When the World Worships

[HKHaugan]

It's really hard to leave this theme of worship. Again, worship is involving yourself in what you consider the most valuable thing in your life, what is worth giving your time, talent, money and energy to embrace. Worship is where you place your devotion, what has the most worth to you, worth-ship, worship.

Yesterday (2/5/14), I watched a TV spectacular. The Seattle Seahawks, winners of the 2014 Super Bowl, rode in a parade attended by over 700,000, a crowd larger than the city's population of some 630,000. Cheers, yelling, people climbing up trees and light poles, others jammed along sidewalks 30-40 deep with barely enough room for the team vehicles to get through. It was enthralling. It ended in their stadium where 70,000 gathered to hear the owner, coach and team address the fans, hold up the Lombardi Trophy and assured everyone they were going to do it again next year.

Happy people on the parade route and in the stadium greeted one another and shared 'high-fives' in the joy of the moment. You could see how everyone felt a kind of unity with one another whether they knew each other or not. For several hours this went on as individuals, groups of friends, families gathered to celebrate the Seahawks' victory. It was the first of its kind for the city. Combined in that event were individuals, groups and gathered worship. Yes, it was a secular, non-God occasion, but it was still worship. Of course after it was over the crowds dispersed and went back to their homes, families and businesses and returned to their other 'worships.' World life goes on until something else takes up those moments of yearning for events meaningful enough to be worth the worship.

I don't want to take anything away from those moments of fun for the Seahawk's fans but that is exactly what the world worships, moments where daily routine and self are suspended and an event gives that sense of life on a different level. Everyone yearns for those moments. The problem is they don't last. The moment of winning, the moment of joy in winning, the moment of emotion evaporates. The peak of excitement vanishes into fading memories. It's over.

The difference between that momentary worship and the worship of God is that God never ends. He keeps us balanced. His Spirit maintains a steady course in our mind, heart and spirit. Every moment is lived in a balanced and steady personal admiration and devotion. It's the ongoing moments of belief in God's presence in the heart and in the presence of others. And, unlike world worship, there are positive returns. The Lord not only uses the moment in which you place Him central but He returns in events that only He could have caused. The Holy Spirit touching your personal world. It's then you are free to enjoy great human achievements because the worship of God puts them in His context and they become topics for discussion that can lead others to the Lord Jesus who makes all moments moments of worship. In God's context you can have fun, be with others, share their joys but you know there's more. With Him there is always more awaiting.

What gives this context its reality is the players who know the Lord thank Him for their abilities.  He is their source which they are quick to share. Five Seahawks players witnessed in a TV interview how the Lord was everything to them and they knew that football doesn't last but that He does. One remarked without hesitation that the Lord was everything to him. For him worship of the Lord is ongoing and His returns and blessings are ongoing.

Worshiping God is an ongoing worship that involves not just presence but participation of the mind, heart and spirit. It is shared and celebratory. God-worship is different from world worship in that one lasts for a moment but the other is taking you into what goes on eternally. Once you let yourself get into what worship really means you find it hard not to pursue it. It's not just the joy of a momentary event but the full and complete participation of everything we do in the context of God's presence. And it's not just for yourself. You want to get with others and share yourself. Personal continuing worship brings awareness of who you are in God every next moment, eternally. This kind of worship brings an urgency in wanting to let others know the things you have picked up in the reality you have found there. In personal worship, in small group worship and in gathered worship there are insights, feelings and experiences you are driven to share. It's not being lit up and emotionally floating all the time. Rather it's the confident and inward knowing that Jesus is always in the moment, every next moment.

Let's take a walk through these three forms of worship and see if we don't agree. First, in personal worship, you may be starting the day. Whether your prayer is casual or intense, your reading of Scripture brief or extended and the day ahead loaded or light, how all of it is handled has begun in the cushion of the Lord's presence. Personal worship is placing the Lord Jesus at the core of your consciousness. It is the disciplined intention that everything starts with Him. It's what is called Jesus-consciousness. That's what you are building. Worship is knowing that the Holy Spirit is bringing Him into the mix of your mind's processing all your waking moments. It is the 'I am' in you yielding those first moments to the “I AM” and letting the Spirit blend you into Him for every next moment. This mind worship takes your heart into trusting Him. It goes from the mind to the heart. It then becomes trust worship, heart worship. Here you are prepared for whatever is spread before you in the unexpected, the unknown and the unpredictable. It's not just about your mind but about your heart and your heart and mind are standing on the truth of His resurrected presence praising Him as the God of every next moment regardless of circumstance. He is right there with you in belief and trust. Worship neutralizes the spirit of fear, anxiety and temptation and therefore the mission of the evil one who spends his time trying to separate you from God.

Before we go any further we need Scriptural reinforcement to show the necessity for worship. The first thing the Lord God directed Moses to tell Pharoah, “This is what the Lord says: Israel is my first-born son, and I told you, “Let my son go, that he may worship me (Ex.4:23).” Then Jesus, in the temptation to take control apart from His Father, told the devil, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only (Mt.4:10).”

In these moments of internal worship you may realize the need to confess your scattered concerns, the drifting or fantasy thoughts that get in the way, the sticky moments of guilt for past behavior, whatever. Just take that part of your mind, your memory or the sting of the moment and thank the Lord that He has provided repentance and its guaranteed forgiveness. See the Cross and the Savior's eyes and His personal compassion for you. This compounds the sense of His love and presence. Here is where trust brings the Lord's peace for the mind and heart so that what lies ahead is not littered with past distractions. The assurance of the Cross cancels the devil's intrusions. You are free from His accusatory moves.

But there's more. There is spirit worship. This is where what our mind believes and what our heart trusts is put into action through faith. Here is where the spirit in each God's image is brought to life, energized and motivated by the Holy Spirit to act. Our spirit is where the Holy Spirit brings us to life through faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus in every next moment leads us to love, to have mercy, to be humble before God in presence of others, to minister to others and then bring the Lord into every conversation. This is when He balances our mind, heart and spirit so that the hearts and minds of others are touched by the Holy Spirit through us . This gives others access to Him and He offers them the same balance.

Second, small group worship is the place we gain relational growth in the Spirit. In small group worship we are directly connected with brothers and sisters in the faith. There is where we come under the cover of the truth which is the Word. This guarantees the presence of the Holy Spirit and the freedom to grow our God-image in one another's presence. The Holy Spirit covers us through Scripture.

The group has three very important worship functions, allowing the Spirit's touch through Scripture, letting the Spirit open up thanksgivings, insights, needs, problems, personal sharing and the enjoyment of good old open fellowship. The group is the place where you can let your 'spiritual and emotional hair down.' It's the worship experience where you are God's image connected personally to other conscious God's images. Your lives are presented in the Lord to each other. This is how the Cross is implanted in your midst---prayer, the vertical presence of God (the vertical beam), horizontal sharing and the Spirit's unity making us one in Christ (the horizontal beam).

Third, gathered worship brings your personal and group experiences along with other groups of God's images to celebrate His presence and what He has been doing and accomplishing. Gathered worship is a time to shift from the self and enjoy talking about the Lord's work, singing His praises, thanking Him, listening to His Word and hearing how He has impacted brothers and sisters in the larger Body. It's a time to experience the Spirit's movement in the gathered setting through gifts of prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom and whatever He may choose to happen that we can sense His presence. This is the celebration of what personal and small group worship have accomplished. Strike up the music, pray, share what God is doing, sing hymns, psalms and spiritual songs to the Lord (Eph.5:19).

Let the worship begin right now, right where you are. More to come.