More Than Just a Song
Matthew 4:8-11
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him."
Connecting with God is perhaps the most important outcome facilitated by churches. Most people (66%) feel they have had “a real and personal connection” with God while attending church. However, that means one-third of those who have attended a church in the past have never felt God’s presence while in a congregational setting. Also, when asked about frequency, most of those who have attended church describe these encounters as rare. One-third of all adults in the country report connecting with God at least monthly (35%) via a congregational setting. Among those who attend church every week, 44% said they experience God’s presence every week and 18% do so on a monthly basis. (http://www.barna.org/congregations-articles/556-what-people-experience-in-churches)
In the article, “Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church”, The Barna Group deals with the following reason, “Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.” In their findings they found the following answers. A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%).
The reason I have quoted these two articles is to point out how far we have come from the reality and purpose of worship. In reading Matthew 4, we see Christ taken to the desert for what is known as his forty day temptation. Each of the Gospels gives us an insight into this event in Christ life, except the Book of John. Why did John leave it out? Possibly it could have been the purpose of his book, the universal message of the hope of Christ. It seems John wanted to focus on the Word that was sent to us (John 1:1-18). The others were written to show Christ Deity and human perfection to its readers. For me, I feel Matthew gives us a pretty good detailed account of the event, thus I will use Matthew for this study. I have read this passage over and over again, yet a week ago I was challenged to read through it again. As I began to do an observational study of the passage, something stood out to me that I had never seen before. It confirmed what I had been saying for years, yet it hit me between the eyes! The words that flew out of the pages were, “worship”, “serve him only” and “then the devil left him.” “Serve him only”, I got! Christ had Deuteronomy 6:13-15 in mind when answering Satan, which states, “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.” Moses had just given the Hebrews the Ten Commandments and was reiterating the words of God to the people. So I get that! Do not worship other gods. Yet it is the words “worship” and “then the devil left him” that screamed to me! Could it be that WORSHIP was a tool given to us for two reasons? One, to praise and honor the true living God and His son who has given us salvation. In reading the word “worship” in the Greek, in the New Testament it meant to kneel or prostrate to do homage (to one) or make obeisance, whether in order to express respect or to make supplication (http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Deu&c=6&v=13&t=NIV#conc/13). As described in the Strong Concordance, it reads “… among the Orientals, esp. the Persians, to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead as an expression of profound reverence.” Worship is spiritually and physically falling down to our knees in reverence before a holy God! It is giving reverence to Christ who died for our sins and conquered death through his resurrection so that you and I may enter into a relationship with God! Yet I believe there is another reason, and that is the battle cry of our warfare! When we fall to our knees (symbolically or physically) before God through our worship, we invite the presence of God into our place! The presence of God that is manifested to us through the Holy Spirit! When we worship and the presence of God is in our midst, Satan must flee! It is at that moment that God can bring physical and emotional healing! Worship is more than a song! It is an opportunity to invite the presence of God into our midst and allow Him to do his “thing” with us!!! I have seen people run to the altar to accept Christ as their Savior during worship, even before the sermon was preached! I have seen people healed from physical, emotional and even sometimes demonic influences. I was home alone for the weekend when I decided to go workout in the morning. As a was lifting weights I heard a pop in my neck and felt an excruciating pain from my neck all the way down my back! I could not move my neck and boy was it a chore to drive home! The following day was Sunday and I decided to go to church. I remember the pain and the ordeal of driving. As a sat in the pew, I would tear up from the pain. I went home and had to clean the house. The house was a mess and I did not want my wife to come home to do chores, so I sucked it up! I turned on some worship music and began to try to vacuum. A song came on that we sang at church, “Rain On Me”. I stopped was doing and painfully began to raise my hands and worship the Lord. At that moment I began to feel the presence of God fill my home! All of a sudden I felt as if something warm was being poured over my head. As what I call “Holy Oil” was being poured on me I continued to raise my hands higher and higher, and then began to move my neck side to side. Up and down. In a circle. NO PAIN! It was gone! I was healed!! There have been times when I have been emotionally drained and within ten minutes of worship the presence of God as renewed me! WORSHIP IS MORE THAN JUST A SONG! Personally, I do not believe we need an “experimental worship experience” with all the props to affect our five senses to worship. I personally do not believe we need to plan out the “theme” of the worship set with the sermon to get a “power packed” experience. What happened to letting God be God in our meetings? What happened to seeking God’s direction for the worship set? What happened to the idea when we wanted to see what God would do when we humbled ourselves before him? I truly believe that many churches/staff who do not allow the presence of God to enter their service, get frustrated with the congregation not entering into worship and will try anything to create an “experience”. There are churches out there who will try to substitute the presence of God with an emotional/feeling/touchy experience. Yet there are churches out there that are genuine in inviting God’s presence into their service. You can take this or leave it, but I believe our churches need to stop pursuing the experience and equip the people to worship! When people understand and learn why we worship, I truly believe many will experience God for themselves! They will not be ashamed and they will want more of God’s presence in their lives! For the next few entries we will take a look at the following: The Purpose of Worship? Worship as Lifestyle. Worship and Warfare!
His Call. His gift to you. Your Purpose. Irrevocable.
Comments
Post a Comment