I made it back, and it was amazing in Italy, and I have so many stories to share with you, most of which are probably going to come to you through sermon illustrations over the next several weeks. But today, I'm still in the midst of jet lag and not really knowing what planet I'm on. I haven't fully processed and reflected on the experiences of my trip. So you'll have to stay tuned for those stories. But that being said, there is one thing that I wanted to talk about today that happened from being there. So I was exploring the sites, and I even experienced the Vatican and many other of the historic churches. And while I was doing that, a question came into my mind. So I I have to admit to you, something that you're probably not going to think terribly highly of me for, but I am not really one who loves touring old churches. I know. My friend that I was travelling with, she cannot pass a church without going inside. And it's not that I don't appreciate their beauty, because I do. I appreciate the incredible craftsmanship, the immense talent and effort that went into building them.
And it's certainly not because I doubt the sincerity of the people who built them, that people whose hearts were clearly focused on worshipping God and whose goal was to create spaces that expressed their love and their faithfulness and obedience through architecture. I personally struggle to see these enormous and ornate structures as places where I can connect with God today, where I would feel that I'm able to come into the personal state of submission that I need to focus on responding to God in worship. Because as I look around these places through eyes that have been trained to view with the lens of the church today, I see finances put towards buildings instead of people. Now, hear me. It's not that I'm saying that these buildings should not exist anymore or anything like that. What I'm sharing is my personal initial reaction to being in these churches. But the thing is, though, that I have to keep reminding myself of, it's not all about me. Headline news, I know. And obviously, there are those that do find these beautiful cathedrals are places where they do encounter God, and not just Catholic. There are many people going through these churches.
There were many... My friend insisted when we went to the Vatican and to the Basilika, it was the last door was still open. Do you know what I mean? For the Jubilee, or do you know what I mean? There's six doors. I don't fully understand it myself, but there's six doors that they open, and then they close them at periods of time. And I was like, I don't even know what this is all about. But the last one was being closed a couple of days after we were there. So it It's the last chance to go through the Holy door. And so you're supposed to pray, and then you walk through the door, and then your sins are forgiven. And so I'm like, Hello, we already have our sins forgiven. We don't need to walk through any doors. I don't understand. But it was one of her bucket list things that she wanted to do, so we walked through the door. And it was beautiful. I just personally didn't connect with anything through that. But others do. So why do some people find them, these gorgeous buildings? Why do some people find them to be places of worship, and others, like me, just find them to be places?
How much of our worship experience is affected by our surroundings? Taken even further, how much are our worship experiences impacted by our own personal preferences, tastes, histories, and other human factors? So it was when I was going through these churches and when I was sitting in them and praying in them, that's when God started stirring up these thoughts in my mind and had me ask myself, Should these things matter? But then, to answer that question, we need to answer an even more basic one. What exactly is worship? And just to clarify, today I'm talking about corporate worship. And it's referred to corporate worship because the body or corpus of Christ is engaged together in worship. Sometimes it's called gathered or assembled or public or congregational worship. But that's what we're talking about today. So I'm not referencing how our own personal lives are all worship. So last week was Epiphany Sunday, right? And I believe Evan preached about the Magi going to visit Jesus. So the long journey that they took, that took several years, and where they faced so many dangers and challenges and hardships were all for one reason, right? They wanted to worship the Messiah.
And the example that the Magi teaches us is about making Jesus our first priority and how worshipping him comes as a result of that. So when we think of worship, many thoughts or images may come into our minds. Worship can look different different for different people, and some may not even be completely sure what worship is. So let's start by asking me, asking you, some questions. So when you hear the word worship, what comes to mind? Call it out. Signing. Signing. Praying. Praying. Tithing. Tithing. I didn't even have that one. Sermon. Sermon. Gratitude. Gratitude. Okay, so what are some ways that we can corporately worship God besides singing songs? So we had praying. We had being grateful. That was one. Lifting hands. Lifting hands. Okay. How very Pentecostal. I'm just teasing you. Just teasing you. I wanted you to do this way. It's actually an old-fashioned early church It is. Because in the old churches, they didn't have instruments. They didn't have music. They sang without... It was all acapella. What else can we do? Say that we're no longer allowed to sing. I don't know if you guys ever faced that during COVID, but we did out east.
