Living in the Supernatural Community
2. The Supernatural Community is here to Celebrate God!
Reading – Psalm 145
I was once at a huge Youth camp where Tony Campolo was the main speaker. A local church had also booked Tony for the Sunday. Word got out that he was speaking and hundreds and hundreds of teenagers descended on that tiny church. We packed the pews, we were stood in the aisles, we were even sat on the window sills!
When the minister came out of his vestry he couldn’t believe his eyes. I don’t think he had a clue as to why we were there, I don’t think he even knew who Tony Campolo was. He certainly wasn’t prepared for what happened next. The weekend together of thousands of young people exciting each other together with Tony’s ability to stir something in us was bubbling over.
The Minister did the call to worship and read v 7 of Psalm 145
Psa 145:7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
And the place went wild ……
Do you know that sort of celebration when you come to worship?!!! Of course there is much more to worship – old english word ‘weorthscipe’ – to kiss, to prostrate oneself in homage, do reverence, adore
Worship is not Music, it’s not singing, but you can worship by singing. You must engage your heart and spirit in order to worship. Worship is being spring-boarded into the face of God. John Wimber said, “Our heart’s desire should be to worship God; we have been designed by God for this purpose.” Every time we springboard into the face of God, we are doing what we were created for.
“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God and to devote the will to the purpose of God.” Archbishop William Temple.
Worship then is much wider than even the most all encompassing church service. Worship involves the whole of our lives, everything we do! It is an expression of what we feel about God, it will therefore betray what we feel about God! You cannot say to God ‘You are everything in my life’ if he is not, we need to be truthful.
We have not been able to gather for corporate worship in our buildings now for 13 weeks and it’s still going to be a long time before we do and when we do things are going to be different!
I have always been at pains to convey that Worship is not just a Sunday activity but something we do everyday of the week. A. W. Tozer said, “We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.” A day in, day out, celebration. I’d love to know of some of the ways you have been celebrating God.
How have we been doing in offering our God worship in our daily lives since lockdown? I wonder too what our corporate celebration of God will look like when we are allowed to get together physically again!?!?
This is vitally important because God Deserves our worship, more than that He Demands our Worship
The words “Man’s chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever”, are not those of some charismatic enthusiast, nor are they even modern. They come from the 17th century Reformed Westminster Confession, Page 1, line 1.
The great sin of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to increase his glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect his glory. For God’s glory is most reflected in us when we are most delighted in him.
I am so indebted to John Piper for pointing this out to me in his many books. What he does is ask questions of the Westminster Catechism, something that I expect you do every breakfast time!?!? Ask the question: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ Answer: ‘To glorify God and enjoy him for ever’ Now ask: ‘What is the chief end of God?’ Answer: ‘To glorify God and enjoy himself for ever.’
We glorify God because there is nothing of more worth than God. If God were to glorify something other than himself he would cease to be God because in that act of glorifying something other than himself he would be saying that there were something of more worth than himself.
The Scriptures are riddled with statements that reveal the passion God has for his own glory. The classic example is:
Isa 48:9-11 For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to cut you. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.
Now How does God use his glory? Here we shall see again how inseparable these important things are. In Is 30:18 God ‘exalts himself to show mercy’.
God is unique among all the gods of the nations. Isaiah realises this and says, “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him” (Is 64:4). In other words, Isaiah is stunned that the greatness of God has the paradoxical effect that he does not need people to work for him, but rather magnifies himself by working for them, if they will renounce self-reliance and ‘wait for him’.
This is about the greatest deal on earth.
God gets the Glory we get the Grace
I was never designed for Glory – that’s God’s domain. But I was designed for grace.
We traditionally use what we call ‘Worship’ as a means of Glorifying God. And what is worship? Is it a group of songs sung together at some point in the service!
Come on! Worship is so much more!
The Big Question in Worship Does God come through for who he is?
When we worship are we awestruck?
The need for Creativity
In particular a creativity that is prophetic. Let me try and explain: God is a God who communicates. He does so through His word. And He does so through His prophets. 2 Pet 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. He also does so through His creation. Psalm 19:1-4 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Rom 1:19f since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Eph 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God. Therefore I believe we need to be creative, we need to use our creativity for God’s glory and more than that we need to allow God to communicate through our creativity.
God has ‘wired up’ many in His body to be creative and I believe would want to communicate through their creativity. We have limited this to allowing people to use their gifts for God’s glory, we have forgotten all about God communicating himself through this creativity. It is clearly seen in the O.T. as God used people to build the Tabernacle.
I suspect there are a lot of frustrated people in the body that have not been able to express what God has been saying to them and wanting to say through them purely because it hasn’t been accepted that there form of creativity is a valid means of communication for God to use.
Different things touch and excite different people, a rainbow of tastes and interests if you like
– Music / Art / Dance / Cinema / Theatre / Sport / Nature etc.
Difference aspects of all these things may interest us, grab our attention, even become all-consuming
God can and does communicate himself in all of these things. Equally we can respond and communicate our love and appreciation towards God through all of these things.
A piece of music that moves the soul, a painting that causes us to wonder, even the energy we feel in the way God has made us and gifted us. Eric Liddell – “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. ”
Being prophetic is when we communicate something of God to others or rather God communicates something of himself through us to others.
I don’t know how wide this can be but I do believe it is far wider than has been our experience this far and I wonder if we have a unique opportunity to learn and experience this at a far deeper level at the present times.
I am certainly praying that out of the restrictions that have been placed upon us new ways will emerge that enable us to Worship, that enable us to Celebrate God. So please step out and take some risks in this for the good of us all! I really wand to see our Celebration of God become more experiential and interactive.
This the key question when it comes to Worship –
Does God come through for who he is?
This will happen in all sorts of ways but first and foremost He has revealed himself in Christ
We will never experience God in celebratory worship unless we know Jesus Christ.
Prayer