Fulfilling Our Ministry 1
Why is it important for us to be a worshiping church, and what does that look like? Listen to Pastor Jim’s sermon here, or read it below.
Fulfill Your Ministry
In Paul’s closing words to his young protégé, Timothy, in the letter we now know as 2 Timothy, Paul is speaking to him in very plain and direct words. As we saw in Paul’s closing words to the church in Rome a couple of weeks ago, and so here, parting words are often very purposeful—and therefore very powerful—words. It is startling, though perhaps it should not be, to hear in these final words Paul’s prediction of a coming spiritual climate very much like the one we are observing in the United states in the early 21st century. Listen to his description:
The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
You may be aware that church attendance overall is in significant decline in the U.S. Church closures are increasing, especially among the mainline denominations. Non-Christian cults are again on the rise. Hostility toward evangelical Christians and Jews is also rising. Washington state in 2020 is now ranked the seventh least-religious state in the union. The largest religious demographic in our state are those who claim no religious faith whatsoever, and the Pew Research Center predicts that within the next 4-6 years that group will also be the largest demographic group in the United States.
Paul followed up his warning to Timothy with this charge:
As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Timothy, keep your head on straight. Keep your mind clear. Things may get much harder, Timothy, but don’t give up. Endure suffering. Don’t lose sight of the mission, Timothy. Don’t lose your confidence in the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fulfill your calling, Timothy. See it through to its completion. Fulfill your ministry.
That last phrase, “Fulfill your ministry,” provides the theme for the messages over the next 5-6 weeks.
We are about to turn the page and begin a new chapter in the story God is writing for Life Pointe Church. What I would like to do in these messages is to engage in some sober-minded thinking about what fulfilling our shared ministry will require of us, whatever may come in the new chapter.
What will it look like in the coming decade for us to fulfill our ministry of helping people to find and follow Jesus? What will it look like for us to see our vision of multiplying Christ-followers, leaders, small groups and churches come to fruition? What decisions will we need to make?
By the way, there is some good news in there among all of those depressing research results. The silver lining is that the churches in the United States that are not in decline are churches like ours: churches that hold to the inspiration and authority of scripture, and the power of the gospel, who are helping people to find and follow Jesus, and to grow as His disciples.
Decision 1: Work at our Worship.
You may be surprised that I said the first decision Life Pointe Church needs to make is to work at our worship. Before I tell you what I mean, let me tell you what I don’t mean.
I don’t mean that the pastoral staff needs to work at our worship.
I don’t mean that the worship band needs to work at our worship.
What I mean is that each of us and all of us need to work at our worship.
You may recoil at the suggestion that you should work at your worship. After all, we pay people to design worship gatherings, to present engaging messages, to deliver a nice, even entertaining worship experience, don’t we? I don’t know who first said it, but I remember hearing this statement several years ago, and it has stayed with me.
“Our generation will be remembered as the first to worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship.”
(source unknown)
Why should we think of worship as something that requires work?
In 2 Samuel 24, it is recorded that God sent a sickness against Israel for a sin committed by David the king. Over 70,000 Israelites had died. The prophet Gad approached David and told him to raise an altar to the Lord on the site of a threshing floor owned by a man named Araunah.
So David paid Araunah a visit and informed him that he would buy his threshing floor to build an altar to offer a sacrifice to the Lord in hopes that God would remove his hand of judgment and bring an end to the plague. Hearing his offer, in return Araunah offered to just give him the threshing floor, along with the oxen for the burnt offering and yokes of oxen to pull the wood to the site, adding, “May the Lord accept your sacrifice.”
David’s reply was noteworthy. Here’s what he said.
“No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.”
You and I need to learn what David’s heart expressed in that moment: “I will not give to the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing.” We need to learn to count the cost of worshiping the God who is supremely worthy of all that we are and all that we have.
Worship is the Intended Vocation of all Creation
The psalmists were in agreement on this point. In the Psalms and the prophets, we find numerous expressions such as these:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.
All the earth worships you and sings praises to you;
Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!
Most importantly, from among us who are equally his creation, and the pinnacle of his creation, God longs for real worshipers.
One day Jesus and his disciples were traveling from Jerusalem through the region of Samaria on his way home to Galilee. Jesus sent the disciples into town to pick up some cheeseburgers. He was weary, and so he was hanging out by a well. A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water, and Jesus engaged her in an epic conversation. In the middle of that conversation…
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Notice verse 23:
The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
She was talking about location; He was talking about life.
She was talking about religion; He was talking about reality.
God the Father is still seeking worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. God’s first agenda in your life is to make you a great worshiper. He wants you to worship him from the innermost places of your heart, to worship him with your mind, according to the truth of who He really is and all that He has done.