So no singing allowed. How else can we corporately worship together? Clapping. Clapping. Dancing. Dancing. Whoa, and he said it in a Baptist environment. So why do you think people sometimes get confused about what worship really is? What was the first thing When I said, What comes to mind when I say the word worship? What was the first thing that was called out? Singing. How many people tend to think that worship is all about singing? Not that singing is wrong or bad, but it's not all that worship What about the fact that if you go, as you said, we have a certain game plan, right? If you go to a different denomination, or sometimes even a different Baptist church, or go to a Catholic church, or whatever, a different church, and they do it all different. So then it's, Okay, why? Why are they doing things differently? Why is there not this set pattern that everybody follows? Do we ever mix up worship and our worship services with other good things, particularly evangelism? Because we're going to touch on this one, and I think that will make more sense when I get into that part. Do you think that sometimes we may get more focused on the what's of worship than the who?
100%, thank you. And do we think of it in terms of personal preferences, what songs we like, how we should make this more interesting so people don't fall asleep. So is it about singing songs and praying and reading scriptures? Absolutely. Is there more to it than that? Absolutely. So many of us may have a visual in our minds about as to what should be included in worship. So what you think of what you expect in a worship service? That do you have a set of components that you expect to have as part of the experience? So when you come to church, are there things that you expect to have happen during that service? And if so, I'd like to challenge you by asking yourself whether these components are actually given in scripture, or are they part of human design tradition, or are they even part of church goals such as growth, i. E. Meaning more buts in the seats. So that question sits right at the heart of what many churches were wrestling with back at the beginning of the early 1990s. So for those who were part of a church at that time, you might remember something that started happening.
Any guesses? Some of you are probably too young to remember the 1990s, but I wasn't actually in a church. But if you were going to church, right around 1993, it really started to take off. No. Worship there. You're on the right track. Worship Wars. The Worship Wars began. Yes. So what became known as the Worship Wars, brought attention to particular struggles the local church was encountering when it came to their worship services. And the primary battle that was fought was over music preferences. Now, we assume that the dual The goal was between hymns and contemporary music. Then there was the whole argument about what is contemporary music, but that's a whole other thing. But it was actually included, there was musical clashes that also included what instruments should be allowed. Organ, guitar, praise songs, hymns. But musical options were actually only part of the problem. There were actually other bones of contention. Churches were dividing over preaching styles. They were separating over the use of technology, whether to have formal or informal dress, and even who the service should be designed for. Should it be organised in such a way as to suit the regular attendees that come every week, or should the service be put together in a way that would be attractive to new people who may be just starting to attend church?
So worship wars then contributed to the rise of the new church models, the first of which that really became something was the attractional church model. Remember hearing about that one? It was also sometimes called seeker sensitive. So the conflict over music styles was a key battleground, though, for a broader shift in how churches approached evangelism and community engagement. The model focused on drawing people into church by creating a Sunday experience that felt familiar and engaging within the surrounding culture. So it often relied on contemporary music, polished production elements like sound and lighting and video, and it also encouraged and often demanded a new dynamic speaker. In this approach, the style of music became one of the many tools used to connect with the appeal to a specific group of people. And the model was actually pioneered by churches like Willow Creek back in the 1970s, 1970s, and 1980s, but the intense, widespread worship wars that began later in the '90s made the model more widespread. But guess what? Did the model work? No. They realised the attraction model didn't work. By 2010s, it was pretty much completely out of favour, mainly because research was now showing that the model was creating a consumeristic culture within the church while also failing to produce deep spiritual maturity.
Then other models followed: missional church model, organic or simple church model, hybrid church model, all of which were backed with good intentions, and all were influenced by the idea that corporate worship should be a tool for evangelism rather than having an evangelistic approach to the service with the primary aim being to form believers to live and share the gospel. So evangelism is not worship, but true worship should lead to evangelism. So Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14: 25, As the secrets of their hearts are laid bare, so they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming God is really among you. This is worship. Paul describes here what happens when the church is truly worshipping God, not focusing on the service being an evangelistic event. In the first chapter of... Or sorry, in the chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, Paul is giving instructions about order and clarity in corporate worship, primarily for the building up of believers. His concern is that worship should be understandable and God-honoring and not confusing or self-focused. Evangelism is not the stated goal of the gathering, and yet Paul assumes that unbelievers may be present. Now, what is striking is how the unbelievers are affected.
