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Worship Is (Take 2)…

December 21, 2010 by

The Elements of WorshipDuring the first worship service in the series The Elements of Worship, we asked people to write a definition of worship.  Those definitions can be found here.  During the last worship service in the series, we asked people to write a definition again and underline anything that had changed for them.  Here are those new definitions:

Worship is…

Responses from Sunday, Dec. 19, 2010

-Love

-Gathering with others, releasing my burdens, being reminded that I matter to God; knowing that I’m not alone

-Listening, understanding, doing, thinking, praising, praying, following God – both personally and in community

-Telling God that He’s better than me.  But hey, that’s cool, we can still rock it together

-God bringing me to the full understanding of what it means for me to “bend the knee” (worship in Hebrew).  Leading, guiding,, healing & directing me to the freedom for me in true worship so I can do the same in my community.

-Giving God all the glory and praise in everything you do…your everyday things

-Community with God in words, & thoughts, prayers & songs

-Experiencing God’s love & having it impact you so you can share it with others

-To kneel, praise & talk with the Lor

-A response to God, giving back with all the gifts He gave in response to his love

-Seeing, hearing, feeling, & giving all that God has in his being. And to share in a way each of us can.

-Living in awe of God’s glory, in respect of his holiness, and with gratefulness for his mercy – all leading to a life of love for God & others.

-A full-bodied response to God’s glory, holiness, mercy and love.

-Glory, holiness, mercy, and love for God.

-Living out your faith, practicing what you preach the rest of the week

-A response to God’s gifts to us; praise, thanksgiving, adoration, joy.  Standing in His presence

-The whole body (singing, praying, believing, listening, looking)

-Coming together as a community, serving and worshipping God with all of our hearts and everything we have

-finding a way in this life that is meaningful and enjoyable and brings others to faith & growth in love with God

-Any time and/or place that focus can be turned to God and glory can be given

-Receiving that which you are unworthy of à moving forward in confidence even when failure looms à knowing God has not deserted you & you are part of His plan

-Giving everything to God through praise and thankfulness, done in thousands of different ways

-All encompassing my love, joy, belief, and hope in the beauty of our Father God

-Love; holy; joyous; a choice; shouting, dancing, peace

-The humility sent by God

-Growing, loving, evolving, learning…not definable

-Connecting to God through praise & thankfulness, while acknowledging His holy presence

-Having your cake and eating it too! YUM! (But it’s not about the cake!)

-Not as boring…

-Listening to God

-Learning about God, Jesus & Christianity

-Loving God back

-Spending time in God’s presence by one’s self or in community.  Taking the time to ask God forgiveness, strength and direction.

-To give honest and true praise

-Focusing on God – who He is, what He’s done – & responding with inwardly & outwardly to Him

-Alexis singing the “element” song

-Meeting God everywhere at all times & circumstances with openness to do & learn from Him

-Communion with God, to be in His presence & listen, accept His love

-Acknowledging God and his total greatness, honestly open with Him, walking with Him and serving Him by serving others.  Doing this alone and in community

-The study and understanding of who God is

-Thanking God, joining with others to share the love, joy, happiness & hope.  Surrendering & trusting in God – for everything

-Total and true devotion (undistracted)

-Our natural response to the mercy, glory, holiness, and love that God shows us, and our desire to share it

-The realization of God’s love and mercy and the want and need to spread it, what God designed us to do

-Thanking him and seeking a deeper walk with him

-Different for every individual, but it always involves God

-Worship

-Music

-Listening to God, praising God, talking to God

-Celebrating God’s holiness, glory, mercy, and love and responding with obedience

-Giving praise to God for he is in a way that allows the worshipper to perform for God in a meaningful way

-Getting together with others to learn about God & his love and to share it with others

-Devoting your time to praise God’s love and holiness.  Giving yourself time to reflect on the ways in which God has revealed himself in your life, and give thanks

-Everyone acknowledging God’s glory & holiness, and mercy & how we respond to it.  Yet, everyone worships in their own way

-More fun when someone is sitting close beside me

-Our response to God’s love for us

-How we respond to God

-Spending time with God and understanding & appreciating God’s character more fully

-Time with God that is intentional and dedicated, It is personal & meaningful, and can also be shared with or among others.

-Praise

-Spending time with God; God’s glory, holiness, mercy & love; not just on Sundays; singing, praying, reading, listening, giving

-Our response to God (individual & communal) for who He is and what He has done

-Praising God through community and actions

-?

-Singing loudly & out of tune!

-Giving thanks

-Opening your heart to encounter God, and sharing the love you receive with your community & others

-Meaningful and cleansing

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The Elements of Worship: God’s Love and Our Mission

December 20, 2010 by

The Elements of Worship

The Elements of Worship: God’s Love and Our Mission
Sycamore Creek Church
December 19, 2010
Isaiah 6:1-8
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

Today we wrap up our series on The Elements of Worship.  Throughout this series we’ve used a definition of worship to guide us: Worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter God and respond with everything we’ve got.  Worship is first and foremost about God and not about what we get out of it.  Worship is fullest when it is communal.  Worship compels us to respond with everything: time, talents, treasure, testimony, prayers, presence, gifts, service, heart, mind, soul, strength.  Everything!

