Preperation For worship

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I'm not sure if this message is going to stand the test of daylight or not. This is kind of an unusual situation for me. I was thinking about a message and I normally prepare or finalize it Saturdays before I preach. [00:00:37] And Saturday morning about 1 o'clock I woke up, I couldn't sleep anymore. This thing kept going through my head and for the next several hours there was a message. So here it is and I'm not sure if God wants it to come out here or not, but we'll see what happens. And I've chosen to talk this morning about worship. It is a blessing to worship. It's a blessing when we gather as a group of people. And I've chosen to speak mainly about our worship service together in a public way. [00:01:11] Now I know there's, maybe I'll allude to different types of worship. I think it's necessary that we worship on our own. But at the outset, there's a few questions that I would like to ask you, and you don't have to answer, of course, but I'd like for you to be thinking about this. And maybe we often ask the question, why are we here? What brought us here? Is this just a ritual that we we go through? We come together and my dad went to church. My grandfather went to church. And while we have Anabaptist heritage, we they went to church. [00:01:50] Why did we come? Let's think about some of these things. Or did we come because we desire to worship the Lord? I trust that's why we came. And it's not just a ritual. There's some more things that I wonder sometimes. How many of us prayed before we came this morning? And I would like to see a raise of hands. How many of us prayed for the worship service? Praise God, many of you did. I appreciate that. I think that's what we need. That's our duty as a child of God. [00:02:28] And then the last question I would like to ask you before I go further is, and you can think about this, I'd like to have you share about it. What were some worship experiences that you have had in the past that seemed very meaningful or were rather dry to you? I guess you can expound on either one. I would like for you to turn, if you want to, to Matthew, the 13th chapter, the parable of the sower here. [00:03:00] I think I'm going to read the first 23 verses here in Matthew 13 this morning, beginning at verse 1 of Matthew 13. The same day went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside, and great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, the sower went forth to sow. And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up. [00:03:35] Some fell upon sony places where they had not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, and they were scorched, and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, and some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? [00:04:11] He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. [00:04:41] And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. Lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears And should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them But blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear [00:05:15] For verily I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them And to hear those things which ye have heard and have not heard them Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside, but he that received the seed into stony places, the same as he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it. [00:05:52] Yet hath he not root in himself, but doeth for a while. For when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that receiveth seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receiveth seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. [00:06:29] As far as I've chosen to read there, I don't know if I talked about the title of this message is Preparing Our Hearts for Effective Worship. And I would like to talk a little bit about preparation. And I think, in a nutshell, we could say that Jesus here is making an analogy between the soil that the sower was sowing and the condition of the heart, the heart of man. And I think, what I would like to point out here simply is the preparation that needs to be done for effective worship. [00:07:03] He quotes the prophet Isaiah in verses 6, no, okay, he quotes, I think you can read in verse, 13, 14, and 15. He's quoting Isaiah 6, verse 9 and 10. Isaiah says, in essence, the same thing. But I think Jesus is really telling his audience something here. He's trying to convey a message, but they don't understand. They hear it, but they don't understand. [00:07:33] and I don't know if we see that today or not but with their eyes they see things but they don't perceive what they're seeing and I wonder, I think if we're honest we will say that we still see people like that maybe not in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense we see people that see things they're exposed to things and yet they don't see they don't hear for what they should be hearing. [00:08:07] There was one phrase in verse 15 that jumped out when I read this. And I should heal them. I think that God really wants, He's waiting for us. He wants to heal us. He wants to converse with us. He wants us to understand. And then in verses 19 to 23, he's simply, he points out the different soil and the seed that fell [00:08:40] and then there's where he makes the comparison about the, with the soil, the condition of the soil and the condition of the heart. I'm sure you're asking yourself by this time, what does that have to do with worship? But I believe that preparing our heart for worship is very important, very important. Worship, it makes the difference between having a dry, unfulfilling worship experience [00:09:11] and having a worship experience that is uplifting. If we are prepared, it makes a big difference. It makes all the difference. Probably most of you remember what Brother Paul Weaver said when he was here the first evening and it stuck in my mind and it came back to me. He said this, there have been revival meetings and there have also been meetings that brought revival. What's the difference? What's the difference? What makes the difference if we have revival? [00:09:44] There is a huge difference and I think he said it well. Well, I don't think it's so much who leads out in the service or where the service is as the condition of our heart. Are we in a worship? Are