Paul does not say that they are persuaded by a clever presentation or targeted messaging. Instead, as God's truth is claimed and lived out in worship, the secrets of the heart are laid bare. The response is conviction, humility, and ultimately, worship. They fall down and acknowledge God's presence. So this shows that evangelism flows out of authentic worship. The gathered church is focused on God, formed by his truth, shaped by the spirit, and it's that very faithfulness that becomes the powerful witness. So the service is not structured to convert pre believers, yet those pre believers encounter the living God because he is truly present among his people. In other words, worship does not become evangelism by trying to be evangelistic. It becomes evangelistic when it is faithful, when it is spirit-led and when it's centred on God. That is exactly the movement that Paul describes for worship. Worship, conviction, confession, praise, witness. So while worship services should always be welcoming to those who are new to faith or those who are not yet believers. The church may be better served by shifting its focus. Instead of worrying about whether the music is appealing or the technology is impressive or if the preaching is entertaining, we might consider the witness of something that is far more powerful, a community deeply and sincerely worshipping God.
And this responsibility does not belong to the worship team or the pastor alone. Because often do we find ourselves leaving a service saying, I really like that song we sang today, or that song really moved me today. And while those reactions are not wrong, should they be our primary response? Often I hear, I really liked the sermon today, which makes me wonder, did I do my job today? I know people are trying to be encouraging, but if it was like, Oh, that message really made me think, or that message, I was a little uncomfortable, or that message opened my mind to something, or that song really helped me to connect. That's the difference. You can still be encouraging, which I know is the motivation behind the comments. It's just that we need to be careful because if our focus settles mainly on how the service makes us feel. We risk shifting the centre of worship onto ourselves rather than keeping it fixed where it belongs, which is on God. Now, imagine a church where people sing songs to God regardless of musical style. Nobody cares. Where prayer for one another is taken seriously and where the focus is not on what individuals can get out of the service, but on encountering God together.
A community less concerned with personal preferences and more concerned with humility and submission and connexion with God. Now, imagine someone who is new to faith or not yet a believer walking in to that a gathering, surrounded by people who are genuinely focused on God rather than on being annoyed or critiquing the service. They would encounter something real and compelling. And perhaps that worship that centred on God and lived out in community is far more powerful of a witness than any attempt to carefully craft an experience meant to impress or satisfy those who attend. And it is not all that long ago, really, when you think about it, that so many churches went to great lengths to make worship services appealing to those who did not yet believe. And the intentions were good. Churches wanted to remove barriers and create welcoming spaces. Yet in the process of trying to make the church feel safe and familiar, non-threatening, there was something vital lost. The sense of awe, the mystery, the supernatural work of God and the power of the Holy spirit were sometimes diluted, almost as if believers were afraid that a genuine encounter with the living God might make newcomers uncomfortable.
Ironically, by focusing so much on what was outwardly appealing, music style presentation atmosphere, churches often missed what was actually most compelling. The very things meant to attract people, sometimes distracted from the deeper witness of a community fully engaged in worship. When attention shifted to preferences and performance, it covered up a more serious this issue. Many of us had quietly lost a clear understanding of what worship truly is, which brings us back to the question, what is worship? And to go in a slightly different direction for an answer, What is the difference between praise and worship? Because we often use those words interchangeably. But are they actually the same? We can't say that either word is only used in reference to God, right? Because we praise our children when they do something well or their behaviour is good. And unfortunately, worship is something that people direct towards many things apart from God. But when seeking an answer to something spiritual, it's always good to go to the experts for an answer. So let's go to the scripture to help us to understand the difference between praise and worship. So first, listen to Psalm 100. You can close your eyes to listen as long as you promise not to fall asleep.
Shout for joy to the Lord all the Earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. Now listen to Psalm 95: 6-7. Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the 'For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. ' So both of the passages were from Psalms, right? But did you feel that they gave you very different approaches for praise and worship? So what differences did you get from the two examples? So praise for God is closely connected with being thankful. We praise him for what he has done for us. It is one way in which we give back to God for all that he has given and all that he has done for us. Praising doesn't require as much from us, and it doesn't change us.
Praise is like a celebration of that person. And praise is often part of worship. But worship goes beyond praise. And worship leaders know how to put together a worship service in such a way that it allows the participants to both praise and worship God. Because worship comes from a different place, like you were saying, Karen. It's within our beings, because to really worship God, we cannot focus on ourselves. The posture described in the two examples allow us to see the difference between praise and worship. So think about some of the words in the first psalm, Shout for joy, come before him with joyful songs, enter his gates with thanksgiving, in his courts with praise. All of these use images of being upright, of joy and celebration. And that's how we sing and shout after all, right? It's the posture of joyful exuberance meshed with thanksgiving. Worship, on the other hand, takes a different posture. Some of the keywords in the second Psalm were bow down, kneel before, the flock under his care. Where the posture of praise was one of joyful exuberance, the posture for worship is one of humility and surrender. Worship requires humility, and to have an attitude of humility, we cannot not be thinking about ourselves.