Our scripture text each week has been Isaiah 6:1-8.  Here we read about Isaiah’s encounter with God and his response.  Let’s hear God’s story again.

Isaiah 6:1-8 (NLT)

1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. 3 In a great chorus they sang,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty!

The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

4 The glorious singing shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke. 5 Then I said, “My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of a sinful race. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” 8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?” And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

Along with this scripture text we’ve been using a different element from the periodic table each week to explore a different character trait of God that we encounter in worship and our corresponding response.  We began on the first week with carbon as known in the beauty of a diamond and God’s glory and our response of praise.  Then we moved on to hydrogen, a very explosive and potentially dangerous element, and God’s holiness and our conviction and confession.  Last week we looked at copper, a very flexible metal which has no “gotcha,” and God’s mercy and our response of thankfulness and forgiveness of others.  Today we finish the series with lithium and God’s love and our response of mission.

Let’s bring back to mind some of the characteristics of lithium.  Lithium is probably best known in our day in the form of lithium-ion batteries.  Lithium-ion batteries power our cell phones, our computers, our cameras, our gadgets, and our cars.  In this form lithium provides the energy for action.  Lithium also is used to treat bipolar disorder.  It evens out the highs and lows of mania and depression.  So now that we know a little bit about lithium, let’s look again at the text from Isaiah and see what we can learn from it about God’s love.

Love is the action of God which balances between God’s glory and holiness and God’s mercy.  On the one side, God’s glory and holiness, we’ve got a rather one-two punch of God’s power and beauty and purity that we don’t really measure up to.  On the other side we’ve got the flexibility of God’s mercy.  The balance between the two is God’s love.

Consider again lithium.  It balances out the mania and depression of bipolar.  Or consider the lithium-ion battery: “A lithium-ion battery is a family of rechargeable battery types in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge, and back when charging” (Wikipedia).  So lithium-ion batteries have this movement back and forth between two poles: negative and positive.  The movement provides energy for action.

We could say that God’s love balances or moves back and forth between the two poles of God’s glory and holiness on one side and God’s mercy on the other side.  If we read back through Isaiah 6:1-8 we see that Isaiah encounters God’s glory and holiness and says in verse five, “Woe me!”  Then Isaiah experiences God’s mercy in verse six and seven and then says very literally in verse eight, “Whoa me!”  The movement from “Woe me” to “Whoa me” is God’s love.  The two poles of God’s character work together in harmony for action.

Let’s look at some practical examples of how something fairly unbending works with something more flexible to produce a helpful action.  Take skiing.  Skis are pretty firm and unbending.  Downhill skis have a sharp edge that can be somewhat dangerous if you don’t treat it properly.  While skis are rigid and stiff, skiing takes place on something rather flexible: snow.  Snow, especially powder snow, is light and fluffy.  Snow is much more giving than say ice.  I know because when I was learning to ski I hit an ice patch and went down hard and scraped up the side of my face.  A rigid ski on rigid ice is no fun.  But a rigid ski on soft snow gives you the action of skiing.  God’s glory and holiness on one side are balanced by God’s mercy on the other side by the action of God’s love.

Or take a tire.  A tire is filled with pressure.  Pressure is what keeps the rubber off the road.  But a tire isn’t filled with the pressure of, say, concrete.  No.  It’s filled with the pressure of air.  Air, last time I checked is pretty flexible.  We walk through it all the time.  It is much different walking through air than say walking through a concrete wall. One will hurt you but the other will allow you to move effortlessly from point A to point B.  If you don’t have pressure and air working together you’ve got a flat tire.  I’ve only had one flat tire on my current car.  It was on a Sunday morning.  I came out to go to church and found that my tire was flat.  I was a little excited.  I hadn’t changed a tire in a long time.  So I opened my trunk to pull out the lug nut wrench and jack.  There was one significant problem.  My car didn’t have a lug nut wrench!  I had owned the car for almost ten years but had never needed to look for the lug nut wrench.  I had no way of fixing the tire.  I missed church that morning.  It’s the only time I’ve ever been thwarted from going to church.  I didn’t have the balance of pressure and air to help my tire with the action of rolling.  I was dead in the parking lot.

Or take parenting.  On the one hand parents must have rules.  Rules are fairly rigid and unbending or they wouldn’t be rules.  And yet every parent must know what battles to fight and what battles to dodge.  The end result of the balance between these two poles of being firm and flexible is the action of forming a child well.  The action of balancing between being firm and flexible is the action of love.

Woe me!  God’s mercy.  Whoa me!

