Pastor Mark Mikels
July 30, 2006
“WORSHIP AND WORD”
Church Under Construction – Behavioral Phase #1
Intro … Today is a special day in the life of Sonlife Community
Church – this is the day we enter the second great phase of our current
construction.
Oh, I don’t mean the construction that is happening at 13324 Apple
Valley Road – I mean the construction that is happening right here in
this place, the construction that is the result of Jesus Christ saying
“I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against
it”.
Now that’s a mighty project … that’s the most significant and
strategic construction project underway in our world today. All around
the globe Christ is building His Church and someday He will present
that Church to the Father without spot, blemish or wrinkle.
What a day that will be when Christ turns to the Father and says,
“Here’s my Church – my Bride – my Life’s Work!”
However, for us there’s another day to which we point … it’s the day
we open the doors of our new Church Building on Apple Valley Road for
the first time and Christ has a chance (as it were) to say some very
similar words to the surrounding community …
“Here’s another expression of my earthly church – Come and see what the
Father’s Grace and the Son’s Sacrifice and the Spirit’s Faithfulness
has produced!”
That, too, will be a most significant day and Christ would have us all
be ready for it – ready to accurately and adequately function as His
Church for all who walk through those doors. Oh, how grand it will be
to hear people say,
“I’ve never met people like these before; I’ve never been in a church
like this before –
I’ve never walked into a place and sensed the Presence of God like this
before.”
That, of course, has been our desire (and to some degree, our
experience) since the Founding Day of Sonlife Community Church – I’ve
actually heard those very words from numerous ones of you describing
your first exposure to our fellowship. That’s what we want to be sure
everyone says when they encounter us in our new location!
And so we have given ourselves to this time of “Focused Concentration”
as the Lord diligently readies us for this next chapter in our Church
Life.
During this same six month period that R.E.M. Builders is physically
constructing a church structure at 13324 Apple Valley Road, the Lord
Jesus Himself is constructing a congregation for His Glory and Service
here in this place – our goal is that that both projects will wrap up
this October or November.
So, as Mickey always used to say … “On with the show”.
It’s a four phase project we are involved in … first, there’s the
doctrinal phase dealing with the great truths of our Faith; then
there’s the behavioral phase dealing with the application of our Faith
in our everyday lives; then there’s the relational phase dealing with
the specific ways members of the church are to inter-act with one
another and finally there is the evangelistic phase dealing with the
specific calling upon the Church to “reach out to the Lost with the
Good News of the Gospel”.
Last Sunday we concluded the doctrinal phase of this ongoing
construction project … I trust that you feel more familiar with the
Great Truths of the Faith now than when we began!
Today we transition into phase two – the behavioral phase.
In phase one, we focused our attention upon our Sonlife Statement of
Belief. In phase two our attention turns to our Sonlife Covenant of
Behavior. Our Sonlife Covenant contains ten statements. We will “pair
them up” and cover the entire document over the next five weeks …
Today we “pair up” statements one and three. Here’s how they read …
Our Sonlife Covenant …
Believing in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and desiring to live in
a manner that will bring glory to Him, and having associated myself
with this local body of believers called Sonlife Community Church, I do
now covenant together with them that …
“I will seek to worship God in spirit and in truth as a continuous
practice of my life and I will commit myself to a regular study of
God’s Word so my mind might be renewed and my life transformed by its
truths.” (John 4:23-24; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; 2 Timothy 3:15; Romans
12:1-2)
These Two Statements arise from Five Key Concepts that themselves arise
from several Key Scriptures …
Key Concept #1 … OUR HEAVENLY FATHER SEEKS WORSHIPPERS
Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth,
for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is Spirit,
and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:21-24
How ironic that the God of the universe – the Creator and Sustainer of
all things – should need to seek for worshippers! Man in his original
state was created with a natural tendency to “bow down”. Man is a
worshipper by nature and yet that basic nature of man has been
corrupted by sin and so man’s natural inclination toward worship has
been corrupted as well.
Paul spoke of it this way … “They worshipped and served created
things rather than the creator who is blessed forever.” (Romans 1:25)
The very woman that Jesus was addressing there in John chapter four was
a Samaritan and the Samaritans long years ago had created a worship
system that ran contrary to the one laid down in Jewish Law.
