Jan 29, 2018
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Tonight Evan shares his heart on why we worship and why it matters before an extended time of worship and song later tonight. #FEARNOT #bhaminn #whyworship (at the INN University Ministries)
Why We Worship - Receiving His Gift Of Love
We come together to worship Jesus because not only do we have something to offer, but first and foremost, we have something to receive.
Worship is about making an offering. We are giving something to the Lord. We come to give Him our praise and thanks. He deserves it and He has earned it. We come to give Him our devotion and to commit ourselves to following Him. He has proven Himself worthy to follow. We have come to worship in order to give Him our very hearts - our whole selves because He has bought our lives with the precious blood of Jesus. Whatever we come to give, He deserves to have it. Whether we come to give our money, our time or even our very selves, it’s all appropriate; but giving to the Lord isn’t the only thing this time is about. We’re not just here to make an offering. We’re also here to receive a gift from Him.
As we come to the Lord, there is something that comes before any of the gifts we would bring to Him. There is an offer on the table that comes before any offering we would make. That is, He is giving you His love and acceptance. The first and most critical thing we are here to do is to simply receive the love of God that He is giving away. He is making an unbelievable offer - that is, He gives Himself to us for free. We don’t have to deserve or earn or pay for any of it and He promises to love and accept us as a pure gift. It isn’t about what’s fair or appropriate. This is all about charity. Your job this morning is to receive the free grace that Jesus gives. This grace is truly something to sing about.
(all the 'Why Worship' posts)
Why We Worship - He Has Sworn To Love Us Like A Groom
We worship Jesus together because He has loved us like no other and made promises to us that will never spoil or fade.
This weekend, a dear friend of mine got married. I had the honor of being an officiant of the ceremony, which is one of my favorite jobs in all the world. When I preside over a wedding, my favorite thing to do is watch the groom as the bride approaches. When she’s walking down the aisle, everyone stands and all eyes are on her, except mine. I watch her groom watching her. To me, it’s the best moment. Some grooms grin ear-ear-to-ear, some of them cry and some of them look as though they just found out they won the lottery and in a way, I suppose they have. I like to watch the face of the groom and think about Jesus. It’s hard to believe, but somehow true - this is the way He feels about me.
Jesus calls Himself the Bridegroom. We are His bride. The Scripture actually says that the whole point of marriage is to illustrate this truth - to show us how Jesus feels about us and to show us the kind of relationship He wants with us. When a groom looks into the face of his bride and swears to love her no matter what for the rest of his life, our hearts should swell with gladness because the vows of a groom are the promises Jesus has made to us. He has sworn to love us that way and He will never die, so His promise is eternal. We stand, clap and sing with our whole hearts because the most beautiful and tender heart in the universe has pledged His undying love to us in unbreakable vows. We are loved and that is reason to sing.
(all the Why Worship posts)
Why We Worship - He Changed Our History
We sing praises together for Jesus because He has rewritten history - somehow forgetting everything wrong about us and seeing us through the lens of redemption.
My daughter left this week for a school trip out of state. I was standing there, staring at this Coach Bus filled with little kids, surrounded by other nervous parents on the edge of breaking down when one of the other parents started talking to me. She was the mother of one of Anna’s classmates and I had seen her around at school functions over the years, but we had never really talked. She said, “Do you remember me from high school?” I lied and said I did. The truth is, I don’t remember very many people from high school. I don’t remember a lot of what happened from high school. It’s not that my memory is shoddy or that I was in a haze through those years, it’s just that I don’t want to remember. I don’t really like who I was in high school, and I would be glad if the whole world would just choose to forget that version of history along with me.
Psalm 103 says that God does not treat us as our sins deserve. It says that no matter who we’ve been, His love for us is as unmeasurable as the heavens are above the earth. It says that He has separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, which is just a very poetic way to say we will never meet our sins again. They are gone, wiped out, stricken from the record and no longer apply. As believers in Jesus, we don’t have to remember the dark parts of our own history because God Himself has wiped them out and rewritten our story with His own mercy. The love that pursued us has cleansed us and changed history so that we are not who we were. His love is the reason we sing. His cleansing grace is the reason we clap and shout and celebrate.