The natural response of encountering God’s love in worship is joining God’s mission.  Let’s go back to lithium again.  One form that lithium comes in that I haven’t yet mentioned is lithium grease.  It’s a great lubricant for household products because it resists heat and moisture.  Interestingly enough, lithium grease is made up of two things you don’t usually consider putting together: oil and soap!  Lithium lubricates for action by putting together two things that sometimes don’t go together well.

Joining God’s mission means walking people through the balance of God’s glory and holiness on the one hand and God’s mercy on the other hand.  Let’s go back to Isaiah 6 and look at the verses that follow the first eight.  God asks who will go for God and Isaiah responds saying, “Whoa, send me!”  Then something very unusual happens.  We read what God tells Isaiah to say to the people:

Isaiah 6:9-10 (NLT)

And [God] said, “Yes, go. But tell my people this: ‘You will hear my words, but you will not understand. You will see what I do, but you will not perceive its meaning.’ Harden the hearts of these people. Close their ears, and shut their eyes. That way, they will not see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn to me for healing.”

Whoa!  Isaiah is to preach God’s glory and holiness through God’s judgment.  You’ll see but not understand.  You’ll hear but not listen.  Your hearts will harden.  Your eyes will shut.  Your ears will close.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Yikes!

This is God’s firm glory and holiness.  It is a message that most of us are not very comfortable sharing with others, but this is part of God’s love and our mission.  You can’t know God’s love until you have fully experienced God’s glory and holiness first.  But thankfully that’s not the end of the story of our mission or Isaiah’s.

If we continue to read Isaiah we come across a distinct change in Isaiah’s message in chapter forty.  Many scholars think that this part of Isaiah comes after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  The people of Israel are now going to encounter God’s mercy.  Isaiah says:

Isaiah 40:1-2 (NLT)

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and that her sins are pardoned. Yes, the LORD has punished her in full for all her sins.”

This is God’s mercy.  This is God’s flexibility.  Thank you, God!  But we can not fully experience God’s love until we move first through the firmness of God’s glory and holiness and then into God’s mercy.  And likewise, our mission to others must help them experience the balance of “woe me” and “you are forgiven.”  In this way we are a come as you are kind of church (God’s mercy), but not stay as you are (God’s glory and holiness), so that we can reach people where they are (God’s love).

So how do you do this in the next week?  Let me offer some suggestions.  First, you have an opportunity today to join in God’s mission here at SCC by delivering a food basket to a family who has requested one in our community.  This is a time to share God’s love with someone in need of a pretty basic thing in life: food.  Take some time, as you sense it is available, to talk a little with the family you are delivering the food to.  We’ve included a prayer card for you to pray with them.  Invite them to church.  Offer to pick them up!  Join in God’s mission and God’s love today in this way.

Second, most of us tend to err on one side of love’s balance equation.  We are either too firm or too flexible.  You know what side you err on.  And maybe you err one way or another depending on the context.  With your children you are always too flexible.  With your co-workers you are always too firm.  With your boss you tend to be too firm.  With your friends you tend to be too flexible.  So this week err on the other side.  If you are usually too flexible with your kids, be more firm.  If you are usually too firm at work, be more flexible.  Be firm (God’s glory and holiness).  Be flexible (God’s mercy).  Do both and you’ll be sharing God’s love with your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

Thankfully we don’t do this alone.  When we worship God we encounter God’s love and we respond by joining God’s mission.  God’s love, God’s balancing act between God’s glory and holiness and God’s mercy rubs off on us.  God’s Spirit helps us to balance between being firm and being flexible.  God’s Spirit helps us love the way that God loves.  Thank you, God!

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The Elements of Worship: God’s Mercy and Our Thankfulness and Forgiveness

December 15, 2010 by

The Elements of Worship

The Elements of Worship:
God’s Mercy and Our Thankfulness and Forgiveness
Sycamore Creek Church
December 12, 2010
Tom Arthur
Isaiah 6:1-8

Peace, Friends!

We embark on this third week of a series about worship where we’re looking at four elements of God’s character and our response.  I’m just now jumping into the series because some elements in my own life changed these past two weeks.  My wife and I gave birth to our first child, a boy, named Micah John!  I’ve been spending a lot of time contemplating the mystery of each person as described in Psalm 139 which says:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,

Wonderful are your works;

That I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you ,

When I was being made in secret,

Intricately woven in the depth of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

All the days that were formed for me,

When none of them as yet existed.

Sarah and I are deeply grateful for how well this church community has taken care of us.  I hope that we take care of one another just as well as you take care of Sarah and me.  I am especially thankful for Mark Aupperlee who stepped in to preach two weeks in a row so that I could spend time at home just beginning to get used to being a dad.  Thank you, Mark.

While Sarah and I have been waiting for this baby to come, we are in a season of the church calendar when we too wait the coming of another baby, Jesus.  We’re in the season of Advent and “advent” is Latin for coming.  We’re preparing our hearts to worship this baby Jesus who is God in the flesh, our Lord, king, and savior.  This is a great time to be exploring more deeply what it means to worship.

