Last week we finished our series on the proper worship of God. This week I want to address a topic that arises out of true worship, for it is one of the responses of worship in daily life. We are to serve the Lord with whatever gift or gifts that He has given us. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 all make it clear that God gives every true Christian some means and ability by which He wants them to serve Him. Those passages also make it clear that it is vital to the rest of the body of Christ, the church, that you use those gifts, for the health of the body is dependent upon that happening. The question I want to address this morning is the manner in which you will serve the Lord.

 

This morning I will be concluding my series on the worship of God. If it has been half as helpful to you as it has to me, then I believe that our worship of the Lord here at Grace Bible Church will continue to improve according to our Lord's standards instead of our own. Throughout this series I have often been convicted about my own failings to worship the Lord properly. I look back in shame at how often I have been more interested in how I felt about the service instead of focusing on heart felt praise to God for who He is and what He has done. I have been finding that the more I concentrate on true worship, the easier it is to give praise to His name in all circumstances. I hope this has been true for you as well.

 

This morning is the 10^th sermon in our series on worship. From the beginning I have tried to stress that true worship must be done according to what God wants. Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4 that God is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. Anything less than that is ignorant worship at best and may well be false worship. The tragedy is that too often our selfishness and pride results in us worshiping God according to our own designs instead of what He wants and we fool ourselves into thinking we are very spiritual in the process. As we have seen in our past studies, God is very serious about those who worship Him and the way in which they do it. Through the prophet Isaiah, God rebuked the nation of Judah for their sacrifices which He rejected because their hearts were far away from Him. When King David tried to have the Ark of God moved to Jerusalem, God struck Uzzah dead for his irreverence in moving the Ark improperly. It is God's patience and longsuffering that has kept Him from striking many more down through the years and in the present for their irreverence and failure to worship God according to His directions.

 

This morning we will finish the message from a couple of weeks ago about the place of music in the worship of God. Let me quickly summarize the previous message before going on this morning.

 

I approach this morning's message with some fear and trepidation because there is no greater area of opinion driven by emotion that can be discussed than music. The only other area I have found that people can be more touchy about is to talk with them specifically about how they are raising their children.

 

This morning I want to continue dealing with the importance and implications of God being the center of our congregational worship.

 

This morning I want to continue on with the topic of Worship That Pleases God. Over the past month I have already presented to you the marks of true worship, both for the individual and the congregation. True worship by the individual should be marked by The confession of Sin, An Active faith in God, Confident prayer to God, The fruit of Righteousness in the life, Verbal praise to God, A Content heart, A willingness to suffer for righteousness without complaint, and A clear witness to others of God's mercy, grace and love. True worship by the congregation will result in God being glorified, Believers being purified, the Church itself being edified and unbelievers being evangelized.

 

Over the last couple of weeks I have presented to you what I believe are the marks of true worship in both the individual and in the congregation. True worship by the individual should be marked by 1) The confession of Sin, 2) An Active faith in God, 3) Confident prayer to God, 4) The fruit of Righteousness in the life, 5) Verbal praise to God, 6) A Content heart, 7) A willingness to suffer for righteousness without complaint, and 8) A clear witness to others of God's mercy, grace and love.

 

Last week we started to examine the evidences that would manifest themselves in those that are true worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ. The marks of true worship that will appear in an individual are: Confession of Sin, Faith in God, Confidence in Prayer, the Fruit of Righteousness, Verbal Praise, Content Hearts, Suffering without Complaint, and a Clear Witness. This morning we are going to look at what should happen in a church where the congregation is truly worshiping the Lord God. If the marks of true worship characterize the individuals in a congregation, then there will also be marks of true worship within the congregation as a whole too. In a similar manner, if the individuals themselves are not truly worshiping God, then the marks of true worship will also be absent from the congregation as a whole.

