Do you know it's fantastic that we're just chatting together and
fellowshipping? This is part of our worship.
Yeah. So whilst the the rule follower
would like to see us come back together, it's great actually
that it's a struggle to bring us back together.
This is what we're looking for is we're looking for a
community. Yeah, we want people to be
friends with one another. Not only that, but when people
turn up, we want people to come along and feel like they can be
a part of being amongst us. So it's really good to see you
all interacting and talking with one another.
That said, I have a lot to get through.
So we are going to go at quite a pace here.
And my prayer is that you will take what God has to speak to
you about worship and hear that and not get distracted by the
rest of what I say. God has told us that we were
going to be a church where worship was key.
We'd been known for our worship. And on the 16th of April in
2023, Helen Coleman brought a prophetic word to the church
here, that worship would be key to the church, that our worship
would be vibrant, that our worship would be powerful, but
that our worship would also be a battle cry.
See, there's a balance here. We hear the prophetic word.
That's going to happen because God's already spoken that,
right? But in the same time, we need to
prepare ourselves and work to that end.
That's why part of me wanted to see us talk about worship, and
we've linked it in with our values here of who we are.
So we're continuing our series on worship, but also on our
values that we treasure as a church.
Can I encourage you if you haven't heard the previous
messages, and even if you have, go and listen to them again.
Get it into you about worship. God, I pray that you would
reveal what it means to worship you as individuals and
corporately. Lord, I pray that our worship
would be glorifying to you, that we would glorify God the Father,
Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Lord, that our worship would be
infectious in times to come, and Lord, that You will transform us
through US, spending time in your presence, worshipping You.
Amen. We're going to talk today about
a community that humbly serves and how worship ties in to that.
But I thought I'd start with what is worship?
See, each of the people speaking will bring this slightly
differently, and you'll hear different emphasis.
Emphasis. The Greek word is proscaneo.
It means directly to kiss toward, and it's thought that
that was a reference to people. The custom was to go and sit at
someone's feet and kiss their feet.
It shows submission, but it also shows an admission of a
dependence on See Worship. I was thinking about it.
It talks about showing respect. It talks about being reverent
and really those big words. But what it means is to prize
what you're worshipping above everything else.
It also means, thankfully, to serve.
Thankfully, for me anyhow, in the Bible, the words for worship
the Lord and serve the Lord are used almost interchangeably.
They're one and the same. Worship involves sacrificing.
You know, the Israelites had the whole sacrificial system.
It was all about worship. Isaiah actually talks in his
book about how the Israelites were actually appearing to
worship, but their hearts weren't in it.
They weren't involved in worship.
Today we would say they weren't present in it.
If we worship God in spirit and truth, he responds to it.
See, we look at the sacrifice of worship, and today that might
look like I didn't really enjoy worship.
This morning. We didn't sing any good songs.
News flash, it's not about you. In fact, if you sing those songs
and you don't enjoy them, that's your sacrifice because it's
about God. The songs we choose, as Skip
touched on last week, are about Jesus, and we choose them for a
reason. Worship is about value.
It's about where you direct your time, your affection, where you
direct your energy, your loyalty.
We can worship anything, can worship TV shows, whatever the
latest ones are. I'm losing track.
We can worship sports, you know, this was what the Israelites
talked about idols, because idols are just things that you
worship instead of worshipping God.
Finally, what I want to touch on today is worship to honour.
We'll get to that later. We were made to worship God is
the true sense of who we worship.
Yeah, we were made with a God shaped hole in US, and the only
way we fill that is with God by worshipping him.
See, true worship is directed at God alone, and it's not because
he needs it. It's not because it benefits God
in any shape. No, it's because it fulfils us.
It completes us. Worship is a lifestyle.
It involves our whole body. And when we talk about the body,
we quite often think about the church.
But no, it involves this body as well, All the fat on it too.
It involves our spirit. In Revelation 4, it tells us in
John's vision that the living creatures worshipped
continually, day and night. That means everything they were
doing was worshipping. Every word they gave, every
action they took was all to glorify God.
True worship, it's not forced, it's spontaneous.
True worship starts from the heart, and it's not for other
people's expectations. What we worship transforms us.