There’s another good reason for us to be studying worship.  You asked for it.  A year ago we had a congregation-wide consultation day and out of that came a process of dialogue groups, and one of those dialogue groups focused on the area of worship, and that dialogue group said one thing we must do is some teaching on worship.  So here we are: The Elements of Worship.

We’ve been looking at different definitions of worship over the past two weeks.  On the first week we asked you to submit some definitions.  I’ve posted all those on my blog.  I’d like to share a sample of them with you this morning.  You said that worship is…

  • Loving God
  • Any act that celebrates God’s presence
  • Living out your faith
  • In Hebrew it means, “To bend the knee.”  For me I see it as me choosing to agree with God & submit to His will…
  • An expression of our gratitude and devotion to our God incorporating all elements of our life
  • Putting your heart in alignment with God – with mind, heart, and actions
  • Celebrating God for who God is and what God has done
  • Boring.

I love that last one, just because of the honesty of it.  Isn’t it good to be part of a community that strives to be honest with one another?  We don’t always get it right, but at least we’re willing to say we’re bored when we are!

So we’ve been working with a definition throughout this series that was my own attempt at summing up a lot of other definitions.  I like to say that worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter God and respond with everything we’ve got!

There are three key parts of this definition.  First, worship is first and foremost about God, not you or what you get out of worship.  Second, worship happens most fully in community.  As Mark, our resident scientist-preacher, said last week, scientists work best together in a lab rather than by themselves.  Same thing is true of worship.  And I’m not just talking about the present community.  I’m talking about the universal “catholic” community of all the Christians present on Earth and all the Christians who have come before us and even all the company of heaven who join in with our worship.  Have you ever thought of that?  Actually, it’s more like us joining in with the company of heaven!  Lastly, worship is also about our response.  When we come into contact with the character of God there are some natural and even supernatural responses that we have.  When we encounter God’s glory, we praise.  When we encounter God’s holiness, we confess.  And today when we encounter God’s mercy, we give thanks.  This response doesn’t just hang around on Sunday morning.  It continues on throughout the week.

So today we look at God’s mercy.  Thank God for God’s mercy.  After a week like last week with God’s holiness, we’d all be toast if that’s where the story ended!

Along the way in this series we’ve used the periodic table of elements to help us understand each of these elements of God’s character.  Glory equals carbon which can be seen in the beauty of a diamond.  Holiness equals hydrogen because it is simple, pure, and dangerous.  Mercy equals copper.

One book about the elements says of copper:

“Copper is wonderful stuff.  Just wonderful.  Many other elements have some kind of a gotcha about them: maybe they are great in every way except that they’re poisonous, or they would be perfect except they explode when they touch water [or cesium which explodes when it touches skin!].  Copper has no gotcha—it’s just nice stuff all around.”

I love that description of copper.  You could insert “God’s mercy” in the place of copper and it would be pretty accurate.  Copper has some wonderful properties too.  It’s very conductive.  It gets energy from one place to another.  It is valuable right now.  A friend of mine moved into an apartment and found that none of the electricity worked.  All the copper wiring had been ripped out and stolen!  Copper is also known for being one of the most flexible metals and easy to work with.  Let’s explore copper a little bit more.

To bring you up to speed on copper, we’re going to turn to Professor Martyn Poliakoff of the University of Nottingham who with the help of some others has made a whole series of videos on the periodic table of elements.

So know that you know about copper, let’s turn to the other side of the equation.  Copper = God’s mercy.  We’ve been using Isaiah 6:1-8 each week to explore the Elements of Worship.  Let’s look for God’s mercy in this story of Isaiah’s encounter with God.

Isaiah 6:1-8 (NLT)

1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. 3 In a great chorus they sang,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty!

The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

4 The glorious singing shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke. 5 Then I said, “My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of a sinful race. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” 8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?” And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

When we look closely at this story of Isaiah’s encounter with God we learn several things about God’s mercy.  First, mercy is all God’s work.  Consider again how copper is conductive.  It does all the work of moving energy from one place to another.  You take any electric appliance and it’s worthless until you plug it into an outlet.  The copper in the wires does all the heavy work.

We see in this story that Isaiah is acted upon by God, or God’s messenger.  In verse six and seven we read, “Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it…”  Isaiah for the most part just stands there in the face of God’s holiness and considers himself doomed.  That’s the danger of God’s holiness, but the wonder of God’s mercy is that God works in us despite our sin and brokenness.

We see this dynamic all over scripture but especially in Psalm 51 which begins, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.”  It’s God who does the blotting.  We can’t get rid of the sin ourselves.  God’s mercy is conducive to our forgiveness.