God himself would ask His Own People in the final book of the Old
Testament … (Malachi 1:6)
“A son honors his father and a servant his master. If I am a father,
where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due
me?”
Man has been waylaid by sin and diverted by His own perceived needs and
has developed his own objects of worship and thus has forsaken and
perhaps even forgotten that the One True God even exists. And so we
find incredible that The One True God must seek for worshippers …
But as we see in Key Concept #2 … NOT JUST ANY WORSHIPPERS WILL DO –
John 4:24
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in
truth.”
The Samaritans were a case in point … they had their own system of
worship but they were not acceptable to God. Jesus said, “You
Samaritans worship what you do not know (understand).
To the woman’s great credit she accepted his pronouncement of her
ignorance and said, “When Messiah comes, he will explain everything.”
And in an amazing disclosure, Jesus responded … “I who speak to you
am He”. And with that announcement, there began a flow of truth into
her heart – the kind of truth that would cause her to bow before Her
Lord.
The more informed our worship is the better our worship is! We should
be better worshippers for having spent the last 12 weeks pouring over
our Statement of Belief … Every truth we have learned should cause
our hearts to more easily bow before our Awesome God. And a big part of
the truth that leads to worthy worship is that God is Spirit … that
means He is everywhere present – He is not confined to any particular
place or time.
So God is seeking for a particular kind of worshippers – He is seeking
for those who know enough about Him to worship Him accurately and for
those who understand enough about Him to know that He can be
encountered anywhere at any time.
This first two concepts then lead right into Key Concept #3 …
COMMENDABLE WORSHIP IS CONTINUAL WORSHIP – “Pray (commune/worship)
continually” – (I Thessalonians 5:17)
It directly follows that since God is not confined to any particular
time or place that our worship is not to be confined either. God does
not want worshippers who confine their “worship” to a particular time
of the week or to a particular place where they meet.
“Worship” (an attitude of praise and wonder leading to a lifestyle of
submission and surrender) is a 24/7 kind of thing. God would have us
live in such a way that prayer might erupt at any moment in our lives!
Thus when we walk conscious of His Presence and in awe of His Power, we
find ourselves
“praying” – “worshipping” continually and that pleases Him greatly!
And so we put just such an intention into our Sonlife Covenant …
“I will seek to worship God in spirit and in truth as a continuous
practice of my life.”
Now it ought to follow that consciously committing ourselves to
“worship God in truth” will cause us to seriously seek out such truth
wherever and whenever we can and so arises …
Key Concept #4 … A LIFE OF CEASELESS WORSHIP SHOULD LEAD TO A
PATTERN OF CEASELESS STUDY OF GOD’S WORD.
Here’s how the Apostle Paul instructed his young protégé Timothy …
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who
does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of
truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15)
The more we engage in worship, the more we concern ourselves with
questions like these … “What does God desire of me – How does He want
me to live?”
In God’s Word we discover how to be “approved” … the more we read and
study the Word of God the less we will be “ashamed” by either the
answers we give or the actions we take!
And that is true because as we see in Key Concept #5 …
CEASELESS STUDY LEADS TO CONTINUAL DISCOVERY WHICH RESULTS IN
TRANSFORMATIONAL LIVING. Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your
spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you
will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good,
pleasing and perfect will.
Hasn’t it been your experience that there is always something “new” in
the Scripture – there’s always something that you “never saw before”?
God’s Word describes itself as “living and active – penetrating even to
the dividing of soul and spirit – judging the thoughts and attitudes of
the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
When you approach the Word of God as a true Worshipper of God, your
knees are always flexed and ready to bow before every new insight or
directive you discover. Your mind is renewed (brought to a state of
newness with regard to some circumstance addressed by God’s Word) and
being already surrendered in heart (the continual condition of a true
worshipper), you voluntarily and almost automatically adjust your
behavior to match up with God’s expectations and miraculously and
(seemingly almost effortlessly) your life is transformed yet again!
With such a prospect in view is it any wonder that we eagerly say in
our Sonlife Covenant …
I will commit myself to a regular study of God’s Word so my mind
might be renewed and my life transformed by its truths.”
And so we come to our Final Thot of the morning …
FINAL THOT … WORSHIP without WORD or WORD without WORSHIP will lead
to an
UNBALANCED, DYSFUNCTIONAL Christian Life.
So be committed to both WORSHIP and WORD!