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Topic: Worship
Lessons from Anna II: The Heart of Worship
Worship is the essence of the Christian life. Anna, an example for us today, lived a life that was characterized by worship. She worshipped God night and day. To worship God is to simply behold and express the beauty of Jesus Christ, and to be transformed by this beauty. God’s love was expressed most clearly at Calvary, when he gave his Son as a ransom for our sins, so that we could be free and have a relationship with him. Worship is speaking, singing and living in this reality and then being transformed by it. Read More
Adventure into the God-Dance
Mary’s Song illustrates for us what participation with God in the divine dance looks like. Her song paints a broad picture that helps us understand what it means to get involved in the God life. Recorded in Luke 1:46-55, Mary’s song is an expression of worship, but not just any kind of worship. Her song is one that paints a specific picture of a dance with God, a risky dance of adventure with the untamable, unfathomable God. Read More
The Sweet Aroma of Worship
Greg began by reading Luke 1:8-10. In previous messages we heard about how the Old Testament teachings are often a shadow of what is to come in the New Testament. Specifically, the temple of the Old Testament foreshadows what the Christian and the Christian church should be today. The primary functions of the temple were sacrifice, prayer, and worship. Read More
Smelling Good
This week’s message on “Smelling Good to God” was drawn from Luke 1:8-10. Greg used this text as an opportunity to show how the Old Testament temple structure and worship offer insights into the language and imagery of the New Testament. A significant part of Greg’s message centered on the new reality of us, both collectively and individually being the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19). Collectively, as the community of faith, we are the Body of Christ, and the temple of God. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. So, what then does this mean? Since we are all now priests of God, we also share the responsibilities of priests. If we feel that our lives are not very dynamic and exciting in terms of our Christian walk, we may want to accept this challenge! God wants all of our lives. As we yield more and more to God, we will experience the peace that comes from drawing on the true source of Life. Read More
Mission Impossible
Brenda reissued the challenge of serving a radical savior. If we feel God has called us to do the impossible, then we are indeed following the radical God of the Bible! However, if our faith doesn’t inspire us, we need to take another look at Jesus to see how far from dull and boring he really is. Brenda helped us do this using Isaiah 6 and many vivid analogies. Read More
What Worship Is
We were created to worship God and through worship to proclaim the wonder of God, engage in spiritual warfare and act as witnesses who testify to who God is. During this teaching time, Kevin’s discussions about the three Ws of worship were interspersed throughout an extended worship time as a church. Read More
The Passion for Worship
Greg briefly contrasted learning “about” a relationship with God while listening to a sermon to “doing” your relationship with God through worship. The first is a passive task, while the latter is active and requires us to involve our heart, soul, mind, body and strength. Because both sermons and worship play an important role in spiritual development, one should not be neglected in favor of the other. Read More
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