There is a cost to forgiving.  When we forgive, something in us must die; something must be let go.  Our sin and the sins of others makes in us a kind of hardness that God’s mercy must soften.  God knows what this is like.  Paul says, “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said” (1 Corinthians 15:3, NLT).  God’s mercy and forgiveness ultimately cost more than we could ever pay, and Jesus willingly paid that cost out of love.  Paul puts it another way saying that [Jesus] “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8, NRSV).  God’s mercy is all God’s work, and this work of mercy, like all works of mercy, comes at a price to God.  It is free to us.  It cost God something big.  Mercy is all God’s work.

Mercy also means transformation.  Consider again copper.  Copper is hard enough to build with but soft enough to really be usable.  Sarah and I own a house in Petoskey and we were having a leak in the shower.  We decided to put in a new shower and we asked our neighbor, Dane, who is a contractor to do the work for us.  When he was looking at the work to be done, we went in the basement and examined the plumbing.  It was all galvanized steel pipes.  If you’ve ever tried to work with steel pipes you know how much of a hassle it can be.  Dane figured he could fairly easily attach some new copper pipes to the ends of the steel pipes.  After he was all done, we went up to our house to find that he had taken out all the galvanized steel and replaced all our plumbing with new copper pipes.  The basement was transformed from plumbing that is a pain to work with to plumbing that is easy and flexible to work with.  We were amazed with the transformation and expect any future work to be much easier.

God’s mercy equals our transformation.  We see this in the story of Isaiah’s encounter with God in verse seven.  We read, “He touched my lips with it and said, ‘See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.’”  Isaiah is transformed by the forgiveness of his sins.  He is made pure and holy.  In the danger of God’s holiness, Isaiah was expecting destruction but what he ended up with was forgiveness.  Mercy equals transformation.

We can see this kind of transformation and the experience it brings in Psalm 32.

Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.  (Psalm 32:2-5, NLT)

Now that’s a wonderful transformation!  What we’re talking about here is reconciliation.  Being made right in relationship when the relationship was broken.  Something not right was made right.

I have a somewhat famous cousin who is a farmer in Virginia.  His name is Joel Salitin.  He was featured in the book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, and also made a showing in the moving Food Inc.  His farm is called Polyface farm because he raises many different kinds of animals.  His method is to use all the byproducts of each animal to help the other animals so that in the end, his farm produces no waste.  Sarah and I went to visit him when we lived in North Carolina.  While he was giving us a tour of the farm, we came to a barn that had pigs in it.  He got all giddy and jumped over the fence and reached down into the manure and lifted up two big handfuls and said, “Smell this stuff!  Touch it!”  We were a little reluctant at first, but then we realized leaving him with manure in his hands was kind of like leaving someone hanging in a high-five.  So we smelled it and touched it.  Amazing thing!  It was warm and it smelled sweet!  He went on to explain how he was using the pigs to compost or transform the cow manure into useful fertilizer.

That’s what God’s mercy does.  It transforms something stinking into something beautiful.  God’s mercy transforms our sin and brokenness into forgiveness and reconciliation and holiness.  God’s mercy equals transformation.

In worship we encounter God’s mercy.  If God’s mercy is all God’s work and leads to transformation, what is our response to God’s mercy?  I suggest that we have two natural responses to God’s mercy.  The first is that we give thanks.  We thank God for all the ways that God has forgiven us and been patient with us and transformed us.  We do that in song.  We do it in prayer.  We do it by turning and opening our hearts to God.  When we encounter God’s mercy we respond with thankfulness.

There’s a second response I think we have when we encounter God’s mercy.  We show mercy and forgive others.  You see, when we encounter the danger of God’s holiness and realize we have fallen short of God’s glory, we are humbled.  And when we encounter God’s mercy and are transformed by the work of God in our lives, we are thankful.  That humility and thankfulness produces in us a kind of response to those around us that recognizes that because we have been shown mercy and forgiveness, we too ought to show mercy and forgive others.  Yes, it will cost us something, just as mercy cost God something.  Yes it means softening a hard spot in our hearts and being open to being hurt again, but God knows the same experience through Jesus’ death on the cross.  God does not expect a response from us that God has not already paved the way forward himself.  We respond to God’s mercy by being merciful and forgiving others.

When we gather to worship as a community we encounter God’s mercy.  Like copper that conducts energy from one place to another, God’s mercy is all God’s work.  Like copper being flexible enough to be transformed, God’s mercy transforms us.  We respond by being thankful and showing mercy to others by forgiving them.  In worship we encounter God’s glory, holiness, and mercy and we respond with everything we’ve got: praise, confession, and thankfulness.

Thank you, God!

