Authentic Worship
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
I talked about vision last week and God has a vision for us. Let me tell you what I see, I see something that isn’t quiet there yet. I see a family a vast family of people that not only come together on a Sunday but that meet in each other’s homes. A see a family that shares their lives with each other and that are real with each other. I see a place where people are safe to come in no matter their walk in life. I see a people ready to gather the wounded and bring to them, Jesus the one who can set them free. I see that this place won’t be big enough for the mission God has for us. I see a people Going Out and Elevating Within!
That’s our vision: Going Out and Elevating Within!
Our vision is what I call the 10K foot view. It is a general understanding and direction for God’s work in our lives. It leads us to our mission and it stems from the great commission we find in Matt 28:18-20
To be able to Go Out and Elevate Within we are going to have to accomplish our mission and the beginning of that mission is to:
Focus on Christ as we Connect Kaw Valley to:
Authentic Worship
What is worship? Sometimes this can be hard to define. Some think it is the music part of our Sunday services. So many times I have heard the music called worship. But would it surprise you to know that the prayer parts, the communion, the tithes and offerings, yep even the sermon are all apart of worship. Not only that, it is deeper, it is your attitude about being here, it is your participation in what we are doing, it is your heart not only during this hour to hour and a half, but it is tomorrow and the next day. Worship is bigger than just one moment, it is our full fledged dedication to the one who is worthy. That’s why it says in Luke 4:23:
Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ”
Pray
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Yes, worship can be fun and it can make us laugh a bit. However, I don’t want you to think this is the only kind of worship. Each of us has an individual way we like to worship. Some with hands raised high, some in quiet contemplation, so with dancing and some with just a smile and a hug. What your mission in finding authentic worship, is to find out how you worship in Spirit and in Truth. Not how someone tells you to, but how your worship convicts, satisfies and brings you closer to God. First, worshipping in Spirit and Truth will always convict us to be more like Christ.
Worship Convicts
Worship Convicts
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
A. Authentic Worship Challenges
1. Jesus Challenges precepts - vs 7 - 9
a. Women responds with a normal response
b. Precepts can get in the way of Worship
“The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
c. Have to let go and believe
2. Jesus sets the tone for worship - vs 10 - 14
a. If only you knew
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
b. You would have focused on Jesus
c. Jesus is the author of worship
d. Have to let it be about him
i. He is the living water not me
ii. Have to learn to deny myself
iii. Not worry what others think only Christ
B. Authentic Worship Convicts 16-18
1. Our response to Christ can be negative sometimes
a. We don’t understand
b. We don’t know the truth
2. Cannot have true worship in sin
a. Have to repent
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,
b. Come to the truth of self first
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
c. We are dirty and in need of a savior
d. Then we know what it is to worship
i. Thanksgiving
ii. It is a Truth that I have been saved
Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
3. Truth of God
a. He loves us all
b. Wants us to repent and be saved
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
c. Want us to live set-apart lives
for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
My wife’s struggle with my cowboy hat
Worship Satisfies
Worship Satisfies
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
A. Authentic Worship Calls the Spirit - vs 19-21
1. Calls them into a new understanding
a. Worship isn’t contained to a place
i. That’s what it was before
ii. After Christ - Worship God everywhere
b. Put away the old things and grab onto the new
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
2. Calls them into Truth and Spirit - vs 22
a. Even though the Jews knew they didn’t know
b. Everyone was going to have to learn the new
3. Calls them to be changed
a. Isn’t going to be like it was
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
b. Church has such a hard time with this
i. 2021 isn’t going to be like it was!
ii. God is always the same, but how we reach people changes
c. Cannot be about what we think anymore
i. Has to be about Spirit and Truth
ii. Spirit is from God - Holy Spirit guides and shows us the way
iii. Truth in from Jesus - The Word
iv. Whatever is from God and the Truth we worship
v. Worship has to be honest and true
Thought I was an intellectual wanted to use big words and know theologies, but I had to become honest with myself
I am more of a emotional/participatory
Love my studies, but I love to share it and see people changed
Zeal is one of my strengths, not big words
Satisfied in that once i got it.
D. Authentic Worship is for All - vs 24-26
1. Jesus reveals himself
a. To a woman and a Samaritan
b. Both are illogical to the Jewish mind
c. But Jesus saw in her the seeking of Truth and Spirit
2. All are called to God, as it had been, but now it is clear
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
a. We cannot hold back people from Christ
b. Instead we, like Christ must break down barriers
i. When we worship in the Truth and Spirit like that awesome things happen
ii. Take it out and to all people
iii. Defeat our precepts and our bias
iv. Let God do great work
3. Then we find satisfaction
a. In God’s work
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
b. In being real to ourselves and each other
c. In being real with God
i. Job was real and it was counted and a good thing
ii. God’s big he can handle our real
d. When we are real
i. Gives others permission to be real
ii. We find satisfaction in the truth and spirit or worship
Worship Draws Deeper
Worship Draws Deeper
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
A. Authentic Worship is Deeper Truth
1. Disciples were amazed
a. talked to a foreigner
b. talked to a woman
i. Talked to this woman at here in the heat of the day
2. Come see the man
a. Knows the Truth
b. Tells of a new way
B. Authentic Worship is Deeper Spirit
1. Food you don’t know about
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
2. Food from above
a. Food like water that sustains
b. Food that satisfies
c. Food that lasts
C. Authentic Worship is Deeper Relationship
a. Time to reap the harvest
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
i. Time to grow deeper
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
b. When we are busy we are building
i. Relationships with the family
ii. Relationship with the lost
iii. Relationships with God
Conclusion:
And so we have a Vision, it is to Go Out and to Elevate Within. That’s a two part vision. Vision comes from the 10K foot range and give us a direction, the mission, which we now have the first part of is how we, Rossville Christian Church, are going to accomplish this vision and it starts with authentic worship. Being real about who we are and being real about what God has done in our lives. Being real that we need salvation and grace every single day. Being real that we are no better than anyone out there, but we are all in need of a Savior. Being real with our sin and our need to repent, being real with our weakness and struggles and being real that it is only God who has saved us. In being real, we come to Truth and then we can worship in Spirit and in Truth, we can worship what we do know and then we can grow in relationship both with God above and with the people around us. Authentic worship is the beginning of how we accomplish our mission here at RCC.