Week 6 Class Notes

Are you seeing the correlations between our time together and Brian's preaching in church? Is it just coincidence, or are you thinking that just as we talked about God having one will for our church, all things are rising as a response to His will and calling? The connections are divine and led by the Holy Spirit!

Quick Review: (don't just blow this off, it is slightly different from previous reviews)

Week 1
- Worship is a response to God doing and living as that response to Him.

Week 2
- ALL humans worship. It is our nature to do so.

Week 3
- As a response to our worship nature, we will erect Gods or elect to worship God, or both, which according to scripture we cannot do both.

Week 4
- Personal worship is each of our lives responding to God, between He and each of us only. It is unique and directed by Him where we are on the journey of faith.

Week 5
- Corporate worship requires individuals to give up preferences in personal worship as a community sacrifice to God. We choose to join together, in unity, His unity directing us as the larger body of Christ. We look to and respond to His will for us as a group.

Week 6

The Purpose of Worship

We started class by asking what is the purpose of man?

Some answers from classmates were:
-to acknowledge and respond to God's calling
-to be in a relationship with God
-to be in His presence
-to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (from the Westminster Catechism)

The overarching, big picture understanding is that all man is and was created to glorify God.

The dictionary definition of the word glorify has two definitions that directly apply, and two that should cause us to raise an eyebrow as we consider worship.

Glorify-
-verb (used with an object), -fied, -fy-ing.
1. to cause to be or treat as being more splendid, excellent, etc., than would normally be considered.
2. to honor with praise, admiration, or worship; extol.
3. to make glorious; invest with glory.
4. to praise the glory of (God), esp. as an act of worship.

Definition 1, is interesting because we cannot cause God to be more splendid or excellent than he normally is or is considered.

Definition 3 is also problematic because we cannot make God more glorious than He is, nor can we invest or contribute to His glory.

Yet definition 2 and 4 fit wonderfully; to honor with praise, admiration, worship as an act, revealing His glory through us. We are created to pass on the glory of God!

Another of our classmates mentioned Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 as speaking to the relationship we should have with Jesus and the knowledge that presses us into our worship response. Make sure you read these two amazing chapters in the Bible and ponder the relevance of these truths into your life!

Other places in scripture to wrestle with the idea of glorifying God are:
Romans 15:7-9, 11:36, 12:1-2, 14:7-9
1 Peter 2:10-12

As we considered the heart and spirit of worship other verses come to mind:
John 4:22-24 God seeks those true worshipers who do so in spirit and truth.
Romans 8:9-11 We are to be controlled by the Spirit and must choose to be so as He will give us life. Noticing the ifs in these passages, (fitting in with the Sunday sermon) we have choices to make and very clearly it will be revealed in our daily lives that choice we have made..

9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit,
if the Spirit of God lives in you. And
if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But
if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And
if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Rom 8:9-11
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? Gen. 4:7

...and what hinders our worship of God?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.
if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

So, how is this accomplished?

A classmate shared Colossians 3 vs. 1-17 makes it very clear (please look this up and read it?)

Phillipians 3:5-9 also shares the focus of our thinking.

So a key to offering worship to God is:
Being controlled by His Spirit.
-God’s spirit must live in us.
-We must be dead to sin and alive to Christ
-We should find life through His Spirit who lives in us.
-We should focus on the things of righteousness and absolute truth.

Remembering that there are two ways to gain entry into heaven (and I liked how many of you raised eyebrows at my near heresy)...
1. Live a completely sinless life or
2. Live a life covered in the sacrificed blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Did you hear it in the sermon? Jesus himself asked honest questions in the face of injustice. He rested in the absolute truth, abiding there and not in the 'relative truth' of the people and leaders surrounding him. He was near to his Father and unswerving in His response, demonstrating the powerful glory of God!!!

May we each find such consolation, such incredible peace and power, the holy radiance of His glory, as we walk the life of worship in a manner aligning with the unique will of our Father in heaven, given access to that will through Jesus, and doing His will as the Holy Spirit directs.