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Worship is

December 11, 2010 by

The Elements of Worship

In the first message of this series, we asked SCC to give us their definitions of worship (Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010).  Here is what we received:

Worship is…

-loving God…

-a time to thank God for all he has done & ask for forgiveness & help to continue to glorify God in all things…

-when our actions are done unto God…

-love; honoring our creator; song; dance; humbleness; or knowing you’re only there because He made you…

-my praise of God…

-Any act that celebrates God’s presence

-living out your faith…

-praise/adoration…

-spending time with God praising Him for who he is and what we are able to do with him at our side…

-thanking god for blessings and asking him to guide our lives…

-communication with, and thanks to God…

-praise the Lord…

-giving thanks, glory, praise to our Lord, maker of all on Earth, giving oneself to the truthful ways of the Bible…

-In Hebrew it means, “To bend the knee.”  For me I see that as me choosing to agree with God & submit to His will.  To give up my will for me * choose him & his will for me & my loved ones & the world…

-feeling at peace and at one with God.  Having a relationship with him…

-communing with God, loving and adoring him and being loved in return…

-getting to know God better & understanding God’s will…

-singing, praying, listen to the sermon, reading the Bible…

-giving praise to God for all that he has done & all that he’ll continue to do in the future…

-an expression of our gratitude and devotion to our God incorporating all elements of our life…

-a time of community of believing, communion with God…

-an acknowledgement of God and a way to give back in a minuscule way with praise and thanks…

-honoring God as God through song, dance, etc. ACTIONS

-learning about God and the Bible…

-honestly, openly, joyfully connecting to and honoring God the Father, Son & Spirit, and doing that in community with our Christian brothers and sisters…

-Dedicating time to focus totally on God/Christ…

-Coming together to learn about God’s Word and the teachings of Jesus…

-showing God your love and thanks for Him…

-showing the love of God and out appreciation for what God has done…

-putting your heart in alignment with God – with mind, heart, and actions…

-a quiet time in thought & prayer, communing with God…

-a time to reflect and to thank God for all that we are given and blessed with…

-taking time to consider, reflect, and appreciating God’s sacrifices and graces that he has casted upon us…

-praising God with our whole lives, which includes singing all the way down to cleaning the house, etc…

-opening mind, heart and soul to God through the Bible, music, conversation , however you feel him then living and spreading Him, His Word to others…

-loving God, honoring God, socializing with people like yourself…

-loving God through honoring, adoration, learning, serving, growing and connecting & sharing his love…

-a time to praise and communication with our heavenly father,  to lift up one’s friends, ourselves, to ask for forgiveness & to renew ourselves in the Truth…

-your heart connecting with God, joyful noise, I connect best in worship through prayer or music, community or individual

-saying hi to God, learning, singing, community fellowship, sometimes it sounds like it is just singing, not ed phillip’s definition, or the Pope’s.

-celebrating God for who God is and what God has done…

-our thanks and appreciation toward God…through many ways like: music, art, studies, etc…

-expressing love and appreciation to God in a way that is meaningful to the worshipper…

-a better connection with myself and with God, a clearer view of my personal mission in life and giving me the motivation to achieve it…

-recognizing and thanking God…

-forgetting about what is wrong with me and remembering what is right with God…

-giving God our hearts through song, thought/mediation, and just recognizing and appreciating His presence & His handiwork…

-spending time with God, learning his way of life…

-communication with God in order to better understand His will and to let Him know our feelings…

-respect for God (Jesus)…

-learning, evolving, becoming more at peace…

-boring…

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The Elements of Worship: Encountering God’s Glory

December 11, 2010 by

The Elements of Worship

The Elements of Worship: Encountering God’s Glory
Sycamore Creek Church
November 28, 2010
Tom Arthur
Isaiah 6:1-8

Peace, Friends!

Today we begin a new four week series called The Elements of Worship: An Encounter with God.  We’re going to be looking at four different elements of what it means to worship.  This series falls at a particularly good time because today is the first Sunday of Advent.  Advent is the beginning of the church calendar when Christians prepare their hearts and minds for Christmas.  As we explore worship in this series, we’re really preparing to be able to worship Jesus Christ better at the celebration of his birth, Christmas.

But there is also a second reason for this series, and that has to do with the fact that this congregation itself said that teaching around worship was something we needed more of.  This came out of a process we entered into last November in which dialogue groups were put together around seven different areas of focus.  Each of those dialogue groups created a list of “must dos.”  One of those areas of focus was “worship” and one of the must dos that came out of that worship dialogue group was teaching on worship.  So, because it’s always good to understand worship better, and also because you asked for it, here we are: The Elements of Worship: An Encounter with God!

Take a moment and fill in the blank:

Worship is _______________________

I’m serious.  Don’t continue reading until you at least mentally have finished that sentence.

Ok, now that you’ve finished that sentence here are some ways that others have finished that sentence.  My worship professor at seminary, Ed Phillips, said, “Worship is the way God forms the Church through the story of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in the practice of living according to the Truth.”  Pope Pius X said “Worship is the glorification of God and the sanctification [the process of making holy or righteous] of humanity.”  Some big words there.

Soren Kierkegaard said that worship is performance.  Performance?  If it’s a performance who are the performers and who is the audience?  We tend to think of the musicians and the pastor as the performers in worship and the congregation as the audience but Kierkegaard had a different idea.  He said you, the congregation ,are the performers and God is the audience!