we ready? Are we prepared to worship? I think God's presence has to come with us in the morning. When we come in these doors, I think this was just an empty building. I don't think the presence of God was here until you were here, or all of us were here. [00:10:18] We bring the presence of God with us to a worship service. And I wonder sometimes, is that why we have a dry experience? Is that why we see churches that have empty pews? Because the presence of God is not coming, and there's a dryness there. I know, and I don't know if you felt this or not, but I have had worship experiences in this sanctuary where I left and I felt like I was walking on air. [00:10:54] It just so blessed me and so uplifted me, or I felt so different inside. And I've also, to my shame, remembered some times when I've left maybe, and I couldn't remember what was said. It didn't really, it didn't stick. Now was that the preacher's fault or was that my fault? Or maybe this is not part of a worship service, but was it that I didn't put my heart in it? [00:11:25] Probably that's what happened. If we want to worship effectively, we have to prepare. Now, sometimes when I study for a message, it seems like I spend more time looking at the meaning of words than I do trying to actually study. And worship was something that I've heard about worship many, many times. And I think there's different things that we do to worship, and I would like to talk just a little bit about that. [00:12:03] I think prayer, praise, singing, they may not be worship itself, but they are the fruits of worship. When we worship, they are, I guess I can't divide it, it seems like they're part of worship. And this may be more technical, but I looked it up in the Webster's. I always do that because I'm not sure if I know the exact meaning of words. And I think terminology is important, that we understand what we're talking about when we speak. [00:12:39] One definition was reverence or devotion for a deity, a religious homage. I think that's fairly simple to understand. When we have reverence, we have... And the second, another one was a church service or other rite showing this. and then I think we're familiar with those and then the third one extreme devotion or intense love or admiration of any kind and I think we could [00:13:11] we understand that one as well but what do we worship? I think, well, maybe we'll get to that I think true worship is an attitude of the heart Where the soul bows before God in adoration and reverence We have a reverent spirit towards God We bow before Him And we all worship something [00:13:42] Back to the extreme devotion By default we are worshipping either God or something else An object, a style Well, this could go many different directions. It could be a message on idolatry, I suppose, but this is not the way I was led to share this morning. As far as a command, I think we understand that we read in the Ten Commandments, one of the first commands is that we worship God. [00:14:16] And I can't quote the, thou shalt have no other gods before me, I believe. But in Matthew, is it 4, verse 10, Jesus was in communicating with Satan and he said, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. I think it's clear, it should be very clear to us that we worship. And I think we can say it's a command. I think we understand that it's a command. [00:14:49] Now the question that really kept me awake is what brings us, what brings me or us as a congregation to the point of worship? Where we worship the Lord. And I'm not sure if I have a, I don't know if I have an answer to that. But I believe when we see our position, my position, and God's position, it should bring us to the point of worship. [00:15:21] And I don't know why I was inspired to share this way, but I just couldn't help but see the awesomeness of God in nature. It's all around us. We cannot get away from it if we are awake and looking around. I remembered as we were flying, I looked out the window, and most of you know what it looks like outside of a jet. There's really nothing. An expanse of blue. When you're down low enough, you can see some land. [00:15:53] But a lot of times, it's kind of beautiful. It looks like a field of cotton. There's nothing there. And I wondered, as I was looking at that, I thought, what is man? Who are we? and compared to God, he hung the earth in, he created the universe and I don't have proper terminology to even express what God did this morning, how he did it. You know, I sat there and I thought about this and this big machine [00:16:27] and he made the air that made this machine go. If it hadn't been for the air, you know, we get so, sometimes we're kind of in awe of what man has done in the last century in the steps and technology that we've made. And it is kind of marvelous to think about some of these things. But really, we're just building on what God has made. We're really nobody compared to God. [00:17:02] I think this is what probably brought King David to many of his experiences. And I would like to look at least at one psalm here. As I was thinking about this, I went back into psalms and I guess this kind of expressed my thoughts in what brings us to worship a living God. What brings us to the point of worship? I would like to read a little bit, seven verses of Psalms 19. [00:17:37] You may open your Bibles to that if you would like. This kind of expressed what I thought, and I think King David was kind of in the same vein when he said this. