Worship: The
People Make it Happen
Acts 2:43-47
September 28,
2003
The First Converts
37Now
when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the
other apostles, “Brothers,£
what should we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be
forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the
promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone
whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40And he testified with many
other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt
generation.” 41So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and
that day about three thousand persons were added. 42They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread
and the prayers.
Life
among the Believers
43Awe
came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the
apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in
common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute
the proceeds£ to all, as
any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the
temple, they broke bread at home£ and ate
their food with glad and generous£ hearts, 47praising
God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to
their number those who were being saved.
So after three weeks of
focusing on the practice and custom of Christian worship, I hope and pray that
if you only remember one thing, it will be that proper, good and true Christian
worship has two elements 1. Remembering that God is good, 2. Responding by
praising and giving thanks.
In the past several weeks we
have explored this truth, and we have also considered the importance of vibrant,
true and sincere expression in our weekly worship time, and we have considered
the centrality of the Word of God, biblical witness, preaching and testimony in
worship to insure that God is at the center and the reason for those vibrant
expressions.
Today we focus a bit more on
the truth that worship in the church is a corporate act.
Yes, worship is private and individual, but it also must be public and
communal.
Essentially the act of worship
is a personal, individual private, act. If
I don’t experience God’s miracles in my life, if I don’t feel God’s love
in my soul and love God personally for what grace of God I have known, I am
incapable of worship. However, the
most powerful acts of worship occur when the congregation of God has gathered,
when the body of Christ has formed and the church is visible.
As we mentioned last week,
worship is not contingent on any one man, woman or child, be that person a
preacher, organist soloist or worship leader.
Henry Ward Beecher, the famous
pulput orator, once had to be absent and his brother was invited to speak for
him. The church was crowded, but
when it became evident that the eloquent Henry Beecher was not going to appear,
many started to leave. Beecher’s
brother was not disturbed. He stood
up before the murmuring crowd, called for silence and said, “All who came this
morning to worship Henry W. Beecher may now leave.
The rest will remain and worship God.”
Neither is that worship
contingent entirely on the music, the organ, the rock ‘n roll band, the
classical music of the ancient church, the sharagans, the praise tunes, the
spirituals, the old favorite anthems and hymns or the childrens’ tunes.
Good Christian worship is the
mix of all or at least some of these elements, infused by the power of God
through the Holy Spirit to bring the Word of God to life.
And to bring the Word of God alive in the hearts and minds of the
gathered people of God and to inspire them to a sincere response.
As I think about the proper
environment for the word of God to come alive and for a sincere expression of
worship to naturally erupt as a response, one of Jesus’ parables comes to
mind.
The parable which is popularly
referred to as the parable of the Sower, if you want to follow along, it can be
found in Matthew 13:3-9.
A
sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path,
and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky
ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since
they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun rose, they were
scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other
seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other
seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty,
some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!”
In order for the preaching of
God’s word to take hold, and for the grace and goodness of God to be revealed,
in order for there to be fruit and a harvest from God’s Word coming alive, the
earth has to be properly conditioned. Weeds
and thorns and stones must be cleared out and proper depths of rich soil must be
laid down in order for anything to take root.
What does this mean?
Does this mean that we’ve got to spread loam in our sanctuary?
Obviously not. Does this
mean that we’ve got to clear our sanctuary and perhaps our hearts and minds
and our lives of the distractions and emotions and the sentiments which destroy
the opportunities for God to reveal himself and for the proper expressions of
Joy to be made in response? Yes, it
means that we’ve got to prepare ourselves for worship.
But how?
Jesus makes another statement
at one point in his ministry about the nature of community and worship that
speaks to this point. Often it is
taken to refer directly to communion, but I believe that this statement is made
by Jesus as a general expression of a prerequisite for good Christian worship.
In
the Gospel of Matthew 5:23, we have these words from Jesus.
So
when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother
or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before
the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come
and offer your gift.
In Mark chapter nine (v50),
Jesus also says, “- be at peace with each other.”
In
Jesus’ ministry, good fellowship, and more essentially, good relationships
among the people of God is a prerequisite to setting the proper tone for
worship. I once heard a preacher
say something from the pulpit that has stuck with me for a long time. He said, think of all the people that are not sitting in the
pews this morning because they have a problem with someone else in the church,
be it the pastor, their family member, the church leadership or an former
friend. How much more full would
the church be if folks were able to resolve their differences and clear their
hearts for worship?