An old word for worship is “liturgy.”  What exactly does that mean anyway?  Well, “liturgy” is actually simply Latin for “the work of the people.”  In this sense when you participate in liturgy you are doing the work of the people as compared to God’s work.

I like a lot about all of these definitions of worship.  I’ve taken my own stab at providing a definition of worship.  It’s the tag line for this series.  Here it is:

Worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter the living God and respond with everything we’ve got.

First of all, worship is about God.  It’s less about you than you may think.  It’s not so much about you coming and getting filled up or coming and hearing what you need to hear.  That’s not to say that worship has nothing to do with those things, but they are mostly by-products of worship, not the goal of worship.  What we get out of worship has more to do with our response which always follows an encounter with God.  Worship is first and foremost about God.

Worship is also most full when it is communal.  That’s not to say that worship can’t happen individually, but rather that an encounter with God is most full when the community gathers together.  We’re using a kind of science theme for this series.  Maybe one way to think about this communal aspect of worship is the way that most science happens: communally.  I recently read an article in Time magazine about Thomas Edison.  The amazing thing about Edison and all his inventions is that he invented all these amazing things not by himself but with a kind of “research park” similar to today’s Silicon Valley or more close to home, MSU and all the labs that work together to learn and create and invent.

Lastly, worship is about our response.  When we encounter God, we respond with everything we’ve got.  Everything we’ve got?  Yep.  Heart.  Soul.  Mind.  Strength.  Time.  Talent.  Treasure.  Testimony.  Prayers.  Presence.  Gifts.  Service.  EVERYthing.

Worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter the living God and respond with everything we’ve got.

To help us explore this idea about worship more fully, we’re going to go back to high school chemistry.  I hear groans already.  Yeah.  I hated chemistry, personally.  Some people dig it, but it was probably my weakest subject.  Nonetheless, the periodic table will provide us some helpful guidance along the way.  We’re going to use four different elements on the periodic table to help us understand four characteristics of God and our response to that particular character of God:

Carbon = God’s glory and our praise and awe.

Hydrogen = God’s holiness and our conviction and confession.

Copper = God’s mercy and forgiveness and our thankfulness.

Lithium = God’s love and our mission.

So today we begin with Carbon.  Carbon is a pretty cool element.  It’s cool for many reasons.  In a helpful book about the elements called, well, The Elements, we read that “Carbon is the most important element of life, period.  Sure, there are many others without which life would not exist, but from the spiral backbone of DNA to the intricate rings and streamers of the steroids and proteins, carbon is the element whose unique properties tie it all together” (The Elements, 25).  In other words, carbon is all around us and is the basis of life.

We’ve found these awesome little videos that we’re going to use each week in which Martin Poliakoff, professor at University of Nottingham, will bring us all up to speed on each element.  Here’s the video about carbon.

I love that guy’s hair.  Wow!  So that’s carbon.  Let’s go to God’s Word which will inform us about worship.  We’re going to use each week a passage from Isaiah chapter six where the prophet Isaiah encounters God.

Isaiah 6:1-8 (NLT)

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. In a great chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty! The whole earth is filled with his glory!” The glorious singing shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of a sinful race. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD Almighty!”

Then one of the seraphim flew over to the altar, and he picked up a burning coal with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go for us?” And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

So carbon is about beauty.  Beauty because one of the key ways we know carbon is in its form as a diamond.  Now diamonds have been in the news a lot lately thanks to a little engagement that happened recently between Prince William and Kate Middleton.  The big talk has been how William gave Kate his mother, Princess Diana’s, engagement ring.  It’s a blue sapphire with diamonds arranged all around it.  The demand for this kind of ring has in the last week skyrocketed.

Apparently I am a little ahead of the fashion curve.  When I proposed to Sarah I went around to my family and asked if there was a ring in the family that I could have or buy to use.  I came to find out that there wasn’t a ring, but my mom had a blue sapphire ring that my dad had given her before they were divorced, and my dad had his wedding ring from his marriage with my mom, and my grandma had the diamonds from her wedding ring that she had taken out at one point, and all three of these people gave me these different rings or diamonds so that I could make a ring to propose to Sarah.  So Sarah and I made a ring that used the blue sapphire from my mom’s ring, the gold from dad’s ring, and the diamonds from my grandma’s ring, and that’s Sarah’s engagement ring.  Actually, did you know that diamond engagement rings are a fairly new “tradition”?  They were invented in the 1940s by a marketing campaign!  But today we recognize diamonds as a symbol of beauty and diamonds are simply made out of carbon.

When we worship God we encounter God’s Glory.  We read back in Isaiah 6:1, “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple.”  Here is this wonderful picture of God’s glory as beauty which is symbolized by a robe filling a temple.  I imagine a kind of kingly ornate robe with incredible hand-stitched embroidery made out of strands of silver and gold thread.