Worship is the Intended Lifestyle of Every Christ-Follower
We really can’t think of worship as a compartmentalized part of our Christian life in the generic file drawer of spiritual disciplines. Human beings are hard-wired for worship. Worship is the default impulse of the human heart. Bob Dylan captured this truth when he sang that you’re gonna have to serve somebody. Our hearts are always seeking someone or something to worship.
The central theme of the Christian life is living for the glory of God.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Worship is to be a moment by moment, daily expression of our hearts, our minds, and our lips.
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Corporate Worship
Because that is true, corporate worship is therefore a gathering of active worshipers.
When we come together to worship, we are doing together what we have been doing individually, 24/7, throughout each day since we last gathered. And in fact, the most common explanation for anyone’s dissatisfaction with their experience in worship is that they were not actually focused on worshiping God but on satisfying themselves. If you are a true worshiper, all of the peripherals of style and music and culture fall away in the presence of God.
With that in mind, let me say this: The Church longs for real worship leaders.
I love our worship leaders, don’t you? I love our worship band, and each one who participates so well each Sunday morning. But I want to give you who lead worship a word of challenge to work at your worship as well.
Worship Leaders Themselves Must First be Worshipers
Whether you sing, or play an instrument, or both, in order to lead God’s people into worship you need to have come with a heart of worship from a week of personal worship as well. You can’t lead people where you’ve never been.
In the last psalm of them all, Psalm 150, we read this call to worship:
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
Notice the call to worship God with musical instruments. Those of you who are instrumentalists:
Do you worship God during the week with your instrument? If you do, then your goal will be that God is glorified by the way you play. Do you work at increasing your skill with your instrument?
Those of you who sing, are you invested in enhancing your vocal skills in order to glorify God? Do you invest adequate time in preparation for Sunday that when Sunday rolls around you sing or play for the Lord, with excellence?
When we Gather to Worship, the Band and the Leaders Must Worship
As leaders, we are called upon to model the behaviors we want others to follow. He who thinketh he leadeth, when no one followeth, only taketh a walk.
Worship leaders are in fact “Lead worshipers.” Congregations learn to worship by watching their leaders worship. So, the same applies to me as a pastor.
When we are led in authentic worship by authentic worshipers, we experience the presence of God, and we are transformed in his presence.
Our Attitudes Towards Worship Gatherings
Three words should describe our attitudes as we gather to worship.
1. Expectancy
Authentic worship anticipates an encounter with God, and a next word from God.
Let me ask you something. When you come to worship, do you anticipate an encounter with God?
Would you be more likely to make sure you were here, seated in the front row if you knew that, oh, let’s say Russell Wilson was here? If you get more excited about a sporting event, or a concert, or meeting someone famous or handsome or beautiful, than you do about the prospect of encountering your Maker and the Redeemer of your soul in the assembly of God’s people, there’s probably a deeper heart problem that you need to explore.
Do you come with the anticipation that God is going to speak to you personally?
Let me get even more nosy. Parents, do you come with the anticipation that your children will encounter the living God and hear a personal word from Him for their own lives?
See, here’s what I believe would be true if we anticipated all of that:
We couldn’t wait to get here.
We would be praying for the presence of God to be palpable.
We would arrive early or at least on time and be on the edge of our seats, and that would mean that we would get our children here early and checked in to their classroom.
We would come prepared to receive what God has to say to us, and to respond accordingly.
That excitement would rub off on our guests, who already think they should be here on time.
We should come with the expectation that God is going to speak, and He is going to act.
2. Reverence
What is reverence? A dictionary search turned this up: “Reverence is a feeling of deep respect tinged with awe. To reverence someone is to show them intense respect.”
If you find that you don’t have a deep sense of reverence for God, then your God is too small. You need to have a personal encounter with the living God, and learn much more about him from His word, the Bible. Reverence precedes worship because…
Authentic worship focuses on the God of revelation, not the god of our imagination.
Here is something that I know from experience is true:
It is possible to feel close to God without really focusing on Who He is.
It is possible to work ourselves into an emotional euphoria without distinguishing between god-generic and God-incarnate. And in this age of spiritual pluralism and cafeteria-style, self-made religion, that difference is pivotal.
Some people prefer the euphoria, and that’s what they are hoping for when they come to a worship gathering. Those euphoric feelings are great, but to insist upon them is to miss the point.
We should never attempt to lead people into the throne room of a generic god. If we do, we might very well be leading them into idolatry.
Instead our goal always has to be to lead them into the presence of the One true and living God, who has been revealed and made accessible to us in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ. When we do, they will have the opportunity to experience his power and be transformed by his grace.