Can
you worship with joy and sincerity if across the aisle from you in the same
sanctuary, sits someone with whom you’ve had a problem?
It makes the reception and response to the Word of God coma alive very
difficult! This is what I believe
Jesus is speaking of as he says clear the soil and prepare the environment for
the taking hold of God’s word and for its proper response.
It is for this reason that Jesus makes imperative the task of clearing
the air and resolving conflicts before entering into worship.
There are so many divisions and
hatred and so much warfare among people.
The Society of International Law,
in London, once observed that during the last 3,550 years of recorded history
there have been only 268 years of peace. That means that since the beginning of
recorded history, the entire world has been at peace less than eight percent of
the time! What is even more interesting is that during this time in excess of
8000 peace treaties were made--and broken.
There
are so many divisions and hatred and so much warfare in God’s church.
A man who was walking across a
bridge and came upon another man standing right on the edge, about to plunge to
his death. The first man shouted "Stop! Are you a Christian?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I am." "Well so am I. Are you Catholic
or Protestant?" "I'm Protestant," "Well so am I. Are you
Episcopal or Baptist?" "I'm Baptist." "Wow... I am too. Are
you Southern Baptist or American Baptist? "I'm Southern Baptist,"
"Me too, that's amazing! Are you original Southern Baptist or Southern
Baptist reformed?" "I'm Southern Baptist reformed." "I can't
believe it, so am I." But tell me are you Reformed Southern Baptist of the
reformation of 1879, or reformed Southern Baptist of the Reformation of
1915?" He answered, "Reformed Baptist, reformation of 1915.” To
which the first man said, "Die you heretic," and he pushed him off the
bridge.
Sound like any ethnic
denominations you’ve hear of?
How can we truly worship and
recognize God’s love and sing out in joy if we are distracted by the weeds of
hatred and the stones in our own hearts which are jealousy, anger, resentment
and indifference? How can we truly
worship if we don’t pay attention to weeding the soil of our spiritual fields
and creating an environment of peace that will allow worship to be sincere?
We
all know that to create peace and resolve trouble of this manner is not an easy
matter. Yet we have so many
examples in our Christian faith of those who have shown great courage to do so.
One such person was the 5th century monk named
Telemachus. Living in a
cloistered monastery He suddenly felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome."
He was settle in his life and devoted to the isolated, quiet life of the monk
but one day he put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he
arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the
excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be
fighting in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to
himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each
other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators
saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this
isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of
the field, got between two gladiators, and tried to stop them. The crowd became
enraged and stoned the peacemaker to death.
When the Emperor of Rome,
Honorius, heard about the monk he declared him a Christian martyr and put an end
to the games. Legend has it that the very last Gladiatorial game was the one in
which Telemachus died.
It
takes great courage to create the bridges and make steps toward healing that
make true corporate worship a possibility.
It may be impossible to break down the walls of division and to weed the
field of our worst hatreds and deepest divisions.
But
without at least the sincere efforts toward reconciliation and renewal, healing
and strengthening of relationships, we cannot expect worship to become real,
vibrant and sincere.
On
the day of Pentecost, about which we read excerpts out of the book of Acts, both
this week and last, we find examples of wonderful corporate worship.
We find thousands of people joining the church, prayers, fellowship,
breaking bread of communion, of distributing the wealth aend taking care of the
weaker folks in the community, of praising God and sharing each others’ good
will together. All this was
miraculous it is true, but possible as well through one little word we hear
spoken in verse thirty-eight of chapter two.
When
the people listening to Peter’s sermon say to him, “What should we do?”
Peter says, “Repent! So that your sins may be forgiven and you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
We
must be willing to take the difficult steps, ready to act with courage, to
repent and to sacrifice our pride for the sake of the body of Christ, for the
sake of praising God, for the sake of creating true Christian worship, for the
sake of our own souls.
I
pray that we might all here these words from God, spoken so often since the
beginning of time, communicating to us a way to salvation and renewal.
I pray we might hear these words and recognize the Word of God coming
alive among us and respond, first in courageous obedience, then in praise,
thanksgiving and reverence and adoration to God.
As
we do, we will recognize that worship, true worship, Christian worship has taken
hold in our midst and we have begun to worship God in a bold new way!
Amen.