When you spend time looking at something, you behold it, you
become changed by it. Yeah, Two Corinthians, Paul's
right into the church in Corinth and he says, and we all who with
unveiled faces, that means there's nothing between US and
God. We with unveiled faces,
contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His
image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord
who is the Spirit. We're designed to be creative.
This is one of the things I kind of struggle with because I don't
consider myself really creative, particularly when I'm married to
Andrea, who draws and paints and sculpts and does all these
things that are typically referred to as being creative.
But what I forget is I am creative.
You put me in front of a computer and asked me to write a
computer programme. I'm creating something, not just
in the what, but in the how. I'm creative in how I lead.
Our worship should be creative. All of our being was intended to
worship day and night in everything we do and with all we
do. We're called to worship.
I'm called to be creative in my worship.
It's good to be undignified in worship.
You know, Jesus was washing the feet of the disciples.
That was a job. He was the disciples rabbi, He
was their teacher. He was imparting everything, and
yet he took the lowest job in the house and went and washed
their feet. That's pretty undignified for
his position. David danced before the Ark and
before the Israelite nation as they were bringing the ark back,
and it was so undignified that his wife was appalled by him.
She couldn't stand that. I don't think he was very
British going. Oh yes, Lord, aren't you
wonderful? You're amazing.
He wasn't even Nigerian. Yes, Lord, No, I think it was.
Yes, Lord, you're amazing. Hallelujah.
For those of you who don't know me, that takes a lot of effort.
The question is, what is God doing in your life?
Are you willing to stretch yourself in worship?
Are you willing to become undignified?
Are you going to be extravagant in your worship?
So how then will we live? We can live a life of serving.
That means we can live a life of worship, but we live it to God's
glory. We live to serve God as we serve
the church, as we serve one another, as we serve the world
out there. Can I encourage you spend some
time thinking about worship, dwell on it, work out what it
means to you. We're all individuals.
We spent this Wednesday talking about worship and I was blown
away in Home group because everybody had something to bring
and it was just fresh. It was juicy, it was amazing,
and it made me think about more about how we worship.
I'm going to take a slight deviation, but hopefully you'll
hang in there with me. Who are you?
Are you secure in who God has called you to be?
The day we get saved is the day that we become a worshipper of
God. Worship is an integral part of
who we are. We're meant to come to God with
all we are. Don't believe the lie that
you're a black sheep in the family.
You know, you might come along thinking I'm kind of like the
weird uncle. I'm.
Everybody else here has got their life together.
Yeah. Don't believe that it's a lie.
You have a right to be amongst us because God will change you
as you're amongst us. I believe that's part of the
importance of the church. That's why God put Christians
together in the church and He's building his church.
God doesn't see you as the black sheep, He sees you as a sheep.
God is delighted with you. He loves you to come into His
presence. I'm going to say that again,
'cause other than Katie, he didn't catch that God is
delighted with you. He loves it when you come into
His presence and worship Him. He longs to talk with you, to
spend time with you, to share His heart with you.
He wants to share. He wants you to share your heart
with Him. He's longing for you to worship
Him right where you are. He's longing to complete you.
He's Jesus literally died for that purpose.
Andrea asked a question on Wednesday at Home group.
She said, is it legitimate to come into worship when you're
lamenting? Does lament form a critical part
of worship? See, corporately, so often we
brush over lamenting, but actually the Psalms have
followed laments and that's OK. I hope that you feel safe enough
to be amongst us, even if life is tough.
If you're lamenting, you see corporate worship, when we come
together and worship together, it moves you.
It changes your perspective, it changes your focus.
Worship transforms. You see, if I mix my metaphors
here, from sheep to stone walls, have you ever seen how stone
walls are crafted? They take rocks and they study
the rocks and they work out which rocks are actually going
to sit together. But quite often there's a key
rock that will just hold that whole wall together.
If you remove that Pebble, the wall collapses.
You can be that rock. You can be the different.
That means when people come in, they feel at home.
They feel that this is a place where everybody can exist.
You can help the church truly express the glory of God.