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun [00:18:09] Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race His going forth is from the end of the heaven And his circuit unto the ends of it And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. I know that's kind of two different thoughts there in the same psalm. [00:18:40] In the first six verses, he is talking about the fantastic creation. And I don't know, but it seems to me that a born-again Christian cannot help but be a nature lover Notice the birds and the trees and the greatness of God in the way he created the world. But then in verse 7, he kind of switches gears and he notices the ability that God has to change lives. [00:19:12] Isn't that about the greatest miracle of all? Well, I couldn't help but think about my life, all the sin, all the missteps that I made. And I think all of us that are adults and are at the age of accountability can do the same thing. But God, the God that holds the world holds our heart in His hand. And he's able to make the simple wise. [00:19:45] He's able to change us where we were going this direction, now we're going this direction. We change gears. We change. He changes our very destiny. We were headed in the wrong direction. His ways are truly greater than I can even imagine or express this morning. Now, I think that should bring us to a place where we worship, or we reverence Him, or we acknowledge our position compared to His position. [00:20:21] Is there something like counterfeit worship, half-hearted worship? This went through my mind the other morning, and I'm not sure that I have... We're either worshiping with all our heart or we're not worshiping at all. But maybe, may I just expound on this a little bit. There's about two different things that went through my mind. And I'm talking now more about society as we see today, worshiping. [00:20:52] But I think it's not just today. It has been through the ages how people have worshipped and have tried to create a worship service or atmosphere that brings fulfillment. And I appreciate our worship service. I want to say that. I am blessed. and I just, I don't appreciate it enough sometimes I think because I have been to some unusual, you could say, worship services or that were called worship services. [00:21:25] On one side it seems we have two ditches and we don't want either one. On one side we have people that gather and we can have a set of meaningless rituals that we go through And then we're done with that and we go about our way, but it doesn't do anything for us or for our worship experience, I should say. Let me just turn to Isaiah. I think it's Isaiah 1. I'm going to read several verses and I think this is what Isaiah was saying. [00:22:05] I think all of us, most of us know what he's saying here, but I'm going to read it anyway. starting at verse 11 and he's asking them about this meaningless worship that they had the children of Israel there to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts and I delight not in the blood of bullocks [00:22:37] or of lambs or of he goats When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations, or offerings, my Bible says. Incense is an abomination unto me, the new moons and sabbaths. The calling of assemblies, I cannot away with it. It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth. They are a trouble unto me. [00:23:09] I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Isn't that sad? They got together, they made the effort to worship, but God wasn't there. He was so displeased with them that it was an abomination to Him. I think we can get there today. I think he's simply communicating a simple truth to these people. [00:23:44] But I think it's true for us today. The same thing can happen. Their hands were full of blood. And I must say this morning, if we have a heart that's covering sin, probably our worship experience will be drudgery at best. And it's not pleasing to God. It will never please the Lord. That's one side. But on the other side, it seems like we have groups of people today that play on their emotions, that come to a worship service to get pumped once they're there. [00:24:28] It is not my desire to stand behind the pulpit and knock other churches this morning. It's not at all my desire. But I think we need to be careful that we don't play on our emotions in themselves. We need to be careful that we have the Spirit of God moving. They tend to turn up the band or the drums. It sounds like a rock band. And they have worship teams that are trained to lead people and to respond, help people respond to the music. [00:25:08] In fact, we had at least one lady tell our son that they like to listen to probably Christian rock or something beady in the morning, Sunday morning, to get them pumped for a worship service. Yet, what do we see? We still see people that walk away, that are unchanged, that have, it hasn't made a difference. They're still leaving churches. [00:25:41] They're unsatisfied. What is wrong? What's wrong with that type of worship service? I want to be very careful. I don't want to, I think it's not wrong to be moved by singing. In fact, many times when we sing as a congregation, it just, it wells up within me and I just, I love to, I'm not much of a singer, but I love to sing. I love to help sing and it brings a spirit of worship to me. I don't know if it does the same for other people, but it just, it satisfies. [00:26:15] I don't want to squelch that singing. I think it's something that God expects of us. It's a part of worship and we should do that. And yet, we can never create what the Holy Spirit wants to do. I don't know if I can explain it in a different way, but that's about where I came out at. If we're trying to create or form emotions that the Holy Spirit needs to do for us, it's almost too deep for me to explain. [00:26:52] But it seems like the Spirit of God needs to be in our hearts before there's going to be true worship. Jesus said, and I think we're all familiar with this, this is something that we always heard in the Old Order Amish setting before we had prayer. And they said it in German. And he was speaking to the woman at the well there. She was asking, where should we worship? We worship here and other people worship there. And where should we worship? And he said in John 4, 23 and 24, But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. [00:27:34] God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth So, worship, in order to be pleasing and acceptable to God, must be sincere, it must be true And in order for us to worship properly, we need the aid of the Holy Spirit I think we need to be aware of that But there's also another another thing that I would like to notice here. Verse 24, the first phrase there, God is a spirit. We are not limited to Rosewood this morning. I expect that it is probably about 130 in Romania. I expect they had a worship service this morning. [00:28:23] You know, around the world, God is not limited to one place. And there may be people here that have family over here. Our youth are in Kansas. And there's, God is there. God is a spirit. He is able to move. He's able to meet the needs. And as people come to him, they can worship him wherever they're at. I would like for us to remember that in our personal devotions. [00:29:00] I know I have kind of an unusual time to do my