 

Last week I pointed out that our worship will have consequences both personally and nationally. God will bring blessing on those that truly worship Him and will bring curses on those that give worship . I traced this in the lives of individuals and in our own nation. The underlying reason for the moral decline in our nation is rooted in our nation's turning away from God. It began with a failure to give God the honor and thanks He deserves, so He gave this nation over to its lusts resulting in the sexual revolution. The nation continued to decline and exchanged the truth of God for a lie and has worshiped and served that which is created instead of the creator. God has therefore given the nation over to degrading passions resulting in the perversions that have become so pervasive in the last decade. The nation continues to decline so that it no longer sees fit to acknowledge God. Therefore God is giving us over to depraved minds resulting in the inane and insane material broadcast daily over TV and radio and published in our newspapers and magazines.

Worship. A few weeks ago I gave an overview of this topic as part of the series Elias & I did on the purpose of the church. This morning I start an examination of this subject in more depth and detail. Worship of the Lord God is an activity that will be central in our lives throughout all eternity. It is the very purpose for which we were created, yet most people have no true concept, or only a faint idea of what it means to worship God and how to do it. Apart from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ no one can truly worship God for He can only be truly worshiped in Spirit and truth (John 4), and apart from Christ no human is spiritually alive or seeks the truth (Eph. 2; Rom. 3). Even for the dedicated believer, the Worship of God falls short because while we remain in our unglorified state on this earth our struggle with sin hinders us from worshiping as we should desire.

 

It has been on my mind for quite some time to speak on the nature and attributes of God. I was able to get a start on that back in January by giving a very general overview. I want to pick up from that this morning and expand on God's holiness. This is the first and foremost of God's moral attributes for it is an aspect of all the rest of God's communicable attributes as well as of His characteristics and actions. He is holy in His righteousness, love, goodness, longsuffering, mercy, grace and truth. He is also holy in His compassion, jealousy, anger and wrath as well as His judgement, forgiveness and condemnation. If we are to know and understand God, then we must understand what it means that He is holy. We also need to understand God's holiness because He has commanded His people to be holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Peter 1:16). We cannot do that if we do not clearly understand what it means that He is holy.

 

This morning we come to the fourth aspect of how we at Grace Bible Church strive to carry out our purpose of Glorifying God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ. We do that by Communicating New Life in Christ - Evangelism; Cultivating New Life in Christ - Edification; Caring for New Life in Christ - Fellowship, and finally, Celebrating New Life in Christ - Worship.

 

This morning we come to the fourth aspect of how we carry out our purpose. Here at Grace Bible Church we strive to Glorify God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ. We do that by Communicating New Life in Christ - Evangelism; Cultivating New Life in Christ - Edification; and Caring for New Life in Christ - Fellowship, and finally, Celebrating New Life in Christ - Worship.

 

I have spoken to you for the last three weeks about the purpose of the church which is to Glorify God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ. We carry out our purpose of making disciples through four tasks: Communicating New Life in Christ (evangelism); Caring for New Life in Christ (fellowship); Cultivating New Life in Christ (edification) and Celebrating New Life in Christ (worship).

 

Change is a part of life. Some changes are good and some are bad. Some changes are neutral, but all of them can add stress to life. We are glad to see our children getting taller and stronger, though it does mean buying them more clothes. Some of us are noticing more character wrinkles etched into our faces and our hair is changing color - for a few, that color is gray. We don’t really care for those changes. As you get older your perspective changes and instead of counting the years from birth, you start thinking more of how many years you may have until death. Some of have had the joy of adding members to your family this past year. Others have had the sorrows of family members passing away. There is constant change in our lives and stress because of it.

 

Last week we started our series on the church by explaining from the Scriptures the reason that we have stated that the purpose of Grace Bible Church is to Glorify God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ. We saw in our study of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 that Jesus’ command to make disciples was to be carried out by three activities. Going into all the world, baptizing those who believed, and teaching them to observe His commandments. This morning I want to expand on the first part of that - Going into all the world.