Maybe you've grown up and you've had your parents, have gone
through hard times and was maybe not been enough money to put
food on the table. Or there's not been enough money
for Christmas presents, and when you get food, you suddenly feel
a need to squirrel it away to put it away for later.
You know you'll have a bit now, and then you'll have a bit
later. Maybe you've had Christmas
presents and they've been taken off you and sold later down the
line, just to keep things ticking over.
Maybe you've got skills that you're not quite sure to share
because there are others here who do those skills better, that
it feels like a huge risk to share what gifts you have, what
skills you have, because others seem to have more or the same.
Maybe you feel like a slave, like you've been a slave all
your life. And it feels weird.
It must have felt weird for the Israelites.
They'd spent generations as slaves to the Egyptians,
generations they hadn't known anything different.
And then Moses comes along with the power of God, and they're
set free, and they walk away, and the Egyptians come after
them, and they're stuck between the sea and the Egyptians behind
them. And God opens up the sea.
They walk through on dry land. When they look back, all their
captors are being buried in the sea.
That's weird, right? You spend generations knowing
nothing but slavery, and suddenly you're free.
Not only that, God's taking you into a land of milk and honey,
and you don't need milk and honey to survive.
These are the opulent things. These are the riches.
It must have been weird to transform your mentality from
being a slave to being free in Ephesians.
Paul writes to the church in Ephesus and he says, praise be
to the God our Father, and sorry, praise be to the God and
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in this
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing.
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be
holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for
adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with
His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace,
which has been freely, freely given us in the One He loves.
Isn't that awesome? Isn't that worthy of worship?
Paul captures this in such a succinct way.
He's blessed us, not just here. I've got roof over my head, I've
got a people I belong to. I've been chosen to be holy, set
apart, but I've got blessings also in heaven building out
waiting for us and we're adopted.
We're not just adopted into the family, we're adopted as sons.
That means we get an inheritance.
We get an inheritance of Jesus victory.
This is freely given. How amazing Peter writes to the
churches and Tolly read this earlier and I thought in fact
all of worship was a prelude to this.
But you, you, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, the
holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare
the praises of him who could, who called you out of darkness
into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but
now you are the people of God. Once you had you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
See, we're adopted into a family.
It's a royal family. I we're no longer slaves, We're
adopted into a royal family. Sin was why I was a slave to,
but I'm not any longer because of the grace of Jesus.
He adopted me into his family and he's royalty.
That means I've got unlimited resource.
It means I don't need to squirrel food away in my
pockets. I don't have to worry about my
gifts being surplus to need. I've got plenty.
I live in a land where milk and honey abound.
We're no longer exiled. We live with God.
Isn't that amazing, I? Isn't God worthy of all worship,
of all glory, of all honour? How do Royals act?
See, the Israelites said to Samuel, he was basically coming
to the end of his sort of he was getting old.
And his sons, the Israelites reckoned, recognise they weren't
really going with God and they didn't really trust Samuel's
sons. So they said to Samuel, look,
you're coming to an end. Give us a king like other
nations have put a king over us. Samuel is furious.
Yeah, he's ready to really kick off, but God graciously catches
him. And God had a plan.
In one Samuel 10, Samuel explained to the people the
rights and duties of kingship. He wrote them down on a stroll
and deposited it before the Lord.
I'd love to see that scroll, by the way.
Don't know where it's gone, but it would have been great to see
it. Then Samuel dismissed the people
to go to their own homes. See, the Israelites needed
telling what it was like to live under a king, but they also
needed to know how kings should act.
See, later on in that chapter we read about the mixed reaction to
Saul being made king. See, some men went with Saul,
whose hearts have been touched by God.
But some scoundrels said, how can this fellow save us?
And they despised him and brought him no gifts.
See, the inference here is that they should have brought gifts.
In fact, you could infer that the men who God touched, they
brought gifts to Saul. When you're poor, you give gifts
out of your limited resource. You give gifts that are useful.
When you're rich, you can afford to give in multiple ways.
Yes, you can give gifts that are useful.
You can give a gift to enable and grow someone, to invest in
them and expect something back in return.
Or you can give a gift of honour, a gift to honour
someone. See, a royal doesn't meet
another royal and not bring a gift.
But the gift they bring will not be useful.