personal devotions, but maybe I'll just share. I usually have my devotions in the truck in the morning before I go to work. I get up and eat and drive to work. It would not work, or it doesn't work, seem to work for me to get up and read because I just am not awake. But by the time I've driven to work, then I'm awake. And you know what? You can have a real worship experience right where you're at. And I encourage that. [00:29:32] Wherever you're at, wherever you have your devotions, meet with God. It's so important. Now, I think I've said enough about, well, I was planning to say more about personal devotions. I would just like to encourage all of you. Take time to read and make sure that you have a real connection with God. If we don't have that connection with God, then I don't think our public worship is going to be very meaningful to us. [00:30:04] And I say that as coming from, that's coming from one that has experience in that. I don't think that my worship has always been pleasing to God. Now I would like to just say some practical things or maybe make mention of some practical things that help us in gathering together and worshiping. And it's nothing new. And the reason I said what I did at the outset is I think the first thing that we should do if we are interested in meeting God here is we should pray. [00:30:43] Seek God's face and ask him to be there and to meet us there. Now, I'm glad that there are people praying. That's very important. Attending regularly is another thing. And I think Brother Glenn has talked about that. And we studied that in our instruction class. and I don't know if I have much to say but I think it's important that once we start skipping services [00:31:17] it becomes so easy just to do it again and we miss out and finally we just worship is not that important as a group anymore. I recognize that we can still do that on our own but there's times when I've missed a service and I was in my own world Probably worshipping something other than God. I did not remember. So I think it's very important that we gather. The next one, and these are just random thoughts, not something that I have a concrete answer for, but the clothes that we wear to a worship service, to a public worship service, I think is telling of how we feel on the inside. [00:32:01] And again, I'm not trying to push back other churches in the way that they do things And yet I think I have some conviction about the way that we dress Because I have seen where churches have gone to jeans and a t-shirt for the men And finally they're not gathering anymore It was just such a casual attitude Some time ago, several months, maybe six months ago So I talked to a brother in another state in conversation and he said this, he said that he had a brother come, they had a brother come from an old order setting and this brother said that I just cannot, I'm just not wearing my suit coat anymore, I don't want that white shirt, I just don't want to dress up, I don't want anything to do with that anymore. [00:32:52] and he said he gave it some thought and finally he approached him and he said if you had an important meeting somewhere you went to see a very important person wouldn't you dress up? and he agreed that he would and I think that we do well to remember that we are meeting someone that's much more important than another person this morning I think we do well to remember why we dress the way that we do. [00:33:26] And I think many of these things have become a tradition that we do well to remember why we have the tradition that we do. Church is not a club. Gathering to worship is not just being part of a club. And I know probably I'm guilty or have been of this, but when we gather to worship and give praise to God and we do it as a group, we're not together to see who got a new shirt or a new suit coat. [00:33:58] Now, I'm not quite as much into that as maybe this side of the house would be, but that's all right, I guess. And we do well to dress up, but we're not here to see who has the right stripe or who hasn't. I think we could go back in our standard. We have things in order or we have things in place to help us with our with our dress. How about studying our Sunday school lesson before we come to church and being able to. [00:34:31] I know sometimes when I have a message, I don't study the way I should. and I feel convicted about that. But I think that we get a lot more out of it if we are in tune with God before we get there and we're able to, as a group, discuss some of these things that are so important for us to hear or to discuss. It enhances our experience and I think that's what God wants. He wants for us to have meaningful worship. [00:35:05] Being there on time, I think, helps. I think there's times when we can't be on time. And I don't think in our setting where we came from, if we weren't on time, we stayed at home. The shame was too great in walking in late. But I still want everybody to come, even if they have to chase the neighbor's cow before they come to church. I think it's important that we still come and be there. I think we can accept that and still have a meaningful worship experience. [00:35:40] How about being awake in church? I know there's times when people are sick or they're not feeling the best or they're on medicine that does make them sleep. But I think there's a blessing and it makes worship a lot more meaningful if we put the effort in to go to bed at a decent time, get our rest, and we're in a much better frame of mind to worship the Lord. [00:36:13] And I think it's acceptable to him. I know that I've said this here, I don't know if I said it from here, but we all may be aware of this, but in the early days the Puritans had someone, I think in the back of their church, I don't know if he had a stick, and he was there to watch and if someone would fall asleep he would tap them on the head so they would wake up and be alert again. But I don't know if that changes the heart. [00:36:44] It may wake someone up for a little bit, but I don't think it really changes the heart. I think that we need to be putting in effort. We need to prepare for a meaningful worship service. In closing, I would just like for each one of us to reflect on our worship experience. How is our worship experience? How do we, how are we, is it a dry ritual? And if it is, I would encourage you to examine why it is a dry, just a dry gathering or something that we do.