The primary way that we make sure that we are leading people into the presence of the Big-G God is to combine our expressions of worship with examination of His word, the Bible. When the one true and living God speaks, he speaks from His word. So we will work to make sure that the words we speak, the songs that we sing, the teaching that we bring is in total alignment with the inspired and authoritative word of God.
What does reverence in worship look like?
Depending on the particular culture of the worshipers, what reverence looks like may vary considerably. In Africa, reverence may be expressed through jumping, dancing, loud chanting or singing. In another setting, it may be very quiet and still. Whatever reverence means to each of us, that’s what we should bring to an encounter with God.
The prophet Isaiah had a profound encounter with God that I think gives us a glimpse of the anatomy of reverence.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Notice that Isaiah didn’t report that he had merely experienced a vision. He says, “I saw the Lord.” When we experience a real encounter with the living God, we know that His presence is real, not man-made, authentic and not imaginary.
To see the Lord is to perceive his otherness, his holiness, his supreme authority and power, and his total worthiness to receive all of our worship. Buddy Owens remarked that the prophet’s observation that the train of God’s robe filled the temple is an indication that, though we are told elsewhere that His glory filled the temple, here in Isaiah’s vision God is seated above the temple. He is not a domesticated god. He doesn’t dwell in temples made with human hands.
To see the Lord is also to see ourselves as we really are, and so to be broken in His presence. God’s holiness uncovers us, exposes us in our fallenness and sin. In God’s presence Isaiah was confronted with his own sin, and he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Isaiah’s humiliation and confession set the stage for God’s transformation. Verses 6-7 paint a beautiful picture.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Here is the gospel: being humbled and broken in the presence of the holy God, to come face to face with the predicament of our sin, and then to receive forgiveness from Him—and not just forgiveness, but atonement: God’s wrath turned away, our sins paid for finally and in full, and our relationship with him reconciled.
Don’t miss what happened next.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
Real worship always works transformation in us, and it equips us to serve the Lord.
3. Relevance
Authentic worship communicates biblical truth in a culturally-comprehensible form.
There is a missional component to corporate worship. Think about it. Our worship service is the front door to our church. That’s the door through which most people who are new to our church enter.
Some people object to the idea that we should be sensitive to the needs of guests in our gatherings who may not know Jesus. They will say that when the church gathers, our only concern should be for believers. That’s unbiblical baloney.
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul talked about the presence of outsiders or unbelievers in the corporate worship of the church, and he observed that if the church is engaged in activities or avenues of worship that are unintelligible to them, their only conclusion will be that we are out of our minds, that we’ve departed our senses, that we’re just religious maniacs.
Worship is to be understood by those in need of transformation. A question we should always be asking ourselves is, “Could a person who is far from Christ come into our worship services, see people like themselves worshiping God in a way that makes sense to them, and hear a comprehensible presentation of the gospel?”
The message of the gospel should always be presented in as comprehensible a manner as we can muster. Do you remember the story in Acts of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost? Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he commanded them not to leave the city of Jerusalem but to remain in the city until the Holy Spirit came upon them, and then they would be His witnesses to the world.
The day of the Jewish feast of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, was the day when Jesus fulfilled His promise by sending the Holy Spirit. That day the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, and one of the immediate effects was that they began speaking in languages that were not their own, languages that they did not otherwise speak. They were not unearthly or heavenly languages, but the languages actually spoken by Jews from a variety of other countries who were there in Jerusalem for the feast.
They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!”
God was making their worship intelligible to Jews from other nations. By the Holy Spirit, God intended through the apostles and the church to make the gospel intelligible to the world.
You may be familiar with the idea of someone having a “heart language.” A person’s heart language is their dominant language, the language he or she learned from growing up in their parents’ home from earliest infancy. For our worship to be intelligible and comprehensible to those among us who do not yet know the Lord Jesus, we need to work at learning and speaking their heart language: to translate deep biblical truth into language they can understand so that they can believe in Jesus.
That again has implications for the words we speak and the manner in which we teach, but it also has to do with the style of our music, the clothing we wear, the ways we decorate our church facility, the ways that we welcome people to our church, and more.
We Need to Work at Our Worship
There’s so much more that I could say this morning, but I’m going to end it here. Life Pointe, if we are going to fulfill our ministry in the coming decade, then we need to decide to work at our worship: to anticipate an encounter with God and a word from God, and to respond accordingly.
God is seeking worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Let’s give ourselves to that with increasing intensity.
This post is based on the transcript of Pastor Jim Hays’ sermon on March 1, 2020. Due to the nature of oral sermons, it may include thoughts and ideas from outside sources beyond those explicitly cited. If you have any questions or would like to know more about what he’s shared, please contact us or visit us this coming Sunday!