 

I had been planning to talk about raising children this morning as part of our "Holy & Free" series, but we are going to take a break from that for the month of October. I will get back to raising children and the several other issues left in that series in November.

 

This morning I will complete my series on the purpose and nature of the church by talking about the "Heart of the Church." I am not referring to our emotions by that, but rather what is at the center of our lives as Christians and as a church. There should be a driving force, a motivation that causes us to want to live the Christian life and see the church, the Body of Christ, grow. Without this motivation the Christian life will be very difficult to live. It will be full of frustration, hurt, pain, guilt and even severe depression.

I have been stressing the purpose and nature of the church for a couple of months now. The reason? We can not fulfill our purpose if we do not know what it is. We cannot function effectively if we do not know how God has designed us to work.

For several weeks we have been examining the purpose and nature of the church. The purpose of Grace Bible Church is to Glorify God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ. We strive to do that by Communicating New Life in Christ - Evangelism. Cultivating New Life in Christ - Edification. Caring for One Another in Christ - Fellowship and - Worship. And for the last couple of weeks we have concentrated on worship - Celebrating New Life in Christ.

This morning I want to continue on the topic of worship. This topic came up a few weeks ago in our series on the Purpose of Grace Bible Church. We use the statement, Glorifying God by Making Disciples of Jesus Christ, as a simple definition of our purpose, but we also expand that into four statements that express the essential aspects of how we fulfill our purpose. 1) We Communicate New Life in Christ through Evangelism. 2) We Cultivate New Life in Christ through Edification. 3) We Care for New Life in Christ through Fellowship and 4) We Celebrate New Life in Christ through Worship.

This morning I want to bring before you something that has been on my heart for sometime. I would like to express to you something that is both a concern and desire. In some ways I especially want you who are new to Grace Bible Church to understand this because it defines for you where we desire to go as a church.

In view that tomorrow is Labor Day, I thought it would be fitting to speak on the subject of "Honorable Labor" today.

This morning we come to the fourth purpose of the church. We have already discussed Communicating New Life in Christ - Evangelism; Cultivating New Life in Christ - Edification; and Caring for New Life in Christ - Fellowship. This morning we come to Celebrating New Life in Christ - Worship.

Change is a part of life. Some changes are good and some are bad. Some changes are neutral, but all of them can add stress to life. We are glad to see our children getting taller and stronger, though it does mean buying them more clothes. Some of us are noticing more character wrinkles etched into our faces and our hair is changing color - for a few, that color is gray. We don't really care for those changes. As you get older your perspective changes and instead of counting the years from birth, you start thinking more of how many years you may have until death. Some of have had the joy of adding members to your family this past year. Others have had the sorrows of family members passing away. There is constant change in our lives and stress because of it.

Last week I spoke to you about the commission Jesus gave to the church to evangelize. We are to Communicate New Life in Christ by telling people the good news of Jesus Christ. We proclaim the gospel that man can be forgiven of his sin and enter into a personal relationship with his loving creator.

Some years ago I heard a story about a fellow who was starting a new job. Like any of us might be, he was quite nervous about it. He was going to be taking on new responsibilities and meeting new people and he wanted to make a good first impression. He and his wife prayed about it before he left that morning. When he got home his wife greeted him at the door and asked how things went. He said, "Great, I got along real well with the guys, and they never even found out that I am a Christian." (Now before you judge this guy, consider that there may have been a Christian at that job that never let him know that there was already a believer there).

This morning we begin a series on the church. What is it? How is it structured? How does it function? What are its purposes? This will be somewhat basic for some of you, and it will be new for others. In either case, it is good to make sure we know God's design for the church, or we risk wasting away our lives on our own vain efforts. Unless we function according to God's design for His purposes we can not accomplish His will.

This morning I want to address a subject that is basic, yet not so simple as one might think at first glance. What is a Christian?