to the needs of people and that all who worship will encounter the Almighty. But that does not happen just because you are sitting in the sanctuary. In fact, the person seated next to you may worship and be deeply blessed and you go away having gotten nothing at all out of the service. What is the difference?

Do you remember the line from the poem about listening to a bird sing by Emily Dickinson which said, “The tune is in the tree – The skeptic showeth me; No sir! In Thee!” In other words, you have to have a song in your heart to appreciate the song in the tree. Only a person who hungers for God can truly worship him. Only a person of faith whose heart is right with God can be deeply blessed in worship.

So worship is an awesome experience. How can we worship effectively?

I. PREPARE YOUR HEART BEFORE YOU ARRIVE AT CHURCH.
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints for
the court of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God
.” (vv.1-2)

I find that the hardest part of worship is the preparing of my heart. I devote Saturday to the preparation of my spirit for worship on the Lord’s Day. Although I have walked with the Lord all week, it takes special preparation for worship. Here are some things that I do.

I like to find a segment of time when I can be quiet and reflect on my personal relationship to the Lord. I examine myself to see if there is any un-confessed sin of omission or commission. I examine myself to see if I have hurt or hindered anyone. Then I focus on the service itself. I often think of you and where you sit each Sunday and of the guests we are privileged to have each week and try to imagine your needs as I know you. After this, I focus on God, and ask, “Father, what do you want to say to me and to the congregation through me? Let me see your glory and your Mighty Spirit at work in the church.”

Sunday morning begins for me usually about 5:30. I go over the sermon again and ask God’s blessings on the church as we gather for the Lord’s Day. When I walk into the Sanctuary for the worship service I have a consciousness that I am walking into the presence of God.

But you say, “You are the Pastor. We expect that of you.” Yes, and I say to you, “You are the congregation and I expect that of you.” You must not approach worship any differently that I do. You need to be prepared in spirit when you come. If you are not, you may be a hindrance to the freedom of the Holy Spirit to move among us.

Let you preparation begin on Saturday. Be careful about being up late on Saturday evening. Guard the climate of your family on Sunday morning. A family fuss in the car on the way to church has spoiled the day for many families. Teach the children how to approach the Lord’s Day. I remember Janice saying to Joe and Jenny, “This is the Lord’s Day and we must help your father by being quiet and kind.”

It is the one who is prepared for worship that sees the Lord high and lifted up. It is the one who has confessed his or her sins that is able to approach the throne of grace. It is the one who is able to put aside the cares of the week and focus on the Lord who encounters him. It is the one who hungers for a word from the Lord that gets it. The one who is prepared for worship discovers the Most High God is the Most Nigh God.

II. ENTER GOD’S HOUSE WITH EXPECTANCY.
Even the sparrow has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may
have her young – a place near your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you
.” (vv.3-4).

When our hearts are prepared there is a desire to be near the Lord’s altar like the birds that have built their nest in the eaves of the building. Also, there is a conviction that those who live near the altar are continually blessed. So you are able to come to the Lord’s house with the expectancy of being blessed.

If you expect to be blessed, you will be blessed. If your attendance is merely perfunctory, nothing will happen that will warm your heart and bless your life.

Like the song says, “Sometimes, Alleluia, Sometimes, praise the Lord, Sometimes gently singing our hearts in one accord.”

Our worship experiences each week will be different, but they all will be blessed if we come with a prepared heart expecting to encounter the Lord.

III. PARTICIPATE IN THE SERVICE.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” (v.5).

We all tend to want the worship service we attend to be like what has blessed us in the past. We want to continue our spiritual pilgrimage. But when we are in a service where the hymns are different, or where praise choruses are sung, or where various instruments are used other than the organ and piano, we feel that it is foreign to our experience.

Musical tastes differ widely. I love to hear a church organ play the classics from the great masters. I love to hear the choir sing the great anthems based on the Psalms. But I also love the gospel songs, hymns, and praise choruses. Why such a combination?

This is my background. But it is more than that. We need two kinds of music in each service. First, we need the kind that focuses on the might and majesty of God. The Psalmist said, “Give unto him the glory due unto his name.” If this is not the focus of worship, the service can become just religious entertainment.

The second kind of music we need is that which focuses on our experience of faith. This is how the gospel songs help us understand our experience of grace. But the service must be Christ centered and not man centered. If we focus primarily on our needs, our desires, our feelings, we have a man centered service in which we look at ourselves rather than God. So worship must be OBJECTIVE – toward God and SUBJECTIVE -toward our spiritual natures.

I am encouraging you to develop a wide range of music appreciation in worship. You can still be blessed if the music on a particular Sunday is outside of your preference. Participate in the singing. Aren’t you glad that the scriptures say, “Make a Joyful Noise!”

Be a worshiper rather than a watcher. When the focus is on God, the service will not degenerate into a spectator event.

IV. RELEASE YOUR SPIRIT TO THE PROCESS OF WORSHIP.
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose was is blameless. O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.” (vv.10-12).

The elements of our worship have their roots in the Temple and Synagogue as it was in the time of Christ. The Christians continued with what they knew and added Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In the Middle Ages, worship had become more involved and formalized. Then the Reformers developed a style of worship that was brought to America. Baptists have a mixture of worship styles.

One is called THE CHARLESTON TRADITION. This service focuses on God through a major emphasis on dignity in worship and an emphasis on the Ordinances of Baptism and Communion. This had its beginnings in Charleston, South Carolina.

The other style of worship of called THE SANDY CREEK TRADITION. This was developed in rural North Carolina and majored on informality in worship and the free expression of emotions. These styles still characterize our Baptist family.

William Temple said, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

Regardless of the tradition in which you grew up, true worship can have the same effect on both.
I challenge to you release your spirit to the worship of God in whatever setting you find yourself. To do so is so much better than allowing yourself to be critical of people who are worshiping according to their tradition. I have done this in all kinds of churches and I know that it can be done with much blessing and joy.

When you can say, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked,” you will be able to worship anywhere.

Here is a poem that is in the entrance to the village church in Hawkshead, England, where William Wordsworth worshiped as a schoolboy:

No man entering a house ignores him who dwells there.
This is the house of God and he is here.
Pray then to him who loves you and bids you welcome.
Give thanks for those who, in years past, built this place for his glory.
Rejoice in his gifts of beauty in art and music, architecture and handicrafts;
And worship Him – the one God – Father of us all
Through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

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