(all the 'Why Worship' posts)
Why We Worship - Our Longing Is Close
We worship Jesus together because we’re almost finished with the strain of this life and can’t wait to enter into eternal joy.
Last week my daughter went to a birthday party at a friend’s house that was really far away from where we live. My wife dropped her off and I was going to pick her up a few hours later. Christy told me the drive would be pretty long, but that after miles of country backroads, when I saw some balloons on a mailbox, I was almost there. I took the other two kids to pick Anna up from this party and we drove for what felt like ages down these country roads. Thankfully we had a good playlist to sing along to and some sour gummi worms for the kids, because Jack was getting pretty tired of the trip near the end. Finally, I saw what I was looking for - balloons on a mailbox with a gravel drive. I instantly got so excited that we had made it and hadn’t gotten lost in the middle of nowhere.
There’s an old hymn that says “The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of Heaven breaks, the summer morn I’ve sighed for, the fair sweet morn awakes, dark, dark hath been the midnight, but dayspring is at hand and glory, glory dwelleth in Emmanuel’s land.” We come together to stand and clap and sing songs to Jesus because we’re almost home. The strain and trial of this life in this world is almost over and we’re so close to the morning we’ve longed for. This hope about what is coming gives us something to sing about and something to be joyful about as we face whatever we have to this coming week.
(all the 'Why Worship' posts)
Why We Worship - We Know The Spoilers
We worship Jesus together with singing because He has made promises that eclipse all our troubles and never end.
I recently read a book to my kids called A Wrinkle In Time and I caught myself trying to mentally read ahead before I read the words out loud to the kids. You see, I had never read that book before and I was emotional and stressed out, on the edge of my seat right up to the very end, not knowing what would happen. Usually, when I read books to the kids, I pick stories I’ve already read before, which gives me an advantage as a reader. When I know where the story is going, I know where to put the emphasis and I can emotionally rise above the whole thing. The kids will ask me what’s going to happen with a certain character and I just smile and tell them I won’t give away the spoilers. When you already know the end of a really intense and suspenseful story, the scary and uncertain parts in the middle aren’t as scary or uncertain at all. In fact, they just become part of the adventure.
As believers in Jesus, we have the advantage of already having read the end of the book. That is to say, we know that the end of our life here on earth is not the end of our story at all. We know that all the confusion, drama, tragedy and heartbreak of this world will one day end. The cool thing is, it won’t just end, but somehow it will all be healed, mended and put right by the One who died to make us His own. We know the greatest spoiler of all - that pain won’t have the last word in our lives and that death isn’t the end, but rather an amazing beginning. We go on forever. The cool thing is that the promise of eternal life means that we can face the troubles of this life with more courage and less fear because the worst this world can do is nothing compared to all that awaits us.
(All the 'Why Worship' posts)
Why We Worship - We're Learning To Recognize His Goodness
We praise Jesus together because He keeps on showing up and giving us more than we could have hoped for ourselves. This is how we recognize the fact.
When our kids are little, we teach them to say thank you because we’re conditioning them. We want them to learn how to receive gifts. We want them to know how to respond to kindness and care. We want them to get a certain amount of muscle memory for gratitude. Part of this process is us pointing out the good things in their lives that they should express thanks over. In other words, we feed our kids every day, and it would be easy for them to simply grab the plate, dig in and leave the table, but we teach them to say thank you because we want them to recognize that someone did something for them. Gratitude can be like a time machine - it goes backwards and allows us to see something as a gift that may have passed us by.
That’s one of the reasons we worship on purpose. Every day, the sun comes up. Every day, we wake and think and remember our names. God has given us His very own self to rescue and redeem us. He is changing us and shepherding us through our lives by His gracious hand. We get together like this to teach ourselves how to thank Him. We’re here to build the muscle memory of praise and thanks, which works backward through our week and helps us remember His goodness and faithfulness to us. Today’s praise teaches us to recognize yesterday’s blessing and prepares us for tomorrow’s faithfulness.
(all the 'Why Worship' posts)