The psalms are full of declarations of God’s beauty.  One well known psalm is Psalm 8 which says, “O LORD, our Lord, the majesty of your name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens.”  The beauty of creation becomes a symbol of the beauty of the creator.

When we worship God we encounter God’s glory in God’s beauty.

Another aspect of God’s glory is God’s power.  Consider again carbon.  Carbon is the hardest of all the elements.  We hear about all kinds of diamond tipped tools: diamond-tipped drill bits, diamond-tipped saw blades, and so on.  Have you heard about the diamond-tipped razor blade?  Here’s a video of a diamond-tipped razor blade showing off by slicing a thread of hair!

Carbon has strength and power.  So does God.  We read again in Isaiah that “In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple” (Isaiah 6:1).  Here is an image of God’s kingly majesty and power.  God’s glory is thus seen in God’s power.

Power makes me think of tornados.  Have you ever seen up close the mind-blowing power of a tornado?  I grew up in Indianapolis and tornados were a regular occurrence in that city.  One tornado touched down about 500 yards from my house.  It hit a two-story apartment building and left a pile of splinters.  It jumped up in the air and landed in the sports complex of my high school where it picked up some bleachers, mangled them like they were a twist tie, and dropped them in the outfield of the baseball diamond.  That’s power!  But God’s glory in God’s power is even greater!

When we worship we encounter God’s glory in God’s power.

We also encounter God’s glory in God’s mystery.  Back to carbon.  Carbon is all around us.  It makes up practically everything in our world.  And yet it is hidden.  It is behind the scenes.  God is similar.  God’s glory is seen in God’s mystery.

We read in Isaiah that “hovering around [God] were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew” (Isaiah 6:2).  I wonder if they were covering up because they couldn’t bear to look at God’s mystery.  God was right there but the seraphim, a kind of angelic being, covered their eyes because God is ultimately a kind of mystery.

There is a kind of theology or study of God called “apophatic” theology.  Not “apathetic” theology but “apophatic.”  “Apophatic” comes from the Greek words which means “to say no.”   Thus, apophatic theology understands that it is easier to say what God is not than to say what God is.  God’s glory is wrapped in God’s mystery.

Many Christians have written about this aspect of God’s glory.  Thomas A Kempis, the 15th century writer of the Imitation of Christ, said, “If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know.”  St. Augustine, a 4th and 5th century church leader said, “God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.”  Blaise Pascal, a 17th century mathematician and philosopher said, “Seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied.”  God’s glory is encountered in God’s mystery.

Paul speaks of this mystery as well.  He says, “Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  God’s glory is in God’s mystery.  If we go back to Psalm 8 we read, “What are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us?   For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:4-5).  The psalmist is having a hard time wrapping his mind around what God is up to in humanity.  I too have this experience.  People can be known but they are also a mystery.  Consider a spouse.  I have been married for thirteen years.  I know Sarah pretty well.  One thing that I was sure I knew was that Sarah doesn’t like cooking.  For almost all of those thirteen years, I did all the cooking, but about a year ago Sarah all of a sudden started enjoying cooking!  She remains a mystery to me.

When we worship we encounter God’s glory in God’s mystery.

Worship is about encountering God’s glory in God’s beauty, power, and mystery.

So what’s left?  Our response.  The most natural response is praise.  We along with psalms declare the glory of God!  When we see it we name it out loud.  One way we see it is by living in a disposition of awe and wonder.  This is a kind of child-like approach to the world.

Wow!

Did you see that?!

Did you know that?!

Do it again!  Again!  Again!

Wow!

Like carbon, God’s glory in beauty is all around us.  We need only look for it.  Like carbon, God’s glory is powerful.  Like carbon, which is all around us but hidden, God’s glory is mystery.  When we gather with the community to worship God, we encounter God’s glory and we respond with praise living in awe and wonder.

Here are some ways your response can bleed over into this week:

1.      Be Creative.  Take time to create something.  When you create you participate with God’s beauty, power, and mystery.

2.      Enjoy Creation.  Get outside even if it is cold.  Put on your warm clothes and go for a hike.  Be in awe about God’s creation.  Ask “I wonder” questions.

3.      Slow Down.  We run our lives so quickly and so jam packed that we barely take the time to stop and notice God’s glory all around us.  When you’re out and about, stop doing whatever you’re doing and just people watch.  Enjoy the mystery of the image of God in each person.  Look and see.

4.      Sing.  We sing together in worship and that’s a fairly obvious place to sing.  We sing praise because we can’t help ourselves.  We’re wired to sing.  So sing a little this week.  If you’re like me and you can’t carry a tune, turn the music up loud so that you can sing at the top of your lungs and can’t even hear yourself.  Do that in our communal worship too.  Put your whole self into singing.  Don’t just sag your shoulders and mumble the words.  Belt it out.  God hears the tune of the intent of your praise whether the actual praise is off-tune or not.

Worship happens most fully when the community gathers to encounter God and respond with everything we’ve got.

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