We cannot truly worship God if we're too busy worshipping self. So as one author wrote, Worship is the art of losing self in the adoration of another. So do you think you have a more complete idea of what worship is now? Not quite. There's a couple more things we need to talk about. So one of the other things that worship should be about transformative. True worship calls us to invite the Holy spirit to speak to us, to convict us, and to help us shift our priorities to be in line with God's plans and purposes. So Christian worship is all about God. He is the focus of our worship. We gather as a congregation not to experience or to be impacted emotionally, although that those happen. But that's not what our goal should be going into worship. Our goal be to meet with God and to give him praise. True worship of God happens when we put God first in our lives, and it's also by valuing God above all else that we experience transformation. Worship has the ability to bring us into the presence of God, where we can allow him to reach our souls and stir the flames of our faith.
When we engage in worship with a sincere and humble heart, we invite the transforming power of God into our lives. Worship has the ability to break down our walls. It can heal our wounds, and it can bring about inner change. It is in the act of worship that we surrender ourselves to God, allowing him to work in us and through us. Worship has the power to bring transformational change to our lives by shaping us into the image of Christ and empowering us to live purposeful lives. Now, the final point talking about worship that we're going to discuss is that worship is a response to whatever it is that we value most. We are all designed for worship, but that does not mean that it's necessarily God that we worship. We worship when we say that this is the most important to me, this person, this thing, whatever it is that matters most to me. This is what I value the most in my life. In other words, worship is a response to whatever it is that we value most. And everybody worships something. As believers, we want to believe that it is Jesus that matters most to us, and therefore we worship him.
But how do you know what it is in your life that you value most, and therefore you worship? Because it takes some honest self-reflection. But if you look at where you invest your time, your affection, your energy, your money, and your allegiance, You will come to see what or who you value the most. And whatever is worth most to you, whatever it is you value the most is what you worship. Worship motivates what we do. We worship that which is most important to us. We find the time and the energy and the desire to spend time with whatever it is that we value the most. Therefore, if we value Jesus most, we will make time for him. If we value him over all else in our lives, then it is truly him we worship. As Christians, we do not want to believe that our worship lies anywhere but at the feet of Jesus. But the trail that takes us on this path of self-reflection, that never lies. If one has another goal in gathered worship, then engaging with God. If we are looking for anything other than to enter into the presence of God so that we might praise him, then we do not understand worship.
So let's just think about a few things that we looked at. Our worship and praise, the same thing. No. No. Finish the answer there, Scott. Thank you. Our worship and evangelism, the same thing. No. No, but? Worship leads to evangelism. Is worship transformative? It should be because it opens us up to the work of the spirit. It stirs up the sparks of our faith. It gets our priorities back in alignment with God's plans and purposes. And then finally, we all need to think about what it is in your life that you value the most and therefore worship. Is it Jesus or Or has something or someone else taken first place? Only you can answer that one. And I'm going to leave you to reflect on that one this week. The good news is that Jesus hasn't left you, even if your priorities have gotten a little skewed over time. But think of it like going to a chiropractor, even though I'm not particularly fond of chiropractors, but it worked for this illustration. When you go for an appointment to a chiropractor, they will often, usually, do an adjustment to help you feel better, healthier, ready to get up and go.
So this week, have an appointment with Jesus and let him do an adjustment on you. It may not be comfortable, but it will be good, and it will lead you towards a healthier and more centred life, allowing you the chance to be able to enter into worship. Real transformative worship. And not just when we come together, corporately, but each and every day. Let's pray. Gracious and Holy God, we thank you so much that you meet us here and that you remind us that you alone are worthy of our worship. God, forgive us for the times that we have made worship about our preferences, about our own comfort or our own desires, rather than about your glory. Recenter our hearts, Lord, and teach us to worship you in spirit and in truth. And as we get ready to leave this place today, help us to carry worship into every part of our lives, into our words, our choices, the way that we love and serve others. May our lives, God, reflect reverence and gratitude for all that you have done, and may everything we offer be pleasing in your sight. God, we offer ourselves to you again today.
We trust that you are at work in us and for your glory. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
