Communion With the Christ:: Are You Disciplined? Part 3: Worship

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John: 4:23-24

Years ago, while I attending classes for pastors in California, we pastors were given the book "Celebration of Discipline" copyright (c) 1978, by Richard J. Foster. This well-known book, has been, over the years, very helpful to many Christians both laity and clergy alike.

With that acknowledgement, I would like to offer in my own words, as best that I may, what I have gleaned from Mr.Foster’s work"Celebration of Discipline". Mr. Foster's book speaks to believers about how Christians can avail ourselves of the "Spiritual Disciplines" and grow in the Christian life through a relationship with Jesus Christ by way of the "Spiritual Discipline"

Spiritual Opportunities

The Spiritual Disciplines are not Religious Duties, but rather, are Spiritual Opportunities which aid in the Christian life and bring us ever deeper intimacy with our Lord Jesus Christ and through Jesus into an ever growing relationship with the Holy Trinity , the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Again, the "Spiritual Disciplines" do not earn us salvation, our salvation is accomplished through and by Jesus alone on our behalf. He has accomplished it all for us, Jesus has done what none of us could ever do. Jesus has saved us.

What the "Spiritual Discipline" are, are Spiritual Opportunities for each and all of us to have Communion with our God in times of deep personal intimacy which brings us to see that he is with us and wants us and loves us.

Worship

To worship is to experience realty, to encounter Jesus in a unique and personal way. Worship is to encounter the Shekinah of God, the very glory and radiance of God among his people. To be immersed into and to be aware of the abiding realtiy of the manifest presence of God through the Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel of St. John the Apostle. St. John records Jesus' famous words to the Samaritan woman at Jacobs well regarding worship.

Jesus tell this woman, and all of us, that the "Father seeks" worshipers; this is spoken in a verb, which tells us that it is something which the Great God is active in doing, that God is actively seeking worshipers not just there two thousand years ago but even to this very day, and on into eternity.

Worship is the result of God's seeking after of worshipers, and our response to his seeking and his divine initiative in seeking us.

Worship is not the result of the right liturgy forms, that is not what worship is about. The focus of our worship is not how our worship services are structured, or what style of music that we use. Worship is about God's Holy Spirit touching our human spirit and focusing our minds and hearts upon the great Triune God in the the Person of Jesus as the object of our worship.

When we are drawn to Jesus Christ and come to see him for who he is, as the eternal Son of God the second "person" of the Holy Trinity , and yet through the incarnation, that is God taking on our humanity , Jesus is fully human even as he is fully God, we can have no other response but to worship. This is, as the Swiss Theologian Karl Barth articulated, "right Theology leads to the right Doxology".

Worship only God

Jesus, in the wilderness temptations, tells Satan, and us, that there no other that is deserving of worship but for the God who speaks to us from the pages of the Holy Scriptures. This is also, thru it's setting in the wilderness, during a time of temptation, that is when we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness of our lives and when we might find ourselves being tempted , that we should turn to God and worship him.

"you will worship the Lord and him only will you serve" Matt:4:10

This holy place of worship and adoration belong only to God, only he is worthy and worship is for God and God alone. It is a focus upon Jesus with our whole minds and heart. All our songs and hymns, words and adoration should be focused upon the Lord Jesus thru whom God, the Holy Trinity has revealed himself to us.

Anticipate Encountering God

When worship, whether alone, or with others Christians in a local assembly, we should anticipate encountering our Lord. We should come with expectancy into worship. How do we cultivate this expectancy in our worship?

This individual and corporate expectancy is ours when we live each day in a personal state of worship of our God in all that we do. That is we see our lives and their living out as an act of worship, with our minds, words and thoughts looking to Jesus. That is our personal lives reflect to what happens when we gather collectively together as an assembly.

When we have experienced his manifest presence, which only shows us what is already true, that our Lord is with us. Our Worship does not "work up" the presence of God, but rather opens our eyes to see the truth, that he is with us. We see the reality of God's abiding glory, his very Shekinah, and the more we see him the more we will desire him.

Focus Upon Him

When we abandon all that encumbers our focus upon our Lord in the person of his Holy Son Jesus, when we can leave behind the world and all of its distractions and for those few moments consider in whose presence in which we dwell we will find moments of great refreshing will fill our souls.

We serve a God so great. A God of eternal power, knowledge, wisdom, of love. A God worthy of all honor and adoration. This God has come to humanity in the person of Jesus.

When we worship, if Jesus would bodily appear to us would we not want to reach out and touch him, to tell him what he means to us, to thank him for all that he accomplished for us?

Bound Together

In the Primitive-Apostolic Church there was a true sense of community which drew them close to one another in worship of the Lord Jesus. They knew that they lived in and gathered in his presence. They knew that were before God in their assemblies. As a group they experienced and shared the fellowship of common essence which transcended the flesh into the spirit, that is Koinania.

This is why the writer of Hebrews wrote that Christians "should not forsake the assembling of your selves together"

Those early Christians risked their lives to come together with others believers and to worship, to sing, to read the Scriptures, to pray, to worship together. They made it a priority. Jesus is the one who in truth leads us to worship as our Great High Priest.

"Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.He says,“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.”And again,“I will put my trust in him.”And again he says,“Here am I, and the children God has given me". Heb: 2:11-13.

Jesus is with us through the Holy Spirit every bit as much as he was with the Apostolic Disciples before and after his death and resurrection. Jesus is the one who's perfect worship of the Father makes our weak and limited and imperfect worship acceptable before God.

Jesus is here among us leading in the hymns and songs of praise, prayers and the proclamation of the word.It is Jesus there thru the Spirit and the Word.

It is Jesus who speaks into our spirit as we worship. It is his voice the Kol Yahweh , the voice of God that we hear. If something we hear whether it be in song, hymn, prayer or reading draws our attention then it is God speaking to us. The Kol Yahweh.

A Life of Worship

Worship is not just when we gather, it is a way of life. How we live being led by the Holy Spirit. To walk after the Spirit and live in the Spirit. To live a life worthy of our divine calling. When we give over our whole life, our whole life, all our life, all our life with our hearts stayed upon Jesus, every word, action, thought led by the Spirit then we are living a life of worship. Rm: 12:1, Rm:8:4

Praise

David wrote in Psalm:22 :3 that "God inhabits the praises of his people", many Christians have learned that where God is praised his presence is manifested. In many Christian fellowship God is worshiped with exuberance and vitality, with shouts of joy.

God wants us to engage us fully when we worship him at every level of our beings, body, mind, spirit and soul. He wants us to celebrate what he has accomplished for each and all of us thru Jesus.

In His Presence

Worship brings us to see the reality of the abiding presences of God in our lives individually and collectively as we gather together in a local assembly, it is in these moments of worship where our God touches us and transforms us bring us ever closer to him.

Benediction: May each and all ever join in the glorious worship of our great God, today, tomorrow and forevermore .Amen