The gift they bring won't be an investment.
Why? Because if that's the way they
brought their gifts, then that what they're saying is you've
got a lack and I'm meeting your lack, so I'm therefore greater
than you are. No, instead they bring a gift of
meaning. They bring a gift of honour.
They might bring a 2000 LB pen. Still rights I suspect.
Is it better than a 50 pence BIC?
I don't know. I don't think so, but that's
missing the point. There's an honour attached to
that 2000 LB pen they might bring a 50,000 LB watch still
tells the time, but it's in the honour that they bring in John
12 John records. Then Mary took a pint of pure
nod and expensive perfume. She poured it on Jesus feet and
wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with the
fragrance of the perfume. Hallelujah.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to
betray him, objected. Why wasn't this perfume sold and
the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages.
Do you know in the UK the average salary in 2024 was
37,480 lbs. That's an expensive bottle of
perfume. If she had that money locked up
in a bottle of perfume, I'll bet she had far more elsewhere.
I'll bet she had a house and everything else.
She was well off. And yet, and yet she came to the
feet of Jesus and poured perfume on them and wiped them with her
hair. What an extravagant acts of
worship. See, worship involves honour.
It involves extravagance. We should be extravagant in how
we serve. We have been adopted into the
family of God, of the universe. He owns absolutely everything.
We're not only adopted, we've got that inheritance.
It's there for us to hold on to. We can afford to be generous.
We can afford to honour, not just to meet a need, not just to
invest. We can honour those around us.
See, we're asking our church, we're praying for our church to
be a church, a community that humbly serves.
See, Royals don't Lord it over others.
They give without expectation of reward.
They recognise that the way to get honour is when you give
honour. That concept is so closely tied
with humility, with being humble.
See, humility is about not thinking of yourselves higher
than the others around you, nor, if you, like me, thinking of
yourself lower. It's about being mature.
It's about having a right sense of who you are.
Have a good opinion of yourself. Five times in the Bible, in the
New Testament it talks about if you humble yourself you will be
exalted. See in Luke 14, Jesus went to a
House of Pharisee and he was sat watching how the guests all
opted for their the places of position and he watched all of
this happening and then told the parable to those around him.
When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not like take
the place of honour for a person more distinguished than you may
have been invited. If so, the host who invited both
of you will come to you to you and say, give this person your
seat. Then humiliated, you will have
to take the least important place.
But when you're invited, take the lowest place so that when
the host comes, he will say to you, friend, move up to a better
place. Then you will be honoured in the
presence of all the other guests.
For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who
humble themselves will be exalted.
See, we live in a church that Ben and Jen saw and started.
We honour them. We honour what God gave them in
setting our values, but when we honour them, God delights in it
because God is moving through what Ben and Jen saw.
And when we honour Ben, we honour God and he delights in
that and then starts honouring us.
I'm going to finish just with a couple of challenges because I
like to land with the practicality.
What gifts has God-given to you to enable you to worship Him
with? And where might God be
developing you? Is there a place that you can be
extravagant in? See, we've got people serving us
with the kids out there, and we're struggling to find a
balance between that because what we'd like is to separate
off the really young kids from the slightly older primary
school kids so that we can address where they're at and
they're learning. But to do that, we're going to
need more people. We're going to need double the
workers. We want more Home group leaders.
We're believing for our home groups to multiply, to grow.
We want people who will come early, set up the hall for us
all to worship together and then take it down.
We want to enable people to be released from where they're
serving at the moment. That means we need people to
come in behind them and start serving and honouring them.
We're going to want people who can put things on in the middle
of the week when we get a place of our own.
Part of the reason is we want to affect the community more around
us. We want to see youth groups, we
want to see parent and toddler groups.
We want to be managing finance courses.
We want job seeker clubs. We need prayer warriors.
What are you passionate for? What's God putting on your
heart? What gifts has God-given to you
for you to share? Lord Jesus, I thank you that
you're speaking to us about worship.
Lord, I thank you for your promise, your word that says we
will be a church that worships you, that we will have vibrant
worship. Lord, I pray that you would
charge us all to grow in our worship of you.
Lord, we want to see you glorified in everything.
Thank you God.